upon her child. It appears that Monica was one of a Christian household, and it is a striking fact that she attributed much of the good discipline from which she had profited in early youth to a faithful female servant, "old and decrepit," who had been long in the family, having carried her father when he was a child; and who, for that reason, and her great age, and excellent conversation, had remained a member of the same household, much respected by the parents. Over the younger branches of the family this woman appears to have exercised a strict but wholesome rule, not unfrequently checking what she regarded as a tendency to excess, even in innocent indulgence; and on one occasion rebuking the young Monica so sharply that, although stung to the quick by the bitterness of the reproof, she saw in a moment the dangerous nature of her fault, and "instantly condemned and forsook it."

There would seem throughout to have been this great difference betwixt Monica and her son, that she was self-disciplined in a remarkable degree, and therefore strong to renounce whatever she believed it her duty to give up; while his tendency appears to have been to cherish to the very last those vices which seemed to require that his being should be crushed before he could resign them. From his pagan father perhaps the son inherited this weakness, for certainly there is nothing in the record he has left of his mother's character and habits bearing, in this respect, any resemblance to his own.

In the married life of this admirable woman we find the same virtue of self-government most clearly

answer,

manifested; for, in addition to other wrongs, perhaps even more difficult to bear with patience, it seems that she was at times subjected to the personal vio lence of a choleric husband. "Yet had it never been heard, nor by any token perceived, that Patricius had beaten his wife." And to those gossips who would fain have meddled with these, her own private matters, and were curious to know how such a temper as her husband's could be calmly borne, she had this judicious "that she had learned not to resist an angry husband, not in deed only, but even in words. Only when he was smooth and tranquil, and in a temper to receive it, she would give an account of her actions, if haply he had over-hastily taken offence." In the same manner when her mother-in-law had been, by the whisperings of evil servants, incensed against her, "she so overcame, by observance and persevering endurance, and meekness, that in the end these whispering tongues. were silenced," and the two women lived together "with a remarkable sweetness of mutual kindness."

Indeed, such a peace-maker was Monica, even in social life, that when in the course of such conversation as offended feeling sometimes dictates, or when, "hearing on both sides most bitter things, such as indigested choler uses to break out into, before a present friend against an absent enemy; she never would disclose aught unto the other, except what might tend to their reconcilement." Well might her son, when commenting upon these excellences of his mother's character, and the lessons which, through them, he had himself been taught, exclaim, "Such was she, Thyself, O God, her most inward instructor,

teaching her in the school of the heart." . . . “Finally, her own husband, towards the end of his earthly life, did she gain unto Thee. She was also the servant of Thy servants. Whosoever of them knew her, did, in her, much praise and honour Thee; for that, through the witness of the fruits of a holy conversation, they perceived Thy presence in her heart. Of all of us having received the grace of Thy baptism, did she so take care, as though she had been mother of us all; so served s, as if she had been child to us all."

In connection with these raits of character, the son further confesses of his mother, that her endowments, and the fervour of her mind towards divine things, he had before perceived through daily intercourse; yet, in discussing a matter of no small moment, her mind appeared to him of so high an order as that nothing could be more adapted to the study of true wisdom. And in speaking of her ardent love of the Divine Scriptures, he records an answer of hers as confirming his opinion of the superiority of her mind. In discussing the question of what constitutes true happiness, Monica observed: "If a man desires what is good, and has it, he is happy; if evil, though he have it, he is wretched."

It is worthy of observation here, as will often have to be pointed out in the course of this work, how much was done by the respect which the mother's mind and character excited in her son. Had her habitual conversation betrayed weakness of intellect, or even an absence of that method and system of thought which, as a scholar and a rhetorician, he must have

been well able to appreciate, there could never have been in his intercourse with his mother that charm, over which he lingers as if the most beautiful picture of his whole life had been that which embraced her character, and her affection for himself.

In his own nature Augustine was eminently capable of this moral and intellectual beauty, for we cannot call it less, seeing that harmony is beauty. Indeed his own intense perception and love of beauty, too scrupulously regarded by him as a snare, is strikingly manifested in those portions of his "Confessions" where he calls up the remembrance of the manner in which he considers himself to have been betrayed by his senses into sin. As if the very perception of the glory and delight which God has scattered throughout His great universe was not the legitimate office of these senses, that so they might be ever reaping rich harvests of enjoyment, wherewith to fill the garners of the heart with gratitude, and hope, and love.

"There remains," he says, on one occasion, "the pleasure of these eyes of my flesh, on which to make my confessions, and so to conclude the temptations of the lusts of the flesh, which yet assail me, groaning earnestly, and desiring to be clothed upon with my home from heaven. The eyes love fair and varied forms, and soft and bright colours. And these affect me, waking, the whole day; nor is any rest given me from them, as there is from musical, sometimes in silence from all voices. For this queen of colours, the light, bathing all which we behold, wherever 1 am through the day, gliding by me in varied forms, soothes me when engaged in other things, and not observing;

and so strongly doth it entwine itself that, if it be suddenly withdrawn, it is with longing sought for; and, if absent long, saddeneth the mind."

But the mother of Augustine was destined to know a sorrow deeper perhaps than any which belonged to her married life; and had to wait with a patient endurance, such as none but the believing experience, while watching the evil courses, and sometimes the utter abandonment to licentious pleasure, in which her son so long persisted. She was, however, not only a believing, but a prayerful, and consequently a hopeful mother. From the first she seems to have been desirous of dedicating her child to God; and on one occasion, when Augustine, while yet a boy, was suffering under severe and dangerous illness, and himself begged that the rite of baptism might be administered to him, his mother, "always travailing in birth for his eternal salvation," hastened to comply with his de-sires; but, notwithstanding the ardour of her feelings, recollecting that this desire might be only the impulse of an anxious moment, and fearing that a return to ife and its temptations might be attended with a yet more dangerous relapse into sin, the baptism was deferred, and the mother's fears were but too soon confirmed.

As a boy, Augustine says of himself, "I had already heard of an eternal life, promised us through the humility of the Lord our God stooping to our pride;" and throughout all the dubious ways in which he sought for satisfaction or delight, he was pursued by something like a phantom of happiness, dimly apprehended; never really found. To a nature like his, so