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Augustine

"Confessions And Enchiridion"

Is
not such an animated creature as this wonderful and praiseworthy?
But all these are gifts of my God; I did not give them to myself.
Moreover, they are good, and they all together constitute myself.
Good, then, is he that made me, and he is my God; and before him
will I rejoice exceedingly for every good gift which, even as a
boy, I had. But herein lay my sin, that it was not in him, but in
his creatures -- myself and the rest -- that I sought for
pleasures, honors, and truths. And I fell thereby into sorrows,
troubles, and errors. Thanks be to thee, my joy, my pride, my
confidence, my God -- thanks be to thee for thy gifts; but do thou
preserve them in me. For thus wilt thou preserve me; and those
things which thou hast given me shall be developed and perfected,
and I myself shall be with thee, for from thee is my being.

BOOK TWO

He concentrates here on his sixteenth year, a year of idleness,
lust, and adolescent mischief. The memory of stealing some pears
prompts a deep probing of the motives and aims of sinful acts. "I
became to myself a wasteland."
CHAPTER I
1.


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