ctly in proportion as I was innocent.

_II.--Monica's Prayers and Augustine's Paganism_

To Carthage I came, where there sang in my ears a cauldron of unholy
loves. I denied the spring of friendship with the filth of
concupiscence, and I beclouded its brightness with the hell of lust.

Stage plays always carried me away, full of images of my miseries and of
fuel to my fire. In the theatres I rejoiced with lovers, when they
succeeded in their criminal intrigues, imaginary only in the play; and
when they lost one another I sorrowed with them. Those studies also
which were accounted commendable, led me away, having a view of
excelling in the courts of litigation, where I should be the more
praised the craftier I became. And now I was the head scholar in the
rhetoric school, whereat I swelled with conceit. I learned books of
eloquence, wherein I desired to be eminent. In the course of study I
fell upon a certain book of Cicero which contains an exhortation to
philosophy, and is called "Hortensius." This book changed my
disposition, and turned my prayers to Thyself, O Lord. I longed with an
incredible ardour for the immortality of wisdom, and began now to arise
a wish that I might return to Thee. I resolved then to turn my mind to
the Holy Scriptures, to see what they were; but when I turned to them my
pride shrank from their humility, disdaining to be one of the little
ones.

Therefore, I fell among men proudly doting, exceeding carnal, and great
talkers, who served up to me, when hungering after Thee, the Sun and
Moon, beautiful works of Thine, but not Thyself. Yet, taking these
glittering phantasies to be Thee, I fed thereon, but was not nourished
by them, but rather became more empty. I knew not God to be a Spirit.
Nor knew I that true inward righteousness, which judgeth not according
to custom, but out of the most righteous laws of Almighty God. Under the
influence of these Manichaeans I scoffed at Thy holy servants and
prophets. And Thou "sentest Thine hand from above," and deliveredst my
soul from that profound darkness. My mother, Thy faithful one, wept to
Thee for me, for she discerned the death wherein I lay, and Thou
heardest her, O Lord. Thou gavest her answers first in visions. There
passed yet nine years in which I wallowed in the mire of that deep pit
and the darkness of error. Thou gavest her meantime another answer by a
priest of Thine, a certain bishop brought up in Thy Church, and well
studied in b