cormacburke.me.ke

BOOK I
1. Great are You, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Your power, and Your wisdom infinite. And You would man praise; man, but a particle of Your creation; man, that bears about him his mortality, the witness of his sin, the witness that You resist the proud: yet would man praise you; he, but a particle of Your creation. You awake us to delight in Your praise; for You made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in You. Grant me, Lord, to know and understand which is first, to call on You or to praise You? and, again, to know You or to call on You? for who can call on You, not knowing You? for he that knows You not, may call on You as other than You are. Or, is it rather, that we call on You that we may know You? but how shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? or how shall they believe without a preacher? and they that seek the Lord shall praise Him: for they that seek shall find Him, and they that find shall praise Him. I will seek You, Lord, by calling on you; and will call on You, believing in you; for to us have You been preached. My faith, Lord, shall call on You, which You have given me, wherewith You have inspired me, through the Incarnation of Your Son, through the ministry of the Preacher.
2. And how shall I call upon my God, my God and Lord, since, when I call for Him, I shall be calling Him to myself? and what room is there within me, whither my God can come into me? whither can God come into me, God who made heaven and earth? is there, indeed, O Lord my God, aught in me that can contain You? do then heaven and earth, which You have made, and wherein You have made me, contain You? or, because nothing which exists could exist without You, does therefore whatever exists contain You? Since, then, I too exist, why do I seek that You should enter into me, who were not, were You not in me? Why? because I am not gone down in hell, and yet You are there also. For if I go down into hell, You are there. I could not be then, O my God, could not be at all, were You not in me; or, rather, unless I were in You, of whom are all things, by whom are all things, in whom are all things? Even so, Lord, even so. Whither do I call You, since I am in You? or whence can You enter into me? for whither can I go beyond heaven and earth, that thence my God should come into me, who has said, I fill the heaven and the earth.
3. Do the heaven and earth then contain You, since You fill them? or do You fill them and yet overflow, since they do not contain You? And whither, when the heaven and the earth are filled, pour You forth the remainder of Yourself? or have You no need that aught contain You, who contain all things, since what You fill You fill by containing it? for the vessels which You fill uphold You not, since, though they were broken, You were not poured out. And when You are poured out on us, You are not cast down, but You uplift us; You are not dissipated, but You gather us. But You who fill all things, fill You them with Your whole self? or, since all things cannot contain You wholly, do they contain part of You? and all at once the same part? or each its own part, the greater more, the smaller less? And is, then one part of You greater, another less? or, are You wholly every where, while nothing contains You wholly?
4. What are You then, my God? what, but the Lord God? For who is Lord but the Lord? or who is God save our God? Most highest, most good, most potent, most omnipotent; most merciful, yet most just; most hidden, yet most present; most beautiful, yet most strong; stable, yet incomprehensible; unchangeable, yet all-changing; never new, never old; all-renewing, and bringing age upon the proud, and they know it not; ever working, ever at rest; still gathering, yet nothing lacking; supporting, filling, and overspreading; creating, nourishing, and maturing; seeking, yet having all things. You love, without passion; are jealous, without anxiety; repent, yet grieve not; are angry, yet serene; change Your works, Your purpose unchanged; receive again what You find, yet did never lose; never in need, yet rejoicing in gains; never covetous, yet exacting usury. You receive over and above, that You may owe; and who has aught that is not yours? You pay debts, owing nothing; remit debts, losing nothing. And what had I now said, my God, my life, my holy joy? or what says any man when he speaks of You? Yet woe to him that speaks not, since mute are even the most eloquent.
5. Oh! that I might repose on you! Oh! that You would enter into my heart, and inebriate it, that I may forget my ills, and embrace You, my sole good! What are You to me? In Your pity, teach me to utter it. Or what am I to You that You demand my love, and, if I give it not, are wroth with me, and threaten me with grievous woes? Is it then a slight woe to love You not? Oh! for Your mercies' sake, tell me, O Lord my God, what You are unto me. Say unto my soul, I am Your salvation. So speak, that I may hear. Behold, Lord, my heart is before you; open You the ears thereof, and say unto my soul, I am Your salvation. After this voice let me haste, and take hold on You. Hide not Your face from me. Let me die - lest I die - only let me see Your face.
Narrow is the mansion of my soul; enlarge You it, that You may enter in. It is ruinous; repair You it. It has that within which must offend your eyes; I confess and know it. But who shall cleanse it? or to whom should I cry, save You? Lord, cleanse me from my secret faults, and spare Your servant from the power of the enemy. I believe, and therefore do I speak. Lord, You know. Have I not confessed against myself my transgressions unto You, and You, my God, have forgiven the iniquity of my heart? I contend not in judgment with You, who are the truth; I fear to deceive myself; lest mine iniquity lie unto itself. Therefore I contend not in judgment with you; for if You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall abide it?
6. Yet suffer me to speak unto Your mercy, me, dust and ashes. Yet suffer me to speak, since I speak to Your mercy, and not to scornful man. You too, perhaps, despise me, yet will You return and have compassion upon me. For what would I say, O Lord my God, but that I know not whence I came into this dying life (shall I call it?) or living death. Then immediately did the comforts of Your compassion take me up, as I heard (for I remember it not) from the parents of my flesh, out of whose substance You did sometime fashion me. Thus there received me the comforts of woman's milk. For neither my mother nor my nurses stored their own breasts for me; but You did bestow the food of my infancy through them, according to your ordinance, whereby You distribute Your riches through the hidden springs of all things. You also gave me to desire no more than You gave; and to my nurses willingly to give me what You gave them. For they, with a heaven-taught affection, willingly gave me what they abounded with from You. For this my good from them, was good for them. Nor, indeed, from them was it, but through them; for from You, O God, are all good things, and from my God is all my health. This I since learned, You, through these Your gifts, within me and without, proclaiming Yourself unto me. For then I knew but to suck; to repose in what pleased, and cry at what offended 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 wishes to those who could content them, and I could not; for the wishes were within me, and they without; nor could they by any sense of theirs enter within my spirit. So I flung about at random limbs and voice, making the few signs I could, and such as I could, like, though in truth very little like, what I wished. And when I was not presently obeyed (my wishes being hurtful or unintelligible), then I was indignant with my elders for not submitting to me, with those owing me no service, for not serving me; and avenged myself on them by tears. Such have I learnt infants to be from observing them; and that I was myself such, they, all unconscious, have shown me better than my nurses who knew it.
And, lo! my infancy died long since, and I live. But You, Lord, who for ever live, and in whom nothing dies: for before the foundation of the worlds, and before all that can be called "before," You are, and are God and Lord of all which You have created: in You abide, fixed for ever, the first causes of all things unabiding; and of all things changeable, the springs abide in You unchangeable: and in You live the eternal reasons of all things unreasoning and temporal. Say, Lord, to me, Your suppliant; say, all-pitying, to me, Your pitiable one; say, did my infancy succeed another age of mine that died before it? was it that which I spent within my mother's womb? for of that I have heard somewhat, and have myself seen women with child? and what before that life again, O God my joy, was I any where or any body? For this have I none to tell me, neither father nor mother, nor experience of others, nor mine own memory. Do You mock me for asking this, and bid me praise You and acknowledge You, for that I do know?
I acknowledge You, Lord of heaven and earth, and praise You for my first rudiments of being, and my infancy, whereof I remember nothing; for You have appointed that man should from others guess much as to himself; and believe much on the strength of weak females. Even then I had being and life, and (at my infancy's close) I could seek for signs whereby to make known to others my sensations. Whence could such a being be, save from You, Lord? Shall any be his own artificer? or can there elsewhere be derived any vein, which may stream essence and life into us, save from You, O Lord, in whom essence and life are one? for You Yourself are supremely Essence and Life. For You are most high, and are not changed, neither in You does to-day come to a close; yet in You does it come to a close; because all such things also are in You. For they had no way to pass away, unless You upheld them. And since Your years fail not, Your years are one to-day. How many of ours and our fathers' years have flowed away through Your "to-day," and from it received the measure and the mould of such being as they had; and still others shall flow away, and so receive the mould of their degree of being. But You are still the same, and all things of tomorrow, and all beyond, and all of yesterday, and all behind it, You have done to-day. What is it to me, though any comprehend not this? Let him also rejoice and say, What thing is this? Let him rejoice even thus! and be content rather by not discovering to discover You, than by discovering not to discover You.
7. Hear, O God. Alas, for man's sin! So says man, and You pity him; for You made him, but sin in him You made not. Who reminds me of the sins of my infancy? for in Your sight none is pure from sin, not even the infant whose life is but a day upon the earth. Who reminds me? does not each little infant, in whom I see what of myself I remember not? What then was my sin? was it that I hung upon the breast and cried? for should I now so do for food suitable to my age, justly should I be laughed at and reproved. What I then did was worthy reproof; but since I could not understand reproof, custom and reason forbade me to be reproved. For those habits, when grown, we root out and cast away. Now no man, though he prunes, wittingly 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, the very authors of its birth, served it not? that many besides, wiser than it, obeyed not the nod of its good pleasure? to do its best to strike and hurt, because commands were not obeyed, which had been obeyed to its hurt? The weakness then of infant limbs, not its will, is its innocence. Myself have seen and known even a baby envious; it could not speak, yet it turned pale and looked bitterly on its foster-brother. Who knows not this? Mothers and nurses tell You that they allay these things by I know not what remedies. Is that too innocence, when the fountain of milk is flowing in rich abundance, not to endure one 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 as years increase; for, though tolerated now, the very same tempers are utterly intolerable when found in riper years.
You, then, O Lord my God, who gave life to this my infancy, furnishing thus with senses (as we see) the frame You gave, compacting its limbs, ornamenting its proportions, and, for its general good and safety, implanting in it all vital functions, You command me to praise You in these things, to confess unto You, and sing unto Your name, You most Highest. For You are God, Almighty and Good, even had You done nought but only this, which none could do but you: whose Unity is the mould of all things; who out of Your own fairness make all things fair; and order all things by Your 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 the guess be, I am yet loth to count in this life of mine which I live in this world. For no less than that which I spent in my mother's womb, is it hid from me in the shadows of forgetfulness. But if I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me, where, I beseech You, O my God, where, Lord, or when, was I Your servant guiltless? But, lo! that period I pass by; and what have I now to do with that, of which I can recall no vestige?
8. Passing hence from infancy, I came to boyhood, or rather it came to me, displacing infancy. Nor did that depart, - (for whither went it?) - and yet it was no more. For I was no longer a speechless infant, but a speaking boy. This I remember; and have since observed how I learned to speak. It was not that my elders taught me words (as, soon after, other learning) in any set method; but I, longing by cries and broken accents and various motions of my limbs to express my thoughts, that so I might have my will, and yet unable to express all I willed, or to whom I willed, did myself, by the understanding which You, my God, gave me, practise the sounds in my memory. When they named any thing, and as they spoke turned towards it, I saw and remembered that they called what they would point out by the name they uttered. And that they meant this thing and no other was plain from the motion of their body, the natural language, as it were, of all nations, expressed by the countenance, glances of the eye, gestures of the limbs, and tones of the voice, indicating the affections of the mind, as it pursues, possesses, rejects, or shuns. And thus by constantly hearing words, as they occurred in various sentences, I collected gradually for what they stood; and having broken in my mouth to these signs, I thereby gave utterance to my will. Thus I exchanged with those about me these current signs of our wills, and so launched deeper into the stormy intercourse of human life, yet depending on parental authority and the beck of elders.
9. O God, my God, what miseries and mockeries did I now experience, when obedience to my teachers was proposed to me, as proper in a boy, in order that in this world I might prosper, and excel in tongue-science, which should serve to the "praise of men," and to deceitful riches. Next I was put to school to get learning, in which I (poor wretch) knew not what use there was; and yet, if idle in learning, I was beaten. For this was judged right by our forefathers; and many, passing the same course before us, framed for us weary paths, through which we were fain to pass; multiplying toil and grief upon the sons of Adam. But, Lord, we found that men called upon You, and we learnt from them to think of You (according to our powers) as of some great One, who, though hidden from our senses, could hear and help us. For so I began, as a boy, to pray to You, my aid and refuge; and broke the fetters of my tongue to call on You, praying You, though small, yet with no small earnestness, that I might not be beaten at school. And when You heard me not (not thereby giving me over to folly), my elders, yea my very parents, who yet wished me no ill, mocked my stripes, my then great and grievous ill.
Is there, Lord, any of soul so great, and cleaving to You with so intense affection (for a sort of stupidity will in a way do it); but is there any one who, from cleaving devoutly to You, is endued with so great a spirit, that he can think as lightly of the racks and hooks and other torments (against which, throughout all lands, men call on You with extreme dread), mocking at those by whom they are feared most bitterly, as our parents mocked the torments which we suffered in boyhood from our masters? For we feared not our torments less; nor prayed we less to You to escape them. And yet we sinned, in writing or reading or studying less than was exacted of us. For we wanted not, O Lord, memory or capacity, whereof Your will gave enough for our age; but our sole delight was play; and for this we were punished by those who yet themselves were doing the like. But elder folks' idleness is called "business"; that of boys, being really the same, is punished by those elders; and none commiserates either boys or men. For will any of sound discretion approve of my being beaten as a boy, because, by playing a ball, I made less progress in studies which I was to learn, only that, as a man, I might play more unbeseemingly? and what else did he who beat me? who, if worsted in some trifling discussion with his fellow-tutor, was more embittered and jealous than I when beaten at ball by a play-fellow?
10. And yet, I sinned herein, O Lord God, the Creator and Disposer of all things in nature, of sin the Disposer only, O Lord my God, I sinned in transgressing the commands of my parents and those of my masters. For what they, with whatever motive, would have me learn, I might afterwards have put to good use. For I disobeyed, not from a better choice, but from love of play, loving the pride of victory in my contests, and to have my ears tickled with lying fables, that they might itch the more; the same curiosity flashing from my eyes more and more, for the shows and games of my elders. Yet those who give these shows are in such esteem, that almost all wish the same for their children, and yet are very willing that they should be beaten, if those very games detain them from the studies, whereby they would have them attain to be the givers of them. Look with pity, Lord, on these things, and deliver us who call upon You now; deliver those too who call not on You yet, that they may call on You, and You may deliver them.
11. As a boy, then, I had already heard of an eternal life, promised us through the humility of the Lord our God stooping to our pride; and even from the womb of my mother, who greatly hoped in You, I was sealed with the mark of His cross and salted with His salt. You saw, Lord, how while yet a boy, being seized on a time with sudden oppression of the stomach, and like near to death - You saw, my God (for You were my keeper), with what eagerness and what faith I sought, from the pious care of my mother and Your Church, the mother of us all, the baptism of Your Christ, my God and Lord. Whereupon the mother of my flesh, being much troubled (since, with a heart pure in Your faith, she even more lovingly travailed in birth of my salvation), would in eager haste have provided for my consecration and cleansing by the health-giving sacraments, confessing You, Lord Jesus, for the remission of sins, unless I had suddenly recovered. And so, as if I must needs be again polluted should I live, my cleansing was deferred, because the defilements of sin would, after that washing, bring greater and more perilous guilt. I then already believed: and my mother, and the whole household, except my father: yet did not he prevail over the power of my mother's piety in me, that as he did not yet believe, so neither should I. For it was her earnest care that You my God, rather than he, should be my father; and in this You did aid her to prevail over her husband, whom she, the better, obeyed, therein also obeying You, who have so commanded.
I beseech You, my God, I would fain know, if so You will, for what purpose my baptism was then deferred? was it for my good that the rein was laid loose, as it were, upon me, for me to sin? or was it not laid loose? If not, why does it still echo in our ears on all sides, "Let him alone, let him do as he will, for he is not yet baptised?" but as to bodily health, no one says, "Let him be worse wounded, for he is not yet healed." How much better then, had I been at once healed; and then, by my friends' and my own, my soul's recovered health had been kept safe in Your keeping who gave it. Better truly. But how many and great waves of temptation seemed to hang over me after my boyhood! These my mother foresaw; and preferred to expose to them the clay whence I might afterwards be moulded, than the very cast, when made.
12. In boyhood itself, however (so much less dreaded for me than youth), I loved not study, and hated to be forced to it. Yet I was forced; and this was well done towards me, but I did not well; for, unless forced, I had not learnt. But no one does well against his will, even though what he does, be well. Yet neither did they well who forced me, but what was well came to me from You, my God. For they were regardless how I should employ what they forced me to learn, except to satiate the insatiate desires of a wealthy beggary, and a shameful glory. But You, by whom the very hairs of our head are numbered, did use for my good the error of all who urged me to learn; and my own, who would not learn, You did use for my punishment - a fit penalty for one, so small a boy and so great a sinner. So by those who did not well, You did well for me; and by my own sin You did justly punish me. For You have commanded, and so it is, that every inordinate affection should be its own punishment.
13. But why did I so much hate the Greek, which I studied as a boy? I do not yet fully know. For the Latin I loved; not what my first masters, but what the so-called grammarians taught me. For those first lessons, reading, writing and arithmetic, I thought as great a burden and penalty as any Greek. And yet whence was this too, but from the sin and vanity of this life, because I was flesh, and a breath that passes away and comes not again? For those first lessons were better certainly, because more certain; by them I obtained, and still retain, the power of reading what I find written, and myself writing what I will; whereas in the others, I was forced to learn the wanderings of one Aeneas, forgetful of my own, and to weep for dead Dido, because she killed herself for love; the while, with dry eyes, I endured my miserable self dying among these things, far from You, O God my life.
For what more miserable than a miserable being who commiserates not himself; weeping the death of Dido for love to Aeneas, but weeping not his own death for want of love to You, O God. You light of my heart, You bread of my inmost soul, You Power who give vigour to my mind, who quicken my thoughts, I loved You not. I committed fornication against You, and all around me thus fornicating there echoed "Well done! well done!" for the friendship of this world is fornication against you; and "Well done! well done!" echoes on till one is ashamed not to he thus a man. And for all this I wept not, I who wept for Dido slain, and "seeking by the sword a stroke and wound extreme," myself seeking the while a worse extreme, the extremest and lowest of Your creatures, having forsaken You, earth passing into the earth. And if forbid to read all this, I was grieved that I might not read what grieved me. Madness like this is thought a higher and a richer learning, than that by which I learned to read and write.
But now, my God, cry You aloud in my soul; and let Your truth tell me, "Not so, not so. Far better was that first study." For, lo, I would readily forget the wanderings of Aeneas and all the rest, rather than how to read and write. But over the entrance of the Grammar School is a vail drawn! true; yet is this not so much an emblem of aught recondite, as a cloak of error. Let not those, whom I no longer fear, cry out against me, while I confess to You, my God, whatever my soul will, and acquiesce in the condemnation of my evil ways, that I may love Your good ways. Let not either buyers or sellers of grammar-learning cry out against me. For if I question them whether it be true that Aeneas came on a time to Carthage, as the poet tells, the less learned will reply that they know not, the more learned that he never did. But should I ask with what letters the name "Aeneas" is written, every one who has learnt this will answer me aright, as to the signs which men have conventionally settled. If, again, I should ask which might be forgotten with least detriment to the concerns of life, reading and writing or these poetic fictions? who does not foresee what all must answer who have not wholly forgotten themselves? I sinned, then, when as a boy I preferred those empty to those more profitable studies, or rather loved the one and hated the other. "One and one, two"; "two and two, four"; this was to me a hateful singsong: "the wooden horse lined with armed men," and "the burning of Troy," and "Creusa's shade and sad similitude," were the choice spectacle of my vanity.
14. Why then did I hate the Greek classics, which have the like tales? For Homer also curiously wove the like fictions, and is most sweetly vain, yet was he bitter to my boyish taste. And so I suppose would Virgil be to Grecian children, when forced to learn him as I was Homer. Difficulty, in truth, the difficulty of a foreign tongue, dashed, as it were, with gall all the sweetness of Grecian fable. For not one word of it did I understand, and to make me understand I was urged vehemently with cruel threats and punishments. Time was also (as an infant) I knew no Latin; but this I learned without fear or suffering, by mere observation, amid the caresses of my nursery and jests of friends, smiling and sportively encouraging me. This I learned without any pressure of punishment to urge me on, for my heart urged me to give birth to its conceptions, which I could only do by learning words not of those who taught, but of those who talked with me; in whose ears also I gave birth to the thoughts, whatever I conceived. No doubt, then, that a free curiosity has more force in our learning these things, than a frightful enforcement. Only this enforcement restrains the rovings of that freedom, through Your laws, O my God, Your laws, from the master's cane to the martyr's trials, being able to temper for us a wholesome bitter, recalling us to Yourself from that deadly pleasure which lures us from You.
15. Hear, Lord, my prayer; let not my soul faint under Your discipline, nor let me faint in confessing unto You all Your mercies, whereby You have drawn me out of all my most evil ways, that You might become a delight to me above all the allurements which I once pursued; that I may most entirely love You, and clasp Your hand with all my affections, and You may yet rescue me from every temptation, even unto the end. For lo, O Lord, my King and my God, for Your service be whatever useful thing my childhood learned; for Your service, that I speak, write, read, reckon. For You did grant me Your discipline, while I was learning vanities; and my sin of delighting in those vanities You have forgiven. In them, indeed, I learnt many a useful word, but these may as well be learned in things not vain; and that is the safe path for the steps of youth.
16. But woe is You, You torrent of human custom! Who shall stand against You? how long shall You not be dried up? how long roll the sons of Eve into that huge and hideous ocean, which even they scarcely overpass who climb the cross? Did not I read in You of Jove the thunderer and the adulterer? both, doubtless, he could not be; but so the feigned thunder might countenance and pander to real adultery. And now which of our gowned masters lends a sober ear to one who from their own school cries out, "These were Homer's fictions, transferring things human to the gods; would he had brought down things divine to us!" Yet more truly had he said, "These are indeed his fictions; but attributing a divine nature to wicked men, that crimes might be no longer crimes, and whoso commits them might seem to imitate not abandoned men, but the celestial gods."
And yet, You hellish torrent, into You are cast the sons of men with rich rewards, for compassing such learning; and a great solemnity is made of it, when this is going on in the forum, within sight of laws appointing a salary beside the scholar's payments; and You lash Your rocks and roar, "Hence words are learnt; hence eloquence; most necessary to gain Your ends, or maintain opinions." As if we should have never known such words as "golden shower," "lap," "beguile," "temples of the heavens," or others in that passage, unless Terence had brought a lewd youth upon the stage, setting up Jupiter as his example of seduction.
"Viewing a picture, where the tale was drawn, Of Jove's descending in a golden shower To Danae's lap a woman to beguile."
And then mark how he excites himself to lust as by celestial authority:
"And what God? Great Jove, Who shakes heaven's highest temples with his thunder,
And I, poor mortal man, not do the same! I did it, and with all my heart I did it."
Not one whit more easily are the words learnt for all this vileness; but by their means the vileness is committed with less shame. Not that I blame the words, being, as it were, choice and precious vessels; but that wine of error which is drunk to us in them by intoxicated teachers; and if we, too, drink not, we are beaten, and have no sober judge to whom we may appeal. Yet, O my God (in whose presence I now without hurt may remember this), all this unhappily I learnt willingly with great delight, and for this was pronounced a hopeful boy.
17. Bear with me, my God, while I say somewhat of my wit, Your gift, and on what dotages I wasted it. For a task was set me, troublesome enough to my soul, upon terms of praise or shame, and fear of stripes, to speak the words of Juno, as she raged and mourned that she could not
"This Trojan prince from Latinum turn."
Which words I had heard that Juno never uttered; but we were forced to go astray in the footsteps of these poetic fictions, and to say in prose much what he expressed in verse. And his speaking was most applauded, in whom the passions of rage and grief were most preeminent, and clothed in the most fitting language, maintaining the dignity of the character. What is it to me, O my true life, my God, that my declamation was applauded above so many of my own age and class? is not all this smoke and wind? and was there nothing else whereon to exercise my wit and tongue? Your praises, Lord, Your praises might have stayed the yet tender shoot of my heart by the prop of Your Scriptures; so had it not trailed away amid these empty trifles, a defiled prey for the fowls of the air. For in more ways than one do men sacrifice to the rebellious angels.
18. But what marvel that I was thus carried away to vanities, and went out from Your presence, O my God, when men were set before me as models, who, if in relating some action of theirs, in itself not ill, they committed some barbarism or solecism, being censured, were abashed; but when in rich and adorned and well-ordered discourse they related their own disordered life, being bepraised, they gloried? These things You see, Lord, and hold Your peace; long-suffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth. will You hold Your peace for ever? and even now You draw out of this horrible gulf the soul that seeks You, that thirsts for Your pleasures, whose heart says unto You, I have sought Your face; Your face, Lord, will I seek. For darkened affections is removal from You. For it is not by our feet, or change of place, that men leave You, or return unto You. Or did that Your younger son look out for horses or chariots, or ships, fly with visible wings, or journey by the motion of his limbs, that he might in a far country waste in riotous living all You gave at his departure? a loving Father, when You gave, and more loving unto him, when he returned empty. So then in lustful, that is, in darkened affections, is the true distance from Your face.
Behold, O Lord God, yea, behold patiently as You are wont how carefully the sons of men observe the covenanted rules of letters and syllables received from those who spake before them, neglecting the eternal covenant of everlasting salvation received from You. Insomuch, that a teacher or learner of the hereditary laws of pronunciation will more offend men by speaking without the aspirate, of a "uman being," in despite of the laws of grammar, than if he, a "human being," hate a "human being" in despite of yours. As if any enemy could be more hurtful than the hatred with which he is incensed against him; or could wound more deeply him whom he persecutes, than he wounds his own soul by his enmity. Assuredly no science of letters can be so innate as the record of conscience, "that he is doing to another what from another he would be loth to suffer." How deep are Your ways, O God, You only great, that sit silent on high and by an unwearied law dispensing penal blindness to lawless desires. In quest of the fame of eloquence, a man standing before a human judge, surrounded by a human throng, declaiming against his enemy with fiercest hatred, will take heed most watchfully, lest, by an error of the tongue, he murder the word "human being"; but takes no heed, lest, through the fury of his spirit, he murder the real human being.
19. This was the world at whose gate unhappy I lay in my boyhood; this the stage where I had feared more to commit a barbarism, than having committed one, to envy those who had not. These things I speak and confess to You, my God; for which I had praise from them, whom I then thought it all virtue to please. For I saw not the abyss of vileness, wherein I was cast away from your eyes. Before them what more foul than I was already, displeasing even such as myself? with innumerable lies deceiving my tutor, my masters, my parents, from love of play, eagerness to see vain shows and restlessness to imitate them! Thefts also I committed, from my parents' cellar and table, enslaved by greediness, or that I might have to give to boys, who sold me their play, which all the while they liked no less than I. In this play, too, I often sought unfair conquests, conquered myself meanwhile by vain desire of preeminence. And what could I so ill endure, or, when I detected it, upbraided I so fiercely, as that I was doing to others? and for which if, detected, I was upbraided, I chose rather to quarrel than to yield. And is this the innocence of boyhood? Not so, Lord, not so; I cry Your mercy, my God. For these very sins, as riper years succeed, these very sins are transferred from tutors and masters, from nuts and balls and sparrows, to magistrates and kings, to gold and manors and slaves, just as severer punishments displace the cane. It was the low stature then of childhood which You our King did commend as an emblem of lowliness, when You said, Of such is the kingdom of heaven.
20. Yet, Lord, to You, the Creator and Governor of the universe, most excellent and most good, thanks were due to You our God, even had You destined for me boyhood only. For even then I was, I lived, and felt; and had an implanted providence over my well-being - a trace of that mysterious Unity whence I was derived; I guarded by the inward sense the entireness of my senses, and in these minute pursuits, and in my thoughts on things minute, I learnt to delight in truth, I hated to be deceived, had a vigorous memory, was gifted with speech, was soothed by friendship, avoided pain, baseness, ignorance. In so small a creature, what was not wonderful, not admirable? But all are gifts of my God: it was not I who gave them me; and good these are, and these together are myself. Good, then, is He that made me, and He is my good; and before Him will I exult for every good which of a boy I had. For it was my sin, that not in Him, but in His creatures myself and others - I sought for pleasures, sublimities, truths, and so fell headlong into sorrows, confusions, errors. Thanks be to You, my joy and my glory and my confidence, my God, thanks be to You for Your gifts; but do You preserve them to me. For so will You preserve me, and those things shall be enlarged and perfected which You have given me, and I myself shall be with You, since even to be You have given me.