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First BookBoyhood
Boyhood
Passing hence from infancy, I came to boyhood, or rather it came to me,
displacing infancy. Nor did that depart, - (for whither went it?) - and yet it
was no more. For I was no longer a speechless infant, but a speaking boy. This
I remember; and have since observed how I learned to speak. It was not that my
elders taught me words (as, soon after, other learning) in any set method; but
I, longing by cries and broken accents and various motions of my limbs to
express my thoughts, that so I might have my will, and yet unable to express
all I willed, or to whom I willed, did myself, by the understanding which
Thou, my God, gavest me, practise the sounds in my memory. When they named any
thing, and as they spoke turned towards it, I saw and remembered that they
called what they would point out by the name they uttered. And that they meant
this thing and no other was plain from the motion of their body, the natural
language, as it were, of all nations, expressed by the countenance, glances of
the eye, gestures of the limbs, and tones of the voice, indicating the
affections of the mind, as it pursues, possesses, rejects, or shuns. And thus
by constantly hearing words, as they occurred in various sentences, I
collected gradually for what they stood; and having broken in my mouth to
these signs, I thereby gave utterance to my will. Thus I exchanged with those
about me these current signs of our wills, and so launched deeper into the
stormy intercourse of human life, yet depending on parental authority and the
beck of elders.
O God my God, what miseries and mockeries did I now experience, when
obedience to my teachers was proposed to me, as proper in a boy, in order that
in this world I might prosper, and excel in tongue-science, which should serve
to the "praise of men," and to deceitful riches. Next I was put to school to
get learning, in which I (poor wretch) knew not what use there was; and yet,
if idle in learning, I was beaten. For this was judged right by our
forefathers; and many, passing the same course before us, framed for us weary
paths, through which we were fain to pass; multiplying toil and grief upon the
sons of Adam. But, Lord, we found that men called upon Thee, and we learnt
from them to think of Thee (according to our powers) as of some great One,
who, though hidden from our senses, couldst hear and help us. For so I began,
as a boy, to pray to Thee, my aid and refuge; and broke the fetters of my
tongue to call on Thee, praying Thee, though small, yet with no small
earnestness, that I might not be beaten at school. And when Thou heardst me
not (not thereby giving me over to folly ^29), my elders, yea, my very
parents, who yet wished me no ill, mocked my stripes, my then great and
grievous ill.
[Footnote 29: Ps. xxi. 3. - Vulg.]
Is there, Lord, any of soul so great, and cleaving to Thee with so
intense affection (for a sort of stupidity will in a way do it); but is there
any one who, from cleaving devoutly to Thee, is endued with so great a spirit,
that he can think as lightly of the racks and hooks and other torments
(against which, throughout all lands, men call on Thee with extreme dread),
mocking at those by whom they are feared most bitterly, as our parents mocked
the torments which we suffered in boyhood from our masters? For we feared not
our torments less; nor prayed we less to Thee to escape them. And yet we
sinned, in writing or reading or studying less than was exacted of us. For we
wanted not, O Lord, memory or capacity, whereof Thy will gave enough for our
age; but our sole delight was play; and for this we were punished by those who
yet themselves were doing the like. But elder folks` idleness is called
"business"; that of boys, being really the same, is punished by those elders;
and none commiserates either boys or men. For will any of sound discretion
approve of my being beaten as a boy, because, by playing at ball, I made less
progress in studies which I was to learn, only that, as a man, I might play
more unbeseemingly? and what else did he who beat me? who, if worsted in some
trifling discussion with his fellow-tutor, was more embittered and jealous
than I when beaten at ball by a play-fellow?
And yet, I sinned herein, O Lord God, the Creator and Disposer of all
things in nature, of sin the Disposer ^30 only, O Lord my God, I sinned in
transgressing the commands of my parents and those my masters. For what they,
with whatever motive, would have me learn, I might afterwards have put to good
use. For I disobeyed, not from a better choice, but from love of play, loving
the pride of victory in my contests, and to have my ears tickled with lying
fables, that they might itch the more; the same curiosity flashing from my
eyes more and more, for the shows and games of my elders. Yet those who give
these shows are in such esteem, that almost all wish the same for their
children, and yet are very willing that they should be beaten, if those very
games detain them from the studies, whereby they would have them attain to be
the givers of them. Look with pity, Lord, on these things, and deliver us who
call upon Thee now; deliver those too who call not on Thee yet, that they may
call on Thee, and Thou mayest deliver them.
[Footnote 30: Ordinator.]
As a boy, then, I had already heard of an eternal life, promised us
through the humility of the Lord our God stooping to our pride; and even from
the womb of my mother, who greatly hoped in Thee, I was sealed with the mark
of His cross and salted with His salt. Thou sawest, Lord, how while yet a boy,
being seized on a time with sudden oppression of the stomach, and like near to
death - Thou sawest my God (for Thou wert my keeper), with what eagerness and
what faith I sought, from the pious care of my mother and Thy Church, the
mother of us all, the baptism of Thy Christ my God and Lord. Whereupon the
mother of my flesh, being much troubled (since, with a heart pure in Thy
faith, she even more lovingly travailed in birth ^31 of my salvation), would
in eager haste have provided for my consecration and cleansing by the
health-giving sacraments, confessing Thee, Lord Jesus, for the remission of
sins, unless I had suddenly recovered. And so, as if I must needs be again
polluted should I live, my cleansing was deferred, because the defilements of
sin would, after that washing, bring greater and more perilous guilt. I then
already believed: and my mother, and the whole household except my father:
yet, did not he prevail over the power of my mother`s piety in me, that as he
did not yet believe, so neither should I. For it was her earnest care that
Thou my God, rather than he, shouldest be my father; and in this Thou didst
aid her to prevail over her husband, whom she the better, obeyed, therein also
obeying Thee, who hast so commanded.
[Footnote 31: Gal. iv. 19.]
I beseech Thee, my God, I would fain know, if so Thou willest, for what
purpose my baptism was then deferred? was it for my good that the rein was
laid loose, as it were, upon me, for me to sin? or was it not laid loose? If
not, why does it still echo in our ears on all sides, "Let him alone, let him
do as he will, for he is not yet baptised?" but as to bodily health, no one
says, "Let him be worse wounded, for he is not yet healed." How much better
then, had I been at once healed; and then by my friend`s diligence and my own,
my soul`s recovered health had been kept safe in Thy keeping who gavest it.
Better truly. But how many and great waves of temptation seemed to hang over
me after my boyhood! These my mother foresaw; and preferred to expose to them
the clay whence I might afterwards be moulded, than the very cast, when made.
In boyhood itself, however (so much less dreaded for me than youth), I
loved not study, and hated to be forced to it. Yet I was forced; and this was
well done towards me, but I did not well; for unless forced, I had not learnt.
But no one doth well against his will, even though what he doth, be well. Yet
neither did they well who forced me, but what was well came to me from Thee,
my God. For they were regardless how I should employ what they forced me to
learn, except to satiate the insatiate desires of a wealthy beggary, and a
shameful glory. But Thou, by whom the very hairs of our head are numbered, ^32
didst use for my good the error of all who urged me to learn; and my own, who
would not learn, Thou didst use for my punishment - a fit penalty for one, so
small a boy and so great a sinner. So by those who did not well, Thou didst
well for me; and by my own sin Thou didst justly punish me. For Thou hast
commanded, and so it is, that every inordinate affection should be its own
punishment.
[Footnote 32: Matt. x. 30.]
But why did I so much hate the Greek, which I studied as a boy? I do not
yet fully know. For the Latin I loved; not what my first masters, but what the
so-called grammarians taught me. For those first lessons, reading, writing,
and arithmetic, I thought as great a burden and penalty as any Greek. And yet
whence was this too, but from the sin and vanity of this life, because I was
flesh, and a breath that passeth away and cometh not again? ^33 For those
first lessons were better certainly, because more certain; by them I obtained,
and still retain, the power of reading what I find written and myself writing
what I will; whereas in the others, I was forced to learn the wanderings of
one Aeneas, forgetful of my own, and to weep for dead Dido, because she killed
herself for love; the while, with dry eyes, I endured my miserable self dying
among these things, far from Thee, O God my life.
[Footnote 33: Ps. lxxviii. 39.]
For what more miserable than a miserable being who commiserates not
himself; weeping the death of Dido for love to Aeneas, but weeping not his own
death for want of love to Thee, O God. Thou light of my heart, Thou bread of
my inmost soul, Thou Power who givest vigour to my mind, who quickenest my
thoughts, I loved Thee not. I committed fornication against Thee, and all
around me thus fornicating there echoed, "Well done! well done! for the
friendship of this world is fornication against Thee; ^34 and "Well done! well
done!" echoes on till one is ashamed to be thus a man. And all this I wept
not, I who wept for Dido slain, and "seeking by the sword a stroke and wound
extreme," myself seeking the while a worse extreme, the extremest and lowest
of Thy creatures, having forsaken Thee, earth passing into the earth. And if
forbid to read all this, I was grieved that I might not read what grieved me.
Madness like this is thought a higher and a richer learning, than that by
which I learned to read and write.
[Footnote 34: Jam. iv. 4.]
But now, my God, cry Thou aloud in my soul; and let Thy truth tell me,
"Not so, not so. Far better was that first study." For, lo, I would readily
forget the wanderings of Aeneas and all the rest, rather than how to read and
write. But over the entrance of the Grammar School is a veil drawn! true; yet
is this not so much an emblem of aught recondite, as a cloak of error. Let not
those, whom I no longer fear, cry out against me, while I confess to Thee, my
God, whatever my soul will, and acquiesce in the condemnation of my evil ways,
that I may love Thy good ways. Let not either buyers or sellers of
grammar-learning cry out against me. For if I question them whether it be true
that Aeneas came on a time to Carthage, as the poet tells, the less learned
will reply that they know not, the more learned that he never did. But should
I ask with what letters the name "Aeneas" is written, every one who has learnt
this will answer me aright, as to the signs which men have conventionally
settled. If again, I should ask which might be forgotten with least detriment
to the concerns of life, reading and writing or these poetic fictions? who
does not foresee what all must answer who have not wholly forgotten
themselves? I sinned, then, when as a boy I preferred those empty to those
more profitable studies, or rather loved the one and hated the other. "One and
one, two;" "two and two, four;" this was to me a hateful singsong: "the wooden
horse lined with armed men," and "the burning of Troy," ^35 and "Creusa`s
shade and sad similitude," were the choice spectacle of my vanity.
[Footnote 35: Aen. 2.]
Why then did I hate the Greek classics, which have the like tales? For
Homer also curiously wove the like fictions, and is most sweetly-vain, yet
was he bitter to my boyish taste. And so I suppose would Virgil be to Grecian
children, when forced to learn him as I was Homer. Difficulty, in truth, the
difficulty of a foreign tongue, dashed, as it were, with gall all the
sweetness of Grecian fable. For not one word of it did I understand, and to
make me understand I was urged vehemently with cruel threats and punishments.
Time was also (as an infant) I knew no Latin; but this I learned without fear
or suffering, by mere observation, amid the caresses of my nursery and jests
of friends, smiling and sportively encouraging me. This I learned without any
pressure of punishment to urge me on, for my heart urged me to give birth to
its conceptions which I could only do by learning words not of those who
taught, but of those who talked with me; in whose ears also I gave birth to
the thoughts, whatever I conceived. No doubt, then, that a free curiosity has
more force in our learning these things, than a frightful enforcement. Only
this enforcement restrains the rovings of that freedom, through Thy laws, O my
God, Thy laws, from the master`s cane to the martyr`s trials, being able to
temper for us a wholesome bitter, recalling us to Thyself from that deathly
pleasure which lures us from Thee.
Hear, Lord, my prayer; let not my soul faint under Thy discipline, nor
let me faint in confessing unto Thee all Thy mercies, whereby Thou hast drawn
me out of all my most evil ways, that Thou mightest become a delight to me
above all the allurements which I once pursued; that I may most entirely love
Thee, and clasp Thy hand with all my affections, and Thou mayest yet rescue me
from every temptation, even unto the end. For, lo, O Lord, my King and my God,
for Thy service be whatever useful thing my childhood learned; for Thy
service, that I speak, write, read, reckon. For Thou didst grant me Thy
discipline, while I was learning vanities; and my sin of delighting in those
vanities Thou hast forgiven. In them, indeed, I learnt many a useful word, but
these may as well be learned in things not vain; and that is the safe path for
the steps of youth.
But woe is thee, thou torrent of human custom! Who shall stand against
thee? how long shalt thou not be dried up? how long roll the sons of Eve into
that huge and hideous ocean, which even they scarcely overpass who climb the
cross? Did not I read in thee of Jove the thunderer and the adulterer? both,
doubtless, he could not be; but so the feigned thunder might countenance and
pander to real adultery. And now which of our gowned masters lends a sober ear
to one who from their own school cries out, "These were Homer`s fictions,
transferring things human to the gods; would he had brought down things divine
to us!" Yet more truly had he said, "These are indeed his fictions; but
attributing a divine nature to wicked men, that crimes might be no longer
crimes, and whoso commits them might seem to imitate not abandoned men, but
the celestial gods."
And yet, thou hellish torrent, into thee are cast the sons of men with
rich rewards, for compassing such learning; and a great solemnity is made of
it, when this is going on in the forum, within sight of laws appointing a
salary beside the scholar`s payments, and thou lashest thy rocks and roarest,
"Hence words are learnt; hence eloquence; most necessary to gain your ends, or
maintain opinions." As if we should have never known such words as "golden
shower," "lap," beguile," "temples of the heavens," or others in that passage,
unless Terence had brought a lewd youth upon the stage, setting up Jupiter as
his example of seduction.
"Viewing a picture, where the tale was drawn,
Of Jove`s descending in a golden shower
To Danae`s lap, a woman to beguile."
And then mark how he excites himself to lust as by celestial authority:
"And what God? Great Jove,
Who shakes heaven`s highest temples with his thunder,
And I, poor mortal man, not do the game!
I did it, and with all my heart I did it."
Not dne with more easily are the words learnt for all this vileness; but by
their means the vileness is committed with less shame. Not that I blame the
words, being, as it were, choice and precious vessels; but that wine of error
which is drunk to us in them by intoxicated teachers; and if we, too, drink
not, we are beaten, and have no sober judge to whom we may appeal. Yet, O my
God (in whose presence I now without hurt may remember this), all this
unhappily I learnt willingly with great delight, and for this was pronounced
a hopeful boy.
Bear with me, my God, while I say somewhat of my wit, Thy gift, and on
what dotage I wasted it. For a task was set me, troublesome enough to my soul,
upon terms of praise or shame, and fear of stripes, to speak the words of
Juno, as she raged and mourned that she could not
"This Trojan prince from Latium turn."
Which words I had heard that Juno never uttered; but we were forced to go
astray in the footsteps of these poetic fictions, and to say in prose much
what he expressed in verse. And his speaking was most applauded, in whom the
passions of rage and grief were most pre-eminent, and clothed in the most
fitting language, maintaining the dignity of the character. What is it to me,
O my true life, my God, that my declamation was applauded above so many of my
own age and class? is not all this smoke and wind? and was there nothing else
whereon to exercise my wit and tongue? Thy praises, Lord, Thy praises might
have stayed the yet tender shoot of my heart by the prop of Thy Scriptures;
so had it not trailed away amid these empty trifles, a defiled prey for the
fowls of the air. For in more ways than one do men sacrifice to the
rebellious angels.
But what marvel that I was thus carried away to vanities, and went from
Thy presence, O my God, when men were set before me as models, who, if in
relating some action of theirs, in itself not ill, they committed some
barbarism or solecism, being censured, were abashed; but when in rich and
adorned and well-ordered discourse they related their own disordered life,
being bepraised, they gloried? These things Thou seest, Lord, and holdest Thy
peace; long-suffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth. ^36 Wilt Thou hold
Thy peace for ever? and even now Thou drawest out of this horrible gulf the
soul that seeketh Thee, that thirsteth for Thy pleasures, whose heart saith
unto Thee, I have sought Thy face; Thy face, Lord, will I seek. ^37 For
darkened ^38 affections is removal from Thee. For it is not by our feet, or
change of place, that men leave Thee, or return unto Thee. Or did that Thy
younger son look out for horses or chariots, or ships, fly with visible wings,
or journey by the motion of his limbs, that he might in a far country waste in
riotous living all Thou gavest at his departure? a loving Father, when Thou
gavest, and more loving unto him, when he returned empty. So then in lustful,
that is, in darkened affections, is the true distance from Thy face.
[Footnote 36: Ps. lxxxvi. 15.]
[Footnote 37: Ps. xxvii. 8.]
[Footnote 38: Rom. i. 21.]
Behold, O Lord God, yea, behold patiently as Thou art wont, how carefully
the sons of men observe the covenanted rules of letters and syllables received
from those who spake before them, neglecting the eternal covenant of
everlasting salvation received from Thee. Insomuch, that a teacher or learner
of the hereditary laws of pronunciation will more offend men by speaking
without the aspirate, of a "human being," in despite of the laws of grammar,
than if he, a "human being," hate a "human being" in despite of Thine. As if
any enemy could be more hurtful than the hatred with which he is incensed
against him; or cold wound more deeply him whom he persecutes, than he wounds
his own soul by his enmity. Assuredly no science of letters can be so innate
as the record of conscience, "that he is doing to another what from another he
would be loath to suffer." How deep are Thy ways, O God, Thou only great, that
sittest silent on high ^39 and by an unwearied law dispensing penal blindness
to lawless desires. In quest of the fame of eloquence, a man standing before a
human judge, surrounded by a human throng, declaiming against his enemy with
fiercest hatred, will take heed most watchfully, lest, by an error of the
tongue, he murder the word "human being"; but takes no heed, lest, through the
fury of his spirit, he murder the real human being.
[Footnote 39: Is. xxxiii. 3.]
This was the world at whose gate unhappy I lay in my boyhood; this the
stage where I had feared more to commit a barbarism, than having committed
one, to envy those who had not. These things I speak and confess to Thee, my
God; for which I had praise from them, whom I then thought it all virtue to
please. For I saw not the abyss of vileness, wherein I was cast away from
Thine eyes. ^40 Before them what more foul than I was already, displeasing
even such as myself? with innumerable lies deceiving my tutor, my masters, my
parents, from love of play, eagerness to see vain shows and restlessness to
imitate them! Thefts also I committed, from my parents` cellar and table,
enslaved by greediness, or that I might have to give to boys, who sold me
their play, which all the while they liked no less than I. In this play, too,
I often sought unfair conquests, conquered myself meanwhile by vain desire of
pre-eminence. And what could I so ill endure, or, when I detected it,
upbraided I so fiercely, as that I was doing to others? and for which if,
detected, I was upbraided, I chose rather to quarrel than to yield. And is
this the innocence of boyhood? Not so, Lord, not so; I cry Thy mercy, O my
God. For these very sins, as riper years succeed, these very sins are
transferred from tutors and masters, from nuts and balls and sparrows, to
magistrates and kings, to gold and manors and slaves, just as severer
punishments displace the cane. It was the low stature then of childhood which
Thou our King didst commend as an emblem of lowliness, when Thou saidst, Of
such is the kingdom of heaven. ^41
[Footnote 40: Ps. xxxi. 22.]
[Footnote 41: Matt. xix. 14.]
Yet, Lord, to Thee, the Creator and Governor of the universe, most
excellent and most good, thanks were due to Thee our God, even hadst Thou
destined for me boyhood only. For even then I was, lived and felt; and had
implanted providence over my well-being - a trace of that mysterious Unity
whence I was derived: I guarded by the inward sense the entireness of my
senses, and in these minute pursuits, and in my thoughts on things minute, I
learnt to delight in truth, I hated to be deceived, had a vigorous memory, was
gifted with speech, was soothed by friendship, avoided pain, baseness,
ignorance. In so small a creature, what was not wonderful, not admirable? But
all are gifts of my God: it was not I who gave them me; and good these are,
and these together are myself. Good, then, is He that made me, and He is my
good; and before Him will I exult for every good which of a boy I had. For it
was my sin, that not in Him, but in His creatures - myself and others - I
sought for pleasures, sublimities, truths, and so fell headlong into sorrows,
confusions, errors. Thanks be to Thee, my joy and my glory and my confidence,
my God, thanks be to Thee for Thy gifts; but do Thou preserve them to me. For
so wilt Thou preserve me, and those things shall be enlarged and perfected
which Thou hast given me, and I myself shall be with Thee, since even to be
Thou hast given me.
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