{"id":"01KJR8Q69K6AGBS5K73B0DJ1AR","cid":"bafkreic5qlie4clbhyi7ei3t3hg4mh3cnrwdcgn4wb3dfcgrpvcpyj32ma","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":43123,"char_start":35260,"chunk_index":5,"chunk_total":89,"estimated_tokens":1966,"source_file_key":"confessions","text":"a teacher or learner of the hereditary laws of pronunciation will more\r\noffend men by speaking without the aspirate, of a \"uman being,\" in\r\ndespite of the laws of grammar, than if he, a \"human being,\" hate a\r\n\"human being\" in despite of Thine. As if any enemy could be more hurtful\r\nthan the hatred with which he is incensed against him; or could wound\r\nmore deeply him whom he persecutes, than he wounds his own soul by his\r\nenmity. Assuredly no science of letters can be so innate as the record\r\nof conscience, \"that he is doing to another what from another he would\r\nbe loth to suffer.\" How deep are Thy ways, O God, Thou only great,\r\nthat sittest silent on high and by an unwearied law dispensing penal\r\nblindness to lawless desires. In quest of the fame of eloquence, a man\r\nstanding before a human judge, surrounded by a human throng, declaiming\r\nagainst his enemy with fiercest hatred, will take heed most watchfully,\r\nlest, by an error of the tongue, he murder the word \"human being\"; but\r\ntakes no heed, lest, through the fury of his spirit, he murder the real\r\nhuman being.\r\n\r\nThis was the world at whose gate unhappy I lay in my boyhood; this\r\nthe stage where I had feared more to commit a barbarism, than having\r\ncommitted one, to envy those who had not. These things I speak and\r\nconfess to Thee, my God; for which I had praise from them, whom I then\r\nthought it all virtue to please. For I saw not the abyss of vileness,\r\nwherein I was cast away from Thine eyes. Before them what more foul than\r\nI was already, displeasing even such as myself? with innumerable lies\r\ndeceiving my tutor, my masters, my parents, from love of play, eagerness\r\nto see vain shows and restlessness to imitate them! Thefts also I\r\ncommitted, from my parents' cellar and table, enslaved by greediness, or\r\nthat I might have to give to boys, who sold me their play, which all\r\nthe while they liked no less than I. In this play, too, I often\r\nsought unfair conquests, conquered myself meanwhile by vain desire of\r\npreeminence. And what could I so ill endure, or, when I detected it,\r\nupbraided I so fiercely, as that I was doing to others? and for which\r\nif, detected, I was upbraided, I chose rather to quarrel than to yield.\r\nAnd is this the innocence of boyhood? Not so, Lord, not so; I cry Thy\r\nmercy, my God. For these very sins, as riper years succeed, these very\r\nsins are transferred from tutors and masters, from nuts and balls and\r\nsparrows, to magistrates and kings, to gold and manors and slaves, just\r\nas severer punishments displace the cane. It was the low stature then of\r\nchildhood which Thou our King didst commend as an emblem of lowliness,\r\nwhen Thou saidst, Of such is the kingdom of heaven.\r\n\r\nYet, Lord, to Thee, the Creator and Governor of the universe, most\r\nexcellent and most good, thanks were due to Thee our God, even hadst\r\nThou destined for me boyhood only. For even then I was, I lived, and\r\nfelt; and had an implanted providence over my well-being--a trace of\r\nthat mysterious Unity whence I was derived; I guarded by the inward\r\nsense the entireness of my senses, and in these minute pursuits, and in\r\nmy thoughts on things minute, I learnt to delight in truth, I hated to\r\nbe deceived, had a vigorous memory, was gifted with speech, was\r\nsoothed by friendship, avoided pain, baseness, ignorance. In so small a\r\ncreature, what was not wonderful, not admirable? But all are gifts of\r\nmy God: it was not I who gave them me; and good these are, and these\r\ntogether are myself. Good, then, is He that made me, and He is my good;\r\nand before Him will I exult for every good which of a boy I had. For it\r\nwas my sin, that not in Him, but in His creatures--myself and others--I\r\nsought for pleasures, sublimities, truths, and so fell headlong into\r\nsorrows, confusions, errors. Thanks be to Thee, my joy and my glory\r\nand my confidence, my God, thanks be to Thee for Thy gifts; but do Thou\r\npreserve them to me. For so wilt Thou preserve me, and those things\r\nshall be enlarged and perfected which Thou hast given me, and I myself\r\nshall be with Thee, since even to be Thou hast given me.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nBOOK II\r\n\r\n\r\nI will now call to mind my past foulness, and the carnal corruptions of\r\nmy soul; not because I love them, but that I may love Thee, O my God.\r\nFor love of Thy love I do it; reviewing my most wicked ways in the very\r\nbitterness of my remembrance, that Thou mayest grow sweet unto me (Thou\r\nsweetness never failing, Thou blissful and assured sweetness); and\r\ngathering me again out of that my dissipation, wherein I was torn\r\npiecemeal, while turned from Thee, the One Good, I lost myself among a\r\nmultiplicity of things. For I even burnt in my youth heretofore, to be\r\nsatiated in things below; and I dared to grow wild again, with these\r\nvarious and shadowy loves: my beauty consumed away, and I stank in Thine\r\neyes; pleasing myself, and desirous to please in the eyes of men.\r\n\r\nAnd what was it that I delighted in, but to love, and be loved? but\r\nI kept not the measure of love, of mind to mind, friendship's bright\r\nboundary: but out of the muddy concupiscence of the flesh, and the\r\nbubblings of youth, mists fumed up which beclouded and overcast my\r\nheart, that I could not discern the clear brightness of love from the\r\nfog of lustfulness. Both did confusedly boil in me, and hurried my\r\nunstayed youth over the precipice of unholy desires, and sunk me in a\r\ngulf of flagitiousnesses. Thy wrath had gathered over me, and I knew it\r\nnot. I was grown deaf by the clanking of the chain of my mortality, the\r\npunishment of the pride of my soul, and I strayed further from Thee,\r\nand Thou lettest me alone, and I was tossed about, and wasted, and\r\ndissipated, and I boiled over in my fornications, and Thou heldest Thy\r\npeace, O Thou my tardy joy! Thou then heldest Thy peace, and I wandered\r\nfurther and further from Thee, into more and more fruitless seed-plots\r\nof sorrows, with a proud dejectedness, and a restless weariness.\r\n\r\nOh! that some one had then attempered my disorder, and turned to account\r\nthe fleeting beauties of these, the extreme points of Thy creation! had\r\nput a bound to their pleasureableness, that so the tides of my youth\r\nmight have cast themselves upon the marriage shore, if they could not be\r\ncalmed, and kept within the object of a family, as Thy law prescribes,\r\nO Lord: who this way formest the offspring of this our death, being\r\nable with a gentle hand to blunt the thorns which were excluded from Thy\r\nparadise? For Thy omnipotency is not far from us, even when we be far\r\nfrom Thee. Else ought I more watchfully to have heeded the voice from\r\nthe clouds: Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh, but I\r\nspare you. And it is good for a man not to touch a woman. And, he that\r\nis unmarried thinketh of the things of the Lord, how he may please the\r\nLord; but he that is married careth for the things of this world, how he\r\nmay please his wife.\r\n\r\nTo these words I should have listened more attentively, and being\r\nsevered for the kingdom of heaven's sake, had more happily awaited Thy\r\nembraces; but I, poor wretch, foamed like a troubled sea, following the\r\nrushing of my own tide, forsaking Thee, and exceeded all Thy limits; yet\r\nI escaped not Thy scourges. For what mortal can? For Thou wert ever with\r\nme mercifully rigorous, and besprinkling with most bitter alloy all my\r\nunlawful pleasures: that I might seek pleasures without alloy. But where\r\nto find such, I could not discover, save in Thee, O Lord, who teachest\r\nby sorrow, and woundest us, to heal; and killest us, lest we die from\r\nThee. Where was I, and how far was I exiled from the delights of Thy\r\nhouse, in that sixteenth year of the age of my flesh, when the madness\r\nof lust (to which human shamelessness giveth free licence, though\r\nunlicensed by Thy laws) took the rule over me, and I resigned myself\r\nwholly to 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