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I. O THou, my hope from my youth, where weft Thou to me, and
whither hadst Thou gone? For in truth, hadst Thou not created me,
and made a difference between me and the beasts of the field and fowls
of the air? Thou hadst made me wiser than they, yet did I wander
about in dark and slippery places, and sought Thee abroad out of
myself, and found not the God of my heart;' and had entered the
depths of the sea, and distrusted and despaired finding out the truth.
By this time my mother, made strong by her piety, had come to me,
following me over sea and land, in all perils feeling secure in Thee.
For in the dangers of the sea she comforted the very sailors (to whom
the inexperienced passengers, when alarmed, were wont rather to go for
comfort), assuring them of a safe arrival, because she had been so
assured by: Thee in a vision. She found me in grievous i danger,
through despair of ever finding truth. But when I had disclosed to
her that I was now no longer a Manichaean, though not yet a Catholic
Christian, she did not leap for joy as at what was unexpected;
although she was now reassured as to that part of my misery for which
she had mourned me as one dead, but who would be raised to Thee,
carrying me forth upon the bier of her thoughts, that Thou mightest
say unto the widow's son, "Young man, I say unto Thee, arise,"
and he should revive, and begin to speak, and Thou shouldest deliver
him to his mother? Her heart, then, was not agitated with any
violent exultation, when she had heard that to be already in so great a
part accomplished which she daily, with tears, entreated of Thee
might be done, that though I had not yet grasped the truth, I was
rescued from falsehood. Yea, rather, for that she was fully
confident that Thou, who hadst promised the whole, wouldst give the
rest, most calmly, and with a breast full of confidence, she replied
to me, "She believed in Christ, that before she departed this
life, she would see me a Catholic believer." And thus much said she
to me; but to Thee, O Fountain of mercies, poured she out more
frequent prayers and tears, that Thou wouldest hasten Thy aid, and
enlighten my darkness; and she hurried all the more assiduously to the
church, and hung upon the words of Ambrose, praying for the fountain
of water that springeth up into everlasting life. For she loved that
man as an angel of God, because she knew that it was by him that I
had been brought, for the present, to that perplexing state of
agitation' I was now in, through which she was fully persuaded that
I should pass from sickness unto health, after an excess, as it
were. of a sharper fit, which doctors term the "crisis."
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