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- confessions
- text
- 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 Thy laws, O my God, Thy laws, from the master's
cane to the martyr's trials, being able to temper for us a wholesome
bitter, recalling us to Thyself from that deadly pleasure which lures us
from Thee.
Hear, Lord, my prayer; let not my soul faint under Thy discipline, nor
let me faint in confessing unto Thee all Thy mercies, whereby Thou
hast drawn me out of all my most evil ways, that Thou mightest become a
delight to me above all the allurements which I once pursued; that I may
most entirely love Thee, and clasp Thy hand with all my affections, and
Thou mayest yet rescue me from every temptation, even unto the end. For
lo, O Lord, my King and my God, for Thy service be whatever useful
thing my childhood learned; for Thy service, that I speak, write, read,
reckon. For Thou didst grant me Thy discipline, while I was learning
vanities; and my sin of delighting in those vanities Thou hast 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.
But woe is thee, thou torrent of human custom! Who shall stand against
thee? how long shalt thou 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 thee 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, thou hellish torrent, into thee 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 thou lashest
thy rocks and roarest, "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.
Bear with me, my God, while I say somewhat of my wit, Thy 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? Thy praises, Lord, Thy praises might have stayed the yet tender
shoot of my heart by the prop of Thy 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.
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 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 Thou seest,
Lord, and holdest Thy peace; long-suffering, and plenteous in mercy and
truth. Wilt Thou hold Thy peace for ever? and even now Thou drawest out
of this horrible gulf the soul that seeketh Thee, that thirsteth for
Thy pleasures, whose heart saith unto Thee, I have sought Thy face; Thy
face, Lord, will I seek. For darkened affections is removal from Thee.
For it is not by our feet, or change of place, that men leave Thee, or
return unto Thee. Or did that Thy 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
Thou gavest at his departure? a loving Father, when Thou gavest, and
more loving unto him, when he returned empty. So then in lustful, that
is, in darkened affections, is the true distance from Thy face.
Behold, O Lord God, yea, behold patiently as Thou art 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 Thee. 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 Thine. 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 Thy ways, O God, Thou only great,
that sittest silent on high and by an unwearied law dispensing penal
blindness to lawless desires.