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27. Bear with me, my God, while I speak a little of those
talents Thou hast bestowed upon me, and on what follies I wasted
them. For a lesson sufficiently disquieting to my soul was given me,
in hope of praise, and fear of shame or stripes, to speak the words of
Juno, as she raged and sorrowed that she could not "Latium bar From
all approaches of the Dardan king, "l which I had heard Juno never
uttered. Yet were we compelled to stray in the footsteps of these
poetic fictions, and to turn that into prose which the poet had said in
verse. And his speaking was most applauded in whom, according to the
reputation of the persons delineated, the passions of anger and sorrow
were most strikingly reproduced, and clothed in the most suitable
language. But what is it to me, O my true Life, my God, that my
declaiming was applauded above that of many who were my con-temporaries
and fellow-students? Behold, is not all this smoke and wind? Was
there nothing else, too, on which I could exercise my wit and
tongue? Thy praise, Lord, Thy praises might have supported the
tendrils of my heart by Thy Scriptures; so had it not been dragged
away by these empty trifles, a shameful prey of the fowls of the air.
For there is more than one way in which men sacrifice to the fallen
angels.
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