desperate men will hope anything; yea, their shameless boldness will fasten on impossibilities, measuring other folks' badness by their own; yet, seldom such salamanders, which live in the fire of lust, dare approach, without seeing the smoke of wantonness in looks, words, apparel, or behaviour. And though charity commands me to believe, that some women who hang out signs, notwithstanding, will not lodge strangers; yet these mock guests are guilty in tempting others to tempt them.

VIII.

In her husband's sickness she feels more grief than she shows. -Partly that she may not dishearten him, and partly because she is not at leisure to seem so sorrowful, that she may be the more serviceable.

IX.

Her children, though many in number, are none in noise, steering them with a look whither she listeth.—When they grow up, she teacheth them not pride but painfulness, making their hands to clothe their backs, and them to wear the livery of their own industry. She makes not her daughters gentlewomen before they be women, rather teaching them what they should. pay to others, than receive from them.

X.

The heaviest work of her servants she maketh light, by orderly and seasonably enjoining it.-Wherefore her service is counted a preferment, and her teaching better than her wages. Her maids follow the precedent of their mistress,-live modestly at home. One asked a grave gentlewoman, how her maids came by so good husbands, and yet seldom went abroad; "O," said she, "good husbands come home to them." So much for this subject; and what is defective in this description shall be supplied by the pattern ensuing.

CHAPTER II.

THE LIFE OF MONICA.

MONICA is better known by the branch of her issue, than root of her parentage, and was born in or nigh Tagasta, in Africa.* Her parents, whose names we find not, were Christians, and careful of her education, committing her to the breeding of an old maid in the house; who, though herself crooked with age, was excellent to straighten the manners of youth. She instructed her with holy severity, never allowing her to drink wine, or between meals. Having outgrown her tuition, she began by degrees to sip and drink wine; lesser draughts, like wedges, widening her throat for greater, till, at last, (ill customs being not knocked, but insensibly screwed, into our souls,) she could fetch off her whole ones. Now it happened that a young maid, formerly her partner in potting, fell at variance with her, and (as malice, when she shoots, draws her arrow to the head) called her "toss-pot and drunkard;" whereupon Monica reformed herself, and turned temperate. Thus bitter taunts sometimes make wholesome physic, when God sanctifies unto us the malice of our enemies to perform the office of good-will.

After this was she married to Patricius, one of more honour than wealth, and as yet a Pagan; wherein she brake St. Paul's precept, "To marry only in the Lord." Perchance, then there was a dearth of husbands; or she did it by her parents' importunity, or out of promise of his conversion: and the history herein being but lamely delivered [to] us, it is charity to support it with the most favourable construction. He was of a stern nature; none more lamb when pleased, or lion when angry; and, which is worse, his wild affections did prey abroad,† till she lured them home by her loving behaviour. Not like those wives who, by their hideous outcries, drive their wandering husbands farther out of the way.

Her own house was to her a house of correction, wherein her husband's mother was bitter unto her, having a quarrel not so much to her person as relation, because a daughter-in-law. Her + Ibid., lib. ix. c. 9.

• AUGUSTINI Confessiones, lib. ix. c. 8.

servants, to climb into the favour of their old mistress, trampled on their young; they bringing tales, and the old woman belief; though the teeth of their malice did but file her innocency the brighter. Yea, at last her mother-in-law, turning her compurgator, caused her son to punish those maids who causelessly had wronged their mistress.

When her neighbours, who had husbands of far milder dispositions, would show her their husbands' cruelty legible in their faces, all her pitying was reproving them: and, whereas they expected to be praised for their patience, she condemned them for deserving such punishment. She never had blow from or jar with her husband, she so suppled his hard nature with her obedience; and to her great comfort saw him converted to Christianity before his death. Also she saw Augustine her son, formerly vicious in life, and erroneous in doctrine, (whose soul she bathed in her tears,) become a worthy Christian; who, coming to have his ears tickled, had his heart touched, and got religion in to boot, with the eloquence of St. Ambrose. She survived not long after her son's conversion, (God sends his servants to bed when they have done their work!) and her candle was put out, as soon as the day did dawn in St. Augustine.

Take an instance or two of her signal piety:-There was a custom in Africa,* to bring pulse, bread, and wine to the monuments of dead saints; wherein Monica was as forward as any. But, being better instructed, that this custom was of Heathenish parentage, and that religion was not so poor as to borrow rites from Pagans, she instantly left off that ceremony; and as for piety's sake she had done it thus long, so for piety's sake she would do it no longer. How many old folks now-a-days, whose best argument is "use," would have flown in their faces who should stop them in the full career of an ancient custom !

There was one Licentius, a novice-convert, who had got these words by the end: "Turn us again, O Lord God of hosts: show us the light of thy countenance, and we shall be whole." (Psalm lxxx. 3.) And, as it is the fashion of many men's tongues to echo forth the last sentence they learn, he said it in all places he went to. But Monica, overhearing him to sing it in the house of office, was highly offended at him;t because holy things are to be suited to holy places; and the harmony could

AUGUSTINI Confessiones, lib. vi. c. 2. lib. i. c. 8.

† AUGUSTINUS, De Ordine,