The Confessions of Saint Augustine | Page 8

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 a 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 only, O Lord my God, I sinned in transgressing the commands of my
parents and those of 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.

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 my flesh, being much troubled (since, with a heart pure in Thy faith, she even
more lovingly travailed in birth 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.
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 friends' 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