'Cleanse me from my secret sins, O Lord, and keep Thy servant from those of other men.'-Conf. i. c. 5.

III.

PRIDE imitates exaltedness; whilst

Thou alone art God exalted over all. What seeks ambition but honours and glory? whereas Thou alone art to be honoured above all, and glorious for evermore. The cruelty of the powerful would fain be feared; but who is to be feared but God only? From His power what can be wrested or withdrawn? When or where, or whither, or by whom? The blandishments of the wanton would fain inspire love; yet nothing can so allure as does Thy charity, nor is aught loved more healthfully than Thy truth, beautiful and bright above all things. Curiosity would be thought zeal for knowledge; whilst Thou hast knowledge infinite. Yea, ignorance itself and foolishness is cloaked

under the name of single-mindedness and innocence; yet there is no oneness of nature like Thine; and what wounds less than Thou, since it is the sinner's own works which are his enemies? And sloth seeks a sort of rest; but what sure rest is there besides the Lord? Luxury desires to be called plenty and abundance; but Thou art the fulness and unfailing store of sweetness that never cloys. Profuseness presents a shadow of liberality; but Thou art the most bounteous Dispenser of all good. Avarice would have many possessions; and Thou possessest all things. Envy disputes for excellence; what more excellent than Thou? Anger seeks revenge; who is an avenger just as Thou? Fear startles at things unwonted and sudden, which are the foes of things beloved, and takes precautions for safety; but to Thee what is unwonted and sudden, or who separates from Thee what Thou lovest? Or where but with Thee is safety always sure? Grief pines away for

things lost, in which desire had found delight, because it would have nothing taken from it, as nothing can be taken from Thee. Thus does the soul play the wanton when she turns from Thee, and seeks without Thee pleasures which she finds not pure and untainted, till she returns to Thee. Thus all pervertedly imitate Thee, who keep far removed from Thee, and lift themselves up against Thee. But even by thus imitating Thee they acknowledge Thee to be the Creator of all nature, and therefore that there is no place whither they can altogether escape from Thee.--Conf. ii. c. 6.

IV.

I

CAME to Carthage; and all around me there bubbled a caldron of unholy loves. I loved not as yet, but was in love with love, and with a secret want, I was vexed with myself for not wanting enough. I sought an object for my passion, being,

For

as I said, in love with love, and I despised safety, and a path free from snares. I was famishing within for the proper food of my soul, Thyself, my God; though I felt no hunger for this, and was without appetite for spiritual nourishment; not because I was filled with it, but because the more I lacked, so much the more I loathed it.-Conf. iii. c. I.

V.

BLESSED is the man, O God, who

loves Thee, and his friend in Thee, and his enemy for Thy sake. For he alone loses none dear to him, to whom all are dear in Him Who never can be lost. And who is that but God, the God Who made heaven and earth, and fills them, because it was by filling that He made them? No one loses Thee but he that lets go of Thee: and he that leaves Thee, whither does he go, whither flee, but from Thee in love to Thee in wrath?

For where does he fail to find Thy law in his own punishment? And Thy law is the truth, and the truth art Thou.-Conf. iv. c. 9.

VI.

THESE things I knew not at that time,

and I loved these lower beauties, and I was sinking to the very depths; and I said to my friends, Do we love anything but the beautiful? What, then, is the beautiful? and what is beauty? What is it that allures and unites us to the things we love? for unless there were a grace and beauty in them, they could by no means draw us unto them. And I marked and perceived that in bodies themselves there was a beauty, from their forming a sort of whole; and again, another, from apt and mutual correspondence, as of a part of the body with its whole, or a shoe with a foot, and the like. And this consideration sprang up in my mind, out of my deepest reflections, and