three of my colleagues and friends to walk in the gardens near the city walls. We went two together. Two of us went before, and came to a hermit's cell. Here we found the life of Anthony, the father of monks. One of us read, and was so affected that he exclaimed, full of the sense of the nothingness of his endeavours, which had hitherto been directed to worldly splendour and honour-What do we intend by all our labour? Can we desire anything higher at court than the favour of the emperor? And when shall I obtain it? But if I wish to be a friend of God, I can be so in an instant.' He at once renounced the service of the court and remained there as a hermit, in order to be occupied only with divine things.' This story, which his friend told Augustin without any special design, made a decided impression on his mind, in accordance with his state of feeling at the time. During a conflict which had lasted twelve years, he had not mastered the desires and passions that attached him to the world, nor had been able to come to a resolution which that person arrived at in an instant, by a firm direction of the will!"How long," said he, "do we fight with all our knowledge against flesh and blood, when here a man, without philosophy, gives up all worldly follies in an instant!" Carried away by this reflection, filled with anguish and shame for himself, he hastened into the garden, and threw himself down under a fig-tree. His internal state stood exposed before his eyes; with fervent weeping he poured forth his heart before God, without being able to find comfort. He heard in an adjoining house a child's voice repeatedly cry out-"Take and read!" He regarded these words as a direction from heaven,--he snatched up the Bible which he had left on a bench in the garden, and applied to himself the first words he found as a watch-word given by the Lord. He opened it, and the first words that met his eyes were those in Rom. xiii. 14, “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ." These words diffused at once, repose, clearness, and confidence in his inmost soul. He now knew what he had to do,-to forget the things that were behind and renounce self, to resign himself to the Redeemer, who had called him to himself to submit to his guidance, and in him to forget himself. The few moments in which he MANY PROFESSORS ONLY FORMALISTS. 167 formed these resolutions, owed their incalculable importance to their connection with the whole preceding development of his life, including so many different stages. CHAPTER II. NOMINAL AND GENUINE CHRISTIANS-SEPARATISM- SINCE SO many persons, as we have seen in the foregoing pages, became converts to Christianity merely from outward considerations, or remained in communion with the church merely from the force of habit, we cannot be surprised that on such persons Christianity could not evince its sanctifying power. Hence the great mass of those persons who formed no just conceptions of the nature of Christianity, and of the Christian calling, supposed that they had done enough by frequenting the churches on the principal religious festivals, and looked upon serious occupation with the concerns of Christianity as belonging only to the clergy and to monks. This led Chrysostom to complain that the churches which were thronged on feast-days, on other occasions were visited 66 'those who only by a few. Where are now," he says, thronged to us at the feasts? I mourn for them, when I think how many brethren I have lost, how few pay attention to their salvation, and how the great part of the body of the church resembles a corpse." In another homily, he says, in reference to people who supposed that reading the Bible was not their business: "I always exhort and shall never cease to exhort `you, not merely to read the Bible here in church, but also occupy your time in reading it at home, and I would also have you pay attention to it in your private meetings. For let no one utter those cold and culpable words, 'I must always be at the court; I have civil business to manage; I have a trade to carry on; I have a wife and children to support; 66 domestic affairs demand my attention; I am a man of busi ness; it is not my concern to read the Holy Scriptures, but theirs who have renounced the world, who have withdrawn to the top of the mountain.' What dost thou say, O man? Is it not thy business to occupy thyself with the Bible, when thou art surrounded by a thousand cares? On the contrary, thou needest it more than other persons. They are at rest, as if in port. But we who are driven about on the ocean of life, require continual exhortation from Holy Writ. They are far from the scene of conflict; thou art in the midst of the combat, and art continually receiving fresh wounds; hence thou needest more means of salvation. Many cares, many inducements to anger or to sorrow, much nourishment of vanity and pride, much suffering surrounds us on all sides; a thousand darts are directed against us from every quarter. Hence we continually need the whole armour of the Holy Scriptures." As in the apostolic age, those Christians who distinguished themselves from the corrupt heathen world by their serious and strict life, were ridiculed by the heathen as gloomy enthusiasts; so now those persons were ridiculed by light-minded nominal Christians, who were not satisfied to confess the Saviour with their lips, but felt impelled by the inspiration of faith to follow him in their practice. Augustin says, "As whoever among the heathen resolves to be a Christian, meets with harsh language, so those among Christians who wish to be better Christians, and to be strict in their Christianity, suffer reproaches from their fellow-Christians. And of what use is it, my brother, that thou hast found a place where there is no heathen? No one calumniates Christians here, excepting Christians, since here not a single heathen, is to be found; but there are many Christians who are leading bad lives. And whoever dwelling near them, wishes to live a truly Christian life, to be sober among the intemperate, to be chaste among the unchaste,among those who consult astrologers, to worship God sincerely, and to keep clear of such practices,-to go only to church, among the lovers of pleasure who flock only to the theatre,he will find his calumniators among Christians themselves, and must endure many a hard word from them. They say, 'Thou great man, thou saint, thou art, to be sure, an Elijah, a Peter; thou art indeed come down from heaven And in another THE PIOUS RIDICULED AS ENTHUSIASTS. 6 169 sermon the same father * says: "Whoever begins to live to God, to despise the world, not to wish to revenge himself for injuries inflicted, not to long after the riches of this world, not to seek earthly good here, but to contemn it, to think of the Lord alone, not to turn aside from Christ's ways-of such not only do the heathen say, ' He is mad,' but what is still more to be lamented, since in the church itself so many sleep and will not wake, they say of their own people, their fellow-Christians, What has happened to thee? Why dost thou live so? Wilt thou be alone a Christian? Why dost thou not do what others do? Why art thou not present at the shows, like others? Why dost thou not use charms and amulets (remedia et ligaturas)? Why dost thou not consult soothsayers and astrologers, like other people?"" And elsewhere he says, "He calls on Christ aright who says, not with his lips but with his life, 'The world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.' He begins to despise the world, to esteem as nothing what men love; he despises injuries; he seeks no revenge; he prays for his enemies. When he begins to act in this manner, all his relations and friends are in an uproar. Those who love the world gainsay him: 'Why dost thou act like a madman? Thou art extravagant. Are other people no Christians? This is folly, madness.' Augustin here spoke of what he had experienced at the turning-point of his own life, and added from his own experience, for the benefit of those who wished not to place themselves on a level with the world, "I will tell you what many besides myself have experienced in the name of Christ; for the church does not cease to let such go forth from her bosom. When a Christian first begins to live piously, to show a glowing zeal in good works, to despise the world, he finds, since his mode of life strikes them as a novelty, that lukewarm Christians treat him with reproach and contradiction. * Incipiat mundum contemnere, inopi sua distribuere, nihilo habere que homines amant, contemnat injurias, non appetat vindicari, paret maxillam percutienti, oret pro inimicis; si quis ei abstulerit sua, non repetat; si quid alicui abstulerit, reddat quadruplum. Cum ista facere cœperit omnes sui cognati, affines, amici commoventur. Qui diligunt sæculum, contradicunt. Quid insanis? Nimius es; numquid alii non sunt Christiani? 88, § 12, 13. Ista stultitia est, ista dementia est.-August. Serm. But if he persists and conquers them by endurance, is not negligent of good works, then, at last, those who before would have hindered him begin to imitate him; for they find fault, bluster and exclaim against him as long as they can hope to make him give way. But if they see themselves conquered by his persistency, they turn round and begin to say, 'A great, a holy man! how happy is he whom God has so blessed."" Those persons who were animated with the fire of holy zeal inthe midst of a generation of cold and lukewarm Christians would have acted best to let their light shine in their midst, and to testify among them, by word and conduct, of the virtues of him who had called them out of darkness into his marvellous light, in order to attract others to him who dwelt and operated within them. But many in the first glow of their awakening fled into the deserts, in order to escape- the prevalent corruption, since their ardour could not endure the indifference of other professed Christians to divine things, and they were filled with disgust at the moral corruption of a world glossed over with a semblance of Christianity; others, who could not deny the necessity of Christian communion and outward activity, united themselves with likeminded persons, in a state of separation from other society, in a convent; others altogether renounced the church, and maintained that on account of the wickedness tolerated in it, it had ceased to be a genuine church of Christ, for such an one must necessarily be pure and holy, and they sought to form for themselves a church bearing this mark. But all these classes of persons forgot that it is the calling of Christians, not to flee outwardly from the world, but as Vigilantius, the opponent of monkery, rightly observed, to combat it in dependence on Him who said to his disciples, and equally to all believers: "These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace: in the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world ;" and who prayed for them to his Father: "I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil." They forgot that the Christian, as long as he is in the world, has to combat with the world, whether it be the world pressing upon him from without, or the world in his own bosom, a far more dangerous enemy, and but for which |