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19. And Thou sendedst Thine hand from above, and drewest my soul
out of that profound darkness, when my mother, Thy faithful one,
wept to thee on my behalf more than mothers are wont to weep the bodily
death of their children. For she saw that I was dead by that faith
and spirit which she had from Thee, and Thou heardest her, O
Lord. Thou heardest her, and despisedst not her tears, when,
pouring down, they watered the earth under her eyes in every place
where she prayed; yea, Thou heardest her. For whence was that dream
with which Thou consoledst her, so that she permitted me to live with
her, and to have my meals at the same table in the house, which she
had begun to avoid, hating and detesting the blasphemies of my error?
For she saw herself standing on a certain wooden rule, and a bright
youth advancing towards her, joyous and smiling upon her, whilst she
was grieving and bowed down with sorrow. But he having inquired of her
the cause of her sorrow and daily weeping (he wishing to teach, as is
their wont, and not to be taught), and she answering that it was my
perdition she was lamenting, he bade her rest contented, and told her
to behold and see "that where she was, there was I also." And when
she looked she saw me standing near her on the same rule. Whence was
this, unless that Thine ears were inclined towards her heart? O
Thou Good Omnipotent, who so carest for every one of us as if Thou
caredst for him only, and so for all as if they were but one!
20. Whence was this, also, that when she had narrated this vision
to me, and I tried to put this construction on it, "That she rather
should not despair of being some day what I was," she immediately,
without hesitation, replied, "No; for it was not told me that where
he is, there shalt thou be,' but 'where thou art, there shall he
be'"? I confess to Thee, O Lord, that, to the best of my
remembrance (and I have oft spoken of this), Thy answer through my
watchful mother that she was not disquieted by the speciousness of
my false interpretation, and saw in a moment what was to be seen, and
which I myself had not in truth perceived before she spoke even
then moved me more than the dream itself, by which the happiness to
that pious woman, to be realized so long after, was, for the
alleviation of her present anxiety, so long before predicted. You
nearly nine years passed in which I wallowed in the slime of that deep
pit and the darkness of falsehood, striving often to rise, but being
all the more heavily dashed down. But yet that chaste, pious, and
sober widow (such as Thou lovest), now more buoyed up with hope,
though no whir less zealous in her weeping and mourning, desisted not,
at all the hours of her supplications, to bewail my case unto Thee.
And her prayers entered into Thy presence, and yet Thou didst still
suffer me to be involved and re-involved in that darkness.
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