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17. Thou, who makest men to dwell of one mind in a house,' didst
associate with us Evodius also, a young man of our city, who, when
serving as an agent for Public Affairs,' was converted unto Thee
and baptized prior to us; and relinquishing his secular service,
prepared himself for Thine. We were together, and together were we
about to dwell with a holy purpose. We sought for some place where we
might be most useful in our service to Thee, and were going back
together to Africa. And when we were at the Tiberine Ostia my
mother died. Much I omit, having much to hasten. Receive my
confessions and thanksgivings, O my God, for innumerable things
concerning which I am silent. But I will not omit aught that my soul
has brought forth as to that Thy handmaid who brought me forth, in
her flesh, that I might be born to this temporal light, and in her
heart, that I might be born to life eternal? I will speak not of her
gifts, but Thine in her; for she neither made herself nor educated
herself. Thou createdst her, nor did her father nor her mother know
what a being was to proceed from them. And it was the rod of Thy
Christ, the discipline of Thine only Son, that trained her in Thy
fear, in the house of one of Thy faithful ones, who was a sound
member of Thy Church. Yet this good discipline did she not: so much
attribute to the diligence of her mother, I as that of a certain
decrepid maid-servant, who had carried about her father when an
infant, as little ones are wont to be carried on the backs: of elder
girls. For which reason, and on account of her extreme age and very
good character, was she much respected by the heads of that Christian
house. Whence also was committed to her the care of her master's
daughters, which she with diligence performed, and was earnest in
restraining them when necessary, with a holy severity, and instructing
them with a sober sagacity. For, excepting at the hours in which they
were very temperately fed at their parents' table, she used not to
permit them, though parched with thirst, to drink even water; thereby
taking precautions against an evil custom, and adding the wholesome
advice, "You drink water only because you have not control of wine;
but when you have come to be married, and made mistresses of storeroom
and cellar, you will despise water, but the habit of drinking will
remain." By this method of instruction, and power of command, she
restrained the longing of their tender age, and regulated the very
thirst of the girls to such a becoming limit, as that what was not
seemly they did not long for.
18. And yet as Thine handmaid related to me, her son there
had stolen upon her a love of wine. For when she, as being a sober
maiden, was as usual bidden by her parents to :draw wine from the
cask, the vessel being held under the opening, before she poured the
wine into the bottle, she would wet the tips of her lips with a
little, for more than that her inclination refused. For this she did
not from any craving for drink, but out of the overflowing buoyancy of
her time of life, which bubbles up with sportiveness, and is, in
youthful spirits, wont to be repressed by the gravity of elders. And
so unto that little, adding daily littles (for "he that contemneth
small things shall fall by little and little"), she contracted such a
habit as, to drink off eagerly her little cup nearly full of wine.
Where, then, was the sagacious old woman with her earnest restraint?
Could anything prevail against a secret disease if Thy medicine, O
Lord, did not watch over us? Father, mother, and nurturers
absent, Thou present, who hast created, who callest, who also by
those who are set over us workest some good for the salvation of our
souls, what didst Thou at that time, O my God? How didst Thou
heal her? How didst Thou make her whole?' Didst Thou not out of
another woman's soul evoke a hard and bitter insult, as a surgeon's
knife from Thy secret store, and with one thrust remove all that
putrefaction?x For the maidservant who used to accompany her to the
cellar, falling out, as it happens, with her little mistress, when
she was alone with her, cast in her teeth this vice, with very bitter
insult, calling her a "wine-bibber." Stung by this taunt, she
perceived her foulness, and immediately condemned and renounced it.
Even as friends by their flattery pervert, so do enemies by their
taunts often correct us. Yet Thou renderest not unto them what Thou
dost by them, but what was proposed by them. For she, being angry,
desired to irritate her young mistress, not to cure her; and did it in
secret, either because the time and place of the dispute found them
thus, or perhaps lest she herself should be exposed to danger for
disclosing it so late. But Thou, Lord, Governor of heavenly and
earthly things, who convertest to Thy purposes the deepest torrents,
and disposest the turbulent current of the ages, healest one soul by
the unsoundness of another; lest any man, when he remarks this,
should attribute it unto his own power if another, whom he wishes to be
reformed, is so through a word of his.
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