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- 18 The Confessions of S. Augustine.
precious; but that wine of error which is in them, was given to us to drink by teachers intoxicated with it; and if we, too, drank not, we were beaten, nor could we appeal to any sober judge. Yet, O my God (in whose presence my remembrance of this is now harmless), all this unhappily I learnt willingly and took delight in it, and for this was pronounced a hopeful boy.
## CHAPTER XVII.
*He continues the subject of the last chapter.*
SUFFER me, my God, to say somewhat of my talents, Thy gift, and on what absurdities I wasted them. 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 turn the Trojan king from Italy. Which words I had heard that Juno never uttered; but we were forced to err and stray in the footsteps of these poetic fictions, and to say in prose much that the poet had expressed in verse. And he would speak with the more applause, who best maintained the dignity of the character he personated, and simulated the passion of rage and grief, and meetly clothed the thoughts in words. 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 talents and my tongue? Thy praises, Lord, Thy praises throughout Thy Scriptures, might have lent support to the vine of my heart; so had it not trailed away amid these trifling vanities, a vile prey for the fowls of the air. For in more ways than one do men sacrifice to the rebel angels.
## CHAPTER XVIII.
*Men keep with care the rules of grammar; but neglect the eternal laws of lasting salvation.*
BUT what marvel that I was thus carried away to vanities, and went out from Thy presence, O my God, when men were set before me for imitation, who, if in
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