was able, for I never left him, and we were but too dependent upon each other), I essayed to jest with him, as though he would be sure to jest with me at that baptism which he had received, when utterly absent in mind and feeling, but had by this time been told that he had received. But he so shrunk from me, as from an enemy; and with a wonderful and sudden freedom bade me, if I still desired to be his friend, to cease to say such things to him. I, all astonished and amazed, suppressed all my emotions till he should recover, and so regain his strength that I might deal with him, as I would. But he was rent away from my madness, that with Thee he might be preserved for my consolation; a few days after, in my absence, he was attacked again by the fever, and died.

At this grief my heart was utterly darkened; and whatever I beheld was death. My native country was a torment to me, and my father's house a strange unhappiness; and whatever I had shared with him, for lack of him became a ghastly torture. Mine eyes sought him every where, but he was not granted them; and I hated all things, since they held him not; nor could they now tell me," he is coming," as when he was alive and absent. I became a great problem to myself, and I asked my soul, "why she was so heavy, and why she disquieted me sorely" (Ps. xliii. 5); but she had no word to answer me. And if I said, "Trust in God," she very rightly obeyed me not; because that most dear friend, whom she had lost, was, though but human, both truer and better, than that phantasm in which she was bidden to trust. Qnly tears were sweet to me, and took my friend's place in my heart's affections.

CHAPTER V.

Of weeping: why it is pleasant to the wretched.

AND now, Lord, these things are passed by, and time hath assuaged my wound. May I learn from Thee, who art Truth, and approach the ear of my heart unto Thy mouth, that Thou mayest tell me why weeping is pleasant to the wretched? Hast Thou, although present everywhere, cast away our misery far from Thee? And Thou

abidest in Thyself, but we are tossed about in divers trials. And yet unless we mourned in Thine ears, nothing of our hope would remain to us. Whence then is sweet fruit gathered from the bitterness of life, from groaning, weeping, sighing, and complaining? Doth this sweeten it, that we hope Thou hearest? This is true of our prayers, for in them we yearn to approach unto Thee. But is it also in grief for a thing lost, and the mourning wherewith I was then overwhelmed? For I neither hoped he should return to life, nor did I desire this with my tears; but I only sorrowed and wept. For I was miserable, and had lost my joy. Or is weeping indeed a bitter thing, and for very loathing of the things, which we before enjoyed, does it then, when we shrink in disgust from them, please us?

CHAPTER VI.

He holds that of his friend, though dead, in himself the halj
remains alive.

BUT

UT why speak I of these things? for now is no time of research, but to confess unto Thee. Wretched I was; and wretched is every soul bound by the friendship of perishable things; he is torn asunder when he loses them, and then he perceives the wretchedness, which he had, even before he lost them. So was I then; I wept most bitterly, and found my rest in bitterness. Thus was I wretched, and even that wretched life I held dearer than my friend. For though I would willingly have changed it, yet was I more unwilling to lose it, than him. Yea, I know not whether I would have parted with it even for him, as is related (though perhaps it is fiction) of Pylades and Orestes, that they would gladly have died for each other or together, not to live together being to them worse than death. in me there had arisen some feeling, for which I cannot account, very opposite to this; for the direst weariness of life possessed me, and at the same time a fear of death. I believe that the more I loved him, the more did I hate, and fear (as a most cruel enemy) that death, which had taken him from me and I imagined it would suddenly devour all men, because it had power over him. Thus was it with

But

me, I remember. Behold my heart, O my God, behold and see into me; for I remember it, O my Hope, who cleansest me from the impurity of such feelings, directing "mine eyes towards Thee, and plucking my feet out of the snare" (Ps. xxv. 15). For I marvelled that other mortal men should be alive, since he whom I had loved, as if he should never die, was dead; and I marvelled the more that I, since I was but his other self, should be alive when he was dead. Well hath one said of his friend, "Thou half of my soul :" for I felt that my soul and his soul were one soul in two bodies :" and therefore was my life a horror to me, because I loathed that only half of me should be alive: and hence perchance I feared to die, lest he should wholly die, whom I had loved much.

CHAPTER VII.

He is so greatly harassed by restlessness and sorrow that he leaves his birthplace, and returns to Carthage.

MADNESS, which knowest not how to love men, like men! O foolish man that I then was, fretting without measure against the lot of man! So I raged, I sighed, I wept, I was distraught: without rest, without counsel. For I bore about a torn and bleeding soul, impatient of being borne by me, yet where to repose it, I found not. Not in pleasant groves, not in sports and songs, not in fragrant spots, not in splendid banquets, not in the pleasure of the bed and the couch; not (finally) in books or poesy, did it find rest. All things looked ghastly, yea, the very light; whatsoever was not what he was, was revolting and hateful, except groaning and tears. For in those alone found I some little relief. But when my soul was withdrawn from them a huge burden of misery weighed me down. To Thee, O Lord, it ought to have been lifted up, for Thee to lighten; I knew it; but neither would nor could; the more, since, when I thought of Thee, Thou wert not to me anything real or substantial. For Thee, I had not, but an empty phantasm, and my error was my God. If I tried to cast my burden there, that it might rest, it glided through the void, and fell down again on me; and I had remained to myself a hapless spot, where I could neither be, nor thence

depart. For whither should my heart flee from my heart? Whither should I flee from myself? Whither not follow myself? And yet I fled from my own country, for mine eyes would be less apt to look for him, where they were not wont to see him. And thus from Thagaste, I came to Carthage.

CHAPTER VIII.

How his grief yielded to time, and to the consolations of friends.

TIME

IME does not stand still; neither does it roll without effect through our senses; but works wondrous changes in the mind. For lo, it came and went from day to day, and by coming and going, introduced into my mind other imaginations, and other remembrances; and little by little patched me up again with my old kind of interests, before which my sorrow slowly yielded; and yet there succeeded, not indeed other griefs, yet the causes of other griefs. For whence had that former grief so easily and so deeply pierced me, but that I had poured out my soul upon the sand, in loving one that must die, as if he would never die? But what chiefly restored and refreshed me, were the consolations of other friends, with whom I did love, what instead of Thee I loved; and this was a great fable, and protracted lie, by whose adulterous stimulus, our soul, which lay itching in our ears, was being defiled. But that fable would not die to me, so oft as any of my friends died. There were other things which in them did more take my mind; to converse together, and to jest together, to do each other kindnesses, to read together agreeable books, to trifle together, or to be earnest together; to differ together at times without heat, as a man might with his own self; and by the extreme rarity of our differences, to season our most usual unanimity; sometimes to teach, and sometimes learn; long for the absent with impatience; and welcome the coming with joy. These and the like expressions, proceeding out of the hearts of those that loved and were loved again, by the countenance, the tongue, the eyes, and a thousand pleasing gestures, were so much fuel to melt our souls together, and out of many make but one.

CHAPTER IX.

That human friendship, which consists in interchange of love, perishes, and that he alone who loves his friend in God, loseth him never.

THI

HIS is it that is loved in friends; and so loved, that a man's conscience condemns itself, if he love not him that loves him again, or love not again him that loves him, looking for nothing from his person, but tokens of good will. Hence that mourning, if one die, and the dark clouds of sorrows, that steeping of the heart in tears, all sweetness turned to bitterness; and from the lost life of them that die, the death of them that live. Blessed is he that loveth Thee, and his friend in Thee, and his enemy for Thee. For he alone loses no dear one to whom all are dear in Him who is never lost. And who is this but our God, the "God that made heaven and earth, and filleth them," because by filling them He created them? Thee none loseth, save he that forsaketh. And whoso forsaketh Thee, whither goeth or whither fleeth he, but from Thee smiling to Thee frowning? For where doth he not find Thy law in his own punishment ? "And Thy law is truth" (Ps. cxix. 42), and "Thou art Truth" (S. John xiv. 6).

CHAPTER X.

That all things that begin to be hasten to their end; and that we are not saved unless God have us in His keeping.

"TURN

URN Thou us, O God of Hosts, shew us Thy countenance, and we shall be saved" (Ps. lxxx. 19). For whithersoever the soul of man turns itself, unless towards Thee, it cleaveth to sorrows, yea even though it cleaveth to things beauteous, apart from Thee, and apart from itself. For these things can have no being unless they have their being from Thee; these things which rise and set, and at their rising, begin, as it were, to be, and grow that they may reach their perfection, and when perfected wax old and perish. And all things grow not old; but all perish. In truth when they are arising, and beginning to be; the more they speed to grow into being, the more they speed towards