re not even unusually excellent pears. "A Peare tree ther was, neere
our vineyard, heavy loaden with fruite, which tempted not greatly either
the sight or tast. To the shaking and robbing thereof, certaine most
wicked youthes (whereof I was one) went late at night. We carried away
huge burthens of fruit from thence, not for our owne eating, but to be
cast before the hoggs."

Oh, moonlit night of Africa, and orchard by these wild seabanks where
once Dido stood; oh, laughter of boys among the shaken leaves, and sound
of falling fruit; how do you live alone out of so many nights that no man
remembers? For Carthage is destroyed, indeed, and forsaken of the sea,
yet that one hour of summer is to be unforgotten while man has memory of
the story of his past.

Nothing of this, to be sure, is in the mind of the Saint, but a long
remorse for this great sin, which he earnestly analyses. Nor is he so
penitent but that he is clear-sighted, and finds the spring of his mis-
doing in the Sense of Humour! "It was a delight and laughter which
tickled us, even at the very hart, to find that we were upon the point of
deceiving them who feared no such thing from us, and who, if they had
known it, would earnestly have procured the contrary."

Saint Augustine admits that he lived with a fast set, as people say
now--"the Depravers" or "Destroyers"; though he loved them little, "whose
actions I ever did abhor, that is, their Destruction of others, amongst
whom I yet lived with a kind of shameless bashfulness." In short, the
"Hell-Fire Club" of that day numbered a reluctant Saint among its
members! It was no Christian gospel, but the Hortensius of Cicero which
won him from this perilous society. "It altered my affection, and made
me address my prayers to Thee, O Lord, and gave me other desires and
purposes than I had before. All vain hopes did instantly grow base in
myne eyes, and I did, with an incredible heat of hart, aspire towards the
Immortality of Wisdom." Thus it was really "Saint Tully," and not the
mystic call of _Tolle_! _Lege_! that "converted" Augustine, diverting the
current of his life into the channel of Righteousness. "How was I
kindled then, oh, my God, with a desire to fly from earthly things
towards Thee."

There now remained only the choice of a Road. Saint Augustine dates his
own conversion from the day of his turning to the strait Christian
orthodoxy. Even the Platonic writings, had he known Greek, would no