ake, or
Falernian wines? Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." Inasmuch
as the arts of rhetoric enabled men to rise at the bar or shine in
fashionable circles, he had plenty of scholars; but they left his
lecture-room when required to pay. At Carthage his pupils were
boisterous and turbulent; at Rome they were tricky and mean. The
professor was not only disappointed,--he was disgusted. He found
neither truth nor money. Still, he was not wholly unknown or
unsuccessful. His great abilities were seen and admired; so that when
the people of Milan sent to Symmachus, the prefect of the city, to
procure for them an able teacher of rhetoric, he sent Augustine,--a
providential thing, since in the second capital of Italy he heard the
great Ambrose preach; he found one Christian whom he respected, whom he
admired,--and him he sought. And Ambrose found time to show him an
episcopal kindness. At first Augustine listened as a critic, trying the
eloquence of Ambrose, whether it answered the fame thereof, or flowed
fuller or lower than was reported; "but of the matter I was," says
Augustine, "a scornful and careless looker-on, being delighted with the
sweetness of his discourse. Yet I was, though by little and little,
gradually drawing nearer and nearer to truth; for though I took no pains
to learn _what_ he spoke, only to hear _how_ he spoke, yet, together
with the words which I would choose, came into my mind the things I
would refuse; and while I opened my heart to admire how eloquently he
spoke, I also felt how truly he spoke. And so by degrees I resolved to
abandon forever the Manicheans, whose falsehoods I detested, and
determined to be a catechumen of the Catholic Church."

This was the great crisis of his life. He had renounced a false
philosophy; he sought truth from a Christian bishop; he put himself
under Christian influences. Fortunately at this time his mother Monica,
to whom he had lied and from whom he had run away, joined him; also his
son Adeodatus,--the son of the woman with whom he had lived in illicit
intercourse for fifteen years. But his conversion was not accomplished.
He purposed marriage, sent away his concubine to Africa, and yet fell
again into the mazes of another unlawful and entangling love. It was not
easy to overcome the loose habits of his life. Sensuality ever robs a
man of the power of will. He had a double nature,--a strong sensual
body, with a lofty and inquiring soul. And awful were his conf