prayed Thee, as I could, to heal my sorrow; but Thou didst not." On their return, he "went and bathed," having heard that the bath had its name from its "driving sadness from the mind; " but no relief came-he was “the same as before he had bathed," for "the bitterness of sorrow could not exude out of his heart." Then, going to rest, he "slept, and woke again," his "grief not a little softened;" and, as he was alone in his bed, he remembered those "true verses of Ambrosc"

66 Maker of all, the Lord,

And ruler of the height;

Who, robing day in light hath pour'd

Soft slumbers o'er the night;

That to our limbs the power

Of toil may be renew'd,

And hearts be raised that sink and cower,

And sorrow be subdued."

By and by, as the stunning grief wore off, "I recovered," says he, "by little and little, my former thoughts of Thy handmaid-her holy conversation towards Thee, her holy tenderness and observance towards us, whereof I was suddenly deprived; and I was minded to

weep, in Thy sight, for them and for myself, in her behalf and in my own. And I gave way to the tears which I before restrained, to overflow as much as they desired; reposing my heart upon them: and it found rest in them, for it was in Thy ears, not in those of man who would have scornfully interpreted my weeping."

"And now, Lord," he adds, "in writing I confess it unto Thee: read it who will, and interpret it how he will: and, if he finds sin therein, that I wept for my mother for a small portion of an hour-the mother who for the time was dead to mine who had for many years wept for me that I might live in Thine eyes, let him not deride me, but rather, if he be one of large charity, let him weep himself for my sins unto Thee, the Father of all the brethren of Thy Christ."

eyes,

It was late in the autumn of 387, and in Monica's fifty-sixth year.

XXI.

"Thy will such an entrenching is,

As passeth thought!

To it, all strength, all subtleties

Are things of nought."

On the road from Ostia, there was seen travelling, one day, a little company of sable mourners-weighed down, like the two friends going to Emmaus, by some mysterious grief. And yet like their prototypes-as they "walked and were sad," a gleam of sunshine would shoot athwart their faces, as if within them their hearts "burned." It was Augustine-bereaved and stricken, yet brightened by a most blessed hope-on his way for a little season to Rome, before resuming his journey homeward.

Augustine at Rome! the future Doctor-the meek, childlike disciple,

"Within the ancient city! his feet

Standing within the ruin'd theatre,

Where gladiators fought, and Christians bled!
The past seem'd present,

And slaughter'd martyrs rose to live and speak!"

Ah! even already there was little else there than the past, with which a soul so simple in its faith, so warm in its Christ-affection, could have fellowship. Augustine's Rome was the Rome of St. Paul, not that of Hildebrand and of Borgia. The great Church-father was a living soul; and what communion has the living with the dead?

Late in the summer, he once more set out for Africa. Landing at Carthage, he sojourned for some days with a friend who, like himself, since they last met, had found Christ, and, "in answer to prayer," had just been raised up from the gates of the grave. Then, repairing to his native town-where he had a small estate, left him by his father, he found a retreat such as his soul coveted, after its recent tossings. He was joined by a few brethren; and with them he freely shared his patrimony,dedicating the next three years to study and to

prayer. As from the desert with its secret trials and triumphs of faith-not from scenes of fleshly excitement-the Master had gone forth to His ministry, so the disciple was to go forth on his errand, not from the dreams of the Academic grove-still less from the world's enticing blandishments, but from the quiet solitude with its stern lessons and its searching heavenly discipline.

"Where is the wise, or the learn'd, or the good, that
sought not solitude for thinking,

And from seclusion's secret vale brought forth his
precious fruits?"

After his own quaint fashion, he gives us sundry glimpses into the retreat.

/ Luther tells us he learned his theology upon his knees. If Augustine had already learned on his knees the theology of conversion, he was now to learn, in a like method, the theology of the inner life. That "warring" especially of the two "laws"-that "lusting of the flesh against the spirit,"-which constrained the convert of Tarsus to exclaim, with such intenseness of emotion, "O wretched man