Life of Saint Monica

st its charm. The want of principle and of honour in most of them disgusted him in his better moments; nevertheless he was content to enjoy himself in their company. He was even

ged for the old life, with its innocent pleasures;

threw them to the pigs. It was not schoolboy greed that prompted the theft, but the pure delight of doing evil, of tricking the owner of the garden. There was the wild excitement, too, of the daring; t

y natural. He was scarcely likely to be astonished at the fact that his son's boyhood was rather like what his own had been. He was standing, it is true, on the threshol

was devoting herself heart and soul to the old woman, who clung

penetrating everywhere with its light and warmth. He, alas! was far behind his mother. Catechumen though he was, the old temper would often flash out still. Self-conquest was the hardest task that he had ever undertaken, and sometimes he almost lost heart, and was inclined to give it up altogether. Then Monica would gently remind him that with God's help the hardest things were possible, and they would kneel and pray together, and Patricius would take heart again for the f

sum required for his first year at Carthage. He had discovered that it would cost a good deal

d generously and put his purse at Patricius's disposal. The sum required was offered with such delicacy that it could not be declin

knowledge. The idle life at home was certainly the worst thing for him. Hard work and the pursuit of wisdom might steady his wild

on of the East and of the West met and mingled. The bloody combats between men and beasts, the gladiatorial shows that delighted the Romans, were free to all who chose to frequent th

of "smashers" or "upsetters," from their habit of raiding the schools of professors whose teaching they did not approve, and breaking everything on which they could lay hands. They treated new-comers with coarse brutality, but Augustine

rything that life could give; yet he was not happy. "My God," he cried in later years, "with what bitter gall didst Thou in Thy

d with gratitude and love. The sorrows of the past were all forgotten in the joy of the present, that happy union at the feet of Christ. There was but one cause for sadness-Patricius's health was failing. His mother had already shown him the joys of a Christian deathbed. She had passed away smiling, with their han

e spoke of his approaching death to Monica, and asked her to help him to make a worthy preparation for Baptism, which he desired to re

e had made her suffer. No, she must not grieve, he told her; the parting would be but for a little while, the meeting for all eternity. She had been his angel, he said; he owed all his joy to her. It was her love, her patience, that had done it all. She had shown him the be

rewell to her husband, and one more soul that she h