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XIX.

"Let this hint suffice

The Cross once seen is death to every vice;

Else He that hung there suffer'd all this pain,
Bled, groan'd, and agonised, and died, in vain."

KING ALFRED, after his conversion, used to spend night after night in a quiet retreat, poring over the Book of Psalms, and, like Luther, crying, "More light! more light!" In a secluded villa near Milan was now to be seen, for many successive weeks, the meek son of Monica, sitting, like another Mary, often for half the night, at the feet of Jesus, hearing His words. "Oh! in what accents," says he, "spake I unto Thee, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs and sounds of devotion! How was I-as yet a novice in Thy real love-by them kindled towards Thee, and on fire to rehearse them, if

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possible, through the whole world against the pride of mankind!"

But we return, for a few moments, to the garden.

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His first impulse, that night, was, to "tell his friend Alypius what had come to him; and so, "putting his finger between and also some other mark," he closed the book, and, "with a calm countenance," communicated the joyful tidings.

"Let me see," said Alypius, "what you have read." Opening the place he shewed him; and the words following caught his eye, "Him that is weak in the faith, receive." "This," says Augustine, "he applied to himself, and disclosed to me. And by this admonition was he strengthened; and by a good resolution and purpose, and most corresponding to his character, wherein he did always very far differ from me for the better, he without any turbulent delay joined me."

His next thought was, to hasten to Monica; and to her he "related in order how it had taken place." Long had she "gone forth weeping, bearing the precious seed;" and now

it was like life's harvest-home to her, with its "sheaves" of joy. "She leapt for gladness," Augustine writes, "and triumphed, and blessed God who had done for her above what she could ask or think. She perceived that Thou hadst given her more for me, than she was wont to beg by her pitiful and most sorrowful groanings. For Thou convertedst me unto Thyself, so that I sought neither wife, nor any hope of this world, standing in that 'rule' of faith where Thou hadst shewed me unto her in a vision so many years before. And Thou didst 'convert her mourning into joy' much more plentiful than she had desired, and in a much more precious and purer way than she erst required by having grandchildren of my body."

Vinet speaks of a detaching and an attaching. Nature begins with the detaching; hence its painful struggles after holiness, and its dark and dreary bondage. Grace attaches first-attaches to the person of the living and loving Saviour; and, a new affection thus possessing the soul, the detaching follows easily, naturally. “I saw with my heart the Lord Jesus," said an

Indian warrior to Brainerd, one day; "and it stole my heart away." Augustine had now felt the expulsive power of the same new affection; and, like Levi at the receipt of custom, he had resolved to leave all and follow Jesus.*

It was within some twenty days of the "Vacation of the Vintage ;" and, determining, "not tumultuously to tear, but gently to withdraw, the service of his tongue from the marts of lip-labour," he "endured" these few days, that, having been "purchased of the Lord, no more to return for sale," he might "then in a regu lar way take his leave."

Not, indeed, without certain grave misgivings, did his tender conscience suffer him to "sit even one hour in the chair of lies." "Thou hadst pierced our hearts," he writes,

* Possidius, referring to this period, says: -"Mox ex intimis cordis medullis conversus ad Deum, spem omnem, quam habebat in sæculo, dereliquit; jam non uxorem, non filios carnis, non divitias, non honores, sæculi quærens; sed Deo cum suis servire statuit, in illo et ex illo pusillo grege esse studens, quem Dominus alloquitur, dicens, 'Nolito timere, pusille grex, quoniam complacuit Patri vestro dare vobis regnum. Vendite quæ possidetis,' &c.—et super fidei fundamentum ædificare desiderans non ligna, foenum et stipulam, sed aurum, argentum, et lapides pretiosos."

"with Thy charity, and we carried Thy words as it were fixed in our entrails; and the examples of Thy servants-whom for black thou hadst made bright, and for dead, alive-being piled together in the receptacle of our thoughts, kindled and burnt up that our heavy torpor, that we should not sink down to the abyss; and they fired us so vehemently that all the blasts of 'subtle tongues' from gainsayers might only inflame us the more fiercely, not extinguish us."

Nevertheless, he decided to wait. "It seemed," he adds, "like ostentation, not to wait for the vacation now so near, but to quit beforehand a public profession which was before the eyes of all,-so that all, looking on this act of mine, and observing how near was the time of vintage which I wished to anticipate, would talk much of me, as if I had desired to appear some great one. And what end had it served me, that people should repute and dispute upon my purpose, and that our 'good should be evil spoken of?'"

Meanwhile, the brief interval had its own "full joy." "Submitting his neck to Chrst's

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