21. My father was not the only person whom I prevailed upon to
practise prayer, though I was walking in vanity myself. When I
saw persons fond of reciting their prayers, I showed them how to
make a meditation, and helped them and gave them books; for from
the time I began myself to pray, as I said before, [12] I always
had a desire that others should serve God. I thought, now that I
did not myself serve our Lord according to the light I had, that
the knowledge His Majesty had given me ought not to be lost, and
that others should serve Him for me. [13] I say this in order to
explain the great blindness I was in: going to ruin myself, and
labouring to save others.

22. At this time, that illness befell my father of which he
died; [14] it lasted some days. I went to nurse him, being more
sick in spirit than he was in body, owing to my many
vanities--though not, so far as I know, to the extent of being in
mortal sin--through the whole of that wretched time of which I am
speaking; for, if I knew myself to be in mortal sin, I would not
have continued in it on any account. I suffered much myself
during his illness. I believe I rendered him some service in
return for what he had suffered in mine. Though I was very ill,
I did violence to myself; and though in losing him I was to lose
all the comfort and good of my life--he was all this to me--I was
so courageous, that I never betrayed my sorrows, concealing them
till he was dead, as if I felt none at all. It seemed as if my
very soul were wrenched when I saw him at the point of death--my
love for him was so deep.

23. It was a matter for which we ought to praise our Lord--the