knows not this? Mothers and nurses tell you that they allay these
things by I know not what remedies. Is that too innocence, when the
fountain of milk is flowing in rich abundance, not to endure one to
share it, though in extremest need, and whose very life as yet depends
thereon? We bear gently with all this, not as being no or slight
evils, but because they will disappear as years increase; for,
though tolerated now, the very same tempers are utterly intolerable
when found in riper years.

Thou, then, O Lord my God, who gavest life to this my infancy,
furnishing thus with senses (as we see) the frame Thou gavest,
compacting its limbs, ornamenting its proportions, and, for its
general good and safety, implanting in it all vital functions, Thou
commandest me to praise Thee in these things, to confess unto Thee,
and sing unto Thy name, Thou most Highest. For Thou art God,
Almighty and Good, even hadst Thou done nought but only this, which
none could do but Thou: whose Unity is the mould of all things; who
out of Thy own fairness makest all things fair; and orderest all
things by Thy law. This age then, Lord, whereof I have no remembrance,
which I take on others' word, and guess from other infants that I have
passed, true though the guess be, I am yet loth to count in this
life of mine which I live in this world. For no less than that which I
spent in my mother's womb, is it hid from me in the shadows of
forgetfulness. But if I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my
mother conceive me, where, I beseech Thee, O my God, where, Lord, or
when, was I Thy servant guiltless? But, lo! that period I pass by; and
what have I now to do with that, of which I can recall no vestige?

Passing hence from infancy, I came to boyhood, or rather it came
to me, displacing infancy. Nor did that depart,- (for whither went