Kindness itself leads us to hide them. One suffers alone; one dies
alone; alone one hides away in the little apartment of six boards. But
we are not forbidden to open this solitude to our God. Thus the
soliloquy of anguish becomes a dialogue of peace, reluctance becomes
docility, suffocation becomes liberty.

Willing what God wills is the only art of peace and rest. It is strange
to go to bed knowing that one may not see to-morrow. I knew it well last
night; yet here I am. When one counts the future by hours, and to-night
is already the unknown, one gives up everything and just talks with
oneself. I return to my mind and to my journal, as the hare returns to
its form to die. As long as I can hold pen and have a moment of solitude
I will recollect myself before this my echo, and converse with my God.
Not an examination of conscience, not an act of contrition, not a cry of
appeal. Only an Amen of submission ... "My child, give Me your heart."

* * * * *




ST. AUGUSTINE


Confessions


Aurelius Augustine was born at Tagaste, a city of Numidia, on
November 13, 354. This greatest of the Latin Christian Fathers
was the son of a magistrate named Patricius, who was a pagan