THE DANGERS OF CLASSICAL STUDIES

25

proposing to himself Jupiter as an example of debauchery, whilst he looks at a picture on the wall in which it was portrayed how, "they say, Jupiter once descended as a golden shower into Danae's lap, and thus imposed upon the woman." And see how he stirs up his bad passions, as if by celestial authority"But what God?" says he; "was it not he who with his thunder shakes the highest temples of heaven; and may not I, poor man, do this? And so I did it, and that willingly."

Now the words are not one bit more easily learned because of all this immorality; but the immorality is more unblushingly perpetrated because of the words. I do not blame the words themselves, which are choice and precious vessels; but the wine of error in them was given us to drink by those teachers, drunken themselves with the same, who forced it upon us, so that we were beaten if we did not drink it, neither had we any sober judge to whom we might appeal. And yet I, my God, in Whose sight I may now safely revive this remembrance, I willingly learned these things, and unhappily delighted in them, and on this account was called a hopeful boy.

CHAPTER XVII.

He continues his Attack upon the Mode of Training the Young in Literature.

SUFFER

UFFER me, O my God, to say something about my talents, Thy gifts, and on what absurdities I wasted them. For a task was set me-troublesome

Terence in Eunucho, act. iii. scen. 5.

26

HE REGRETS THE TIME SPENT ON THEM

enough to my mind, amid the hope of praise and the fear of blame or blows-that I should recite the words of Juno, angry and remorseful, because she could not turn away the Trojan king from Italy; words which I had heard that she had never uttered; but we were forced to wander astray in the footsteps of these poetic figments, and to say in prose that which the poet had expressed in verse; and he received the greater meed of praise, who, maintaining the dignity of the character assumed, feigned in the most perfect manner the passions of anger and grief, and gave vent to them in appropriate language.

And what good was it to me, O my true Life, my God, that my recitation was applauded beyond so many of my own age and class? Was it not all smoke and wind? And was there nothing else upon which my talents and my tongue might have been exercised? Thy praises, O Lord, Thy praises, in Thy Scriptures might have been the support of the tendrils of my heart, and thus it would not have trailed amongst these empty follies, and become a vile prey of the fowls of the air. For there are more ways than one of sacrificing to the rebel angels.

CHAPTER XVIII.

That Men are more concerned in observing the Rules of Grammar than the Law of God.

BUT what wonder that I was thus borne away into

these vanities, and that I went out from Thy presence, my God, when men were proposed for my

' Æneid, i. 36-75.

LAWS OF GOD ABOVE LAWS OF GRAMMAR 27

imitation, who, if in relating some action of theirs, not bad, they were guilty of some incorrect or ungrammatical expression, were filled with shame when censured for it; but when they described their own immoral conduct, in proper, rich, and elegant words and sentences, they gloried in the praises they received? Thou seest these things, O Lord, and holdest Thy peace, for Thou art "long-suffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth."I Wilt Thou for ever hold Thy peace? And now Thou dost rescue from this most dreadful gulf the soul that seeks Thee, and thirsts for Thy delights, and whose "heart saith to Thee, I have sought Thy Face;" "Thy Face, Lord, will I seek.”2 For I was far from Thy Face by darkened affections. Indeed we do not leave Thee and return to Thee with our feet or by change of place. Nor did that son, Thy younger one, procure horses, or carriages, or ships, of fly with visible wings, or make his journey upon his legs, that in a far country he might waste in riotous living what Thou gavest him when he set out. Thou wast a loving Father for giving it to him, and more loving still to him when he returned empty. It is by sensual, for that is, by darkened affections, we leave Thee, and that is the country which is far from Thy Face.

Behold, O Lord God, and behold with Thy accustomed Patience, how diligently the sons of men observe the laws of letters and syllables which have been received from former speakers, and the eternal covenant of everlasting salvation, delivered by Thee, they neglect; so that he who holds or teaches the old laws of pronunciation, if he should, contrary 1 Ps. lxxxvi. 15.

2 Ps. xxvii. 8.

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MEN OF MORE VALUE THAN WORDS

to the rules of grammar, drop an "h," would more offend men; than if he, a man himself, hated a man,1 contrary to Thy precepts. As if the hatred he bears to any one, were not a more injurious enemy to himself, than the one he hates; or, as if another who persecuted him could do him more harm, than he does to his own heart by bearing malice. And certainly no science of letters is so deeply imprinted within us as that law of conscience-"not to do to another what we would not have done to ourselves." How hidden art Thou, "dwelling on high," O God, alone Great, Who by an unwearied law spreadest penal blindness upon lawless desires! When a man is desirous of being accounted eloquent, standing before a human judge, and in the presence of a crowd of men, inveighing against his enemy with the fiercest hatred, he will be most cautious, lest by a slip of the tongue he should make a grammatical error; but he will take no care, lest through his furious spirit he should take away a man's life.

CHAPTER XIX.

Df childish Faults which pass on to mature Hears.

THIS

HIS was the moral atmosphere into which I, wretched boy, was first introduced, and this was the stage, where I feared rather to fall into a grammatical error than, having done so, to envy those who had kept clear of it. I say these things and confess

1 There is a play on the Latin word 'homo' (man) in the original.

2 Isa. xxxiii. 5.

FAULTS REMAIN, THOUGH OBJECTS CHANGE 29

them to Thee, my God; things which formerly brought me praise, from those whom I then thought it a virtue to please. For I did not see the abyss of foulness, into which "I was cast away from Thine Eyes." For in Thy sight what could be more vile than I myself already was, when I was offensive even to such as were like me, deceiving my tutors, masters, and parents with numberless lies, through my love of play, eagerness for sight-seeing, and restless desire to imitate such fooleries? Then I committed thefts from the cellar and table of my parents, either for the sake of gratifying my appetite, or that I might have to give to other boys, who sold their play to me, in which they took the same delight as I did. In this play, too, I often cheated-myself conquered by the vain desire to excel. But the very thing I could so little tolerate, or when I caught any one in it, was so fierce in denounc ing, was I not myself doing to others? and when detected in it, if upbraided, I chose rather to fall into a passion than to yield. Is this your childish innocence? No, no, O Lord; I pray to Thee, my God, for mercy. For these sinful ways continue, when we grow older, though related to different objects; and tutors, masters, nuts, balls, and sparrows are replaced by magistrates, rulers, gold, estates, and possessions; just as the rod is followed by severer forms of chastisement. Therefore it must have been because of their littleness, that Thou, our King, didst commend children, as emblems of humility, when Thou didst say, "of such is the kingdom of heaven."

IPs. xxxi. 22.

12

2 Matt. xix. 14.