About this time, O Lord, I observed men praying to thee,
and I learned from them to conceive thee -- after my capacity for
understanding as it was then -- to be some great Being, who,
though not visible to our senses, was able to hear and help us.
Thus as a boy I began to pray to thee, my Help and my Refuge, and,
in calling on thee, broke the bands of my tongue. Small as I was,
I prayed with no slight earnestness that I might not be beaten at
school. And when thou didst not heed me -- for that would have
been giving me over to my folly -- my elders and even my parents
too, who wished me no ill, treated my stripes as a joke, though
they were then a great and grievous ill to me.
15. Is there anyone, O Lord, with a spirit so great, who
cleaves to thee with such steadfast affection (or is there even a
kind of obtuseness that has the same effect) -- is there any man
who, by cleaving devoutly to thee, is endowed with so great a
courage that he can regard indifferently those racks and hooks and
other torture weapons from which men throughout the world pray so
fervently to be spared; and can they scorn those who so greatly
fear these torments, just as my parents were amused at the
torments with which our teachers punished us boys? For we were no
less afraid of our pains, nor did we beseech thee less to escape
them.
Pages:
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54