HE RIDICULES BAPTISM

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unconscious body. But it proved far otherwise; for he recovered, and got weï again. And presently as soon as I could speak with him (for I could so soon as he was able, for I never left him, we were but too devoted to each other), I attempted to jest with him, under the idea that he would join with me in turning into ridicule that Baptism which in a state of utter unconsciousness he had received, though he had been since told of it. But he was horrified at me as at an enemy, and with a remarkable and unwonted freedom he bade me desist from such expressions, if I wished to remain his friend. But I was confounded and troubled, and I suppressed all my feelings till he should recover, and then I thought when he was strong enough again, I would deal with him as I wished. But he was taken out of the reach of my madness, that with Thee he might be preserved for my comfort; for a few days after, in my absence, he had a relapse which terminated fatally.

No ray of light pierced the gloom with which my heart was enveloped by this grief, and wherever I looked, I beheld death. My native place was a torment to me, and my father's house strangely joyless; and whatever I had shared with him, without him was now turned into a huge torture. My longing eyes sought him everywhere, and found him not; and I hated the very places, because he was not in them, neither could they say to me "he is coming," as they used to do when he was alive and was absent. And I became a great puzzle to myself, and I asked my soul why it was so sad, and why so "disquieted within me ;"' and it knew not what to answer. And if I said, "Trust thou in God," it rightly did not obey; for that Ps. xlii. 5.

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WEEPING, HIS ONLY RESORT

dearest one, whom it had lost, was both truer and better, than that phantasm in which it was bidden to trust. Weeping was the only thing which was sweet to me, and it succeeded my friend in the dearest place in my heart.

A

CHAPTER V.

Why Weeping is sweet to the Miserable.

ND now, Lord, these are things which are past, and time has healed my wound. May I learn from Thee, Who art the Truth, and lend my inmost ear to Thy Voice, that Thou mayest tell me why weeping is sweet to the miserable. Hast Thou, although

present everywhere, cast away our misery far from Thee? And Thou abidest in Thyself; but we are tossed about in tribulations. And yet unless we wept in Thy Ears, all hope would have forsaken us. Whence, then, is sweet fruit gathered from life's bitterness, from groans and tears, from sighs and laments? Has it this sweetness, because we hope that Thou hearest? This is right as far as prayer is concerned, for then there is the desire to draw near to Thee. But how can it be true of sorrow or of a loss, and of such a bereavement as then overwhelmed me? For I neither hoped that he would return to life again, nor did I weep to obtain this; but I only grieved and wept. For I was miserable, and my joy was gone. Is weep

ing, then, a bitter thing, and is it from a loathing of the things we before enjoyed, when we at the time turn from them with a sort of abhorrence, that the pleasure arises?

THE BITTerness of his bereAVEMENT 79

CHAPTER VI.

How great his Sorrow from the Death of his Friend.

BUT why do I speak thus? for this is not the time

for entering into questions, but for confessing to Thee. I was miserable, and miserable is every soul which is fettered by the love of perishable things; he is torn to pieces when he loses them, and then he perceives how miserable he was in reality whilst he possessed them. And so was I then, and I wept most bitterly, and in that bitterness I found rest. Thus I was miserable, and that miserable life I held dearer than my friend. For though I would fain have changed it, yet to it I clung even more than to him; and I cannot say whether I would have parted with it for his sake, as it is related, if true, that Orestes and Pylades were willing to do, for they would gladly have died for each other, or together, for they preferred death to separation from each other. But in me a feeling which I cannot explain, and one of a contradictory nature, had arisen; for I had at once an unbearable weariness of living, and a fear of dying. For I believe the more I loved him, the more I hated and dreaded death which had taken him from me, and regarded it as a most cruel enemy; and I felt as if it would soon devour all men, now that its power had reached him. Such, I remember, were my feelings. Behold my heart, O my God; look within me and sec how I remember it, O my Hope, Thou Who cleansest me from the defilement of such affections, directing "mine eyes to Thee," and "plucking my feet out of

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NOTHING CAN DISSIPATE HIS GRIEF

the snare." I For I marvelled that other mortals lived, because he whom I had loved, without thought of his ever dying, was dead; and that I still lived-I who was another self-when he was gone,. was a greater marvel still. Well said a certain one, of his friend, "Thou half of my soul;" for I felt that his soul and mine were "one soul in two bodies:"3 and therefore life was to me horrible, because I hated to live as half of a life; and therefore, perhaps, I feared to die, lest he should wholly die, whom I had loved so greatly.

2

CHAPTER VII.

Through Impatience of Sorrow he leaves his Place.

MADNESS, that knows not how to love men,

as only men! O foolish man that I then was, taking too much to heart the events of life! Thus I gave way to a passionate grief, I sighed, I wept, I was distracted; neither could I find rest nor counsel. For I bore within me a wounded and bleeding soul, a soul impatient even of being borne by me, and where to rest it I found not. Neither in pleasant woods, nor in plays and concerts, nor in fragrant bowers, nor in sumptuous feasts, nor in the pleasures of repose and of the couch, nor, in short, in books and poems, could it find rest. All things had a ghastly appearance, even the very light itself; and everything that was not what he was, was offensive and hateful to me, except sighs and tears, for in those alone I found some little relief. But when my soul was dragged away from 2 HOR. Carm. lib. i. od. 3. 3 OVID, Trist. iv. eleg. iv. 72.

'Ps. xxv. 15.

HE TRIES CHANGE OF PLACE

81

them, a vast load of misery weighed me down. To Thee, I know, O Lord, I should have lifted it up, for Thee to give it relief; but I neither had the will nor the power to do so, and the difficulty was the greater, because when I thought of Thee, nothing real and substantial presented itself to my mind. For it was not Thou, but an empty phantasm, and my own error which was my god. If I tried to cast my burden upon it, that my soul might rest, there was no solid support, but it fell as through an empty space, back upon me; and I remained to myself as a luckless place, where I could neither stay nor get away. For whither could my heart flee from my heart? whither could I flee from myself? whither should I not follow myself? I fled, however, from my own country; for my eyes would less look for him in a place where they had not been accustomed to see him. And thus from the town of Thagaste I came to Carthage.

CHAPTER VIII.

Time and Companionship allayed his Sorrow.

IME does not stand still, neither does it idly roll

TIME

away, but through our senses produces wonderful effects upon our mind. Behold, time came and passed day by day, and by coming and going, lodged in my mind new imaginations and new memories, and patched me up again gradually with my old delights, thus removing my sorrow; but other sorrows, or rather other causes of sorrow, came upon me. For how was it that former sorrow had so quickly and so deeply entered into me, but that "I had pouredout my soul

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