THE CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE.*

THE story of a human soul in its search for eternal truth will perpetually interest mankind. What is the Divine Comedy but the narration of that toilsome journey which ends in "the peace that passeth all understanding"? Though there is little of religious fire in Shakespeare's Hamlet, still, half the charm of this tragedy lies in its mysterious gropings after truth. The Faust of Goethe, frankly pagan as it is, owes its great popularity in large measure to a certain wist- fulness and lonely aspiration. Chiefly, then, because it expresses with great intensity the longings of the human soul after the infinite, this book of St. Augustine has main- tained a high popularity. But though this is much, it is not all. The confessions of an ordinary man, if written sincerely and simply, would always attract readers ; how much more, then, the confessions of a soul which seems at times to be literally on fire. Then St. Augustine attains to peace only after long wanderings and much darkness, in this again resembling Dante and Faust. If this book had been merely the pure aspiration of a beautiful spirit, little tried and rarely beset, half its interest would vanish. It is the goal attained "not without dust and heat," the struggle and painful flutter upwards, which make this book so fiery yet so familiar. To the chief temptations to which flesh is prone this man succumbed, nay, as he rather indicates, he loved them— for a time.

St. Augustine was, before all things, a man ; and we pro- pose to make one or two extracts illustrating his many-sided humanity; for it is only by realising this to the full that we can at all appreciate his ultimate peace. To begin with his earliest years, what better description could there be of school experience than in the following passage ?--" One and one, two ; " two and two, four;' this was to me a hateful sing-song; while the wooden horse lined with armed men, and the burning of Troy, and Creusa's shade and sad similitude,' were the choice spectacles of my sanctity." Or again :—" Why then did I hate the Greek classics, full of the like fictions ? For Homer also wove similar stories, and is most pleasant, yet was he disagreeable to my boyish taste. In truth the difficulty of a foreign tongue dashed with gall all the sweetness of Greek fable. For not one word of it did I understand, and to make me learn I was urged vehemently with cruel threats and stripes." How intensely modern this is, and within the experience of all schoolboys. The present writer is aware of many noble and famous passages in classical authors for ever spoilt to him by the perverse system of our schools. Or take this frank revela- tion of his boyhood :—" Thefts also I committed from my parents' cellar and table, either to satisfy my gluttony, or that I might have to give to boys, who sold me their play, • 7 he Confemi9ns of St. .4”gustine. Edited by Alexander ans?.11ie, M.A. London: Andrew Melrose.

which all the while they liked no less than I. In this play too I often sought to win by cheating, conquered myself by a fierce desire of pre-eminence." Here, too, is the confession, no less frank, of the sins of his youth :—

" I sought for what to love, in love with being loved, and I hated safety and a way without snares I defiled, there- fore, the spring of friendship with the filth of concupiscence, and

I beclouded its brightness with the hell of lust My God, my Mercy, with how much gall didst Thou out of Thy great good- ness besprinkle for me those sweets ? For I was both beloved, and secretly arrived at the bond of enjoying ; and was with joy fettered by those wretched chains, that I might be scourged with the iron burning rods of jealousy, and suspicions, and fears, and angers, and quarrels."

The only other passage that we know which can be compared to this and which is equally frank, is the wonderful sonnet of Shakespeare on the madness of passion :—

"Enjoyed no sooner than despised straight ; Past reason hunted; and no sooner had, Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait,

On purpose laid to make the taker mad."

So far we have seen Augustine led away by his madness or folly ; now let us look at him as a friend. Thus he describes what he felt at the death of Nebridius

:- "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 my friend, now wanting him, became a distracting torture. Mine eyes sought him everywhere, but be was not granted to them ; and I hated all places for they held him not; nor could they now tell me, he is coming,' as when he was alive and absent."

One has to go back to the lament of David over Jonathan for so poignant a cry. As a last illustration of the humanity of Augustine, take this heart-piercing passage, worthy of Dante at his intensest moment, in which he describes his

mother's death :—

"I closed her eyes ; and there streamed withal a mighty sorrow into my heart, which was overflowing into tears : mine eyes at the same time, by a violent command of my mind, drank up their

fountain wholly dry ; and woe was me in such a strife What then was it which did grievously pain me within, but a fresh wound wrought through the sudden wrench of that most sweet and dear custom of living together ? I joyed indeed in her testimony, when, in that her last sickness, mingling her endear- ments with my acts of duty, she called me dutiful,' and mentioned with great affection of love, that she never had heard any harsh or reproachful sound uttered by my mouth against her."

We have quoted enough to show the intense and various nature of Augustine ; a man who could love like David, aspire like Dante, and sin like any one of us. And yet the man who as a boy took delight in stealing pears, who afterwards went into all kinds of excesses, was not only an ardent friend and a deeply affectionate son, but was capable of that aethereal and tremendous passage which, however familiar, we may be pardoned -for once more quoting. For here, he who had written like Dante, writes like Plato, and even with a more burning rapture :—

" We were saying then : If to any the tumult of the flesh were hushed, hushed the images of earth and water and air, hushed also the poles of heaven, yea, the very soul be hushed to herself, and by not thinking on self surmount self, hushed all dreams and imaginary revelations, every tongue and every sign, and what- soever exists only in transition, since if any could hear, all then say, 'We made not ourselves, but He made us that abideth for ever.' If then, having uttered this, they too should be hushed, having roused only our ears to Him who made them, and He alone speak, not by them, but by Himself, that He may hear His word, not through any tongue of flesh, nor angel's voice, nor sound of thunder, nor in the dark riddle of a similitude, but might hear Whom in these things we love; might hear His very self without these (as we too 'have strained ourselves, and in swift thought touched on that eternal wisdom which abideth over all ;) could this be continued on, and other visions of kind far unlike be withdrawn, and this one ravish and absorb, and wrap up its beholder amid these inward joys, so that life might be for ever like that one moment of understanding which now we sighed after; were not this `Enter into thy Master's joy."

Brooding over this history is the beautiful figure of Augus- tine's mother. She is never intruded, and yet she is con- tinually felt. Is there anything more beautiful in literature than the saying of the Bishop to her : "It is impossible that the child of all these tears should perish" P Though a real woman she is as lovely as the imagined women of poets. Most interesting would it be, were there space, to draw a comparison between Monnica and Dante's Beatrice. The love of Dante for Beatrice was so pure as to resemble Augustine's love for his mother ; the love of Augustine for Monnica was so ardent as to resemble the passion of Dante for Beatrice. And as

Augustine's mother brought her son to eternal truth and perfect peace at last through many tears, so Beatrice loved Dante in Purgatory that she might convey him into bliss. Augustine's description of his final conversion in the garden at Milan is so vehemently written that we seem to be watching an almost physical struggle, and to see him torn almost in the flesh before us. Indeed, such is his sweat of agony as to almost bring before us that other Garden and that greater Wrestler. One feeling, that of infinite sadness, is borne in on the mind after reading this book. Though much of it cannot but appear to us in these days unreal and even grotesque, still it gives force to that beautiful poem of Matthew Arnold where he speaks of faith with its "melancholy long with- drawing roar." We to-day are troubled about many things, and perpetually disturbed; but how ignoble seems our trouble after such anguish as is herdepicted ; and how petty are our disturbances One is almost tempted to long again for those days with all their cruelty and fanaticism ; for they were at least full of great and splendid emotions, life was altogether a more earnest and vivid enterprise than in this age of haste and monotony.