AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO. N the year 354, at dures. He was named Aurelius Augustinus, but is generally known as Augustine. The injunction of the Apostle Paul, "Be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers," is one of vast practical importance. How it came to pass that the mother of the boy, the saintly Monica, had consented to ally herself with one who, though he died a convert, did not at that time own the Lord she worshipped, is not explained. Possibly her own devotion was of an after growth. However this might be, it led to the usual disastrous results as regarded her child. He grew up a wild and dissolute lad, idle, and indisposed for application, and yet burning with ambitious desires to become famous. He seems to have inherited qualities as differing from each other as were the characters of his parents: he ardently loved the old classical stories of the Roman gods and goddesses, and plunged into the half Pagan vices which surrounded him, and yet through it all he tells us he could not banish from his memory the one name on which his mother most loved to dwell. "For this name of my Saviour," he says afterwards, "my tender heart had drunk with my mother's milk and deeply treasured, and I could not be completely captivated by any thing that wanted His In the world had to offer, and starting up, | morrow and to-morrow? Why not now? he exclaimed, "What ails us? What Why is there not this hour an end to my did you hear? The unlearned take the uncleanness?" kingdom by force, while we, with our learning, wallow in flesh and blood." He rushed into the garden, and tried, with the lion-like force of determined effort, Surely that question was heard in heaven, for at the same instant the sweet voice of a child was heard from a neighbouring house, "Tolle, lege" (take, read). Going in, he opened Paul's Epistles, and guided, doubtless, by the Spirit of God, his eye fell upon the passage in Romans, "Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh." Now the shackles were burst, and he was free "in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free." Thrilled with a new joy, he poured out his thankful heart into the bosom of his mother. "The child of many prayers" is restored to her embrace; her cup of thankfulness ran over, and she could say, "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace." She seemed to have a presentiment that her life-work was accomplished. Her son, once dead in sins, was alive again, and what more had she to live for? As they sat together, looking out on the blue waters of the Mediterranean, rejoicing in their oneness in Christ, Monica expressed her belief that the time of her departure was at hand. So, indeed, it proved. In the short space of a few days the glad summons came, and she entered into the joy of her Lord. Deeply as the sensitive heart of Augustine felt the loss of such a mother, time was too precious to be spent in lamentation. He was earnest to refute the errors he had once advocated, and the providence of God now clearly appeared in having permitted him to come into contact with these errors, that he might be the better able to attack them. In the early part of the 4th century he was appointed Bishop of Hippo, and from that time to this, his name and influence have penetrated the Christian world. Before his conversion he had renounced the teaching of the Manichæans who held very mischievous views, and he now entered the field with Pelagius, who denied that man has inherited a proneness to sin as the consequence of the fall. Augustine held that a constant stream of divine influence is necessary for all knowledge and all goodness; that communion with God is the source of all good, es 66 trangement from Him the source of all evil. His own representation is that what light is to the eye, God is to the soul, and as the eye cannot see when closed or when no light falls upon it, so, without the inward revelation and communication of the divine life, man or angel can know nothing, can do nothing that is good. He held that fellowship with God is the normal state of the creature, and only while that fellowship is maintained is goodness possible." Doubtless the remembrance of his ineffectual struggles against sin whilst trusting to his own strength had taught him this lesson. Writing to Donatus, he says, "While I lay in darkness and alienated from light and truth, it appeared to me a harsh and difficult thing to obtain what divine grace had promised, namely, that a man should be born again, and that he should in his mind become altogether a new creature. How can so great a change be possible, said I, 'that a man should suddenly put off what nature and habit have confirmed in him? These evils are deeply and closely fixed in us. Can he who was delighted with the honours of ambition, live private and obscure? These reflections engaged my mind very often, for they were peculiarly applicable to my own case. I was myself entangled in many errors of my former life, from which I did not think it possible to be cleared; hence I favoured my vices, and through despair of what was better I stuck close to them as part of my very frame and constitution. But after the filth of my former sins was washed away... after, through the effusion of the Holy Spirit from heaven, the new birth had made me a new creature indeed, immediately, and in an amazing manner, dubious things began to be cleared up; things once shut, were opened, dark things shone forth, and what before appeared difficult and even impossible, now appeared easy and practicable. ... I saw that that which was born after the flesh and had lived enslaved by become victorious and triumphant over wickedness, was "of the earth, earthy;" the powers of the enemy!' but that the new life, now animated by the Holy Ghost, began to be of God. You know and recollect my conversion from a deadly criminal state to a state of lively virtue; you know what these opposite states have done for me, what they have taken away, and what they have conferred. Of God it is-of God, I say, even all that we can do; thence we live, thence we have strength; even though, as yet, placed here below, we have some clear foretaste of our future felicity. Only . . . let the Lord, who kindly shone into our minds with an effusion of heavenly grace, be detained as our guest by the steady obedience of the soul which delights in Him, lest pardon received should beget a careless presumption, and the old enemy break in afresh. But, if you keep the road of innocence and of righteousness, if you walk with footsteps that do not slide, if, depending upon God with all your heart and all your might, you be only what you have begun to be, you will then find that according to the proportion of faith, so will your attainments and enjoyments be. For no bound or measure can be assigned in the reception of divine grace, as is the case of earthly benefits. The Holy Spirit is poured forth copiously; is confined by no limits, is restrained by no barriers. He flows perpetually, He bestows in rich abundance. Let our heart only thirst and be open to receive Him; as much of capacious faith as we bring, so much abounding Grace do we draw from Him. Thus our new spiritual nature, which is entirely the gift of God, triumphs in its freedom from the bondage of sin and Satan, though till our corruptible body and members be changed, the prospect is obscured by the clouds of worldly objects. What a faculty, what an energy is this! that the soul should not only be emancipated from slavery, and be made free and pure; but also stronger and more efficient, so as to As a preacher, Augustine threw his soul into what he was saying, and abounded in simple illustrations, which brought home his discourses to his hearers. Showing the folly of delaying reformation under the idea of living long, he tells them that no one delays taking his dinner because he knows it to be a good one, and no one puts off a good dinner because it is to be long one. "Let us not wish," he says, "to put off reformation to the last hour of life. O man, who art delaying from day to day, it may be this is your last. God spares now, and is silent; but He will not always be silent. Now, in His ineffable love, He not only admonishes us, but beseeches us to recall ourselves from our deadly sins. Let us hear Him while He entreats, lest afterwards He do not hear us while He judges. "God asks you to pity yourself and you will not. He pleads your own cause before you, and He cannot gain it. And how shall He hear you supplicating at the day of judgment, when you would not hear Him entreating on your behalf?" His earnestness was so great, that whilst addressing the congregation, he sometimes burst into tears. On one occasion, whilst pleading with his people, as he had heretofore unavailingly done, to give up some sinful practice, his feelings so overcame him, that both preacher and hearers wept together. Nor did it end in emotion, for amendment in life followed. Augustine was a voluminous writer; his best known works are his "Confessions" and his "City of God." His life had been blended with elements of strife in his conflict and contest with evil, and strife of another kind was raging round him when he received the summons to a land of rest. The ruthless army of the Vandals were besieging Hippo when he passed away and entered the realms of eternal peace. M. E. BECK. |