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| Having Prayed to God, He Pours Forth a Shower of Tears, And, Admonished by a Voice, He Opens the Book and Reads the Words in Rom. XIII. 13; By Which, Being Changed in His Whole Soul, He Discloses the Divine Favour to His Friend and His Mother.
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Chapter XII.—Having Prayed to
God, He Pours Forth a Shower of Tears, And, Admonished by a Voice,
He Opens the Book and Reads the Words in Rom. XIII. 13; By Which,
Being Changed in His Whole Soul, He Discloses the Divine Favour to
His Friend and His Mother.
28. But when a profound reflection had, from
the secret depths of my soul, drawn together and heaped up all my
misery before the sight of my heart, there arose a mighty storm,
accompanied by as mighty a shower of tears. Which, that I might
pour forth fully, with its natural expressions, I stole away from
Alypius; for it suggested itself to me that solitude was fitter for
the business of weeping.677
So I retired to such a distance
that even his presence could not be oppressive to me. Thus was it
with me at that time, and he perceived it; for something, I
believe, I had spoken, wherein the sound of my voice appeared
choked with weeping, and in that state had I risen up. He then
remained where we had been sitting, most completely astonished. I
flung myself down, how, I know not, under a certain fig-tree,
giving free course to my tears, and the streams of mine eyes gushed
out, an acceptable sacrifice unto Thee.678
And, not indeed in these words, yet
to this effect, spake I much unto Thee,—“But Thou, O Lord, how
long?”679
“How long,
Lord? Wilt Thou be angry for ever? Oh, remember not against us
former iniquities;”680
for I felt that I was enthralled by
them. I sent up these sorrowful cries,—“How long, how long?
Tomorrow, and tomorrow? Why not now? Why is there not this hour an
end to my uncleanness?”
29. I was saying these things and weeping in the
most bitter contrition of my heart, when, lo, I heard the voice as
of a boy or girl, I know not which, coming from a neighbouring
house, chanting, and oft repeating, “Take up and read; take up
and read.” Immediately my countenance was changed, and I began
most earnestly to consider whether it was usual for children in any
kind of game to sing such words; nor could I remember ever to have
heard the like. So, restraining the torrent of my tears, I rose up,
interpreting it no other way than as a command to me from Heaven to
open the book, and to read the first
Chapter I should light upon. For I had heard
of Antony,681
| 681 See his Life by St. Athanasius, secs. 2,
3. | that,
accidentally coming in whilst the gospel was being read, he
received the admonition as if what was read were addressed to him,
“Go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt
have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me.”682
And by such
oracle was he forthwith converted unto Thee. So quickly I returned
to the place where Alypius was sitting; for there had I put down
the volume of the apostles, when I rose thence. I grasped, opened,
and in silence read that paragraph on which my eyes first
fell,—“Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and
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.”683
No further
would I read, nor did I need; for instantly, as the sentence ended,—by a
light, as it were, of security infused into my heart,—all the
gloom of doubt vanished away.
30. Closing the book, then, and putting either
my finger between, or some other mark, I now with a tranquil
countenance made it known to Alypius. And he thus disclosed to me
what was wrought in him, which I knew not. He asked to look at what
I had read. I showed him; and he looked even further than I had
read, and I knew not what followed. This it was, verily, “Him
that is weak in the faith, receive ye;”684
which he applied to himself, and
discovered to me. By this admonition was he strengthened; and by a
good resolution and purpose, very much in accord with his character
(wherein, for the better, he was always far different from me),
without any restless delay he joined me. Thence we go in to my
mother. We make it known to her,—she rejoiceth. We relate how it
came to pass,—she leapeth for joy, and triumpheth, and blesseth
Thee, who art “able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we
ask or think;685
for she
perceived Thee to have given her more for me than she used to ask
by her pitiful and most doleful groanings. For Thou didst so
convert me unto Thyself, that I sought neither a wife, nor any
other of this world’s hopes,—standing in that rule of faith686
| 686 See book iii. sec. 19. | in which
Thou, so many years before, had showed me unto her in a vision. And
thou didst turn her grief into a gladness,687
much more plentiful than she had
desired, and much dearer and chaster than she used to crave, by
having grandchildren of my body.
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