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THE DANGER OF CURIOSITY

lead a single life; and I defended myself, when I saw him wondering, by pointing out that there was a vast difference between those short and stolen experiences which he with difficulty now remembered, and therefore without much effort could afford to despise, and my habitual pleasures, to which, if but the honourable name of marriage were added, he ought not to wonder why I was unable to despise that mode of life; then he too began to desire the marriage state, not in the least overcome by any desire for self-indulgence, but from curiosity. For he wanted to know, he said, what that could be without which my life, which to him was such a delight, seemed to me no life, but only pain. For his mind, free from that chain, was amazed at my slavery, and through that amazement was going on to a desire for an experience of it, then to the actual trial, and from that, perhaps, to fall into the very slavery at which he was wondering, since he willed to "make a covenant with death;" and "he that loves danger shall fall into it."2 For whatever honour there be in ordering the marriage state aright, and in bringing up children, had no attraction for either of us, or but very little. But I, for my part, was held in bondage by the habit of satisfying an insatiable passion, which vehemently tormented me: he, however, was only drawn on into captivity by his wonder at me. Such were we, until Thou, O Most High, not forsaking our clay, hadst mercy on the miserable, and didst help us in wonderful and mysterious ways.

I

Isa. xxviii. 15.

2 Ecclus. iii. 26.

MONICA'S TEst of visionS

153

A

CHAPTER XIII.

a Wife is sought for Augustine.

ND I was continually urged to take a wife. I now became a suitor, and received a promise, my mother using her utmost endeavours to get me married, that I might receive the saving washing of Baptism; for which she rejoiced that I was becoming daily more fit, and in my faith she saw the fulfilment of her vows and of Thy promises. Yet when at my request and her own longing, with strong cries of heart she sought from Thee daily a vision which should reveal to her something concerning my future marriage, Thou wouldst never grant it. She saw some vain and imaginary appearances, such as the human spirit, vehemently bent upon a thing, could produce; and she related them to me, not with that confidence in them which she always had, when Thou hadst revealed anything to her, but making light of them. For she said she could distinguish, by a certain indescribable sweetness, between Thy revelations and the dreams of her own mind. The matter, however, was urged forward, and a maid, two years under the marriageable age, was sued; and as I liked her, I was willing to wait for her.

154

A SCHEME FOR A COMMUNITY

CHAPTER XIV.

He deliberates upon the Plan of Living with his Friends, in a Common Household.

AND many of us friends, who detested the din and

turmoil of human life, had turned over in our minds and discussed together, and had almost come to a conclusion upon living apart from the world and its bustle; and this quiet was to be obtained by each one bringing in what he had and putting it into a common fund, and thus all would have one purse; so that their friendship should be so sincere, as that no one should say that this or that was his own, but the whole, which was made by all into one stock, should belong to each, and all to all. There seemed to be about ten men who were ready to form this society; and some of them were men of considerable property,-one especially, our fellow-townsman, Romanianus, who had been from boyhood an intimate friend of mine, who had been brought to the Court at that time by grave perplexities in which his own affairs were involved; he was most bent upon this project, and his advice upon the matter had great weight, in consequence of his possessing much more property than the rest. And we had arranged that two of us yearly should as it were hold office, and provide necessaries for the household, the rest having no care. But when we began to consider whether our wives would like the arrangement for we, some of us, were married, and others hoped to be-the whole plan, which we were so well forming, fell to pieces in our hands, and was

THE BONDage of SIN

155

dashed to the ground and given up. Then we sighed and groaned, and turned our steps to "the broad and beaten ways" of the world, since many thoughts were in our heart; "but Thy counsel abideth for ever Out of that Thy counsel Thou didst laugh at ours, and didst make way for Thy own, intending to give us "food in due season," 3 and "to open Thy Hand and to fill" our souls "with blessing."

CHAPTER XV.

One Mistress departs, and another takes her place.

IN

N the meanwhile my sins were being multiplied, and the one with whom I had been in the habit of living was torn from my side as an obstacle to my marriage, and my heart, which clung to her, by that wrench was wounded and bleeding. And she returned to Africa, vowing to Thee that she would never live with another, leaving with me a natural son by her. But I, unhappy, unable to imitate even a woman, impatient of delay-for two years had to pass before I could be married to her to whom I was engaged-not that I was a lover of wedlock, but I was a slave of passion, procured another, though no wife; so as to keep up and carry on the disease of my soul, unabated or aggravated, by the escort of a lasting habit into the realm of matrimony. Nor was that wound of mine healed which had been made by the cutting off of the earlier love, but after inflammation and most acute pain, it mortified, and the pain became benumbed, and therefore the more desperate.

Matt. vii. 13.

2 Ps. xxxiii. II.

3 Ps. cxlv. 15, 16.

He never could dismiss entirely the Fear of Death and Judgment.

PRAISE be to Thee, glory be to Thee, Thou

Fountain of mercies. I was becoming more

miserable, and Thou nearer. Now, even now, was Thy Right Hand ready to draw me out of the mire, and to wash me clean, and I knew it not. And nothing recalled me from a deeper abyss of carnal pleasures, except the fear of death and of Thy future judgment, which through all the changes of my opinions never indeed departed from my breast. And often had I told my friends Alypius and Nebridius, in disputes about the ends of good and evil, that the teaching of Epicurus would commend itself to me, had I not believed that the soul existed after death, and received its deserts, which Epicurus would not believe.'

And

I asked, "Were we immortal, and to live in continual bodily pleasure, without any fear of losing it, why should we not be happy, or what else should we seek?" not knowing that this was my very misery, that I had sunk so deep and was so blind, that I could not discern the light of virtue and of that beauty which is to be embraced for its own sake, which the fleshly eye cannot see, but which is discerned from within. Nor did I, miserable, consider from what spring within me

I Epicurus held the soul to be material, and at death to be resolved into its original atoms, and thus to cease to exist. "All good," said he, "and evil consist in feeling, and what is death but the privation of feeling?"