112 BEHAVIOUR OF PUPILS AT CARTHAGE

could not rush at random and impudently into that of another master, but were only admitted when they had previous permission. At Carthage, on the contrary, the licence which the students take is shameful and unbounded. They rush in insolently, and with such grimaces as almost befit madmen, and upset whatever order any one may have established for the good of his pupils. They commit injuries with a marvellous insensibility,-injuries which would bring them within the reach of the law, unless their custom had lent a sort of sanction to them; a custom which makes them the more miserable, in that they through it commit actions as if lawful, which by Thy Eternal Law will never be sanctioned; and they think that they can do these things with impunity, whereas the very blindness through which they act is itself a punishment; and they suffer themselves things incomparably worse than those they inflict on others. Such behaviour, then, as I was unwilling to imitate when a pupil, I was obliged to tolerate when a master; and therefore I was glad to go where, all who knew the place assured me, such conduct did not obtain. But Thou, "my Hope and my Portion in the land of the living,” make me change from one place to another for the salvation of my soul, didst eject me from Carthage, as it were by goads, and didst draw me to Rome by allurements, by means of men who loved this perishing life-here doing mad things, there promising vain things; and to direct aright my steps, Thou didst secretly use their and my perversity. For both those who disturbed my quiet were blinded by an abominable madness, and those who drew me to the other I Ps. cxlii. 5.

"I to

PRAYER HEARD, yet denied

113

place, savoured only of the earth. But I, who hated here what was genuine misery, sought there a fictitious happiness.

But why I went from this place to that, Thou knowest, O God; and yet Thou didst not disclose the reason either to me, or to my mother, who bewailed' my departure grievously, and followed me to the seashore. But I deceived her, as she violently clung to me, desiring either to hold me back or to go with me ; and I pretended that I had a friend whom I could not leave, until he was fairly under way. And I lied to my mother, and to such a mother as she was, and thus I got out of her grasp : for this also Thou hast mercifully forgiven me, preserving me from the waters of the sea, when I was so foully stained with sins, for the water of Thy Grace, in which having been cleansed, those rivers from my mother's eyes, with which she had daily watered the ground beneath her face, were dried up. And difficulty enough I had, as she protested she would not return without me, to induce her to stay that night in a place which was very near the ship, where was a memorial church of Saint Cyprian. That night I clandestinely departed, but her tears and her prayers followed me. And what with those tears was she then seeking from Thee, O Lord, but that Thou wouldest hinder my departure? But Thou, in the depth of Thy Wisdom, by then denying her prayer, didst grant that which was at the root of her desire, in order to make me what in every prayer she longed for me to be. The wind blew, and swelled our sails, and the shore receded from our view; and there in the morning she stood, in a frenzy of grief, and with complaints and groans, which Thou didst disregard,

H

114

HE FALLS SICK OF A FEVER

filled Thy Ears; whilst by means of my desires, Thou wert hurrying me on to put an end to those very desires, and her too earthly love for me was being chastened by a just scourge of sorrow. For she loved

to have me with her, after the manner of mothers, and much more than many mothers; but she knew not what joy Thou wouldst have in store for her through my absence. She knew not, therefore she wept and lamented, and by those throes there appeared in her what Eve had handed down, as with sorrow she sought what with sorrow she brought forth. And yet, after accusing me of deceit and cruelty, she soon turned to Thee and prayed again for me, and she returned to her usual ways, and I went to Rome.

CHAPTER IX.

Taken with a Fever, he became dangerously ill.

AND behold, there I was taken with a scourge of

bodily illness, and was going down to hell, bearing all my sins with me,—sins against Thee, against myself, and against others,—many and grievous, besides the bond of original sin, by which we "all in Adam die." For Thou hadst not yet forgiven me any of those things in Christ, nor had He "abolished by His Cross the enmities," which by my sins I had contracted with Thee. For how should a crucified phantasm abolish them, for such I thought Him to be? In proportion, then, as the death of His Flesh appeared to me to be false, so was the death of my soul real; and as the death of His Flesh was true, so the life of my Eph. ii. 14.

1

I Cor. xv. 22,

2

THE AWFulness oOF DYING IN SIN 115

I

66

soul was false, which doubted it. And now the fever was reaching its height, and I was departing and sinking." For had I then departed, whither should I have gone, but into fire and torments, such as my deeds deserved according to Thy true order. And this my mother knew nothing of, and yet she prayed for me when absent from me. But Thou art nowhere absent, and Thou heardest her where she was, and, where I was, hadst pity upon me; so that I recovered my bodily health, though my impious heart was not restored. For through all that danger I had no desire for Thy Baptism; and I was better as a boy, when I did seek it of my mother's piety, as I have already remembered and confessed. Bút I had grown worse to my shame, and had madly scorned the medicines which Thou didst prescribe, Who wouldst not suffer me to die a second death, being in such a state; for had I so died, my mother's heart would have broken, and her wound have been incurable. No words can express her love for me, and how much more grievous were the throes with which she laboured for the birth of my spirit, than her travail at the birth of my flesh !2

I cannot see, then, how her grief should have been healed, had her loving heart been pierced by such a sorrow as my dying in a state of sin would have been. And what would have become of all those earnest and continual supplications, which without intermission she was ever presenting before Thee? But couldest Thou, O God of mercies, "despise the contrite and humble heart" 3 of that chaste and sober widow, full of alms-deeds, loyal and dutiful to Thy Saints, never omitting for a day the oblation at Thine Altar, twice a 1 Ps. lviii. 9. 2 Gal. iv. 19. 3 Ps. li. 17.

116

THE WIDOW'S TEARS

day-morning and evening-coming to Thy Church, not for vain gossiping and old wives' fables, but that she might hear Thy words and that Thou mightest hear her prayers? Wouldst Thou despise and reject without Thy help the tears of such a one, seeking from Thee not silver and gold, nor any changeable or fleeting good, but the salvation of the soul of her son? Certainly not, O Lord. But Thou wert indeed at hand, and didst hear and do, according to the order in which Thou hadst determined before that it should be done. Far be it from Thee, O Lord, to deceive her by those visions and answers, some of which I have mentioned and others I have not, which she laid up in her faithful breast, and in her prayers brought before Thee constantly, as an assurance in Thy own handwriting. For Thou dost deign, "because Thy Mercy endureth for ever," ' to become Thyself a debtor, by making promises, to those whose debts Thou hast entirely forgiven.

I

CHAPTER X.

His erroneous Opinions before the Time that he
accepted the Doctrine of the Gospel.

THOU didst restore m' son of Thine handmaid"

'HOU didst restore me, then, from that sickness,

well, as far as bodily health was concerned, that he might live to receive from Thee a better and a surer health. Yet even at Rome, I joined myself to those deceived and deceiving "saints;" not only to the "hearers,” as they were called, in the house of one of whom I had been ill and had recovered; but also to 1 Ps. cxviii. I.