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Saint Augustin by Louis Bertrand
page 79 of 322 (24%)
nor worse than elsewhere. They were rowdy, as they were in the other cities
of the Empire, and as one always is at that age. Imperial regulations
enjoined the police to have an eye on the students, to note their conduct
and what company they kept. They were not to become members of prohibited
societies, not to go too often to the theatre, nor to waste their time in
raking and feastings. If their conduct became too outrageous, they were to
be beaten with rods and sent back to their parents. At Carthage there was
a hard-living set of men who called themselves "The Wreckers." Their great
pleasure was to go and make a row at a professor's lecture; they would
burst noisily into the classroom and smash up anything they could lay hold
of. They amused themselves also by "ragging" the freshmen, jeering at their
simplicity, and playing them a thousand tricks. Things haven't much changed
since then. The fellow-students of Augustin were so like students of
to-day that the most modern terms suggest themselves to describe their
performances.

Augustin, who was on the whole well conducted, and, as behoved a future
professor, had a respect for discipline, disapproved of "The Wreckers" and
their violence. This did not prevent him from enjoying himself in their
society. He was overcome with shame because he could not keep pace with
them--we must believe it at least, since he tells us so himself. With a
certain lack of assurance, blended however with much juvenile vanity, he
joined the band. He listened to that counsel of vulgar wisdom which is
disastrous to souls like his: "Do as others do." He accordingly did do
as the others; he knew all their debauchery, or he imagined he did, for
however low he went, he was never able to do anything mean. He was then so
far from the faith that he arranged love-trysts in the churches. "I was not
afraid to think of my lust, and plan a scheme for securing the deadly fruit
of sin, even within the walls of Thy church during the celebration of Thy
mysteries." We might be reading the confession of a sensualist of to-day.
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