his schoolfellows. Whether there were any Christians
there besides himself he did not know; but while the worst of his
schoolfellows were what heathen boys may be supposed to be, the lightest
censure which could be passed on any was that they were greedy, or
quarrelsome, or otherwise unamiable. He had learned there enough to open
his mind, and to give him materials for thinking, and instruments for
reflecting on his own religion, and for drawing out into shape his own
reflections. He had received just that discipline which makes solitude
most pleasant to the old, and most insupportable to the young. He had got
a thousand questions which needed answers, a thousand feelings which
needed sympathy. He wanted to know whether his guesses, his perplexities,
his trials of mind, were peculiar to himself, or how far they were shared
by others, and what they were worth. He had capabilities for intellectual
enjoyment unexercised, and a thirst after knowledge unsatisfied. And the
channels of supernatural assistance were removed from him at a time when
nature was most impetuous and most clamorous.

It was under circumstances such as these that two young Greeks, brother
and sister, the brother older, the sister younger, than Agellius, came to
Sicca at the invitation of Jucundus, who wanted them for his trade. His
nephew in time got acquainted with them, and found in them what he had
sought in vain elsewhere. It is not that they were oracles of wisdom or
repositories of philosophical learning; their age and their calling
forbade it, nor did he require it. For an oracle, of course, he would have
looked in another direction; but he desiderated something more on a level
with himself, and that they abundantly supplied. He found, from his
conversations with them, that a great number of the questions which had
been a difficulty to him had already been agitated in the schools of
Greece. He found what solutions were possible, what the hinge was on which
questions turned, what the issue to which they led, and what the principle
which lay at the bottom of them. He began better to understand the
position of Christianity in the world of thought, and the view which was
taken of it by the advocates of other religions or philosophies. He gained
some insight into its logic, and advanced, without knowing it, in the
investigation of its evidences.

Nor was this all; he acquired by means of his new friends a great deal
also of secular knowledge as well