At least he is one of the most interesting. What, indeed, is more romantic
than this wandering life of rhetorician and student that the youthful
Augustin led, from Thagaste to Carthage, from Carthage to Milan and to
Rome--begun in the pleasures and tumult of great cities, and ending in the
penitence, the silence, and recollection of a monastery? And again, what
drama is more full of colour and more profitable to consider than that last
agony of the Empire, of which Augustin was a spectator, and, with all his
heart faithful to Rome, would have prevented if he could? And then, what
tragedy more stirring and painful than the crisis of soul and conscience
which tore his life? Well may it be said that, regarded as a whole, the
life of Augustin was but a continual spiritual struggle, a battle of the
soul. It is the battle of every moment, the never-ceasing combat of body
and spirit, which the poets of that time dramatized, and which is the
history of the Christian of all times. The stake of the battle is a soul.
The upshot is the final triumph, the redemption of a soul.

What makes the life of Augustin so complete and so truly typical is that
he fought the good fight, not only against himself, but against all the
enemies of the Church and the Empire. If he was a doctor and a saint, so
was he too the type of the man of action in one of the most disheartened
periods. That he triumphed over his passions--this, in truth, concerns only
God and himself. That he preached, wrote, shook crowds, disturbed minds,
may seem without importance to those who reject his doctrine. But that
across the centuries his soul, afire with charity, continues to warm our
own; that without our knowledge he still shapes us; and that, in a way
more or less remote, he is still the master of our hearts, and, in certain
aspects, of our minds--there is what touches each and all of us, without
distinction. Not only has Augustin always his great place in the living
communion of all christened people, but the Western soul is marked with the