[276] These were the books in
which I engaged in dialogue with my friends, and also those in
soliloquy before thee alone.[277] And there are my letters to
Nebridius, who was still absent.[278]
When would there be enough time to recount all thy great
blessings which thou didst bestow on us in that time, especially
as I am hastening on to still greater mercies? For my memory
recalls them to me and it is pleasant to confess them to thee, O
Lord: the inward goads by which thou didst subdue me and how thou
broughtest me low, leveling the mountains and hills of my
thoughts, straightening my crookedness, and smoothing my rough
ways. And I remember by what means thou also didst subdue
Alypius, my heart's brother, to the name of thy only Son, our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ -- which he at first refused to have
inserted in our writings. For at first he preferred that they
should smell of the cedars of the schools[279] which the Lord hath
now broken down, rather than of the wholesome herbs of the Church,
hostile to serpents.[280]
8. O my God, how did I cry to thee when I read the psalms of
David, those hymns of faith, those paeans of devotion which leave
no room for swelling pride! I was still a novice in thy true
love, a catechumen keeping holiday at the villa, with Alypius, a
catechumen like myself.
Pages:
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314