The selections are from the 'Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers,'
by permission of the Christian Literature Company.


THE GODLY SORROW THAT WORKETH REPENTANCE

From the 'Confessions'

Such was the story of Pontitianus: but thou, O Lord, while he was
speaking, didst turn me round towards myself, taking me from behind my
back, when I had placed myself, unwilling to observe myself; and setting
me before my face, that I might see how foul I was, how crooked and
defiled, bespotted and ulcerous. And I beheld and stood aghast; and
whither to flee from myself I found not. And if I sought to turn mine
eye from off myself, he went on with his relation, and thou didst again
set me over against myself, and thrusted me before my eyes, that I might
find out mine iniquity and hate it. I had known it, but made as though I
saw it not, winked at it, and forgot it.

But now, the more ardently I loved those whose healthful affections I
heard of, that they had resigned themselves wholly to thee to be cured,
the more did I abhor myself when compared with them. For many of my
years (some twelve) had now run out with me since my nineteenth, when,
upon the reading of Cicero's 'Hortensius,' I was stirred to an earnest
love of wisdom; and still I was deferring to reject mere earthly
felicity and to give myself to search out that, whereof not the finding
only, but the very search, was to be preferred to the treasures and
kingdoms of the world, though already found, and to the pleasures of the
body, though spread around me at my will. But I, wretched, most