More from "The Confessions of St. Augustine"

I'm slowly making my way through The Confessions of St. Augustine. It is a book best taken in small doses and pondered.

Here are two more quotes:

I will love Thee, O Lord, and thank thee and confess unto Thy name, because you have forgiven me these great sins and these evil doings of mine. To your grace I owe it, and to your mercy, that you have melted away my sins like ice. And to your grace too I owe the not doing of whatever evil I have not done. For what evil might I not have done, I who loved crime simply for crime's sake? Yes, I own it: all these evils have been forgiven me - both those which I committed of my own will and those which, because of your guidance, I did not commit.

My mother, your faithful servant, was weeping for me to you, weeping more than mothers weep for the bodily deaths of their sons, For she, by that faith and spirit which she had from you, saw the death in which I lay, and you, Lord, heard her prayer. . . .My mother asked this bishop to be so kind as to discuss things with me, to expose my mistakes, to unteach me what was bad, and to teach me what was good; for he used to do this, if he found suitable people for his instruction. However, he refused to do so in my case, and very sensibly too, as I realized later. . . .She kept on begging and praying him, weeping many tears, that he would see me and discuss matters with me. In the end he became somewhat annoyed and said, "Now go away and leave me. As you live, it is impossible that the son of these tears should perish."