Life of Saint Monica

e, it is true, for herself, but there was Augustine. Would it be possible for her, even i

, as an old friend of Patricius he had the right to befriend his son, and Monica must grant him the privilege of acting a father's part to Augustine until he was fairly launched in life. He had a child of his own, a young son call

e, opened to me your house, your purse, and still more your heart. You it was who, when I had the sorrow to lo

for instance, were entirely in their hands. They were small as yet, built according to the needs of the moment from the funds of the faithful, and held but few patients. These devoted women succeeded each other at intervals in their task of washing and attending to the sick, watching by the

g. They called her "mother." It seemed such a natural name to give her, for she was a mother to them all, and gave them a mother's love. To some of the poor creatures, friendless slave

ee to teach them the truths of their Faith. When they were very poor, she would keep them in her own house, feed them at her own table, and clothe them with her own hands. "If I am a

d partake of what they had brought, while they thought and spoke of the noble lives of God's servants who had gone before. The custom was abolished not long after on account of the abuses which had

her tears; the time passed by unheeded. Patricius, her husband, was safe in God's hands; but Augustine, her eldest-born, her darling, in what dark paths was he wandering? And yet in her heart of hearts there was a deep convict

romised that He would never fail those who put their trust in Him. At His feet, and at His feet alone, Monica poured out her tears and her sorrow. With others she was serene and hopeful as of old, even joyous, always ready to help and comfort. It was said of her

ic. His master had spoken to him of a certain treatise of Aristotle which he would soon be called upon to study. It was so profound, he said, that few could understand it, even with the help of the most lea

teen only discovered there were difficulties in the way when he had to teach others, and

n gifts, although he himself tells us in his Confessions that he was full of pride and ambition. He had a gift of ma

o without them; but to her they were the one essential thing; the rest did not matter. Yet Monica, with true insight, believed that with noble minds knowl

ung student's soul; already he felt the emptiness of earthly joys. "I longed, my God," he writes, "to

ercy, Lord, of Thy Son, my Saviour, my heart had drawn in with my mother's milk, and kept in its depths, and every doct

despised the manner in which the things are said, and my intelligence could not discover the hidden sense. They becom

y had begun in the East, and had spread all over the civilized world. Its followers formed a secret society, with signs and pas

red of the Church. Augustine, who remained amongst them fo

authority. For what else induced me to abandon the faith of my childhood and follow these men for almost nine years, but their assertion that we were terrified by superstition into a faith blindly imposed upon our reason, wh

romised. What Augustine found

in them. They taught what was false, not only about Thee, my God, Who art

teachers themselves, he found them "carn

man was not responsible for his sins. This doctrine was convenient

this period of his life, "so weighed down, so blinde