I will now call to mind my past uncleanness and the carnal corruptions
of my soul; not because I love them, but that I may love Thee, O my God.
What was it that I delighted in, but to love and to be loved? But I kept
not the measure of love of soul to soul, friendship's bright boundary,
for I could not discern the brightness of love from the fog of lust.
Where was I, and how far was I exiled from the delights of Thy house, in
that sixteenth year of my age, when the madness of licence took the rule
over me? My friends, meanwhile, took no care by marriage to prevent my
fall; their only care was that I should learn to speak excellently, and
become a great orator. Now, for that year my studies were intermitted;
whilst, after my return from Madaura--a neighbouring city whither I had
journeyed to learn grammar and rhetoric--the expenses for a further
journey to Carthage were provided for me; and that rather by sacrifice
than by the ordinary means of my father, who was but a poor citizen of
Tagaste. But yet this same father had no concern how I grew towards
Thee; or how chaste I were; or, so that I were but eloquent, how barren
I were to Thy culture, O God.

But while in that my sixteenth year I lived with my parents, the briers
of unclean desires grew rank over my head, and there was no hand to root
them out. My father rejoiced to see me growing towards manhood, but in
my mother's breast Thou hadst already begun Thy temple, whereas my
father was as yet but a catechumen, and that but recently. I remember
how she, seized with a holy fear and trembling, in private warned me
with great anxiety against fornication. These seemed to me womanish
advices which I should blush to obey. But they were Thine, and I knew it
not. I ran headlong with such blindness that amongst my equals I was
ashamed of being less shameless than others when I heard them boast of
their wickedness. I would even say I had done what I had not done that I
might not seem contemptible exactly in proportion as I was innocent.