Unskill'd in treason, every social band That taught to rule with sweetness, and obey Locked to the spoiler yet: Thy shafts are bright: Faint not: HEAVEN'S KEYS are more than sceptred might; Their Guardians more than king or sire to thee. 5. "And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron... and she fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God." SAY, who is he, in deserts seen, Or at the twilight hour? Of garb austere, and dauntless mien, My holy mother made reply, Another day, dear child, and thou Ah! well I deem, thou shrinkest now From urgent rule and severing vow; Gay hopes flit round, and light thy brow :- CORRESPONDENCE. The Editor begs to remind his readers that he is not responsible for the opinions LETTERS ON THE CHURCH OF THE FATHERS. NO. XI. A CHANCE reader may ask, What was the history of that celebrated father whose death was the subject of my last paper? What had his life been, what his early years, what his labours? Surely he was no ordinary man, whose end, in all its circumstances, is so impressive.We may answer in a few words, that Augustine was the son of a very pious mother, who had the pain of witnessing, for many years, his wanderings in doubt and unbelief, who prayed incessantly for his conversion, and at length was blest with the sight of it. From early youth he had given himself up to a course of life quite inconsistent with the profession of a catechumen, into which he had been admitted in infancy. Not that he ever allowed himself in any profligate excess, and from his childhood he had had serious impressions; but, being not yet formally a member of the church, he allowed himself to live as a mere heathen, and entered into a union with a female, which, though faithfully observed till she took upon herself a vow of continence, shortly before his baptism, yet was not ratified by the indissoluble seal of the church. In his twentieth year he fell into the Manichæan heresy, in which he continued nine years. Towards the end of that time, leaving Africa, his native country, he betook himself to Rome, as a better field for his profession, which was that of a rhetorician, and thence to Milan, on the recommendation of Symmachus, the præfect of Rome. Here he fell in with St. Ambrose; and his conversion and baptism followed in the course of his thirty-fourth year. This memorable event (his conversion) is celebrated in the Latin church on the 5th of May, being the only event of the kind thus distinguished, excepting the conversion of St. Paul. His life had been for many years one of great anxiety and discomfort, the life of one dissatisfied with himself, and despairing of finding the Truth. After many struggles and changes of mind, he found himself gradually relieved of all the chains which bound him-but one. One cherished weakness there was, early indulged, which stood in the way of his devoting himself soul and body, life and thought, to the service of God. This is the point of time at which I shall take up his history, a short time before the era of his conversion, which was a very marked event in his case, as in St. Paul's, and took place the year before his baptism. His state of mind at this time he thus describes in the eighth book of his confessions: The new will, which had begun to live in me, to worship Thee freely, and to enjoy thy mercy, O blessed God, was not yet strong enough to overcome my former will, which long habit had confirmed: and thus two wills, the old and the new, the carnal and the spiritual, conflicted within me, and, by their contentions, unsettled my soul. ......I was weighed down with the burden of this world, not against my will, as one is used to be with sleep; and my meditations upon Thee were not more earnest than the efforts of men who wish to wake, yet fall back again under the heaviness of their slumber. And as no one would wish always to be asleep......but yet, when the time for rising comes, we delay rousing ourselves on account of the torpor which is upon us, and enjoy it the more while we condemn it; so, in spite of my conviction that Thy love was to be obeyed rather than my own lusts, yet the former did but receive my assent, while the latter were my choice, and my masters. When Thou saidest to me "Wake, thou that sleepest, and rise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light;" and showedst the plain reasonableness of Thy command, convinced by its truth, I could but give the slow and sleepy answer, Presently;" "yes, presently," "wait awhile;" though that presently was never present, and that while became long. It was in vain that I delighted in Thy law in the inner man, while another law in my members fought again the law of my mind, and led me captive to the law of sin which was in my members. One day, when he and his friend Alypius were together at home, a countryman, named Pontitian, who held an office in the Imperial Court, called on him on some matter of business. As they sat talking, he observed a book upon the table, and on opening it found it was St. Paul's Epistles. A strict Christian himself, he was agreeably surprised to find an apostle, where he expected to meet with some work bearing upon Augustine's profession. The discourse fell upon St. Antony, the celebrated Egyptian solitary, and, while it added to Pontitian's surprise to find that they did not even know his name, they, on the other hand, were still more struck with wonder at the relation of his life, and the recent date of it. Thence the conversation passed to the subject of monasteries, the purity and sweetness of their discipline, and the treasures of grace which through them had been manifested in the desert. It turned out that Augustine and his friend did not even know of the monastery, of which Ambrose had been the patron, outside the walls of Milan. Pontitian went on to give an account of the conversion of two among his fellow-officers under the following circumstances. When he was at Treves, one afternoon, while the emperor was in the circus, he happened to stroll out, with three companions, into the gardens close upon the city wall. After a time they split into two parties, and, while he and another went their own way, the other two came upon a cottage, which they were induced to enter. It was the abode of certain recluses, "poor in spirit," as Augustine says, "of whom is the kingdom of heaven;" and here they found the life of St. Antony, which Athanasius had written about twenty years before. (A.D. 364-366.) One of them began to peruse it, and, affected by the narrative, they both of them resolved on adopting the monastic life. The effect produced by this relation on Augustine was not less than was caused by the history of Antony itself upon the imperial officers, and almost as immediately productive of a religious issue. He felt that they represented to him, in their obedience, the very desideratum in his own, a remedy for his existing disordered and distressing state of mind, which his mother was attempting to remove by settling him down in a married life. He says The more ardently I loved these men, whose gracious state of soul was shewn in surrendering themselves to Thee for healing, so much the more execrable and hateful did I seem to myself in comparison of them. For now many years had passed, as many perhaps as twelve, since the time of my first reading Cicero's "Hortensius," which first incited me to seek for wisdom; and still I was putting off the search after a treasure which, even in the search, not to speak of the discovery, was better than the possession of heathen wealth and power, and the most abundant pleasures of sense. But I, wretched, wretched youth, in that spring-time of my life, had asked indeed of Thee the gift of purity, but had said, "Give it me, but not at once." I feared, alas, lest Thou shouldest hear me too soon, and cure a thirst at once, which I would fain have had satisfied, not extinguished...... But now......disturbed in countenance as well as mind, I cried out to Alypius, "What do we? what is this? what is this story? See, the unlearned rise and take heaven by violence, while we, for all our heartless accomplishments of learning, see where we wallow in flesh and blood! Shall I feel shame to follow their lead, and not rather to miss doing what alone is left to me?" Something of this kind I said to him, and, while he eyed me in silent wonder, rushed from him under the agitation of my feelings. He betook himself to the garden of the house where he lodged, whither Alypius followed him, and sat for awhile in bitter meditation on the impotence and slavery of the human will. The thought VOL. VII.-May, 1835. 3 x of giving up his old habits of life once for all, pressed upon him with overpowering force, and, on the other hand, the beauty of religious obedience pierced and disordered him. He says: Vanity of vanities, the baubles of the world, my old mistresses, kept hold of me, they plucked my garment of flesh, and whispered, "Are you indeed giving us up? What! from this moment are we to be strangers to you for ever? This and that, shall it be allowed you from this moment never again ?" Yet, what a view began to open on the other side, whither I had set my face and was hastening; the majesty of the Celibate, serene, cheerful, and yet sober, winning me in a holy way to come without doubting, and ready to embrace me with religious hands full stored with honourable patterns! It pointed out to me boys and young maidens, youth and manhood, venerable age, widowed and single, all of them fruitful in those heavenly joys which the Lord manifests in His sacred spouse. It seemed to mock me into emulation, saying, "Cannot you achieve what these have done? Did they achieve it in their own strength, or in the strength of their Lord God? The Lord their God enabled them to accept me. Why rely on thyself and fall? Cast thyself upon His arm. Be not afraid, He will not let you slip. Cast thyself in confidence, He will receive thee and heal thee." While I thus fluctuated in mind, Alypius kept close to my side, silently waiting for the end of this unwonted agitation. He then proceeds to give account of the termination of this struggle, which is technically called his conversion, which (it will be observed) turned upon this, his ultimate resolve to embrace a monastic instead of a secular life : At length I burst forth into a violent flood of tears, and to indulge it to the full in solitude, I rose up from Alypius, who perceived from my broken voice how it was with me. He remained where we had been sitting in deep astonishment. I went to a distance, and threw myself down under a fig tree, and allowing my feelings full vent, offered up to Thee the acceptable sacrifice of my streaming eyes. And I cried out to this effect:-" And thou, Lord, how long, how long, Lord, wilt thou be angry? For ever? Remember not our old sins:" for I felt that they were my tyrants. I cried out, piteously, "How long? how long? to-morrow and tomorrow? why not now? why not in this very hour put an end to this my vileness?" While I thus spoke, with tears, in the bitter contrition of my heart, suddenly I heard a voice, as if from a house near me, of a boy or girl chanting forth again and again, TAKE UP AND READ, TAKE UP AND READ!" Startled at these words, I began to think whether boys used them in any game, but could not recollect that I had ever heard them. I left weeping and rose up, considering it a divine intimation to open the scriptures and read what first presented itself. I recollected hearing that Antony had taken to himself a text in the gospel which he had accidentally fallen upon, "Go, sell all that thou hast, &c." and had turned to Thee in consequence. I had left St. Paul's epistles where I had been sitting with Alypius. I returned thither, seized it, opened, and read in silence the following text which first met my eyes, "Not in rioting or drunkenness, not in chambering or wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof." I had neither desire nor need to read farther. As I finished the sentence, as though the light of peace had been poured upon me, all the shadows of doubt dispersed. Thus hast Thou converted me to Thee, so as no longer to seek either for wife or other hope of this world, standing fast in that rule of faith in which Thou so many years before revealed me to my mother. The last words of this extract relate to a dream which his mother had had some years before, concerning his conversion; the slowness, tumult, and abrupt termination of which was a sort of penalty, which in the case of others, as well as Augustine, is often paid for the neglect of religion in youth. His subsequent life is a noble evidence, that in spite of all the agitation that attended it, he was at the time really under the visiting of a divine influence. His conversion took place in the summer of 386 (as seems most probable), and about three weeks after it, taking advantage of the vintage holidays, he gave up his school, assigning as a reason a pulmonary attack which had given him already much uneasiness. He retired to a friend's villa in the country for the rest of the year, with a view of preparing himself for baptism at the Easter following. His religious views were still very imperfect and vague. He had no settled notion concerning the nature of the soul, and was ignorant of the mission of the Holy Ghost. And still more, as might be expected, he needed correction and reformation in his conduct. During this time he broke himself of a habit of profane swearing, and, in various ways, disciplined himself for the sacred rite for which he was a candidate. It need scarcely be said that he was constant in devotional and penitential exercises. In due time the sacrament of baptism was accorded to him by the ministration of St. Ambrose, who had been the principal instrument of his conversion; and he resolved on ridding himself of his worldly possessions, except what might be necessary for his bare subsistence, and retiring to Africa with the purpose of devoting himself to what the ancients, after scripture, call a "perfect" life. Passing over the occurrences of the interval, let us visit him in his retreats at Thagasta and at Hippo, where he fulfilled the resolve which it had cost him so severe a struggle to make. Thagasta was his native place, and he stationed himself in the suburbs, so as to be at once in retirement and in the way for usefulness, if any opening should arise in the city. His conversion had been followed by that of some of his friends, who, together with certain of his fellow citizens, whom he succeeded in persuading, joined him, and who naturally looked up to him as the head of their religious community. One of their fundamental regulations was the apostolic rule of casting their property into a common stock, whence distribution was made according to the need of each. Fasting and prayer, alms and scripturereading were their stated occupations, and Augustine took upon himself the task of forming their minds upon those religious principles which they at present held chiefly upon his authority. This design he signified in answer to a friend who wished him to leave Thagasta and join him in a religious retirement elsewhere: "You," he said, "have obtained the gift of dwelling comfortably with your own mind, but my friends about me are but acquiring it, and cannot yet go alone." The consequence naturally was, that while he busied himself in forming others to devotional habits, his own leisure was taken from him. His fame spread, and serious engagements were pressed upon him of a nature little congenial with the life to which he had hoped to dedicate himself. Indeed, his talents were of too active and influential a character to allow of his secluding himself from the world, however he might wish it. Thus he passed the first three years of his return to Africa, at the end of which time he was admitted into holy orders. The circumstances under which this change of state took place are curious, as characteristic of the primitive times. His reputation having become |