The Confessions of Saint Augustine | Page 5

heart, and
inebriate it, that I may forget my ills, and embrace Thee, my sole good! What art Thou to
me? In Thy pity, teach me to utter it. Or what am I to Thee that Thou demandest my love,
and, if I give it not, art wroth with me, and threatenest me with grievous woes? Is it then a
slight woe to love Thee not? Oh! for Thy mercies' sake, tell me, O Lord my God, what
Thou art unto me. Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. So speak, that I may hear.
Behold, Lord, my heart is before Thee; open Thou the ears thereof, and say unto my soul,
I am thy salvation. After this voice let me haste, and take hold on Thee. Hide not Thy
face from me. Let me die- lest I die- only let me see Thy face.
Narrow is the mansion of my soul; enlarge Thou it, that Thou mayest enter in. It is
ruinous; repair Thou it. It has that within which must offend Thine eyes; I confess and
know it. But who shall cleanse it? or to whom should I cry, save Thee? Lord, cleanse me
from my secret faults, and spare Thy servant from the power of the enemy. I believe, and
therefore do I speak. Lord, Thou knowest. Have I not confessed against myself my
transgressions unto Thee, and Thou, my God, hast forgiven the iniquity of my heart? I
contend not in judgment with Thee, who art the truth; I fear to deceive myself; lest mine
iniquity lie unto itself. Therefore I contend not in judgment with Thee; for if Thou, Lord,
shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall abide it?
Yet suffer me to speak unto Thy mercy, me, dust and ashes. Yet suffer me to speak, since
I speak to Thy mercy, and not to scornful man. Thou too, perhaps, despisest me, yet wilt
Thou return and have compassion upon me. For what would I say, O Lord my God, but
that I know not whence I came into this dying life (shall I call it?) or living death. Then
immediately did the comforts of Thy compassion take me up, as I heard (for I remember
it not) from the parents of my flesh, out of whose substance Thou didst sometime fashion
me. Thus there received me the comforts of woman's milk. For neither my mother nor my
nurses stored their own breasts for me; but Thou didst bestow the food of my infancy
through them, according to Thine ordinance, whereby Thou distributest Thy riches
through the hidden springs of all things. Thou also gavest me to desire no more than
Thou gavest; and to my nurses willingly to give me what Thou gavest them. For they,
with a heaven-taught affection, willingly gave me what they abounded with from Thee.
For this my good from them, was good for them. Nor, indeed, from them was it, but
through them; for from Thee, O God, are all good things, and from my God is all my
health. This I since learned, Thou, through these Thy gifts, within me and without,
proclaiming Thyself unto me. For then I knew but to suck; to repose in what pleased, and
cry at what offended my flesh; nothing more.
Afterwards I began to smile; first in sleep, then waking: for so it was told me of myself,
and I believed it; for we see the like in other infants, though of myself I remember it not.
Thus, little by little, I became conscious where I was; and to have a wish to express my
wishes to those who could content them, and I could not; for the wishes were within me,
and they without; nor could they by any sense of theirs enter within my spirit. So I flung

about at random limbs and voice, making the few signs I could, and such as I could, like,
though in truth very little like, what I wished. And when I was not presently obeyed (my
wishes being hurtful or unintelligible), then I was indignant with my elders for not
submitting to me, with those owing me no service, for not serving me; and avenged
myself on them by tears. Such have I learnt infants to be from observing them; and that I
was myself such, they, all unconscious, have shown me better than my nurses who knew
it.
And, lo! my infancy died long since, and I live. But Thou, Lord, who for ever livest, and
in whom nothing dies: for before the foundation of the worlds, and before all that can be
called "before," Thou art, and art God and Lord of all which Thou hast created: in Thee
abide, fixed for ever, the first causes of all things unabiding;