passion; Thou art jealous, without anxiety; Thou repentest without grief; Thou art angry without disquiet; Thou changest Thy works, without changing Thy purpose; Thou receivest again what Thou dost find, yet didst never lose; never in need, yet Thou rejoicest in gains; never covetous, yet Thou demandest usury. Thou receivest over and above, that Thou mayest owe; and who hath aught that is not Thine? Thou payest debts, that owest none; Thou forgivest debts, yet losest nothing. And what have I yet said, my God, my life, my holy joy? or what saith any when he speaks of Thee? Yet woe to them that speak not of Thee, since they that speak most are even as the dumb.

CHAPTER V.

He seeketh rest in God, and forgiveness of his sins.

OH! that I might find rest in Thee! Oh! that Thou

wouldest enter into my heart, and saturate it, that I may forget my own ills, and embrace Thee, my only good! What art Thou to me? In Thy pity, teach me to utter it. Or what am I to Thee that Thou demandest love from me, and, if I comply not, art wroth with me, and dost menace me with grievous woes? Is it then but a slight woe to love Thee not? Ah me! by Thy compassions tell me, O Lord my God, what Thou art to me. Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation" (Ps. xxxv. 3). So say it, that I may hear. Behold, Lord, the ears of my heart are before Thee; open Thou them and " say unto my soul, I am thy salvation." After this word let me hasten and lay hold on Thee. Hide not Thy face from me. Let me die (that I die not) that I may see Thy face.

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Narrow is the dwelling-place within my soul; enlarge Thou it, that Thou mayest enter in. It is ruinous; do Thou repair it. It has that within which must offend Thine eyes; I confess and know it. But who shall cleanse it? or to whom should I cry, save Thee? 'Lord, cleanse me from my secret faults; keep Thy servant also from presumptuous sins" (Ps. xix. 12, 13). “I believe, and therefore do I speak" (Ps. cxvi. 10). Lord, Thou knowest. 'Have I not confessed my sins unto the Lord and so

Thou hast forgiven the wickedness of my sin " (Ps. xxxii. 6). "I contend not in judgment with Thee" (Job ix. 2), who art the truth; I seek not to deceive myself; "lest mine iniquity lie unto itself" (Ps. xxvi. 12, Vulg.). Therefore I contend not in judgment with Thee; "for if Thou, Lord, art extreme to mark what is done amiss, O Lord, who may abide it" (Ps. cxxx. 3).

CHAPTER VI.

He describes his infancy; and extols the protecting care and eternal providence of God.

YET let me speak unto Thy mercy, me, " dust and ashes."

Yea, let me speak, since to Thy mercy I speak, and not to scornful man. Thou too, perhaps, despisest me, yet wilt Thou "return and have compassion" (Jer. xii. 15) upon me. For what would I say, O Lord my God, but that I know not whence I came hither; into this dying life (shall I call it ?) or living death. Then immediately did the consolations of Thy mercies take me up as I have heard fron the parents of my flesh, out of whose substance Thou didst sometime fashion me; for in truth I remember it not. Thus there awaited me the comforts of woman's milk. For neither my mother nor my nurses stored their own breasts; but Thou didst bestow on me the food of infancy through them, according to Thine ordinance, and to the riches distributed even through the first springs of things. Thou also gavest me to desire no more than Thou gavest; and to my nurses willingly to give me what Thou gavest them. For they with an affection ordained by Thee willingly gave me, what they abounded with from Thee. For good for them was my good from them, which, indeed, was not from them but through them; for from Thee, O God, are all good things, and "from my God is all my salvation" (2 Sam. xxiii. 5). For this I since have learned, that Thou dost call to me by these gifts, which within me and without me Thou dost give. For then I knew but to suck; to rest in the delights, but to weep at the vexations of my flesh; nothing more.

Afterwards I began to smile; first in sleep, then waking: for so it was told me of myself, and I believed it; for we

see the like in other infants, though of myself I remember it not. Thus, little by little, I became conscious where I was; and to have a wish to express my desires to those who could gratify them, and I could not; for the desires were within me, but they without; nor could they by any sense of theirs enter within my mind. So I used to fling about my limbs and voice, making the few signs I could, and such as I could, to express my desires; though they expressed them poorly enough. And when they were not complied with, whether because they were not understood, or were injurious, then I grew indignant with my elders for not submitting to me, with them free as they were because they were not my slaves, and took my vengeance on them with tears. Such have I learned infants to be from observing them; and, that I was myself such, they who knew it not, have shown me better than my nurses who knew it. And, lo! my infancy is dead long since, and I live. But Thou, Lord, who for ever livest, and in whom nothing dies: for before the beginnings of the ages, and before all that can be called "before," Thou art, and art God and Lord of all which Thou hast created; and with Thee abide, the first causes of all things unabiding; and of all changeful things, the changeless springs abide with Thee: and in Thee live the eternal reasons of all things unreasoning and temporal. Say, to me, Thy suppliant, O God; Thou all merciful to me all miserable, say to me; did my infancy succeed another age of mine already dead? was it that which I passed within my mother's womb? for of that I have heard somewhat, and have myself seen woman with child? and what, O God my joy, was I before that? Was I any where or any body? For have I none to tell me this, neither father nor mother, nor experience of others, nor mine own memory. Dost Thou mock me for asking this, and bid me praise Thee and confess Thee, for that which I do know?

I acknowledge Thee, Lord of heaven and earth, and praise Thee for my first beginnings of life, and for my infancy, whereof I remember nothing; for Thou hast appointed that man should form conjectures as to himself from the things of others; and even believe much on the authority of mere women. Even then I had being and life, and towards the close of my infancy I began to seek

for signs, whereby to make known my feelings to others. Whence could such a living thing be, save from Thee, Lord? Shall any be artificer to fashion himself? or can there elsewhere be derived any vein, through which being and life may flow into us, except that "Thou makest us," O Lord; and "to be" and "to live" are all one to Thee: since Thou Thyself art supremely Being, and supremely Life. "For Thou art most high, and Thou changest not" (Mal. iii. 6), neither in Thee doth to-day come to a close; yet in Thee doth it come to a close; because all such things also are in Thee. For they had no way to pass away, unless Thou didst sustain them. And since "Thy years fail not" (Ps. cii. 27), Thy years are one to-day. How many of ours and our fathers' days have passed away through Thy "to-day," and from it received the measures and the manner of their existence; and others still shall pass away, and so receive the degree of their being. But "Thou art the same" (Ps. cii. 27), and all things of tomorrow, and beyond it, and all of yesterday, and before it, to-day shalt Thou do, to-day hast Thou done. What is it to me, though any comprehend not this? Let him too rejoice and say, "What thing is this" (Ex. xvi. 15). Let him too rejoice thus; that he may choose rather by not finding them to find Thee, than by finding them not to find Thee.

CHAPTER VII.

He proves that even Infancy is prone to sin.

HEAR, O God. Alas, for man's sins! So saith man,

and Thou hast pity on him; since Thou hast made him, but madest not the sin in him. Who remindeth me of the sin of my infancy? for in Thy sight none is 66 clean from sin,” not even the infant whose life on earth is but a day. Who remindeth me? doth not each little infant, in whom I see what I remember not about myself? But in what did I then sin? was it that wailing I longed for the breast? for should I now so long, not for the breast, but for food convenient for my age, most justly should I be laughed at and blamed. What I then did was deserving of blame;

but since I could not understand any who might blame, neither custom nor reason allowed me to be blamed. For with our growth we uproot and cast away such habits. Now no man when he prunes knowingly casts away what is good. Or was it then good, even for a while, to cry for what, if given, would hurt? bitterly to resent, that persons free, and its own elders, yea even its parents, served it not? that many besides, wiser than it, obeyed not the nod of its pleasure? to strive to strike and hurt with all its might, because its biddings were not obeyed, which had been obeyed to its peril? In the weakness then of baby limbs, not in its will, lies its innocence. Myself have seen and known jealousy even in a babe; it could not yet speak, but pale, and with bitter expression it would eye its foster-brother. Who knows not this? Mothers and nurses tell you, that they abate these things by I know not what remedies. Perhaps that too is innocence, when the fountain of milk is flowing in generous abundance, not to endure any to share it, though in extremest need, and whose very life as yet depends thereon. We bear gently with all this, not as being no or slight evils, but because they will disappear by lapse of time. For though you now excuse them, the very same tempers are utterly intolerable when found in persons of maturer age.

Thou, then, O Lord my God, who gavest life to this my infancy, and a body, which thus as we see Thou hast furnished with senses, compacted with limbs, made shapely in form, and, for its general good and safety, hast implanted in it all the powers of life, Thou commandest me to praise Thee in these things, to confess unto Thee, and "to sing praises to Thy name, O most Highest" (Ps. xcii. 1). For Thou art God, Almighty and Good, even hadst Thou done only this, which none could do but Thou alone, from Whom is the mode of being of all things; who out of Thy own fairness makest all things fair; and orderest all things by Thy law. This age then, Lord, whereof I have no remembrance, which I take on others' word, and guess from other infants that I have passed, true though that guess be, I am yet loth to count in this life of mine which I live in this world. For in that it reaches back to the shadows of forgetfulness, it is like to that which I spent in my mother's womb. But if "I was shapen in wickedness, and in sin did