i^pqupati|?& b0 l|tm to 
 
 ll|? Cibrary of 
 
 Prtttrfton Blifologtral g>pmtnary 
 
 Schaff, Philip, 1819-1893. 
 Saint Augustin, Melanchthon 
 
 Neander 
 
 1 / "" 
 
WORKS B V PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 THE SCHAFF-HERZOG ENCYCLOPEDIA. A Religions Encyclopedia; 
 or. Dictionary of Biblical, Historical, Doctrinal and Practical Theology. 
 Based on the Keal-Encyklopiidie of Herzofj, Plitt and Hauck Edited 
 by Philip Schaff, D.D., LL.D., assisted by Eev. Samuel M. JacksoH, 
 M.A., and Eev. D. S. Schaff. In three large volumes. Royal 8vo, 
 cloth, per ?)o/. $6.00; sheep, $7.50; half morocco, $9.00; full morocco, 
 gilt, $12.00. 
 fl®= An Appendix to the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopsedia, being "A Dictionary 
 of Living Divines " -will be published in ] 886. 
 Prof. lioswell D. Hitchcock, D.D.: " The very best Encyclopedia published 
 in any language. For variety, aptitude and exactness of useful informa- 
 tion in the branches of knowledge covered by it, I am acquainted with no 
 work that equals it." 
 
 Talbot W. Chambers, D.D.: " In fullness, fairness and accuracy; the work 
 is unequaled." 
 
 A LIBRARr OF RELIGIOUS POETRY. A Collection of the Best Poems 
 
 of all ages and tongues. Edited by Philip Schaff, D.D., LL.D., and 
 
 Arthur Gilman, M.A. New Edition. Superbly bound. Royal 8vo, 
 
 1,001 pp., with 12 steel portraits, cloth, $C.CO. 
 
 J. G. fVliittier: "It deserves the highest praise for its thoroughness; 
 
 good taste and sound judgment are manifest on every page." 
 
 John Hall, D.D.: "It is just, discriminating and impartial in its selec- 
 tions. Nowhere else can one find in a volume so much varied wealth of 
 devout sentiment and imagery.'' 
 
 THE OLDEST CHURCH MANUAL, Called the Teaching of the Twelve 
 Apostles. The Didache and Kindred Documents in the Original, with 
 Translations and Discussions of Post-Apostolic Teaching, Baptism 
 WorshiiJ and Discipline, and with Illustrations and Fac-similes of the 
 Jerusalem Manuscript. 8vo, cloth, $2.50. 
 British Quarterly Review ; " By far the most complete apparatus criticus 
 for the study of this document." 
 
 Howard Crosby, D.D., LL.D.: " An exhaustive and intensely interesting 
 work which all students of church history should possess." 
 
 X'r. P/ummcr (Master of University College, Durham): "It is the best 
 work on the Didache that has as yet appeared." 
 
 Bishop Lighifoot: " A very complete and useful edition of the Didache; 
 full of interest, both from the subject and from the treatment." 
 
 ST. A UGUSTINE. MELANCTHOX AND N BANDER. Three Biographies, 
 12mo, cloth, $L00. 
 
 FUNK & WAGNALLS, Publishers, lo and I2 Dey St., New York. 
 
^ .-XWV. OF P 
 
 SAINT AUGUSTIN, -''^ 
 
 ■%fiSIMi. 
 
 1/ 
 
 MELANCHTHON, NEANDER. 
 
 THREE BIOGRAPHIES 
 
 PHILIP'^^CHAFF. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 FUNK & WAGNALLS, Publishers, 
 10 AND 13 Dey Street. 
 1886. ' 
 
 All Eights Reserved. 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in tne year 1885, by 
 
 FUNK & WAGNALLS, 
 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C. 
 
TO 
 
 pttj gcIoxrjexX ^tntitnts 
 
 f DEDICATE THESE BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF 
 
 ST. AUGUSTIN, MELANCHTHON, AND NEANDER, 
 
 THE CHURCH FATHER, THE REFORMER, AND THE 
 CHURCH HISTORIAN, 
 
 THREE OF THE BEST AMONG THE GREAT, AND OF THE GREATEST 
 AMONG THE GOOD, 
 
 AS WITNESSES OF THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT IN THE DIVERSITIES OF 
 
 GIFTS, 
 
 AND AS INSPIRING EXAMPLES OF CONSECRATION TO THE SERVICE 
 OF CHRIST. 
 
 PHILIP SCHAFF. 
 
 UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, 
 New York, December, 188S, 
 
COJSTTEN^TS. 
 
 SAINT AUGUSTIN". 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introductory 7 
 
 Chapter I. Augustin's Youtli 11 
 
 Chapter II. Augustiu at Carthage 17 
 
 Chapter III. Cicero's Hortensius 19 
 
 Chapter IV. Augustia Among the Manichaeaiis 21 
 
 Chapter V. The Loss of a Friend 24 
 
 Chapter VI. Augustiu Leaves Manichseistn 23 
 
 Chapter VII. Error Overruled for Truth 28 
 
 Chapter VIII. Augustiu a Skeptic in Rome 30 
 
 Chapter IX. Augustiu at Milan. St. Ambrose 33 
 
 Chapter X. Augustiu a Catechismau in the Catholic Church. . . 39 
 
 Chapter XI. Monuica's Arrival 44 
 
 Chapter XII. Moral Conflicts. Project of Marriage 45 
 
 Chapter XIII. Mental Conflicts 48 
 
 Chapter XIV. Influence of Platonism 50 
 
 Chapter XV. Study of the Scriptures 53 
 
 Chapter XVI. Augustin's Conversion 54 
 
 Chapter XVII. Sojourn in the Country 61 
 
 Chapter XVIII. Augustin's Baptism ... 66 
 
 Chapter XIX. Monnica's Last Days and Death 68 
 
 Chapter XX. Second Visit to Rome, and Return to Africa 75 
 
 Chapter XXI. Augustia is Appointed Priest and Biphop of 
 
 Hippo 77 
 
 Chapter XXII. Augustin's Domestic Life. ... 79 
 
 Chapter XXIII. Administratiou of the Episcopal Office and 
 
 Public Activity 81 
 
 Chapter XXIV. Last Years and Death 84 
 
 Chapter XXV. Augustin's Writings 86 
 
 Chapter XXVI. Influence of Augustia on His Own and Suc- 
 ceeding Ages 96' 
 
 Chapter XXVII. The Augustinian System 103 
 
vi CONTENTS. 
 
 MELANCHTHON. 
 
 PAGK 
 
 nis Youth and Education 107 
 
 Melanchtlion in Tubingen 109 
 
 Melanchtbon in Wittenberg 110 
 
 Lutlier and Melanchtbon 113 
 
 Domestic and Private Life 116 
 
 The Closing Years of Melanchtbon 120 
 
 His Death 122 
 
 His Public Character and Services 123 
 
 REMINISCENCES OF NEANDER. 
 
 Sketch of His Life 128 
 
 Neander's Training for His Work 132 
 
 His Outward Appearance 137 
 
 Home Life 140 
 
 Hannah Neander 141 
 
 Neander as a Teacher 143 
 
 Neander as a Friend of Students 143 
 
 His Interest in Foreigners 147 
 
 Character of Neander 148 
 
 His Tlieology 153 
 
 The Last Birthday 155 
 
 Sickness and Death 157 
 
 The Funeral 1G2 
 
 A Letter of Neander 1G5 
 
SAINT AUGUSTIN. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 The chief, almost the only source of the life of 
 St. Augustin till the time of his conversion is his auto- 
 biography ; his faithful friend, Possidius, added a few 
 notices ; his public labors till his death are recorded in 
 his numerous writings ; his influence is written on the 
 pages of mediaeval and modern church history. 
 
 Among religious autobiographies the Confessions of 
 Augustin still hold the first rank. In them this remark- 
 able man, endowed with a lofty genius and a burning 
 heart, lays open his inner life before God and the world, 
 and at the same time the life of God in his own soul, 
 which struggled for the mastery, and at last obtained it. 
 A more honest book Vv^as never written. He conceals 
 nothing, he palliates nothing. Like a faithful witness 
 against himself, standing at the bar of the omniscient 
 Judge, he tells the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 
 but the truth. Like King David, in the fifty-first 
 Psalm, he openly confesses his transgressions with un- 
 feigned sorrow and grief, yet in the joyous conscious- 
 ness of forgiveness. To his sense of sin corresponds his 
 sense of grace : they are the controlling ideas of his 
 spiritual life and of his system of theology. The deeper 
 the descent into the hell of self-knowledge, the higher 
 the ascent to the knowledge of God. 
 
 Augustin might have kept the secret of his youthful 
 aberrations ; posterity knows them only from his pen. 
 
8 SAINT AUGUSTIN. 
 
 lie committed no murder nor adultery, like the King of 
 Israel ; he never denied his Saviour, like Peter ; he was 
 no persecutor of the Church, like Paul ; his sins preceded 
 his conversion and baptism, and they were compatible 
 with the highest honor in heathen society. But his 
 Christian experience quickened his sense of guilt, and he 
 told the story for his own humihation and for the glory 
 of God's redeeming grace. 
 
 The Confessions are a solemn soliloquy before the 
 throne of the Searcher of hearts within the hearing of 
 the world. They enter into the deepest recesses of re- 
 ligious experience, and rise to the lofty summit of theo- 
 logical thought. They exhibit a mind intensely pious 
 and at the same time intensely speculative. His prayers 
 are meditations, and his meditations are prayers ; and 
 both shine and burn like Africa's tropical sun. They re- 
 flect, as Guizot says, " a unique mixture of passion and 
 gentleness, of authority and sympathy, of largeness of 
 mind and logical rigor." Dr. Shedd ranks them among 
 those rare autobiographies in which "the ordinary ex- 
 periences of human life attain to such a pitch of intensity 
 and such a breadth, range, and depth as to strike the 
 reader with both a sense of familiarity and a sense of 
 strangeness. It is his own human thought and human 
 feeling that he finds expressed ; and yet it is spoken 
 with so much greater clearness, depth, and energy than 
 he is himself capable of, or than is characteristic of the 
 mass of men, that it seems like the experience of another 
 sphere and another race of beings." * 
 
 Even in a psychological and literary point of view the 
 Confessions of Augustin rank among the most interest- 
 
 * Seo the thoughtful introduction to his edition of the Confessions 
 of Auguslin, Andover, 18G0, p. ix. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 9 
 
 ing of autobiographies, and are not inferior to Rousseau's 
 Confessions and Goethe's Truth and Fiction j while in 
 religious value there is no comparison between them. 
 They are equally franlc, and blend the personal with the 
 general human interest ; but while the French philoso- 
 pher and the German poet are absorbed in the analysis 
 of their own self, and dwell upon it with satisfaction, the 
 African father goes into the minute details of his sins 
 and follies with intense abhorrence of sin, and rises 
 above himself to the contemplation of divine mercy, 
 which delivered him from the degrading slavery. The 
 former wrote for the glory of man, the latter for the 
 glory of God. Augustin hved in an age when the West- 
 ern Roman Empire was fast approaching dissolution, and 
 the Christian Church, the true City of God, was being 
 built on its ruins. He was not free from the defects of 
 an artificial and degenerate rhetoric ; nevertheless he 
 rises not seldom to the height of passionate eloquence, 
 and scatters gems of the rarest beauty. He was master 
 of the antithetical power, the majesty and melody of the 
 language of imperial Rome. Many of his sentences have 
 passed into proverbial use, and become commonplaces in 
 theological literature. 
 
 Next to Augustin himself, his mother attracts the 
 attention and excites the sympathy of the reader. She 
 walks like a guardian angel from heaven through his 
 book until her translation to that sphere. How ]3ure and 
 strong and enduring her devotion to him, and his devo- 
 tion to her ! She dried many tears of anxious mothers. 
 It is impossible to read of Monnica without a profounder 
 regard for woman and a feeling of gratitude for Chris- 
 tianity, which raised her to so high a position. 
 
 The Confessions were written about a.d. 397, ten 
 years after Augustin's conversion. The historical part 
 
10 SAINT AUGUSTIN. 
 
 doses with his conversion and with the death of his 
 mother. The work contains much that can be fnlly 
 understood only by the theologian and the student of 
 history ; and the last four of the thirteen books are 
 devoted to subtle speculations about the nature of mem- 
 ory, eternity, time, and creation, which far transcend the 
 grasp of the ordinary reader. Nevertheless it was read 
 with great interest and profit in the time of the writer, 
 and ever since, in the original Latin and numerous trans- 
 lations in various lan^nao-es. In all that belong^s to eleva- 
 tion, depth, and emotion there are few books so edifying 
 and inspiring and so well worthy of careful study as 
 Augustin's Confessions. 
 
 We shall endeavor to popularize the Confessions, and 
 to supplement the biography from other sources, for the 
 instruction and edification of the present generation. 
 The life of a great genius and saint like Augustin is one 
 of the best arguments for the religion he professed, and 
 to which he devoted his mental and moral energies. 
 
CHAPTEE I. 
 
 augusthst's youth. 
 
 AuRELius AuGUSTiNus, tliG greatest and best, and the 
 most influential of tlie Latin cliurcli-fatliers, was born 
 on the thirteenth of November, 354, at Tagaste, in 
 Niimidia, North Africa. Ilis birthplace was near Hippo 
 Kegius (now Bona), where he spent his public life as 
 presbyter and bishop, and where he died in the seventy- 
 sixth year of his age (Aug. 28, 430). He belonged to 
 the Punic race, which was of Phoenician origin, but be- 
 came Latinized in language, laws, and customs nnder 
 Koman rule since the destruction of Carthage (b.c. 146), 
 yet retained the Oriental temper and the sparks of the 
 genius of Hannibal, the sworn enemy of Rome. These 
 traits appear in the writings of Tertullian and Cyprian, 
 who preceded Augustin and jjrepared the way for his 
 theology. In Angustin we can trace the religious in-"" 
 tensity of the Semitic race, tlie tropical fervor of Africa, 
 the Catholic grasp and comprehensiveness of Rome, and 
 the germs of an evangelical revolt against its towering 
 ambition and tyrannical rule. His native land has long 
 since been laid waste by the barbarons Yandals (a.d. 439) 
 and tlie Mohammedan Arabs (G47), and keeps mourn- 
 ful silence over dreary ruins ; but his spirit marched 
 
12 SAINT AUGUSTIN". 
 
 through the ages, and still lives and acts as a molding 
 and stimulating power in all the branches of Western 
 Christendom. 
 
 His father, Patricius, was a member of the city 
 Council, and a man of kindly disposition, but irritable 
 temper and dissolute habits. He remained a heathen till 
 shortly before his death, but did not, as it appears, lay 
 any obstniction to the Christian course of his wife. 
 
 Monnica,* the mother of Angustin, shines among the 
 most noble and pious women that adorn the grand tem- 
 ple of the Christian Church. She was born in the year 
 ^?i,.PZ -?^^' ^^ Christian parents, probably at Tagaste. 
 She had rare gifts of mind and heart, which were de- 
 veloped by an excellent Christian edncation, and dedi- 
 cated to the Saviour. To the violent passion of her 
 husband she opposed an angelic meekness, and when the 
 outljurst was over she reproached him so tenderly that 
 he was always shamed. Had the rebuke been adminis- 
 tered sooner it would only have fed the nnhallowed fire. 
 -^^l^_i^?^J%'''^^ infidelity she bore with patience and for- 
 giving love. Her highest aim was to win him over to 
 the Christian faith— not so much by words as by a truly 
 humble and godly conduct and the conscientious dis- 
 charge of her household duties. In this she was so suc- 
 cessful that, a year before his death, he enrolled himself 
 among the catechumens and was baptized. To her it 
 was the greatest pleasure to read the Holy Scriptures 
 
 * This is the correct spelling, according to the oldest MSS. of the 
 writings of Augustiu, and is followed by Pusev, in his edition of the 
 Confessions, by "Moule, in Smith and Wace. Did. of Christian Biogra- 
 phy, III. 932, and also by K. Braune, in Monnika inid Augustinus 
 (Grinnna, 184r,). The usual spelling is Monica, in French Monique. 
 It IS derived by some from fi6vog, single; by others from ^idvvog or 
 fiavvoc, Lat. monile, a necklace {monilia, jewels). 
 
augustin's youth. 13 
 
 and to attend clinrcli regularly every morning and even- 
 ing, " not," as Augiistin says, " to listen to vain fables, 
 but to the Lord, in the preaching of His servants, and to 
 offer up to Him her prayers." She esteemed it a pre- 
 cious privilege to lay on the altar each day a gift of love, 
 to bestow alms on the poor, and to extend hospitality to 
 strangers, especially to brethren in the faith. She 
 brought up her children in the nurture- and admonition 
 of the Lord. She bare Augustin, as he boasts of her, 
 with greater pains spiritually than she had brought him 
 forth naturally into the world.* For thirty years she 
 prayedTToi* the conversion of her distinguished son, until 
 at last, a short time before her death, after manifold 
 cares and burning tears, in the midst of which she never 
 either murmured against God or lost hope, she found 
 her prayers answered beyond her expectations. She has 
 become a bright example and rich comfort for mothers, 
 and \vill act as an inspiration to the end of time. 
 
 From such parents sprang Augustin. Strong sensual 
 passions he inherited from his father, but from his 
 mother those excellent gifts of mind and heart which, 
 though long perverted, were at last reclaimed by the 
 regenerating grace of God, and converted into an incal- 
 culable blessing to the Church of all ages. He had a 
 l)rother, by the name of ISTavigius, a widowed sister, 
 who presided over a society of pious women till the day 
 of her death, and a number of nephews and nieces, 
 
 Augustin says that with his mother's milk his heart 
 sucked in the name of the Saviour, which became so 
 
 * Covfess. 1. V. c. 9 : " Kon enim satis elnquor, quid erga me habebat 
 animi, et quanto majare soUiciiudine me pnrturiebat spiritu, quam came 
 perpererat." Likewise 1. IX. c. 8 : " Qaoe me parlurivit, et came, ut 
 in hano tewpnr<dem, et corde, id in ceternam lucem nascerer." Comp. his 
 whole description of Monnica, ix. 9-12. 
 
1-i SAINT AUGUSTIN. 
 
 lirmly lodged there that nothing which did not Scavor of 
 that name, however learned and attractive it might other- 
 wise be, could ever fully charm him. He early lisped 
 out prayers to God, whose all-embracing love revealed 
 itself to his childish spirit. These germs of piety were 
 overgrown by the weeds of youthful vice and impure 
 lusts, but never wholly smothered. Even in the midst 
 of his furthest wanderings he still heard the low, sad 
 echo of his youthful religious impressions, was attended 
 by the guardian genius of his praying mother, and felt 
 in the depths of his noble spirit the pulse-beat of that 
 strong desire after God, to which, in the opening of 
 his Confessions, he gives utterance in the incompar- 
 able words : " Thou, O God, hast created us for Thy- 
 self, and our heart is without rest, until it rests in 
 Thee." * 
 
 He was not baptized in infancy, but merely offered to 
 the initiation of a catechumen by the sign of the cross 
 and the salting with salt.f There was at that time no 
 compulsory baptism of infants : it was left to the free 
 choice of the parents. Monnica probably shared the 
 view of Tertullian that it was safer to postpone baptism 
 to years of discretion than to run the risk of forfeiting 
 its benefit by a relapse. 
 
 Augustin was sent to school at aif early ago, with the 
 hope on the part of his father that he might become dis- 
 tinguished in the world ; on that of his mother, that 
 
 * Confess. I. 1 : "Fecistl nos ad Te, d inquietum est cor nostrum, donee 
 rerpdescat in Te." Dr. Pusey, in his translation (based on an older 
 one), obliterates the paronomasia— irjf/ia'e^Mm, reqmescat : " Thou 
 madest us for Tliyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in 
 Thee." Dr. Sliedd retains this translation. 
 
 t Confess. I. 11. 
 
augustin's youth. 15 
 
 *'tlie common studies miglit not only prove innocent, 
 bnt also in some degree useful in leading him afterward 
 to God." 
 
 Elementary Instruction and mathematics were, how- 
 ever, too dry for the boy ; and he was, in consequence, 
 severely punished by his teachers. Play was his chief 
 delight. In order to shine as the first among his com- 
 panions he even cheated them ; and for the purpose of 
 providing himself with playthings, or of gratifying his 
 appetite, he went so far as to steal from the store-room 
 and the table of his parents. At public shows he pas- 
 sionately crowded himself into the front ranks of tlie 
 spectators. 
 
 And yet for all this he had to endure the reproaches 
 of conscience. On one occasion, when, seized by a vio- 
 lent cramp in the stomach, he believed his last hour had 
 come, he earnestly begged to be baptized. But after 
 his mother had made the necessary preparations he sud- 
 denly grew better, and the baptism, according to a pre- 
 vailing notion of the age, was postponed, lest this pre- 
 cious means for the washing away of past sins might be 
 rendered vain by the contraction of new guilt, in which 
 case no other remedy was to be found. At a later 
 period he thought it w^ould have been far better for him 
 had he been early received by baptism into the commu- 
 nion of the Church, and thus placed under her protecting 
 care. 
 
 His dislike for learning ceased when Augustin passed 
 over from rudimentary studies into the grammar school. 
 The poet Yergil charmed his fancy and filled him with 
 fresh enthusiasm. AVith the deepest interest he followed 
 -^ncas in his wanderings, and shed tears over the death 
 of Dido, who slew herself for love ; while at the same time, 
 as he tells us, he ought to have mourned over his own 
 
16 SAINT AUGUSTIN-. 
 
 deatli in estrangement from God.* The wooden horse 
 full of armed warriors, the burning of Troy, and the 
 shade of Creiisa were continually before his soul. The 
 Grecian classics were not so much to his taste, because 
 his defective knowledge of the language, which he never 
 had the patience to master, prevented the enjoyment of 
 their works. 
 
 By his gift of lively representation and brilliant orator- 
 ical talent he made a figure in the school, and awakened 
 the fondest hopes in the hearts of his parents. His 
 father destined him to the then highly respectable and 
 influential office of rhetorician, or public teacher of 
 forensic eloquence. For further improvement he sent 
 him to the larger neighboring city of Madaura, where 
 heathenism still held almost exclusive sway. His resi- 
 dence there was probably injurious to him in a moral 
 point of view. 
 
 In the sixteenth year of his age he returned home in 
 order to prepare himself, in as cheap a manner as possi- 
 ble, for the University of the metropolis of Northern 
 Africa. But instead of growing better he entered upon 
 the path of folly, and plunged into the excesses of sensu- 
 ality. His mother earnestly exhorted him to lead a 
 chaste life ; but he was ashamed to heed the exhortation 
 of a woman. This false shame drove him even to pre- 
 tend frequently to crimes which he had never commit- 
 ted, so as not to seem to fall behind his comrades. He 
 himself confesses, " I was not able to distinguish the 
 brighter purity of love from the darkness of lust. Both 
 
 * Covfesx. I. 13 : " Quid enim mlserius misero non miserante seipsum, 
 et flente Bidonis mortem, qua; fiehat amando Jilneam ; non flente autem 
 mortem suam, qua; fiehat non amando Te, Deus lumen cordis mei, et 
 panis 07-is intus animce mece, et virtus marilans meniem meam, et sinum 
 cogitationis meoif" 
 
AUQUSTIN AT CARTHAGE. 17 
 
 were mingled together in confusion ; youth in its weak- 
 ness, hurried to the abyss of desire, was swallowed up in 
 the pool of vice." 
 
 Yet, amid these wild impulses, it was not well with 
 him. Thai; longing after God, so deeply rooted in his 
 soul, asserted its power again and again. He became 
 more and more discontented with himself, and after every 
 indulgence felt an inward pang. The guiding hand of 
 the Lord mixed in the cup of his enjoyment " the whole- 
 some bitterness that leads us back from destructive pleas- 
 ure, by which we are estranged from God." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 AUGUSTIN AT CARTHAGE. 
 
 In his seventeenth year, the same in which his father 
 died, he entered the Pligh School of Carthage, sup- 
 ported by his mother and the richest citizen of Tagaste, 
 Romanianus, who was a distant relative. Carthage was 
 the Rome of Africa, with many marble palaces, numer- 
 ous schools, countless shows, and shameless vices. Mon- 
 nica did not see her son depart for the great and volup- 
 tuous city without fear and trembling, but she was not 
 willing now to interrupt his career, and she knew Him 
 who is stronger than all temptation, and listens to the 
 prayers of His children. In Carthage Augustin studied 
 oratory and otlier sciences, astrology even, and raised 
 himself to the first rank by his talent. This increased 
 his ambition and fed his pride. 
 
 With his morals he fared badly. He consorted with a 
 
18 SAINT AUGUSTIN. 
 
 class of students who sought their honor in deriding 
 good conduct, and called themselves " Destroyers." Al- 
 though their rough and vulgar doings were peculiarly 
 disagreeable to a nature so noble as his, yet their society 
 must have exerted over him a pernicious influence. He 
 frequently visited also the tragic theatre, because it was 
 always, says he, " filled with pictures of my misery, and 
 tinder for my desires." 
 
 In his eighteenth year he took up with a woman, with 
 whom he lived thirteen years without marriage, and was 
 faithful to her. She bore him a son, Adeodatus, whose 
 promising gifts gave his father much joy, but he died at 
 an early age. She walks veiled through the Confes- 
 sions^ a memory without a name, and disappears with 
 a sigh of repentance and a vow to devote herself to a 
 pure and single life. 
 
 It should be borne in mind that the excesses of his 
 youth are known to us only from his own honest Con- 
 fessions. His worst sin was common in the best heathen 
 society, and sanctioned by the Roman law. It did not in 
 the least affect his respectability in the eyes of the world. 
 Even the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, the model saint and 
 philosopher of ancient Rome, kept a concubine after the 
 death of his wife, without feeling the least scruple. 
 Tertullian, Cyprian, Jerome, and other eminent fathers 
 who embraced Christianity in adult years, were probably 
 no better than Augustin before his conversion, but they 
 left only vague allusions. Augustin never was a profli- 
 gate. He was strictly faithful to the one woman of his 
 affection, the first from Africa, the second frotn Italy.* 
 It is therefore an inexcusable slander to call him "the 
 
 * Confess. IV. 2 : " Tn illis annis unam haheham, , . sed miam iamcn, 
 d quoque servans tori fidem" Comp. VI. 15. 
 
CICERO'S HORTENSIUS. 19 
 
 promiscuous lover of the frail beauties of Carthage." 
 It was wicked and brutal in Byron to write that Saint 
 Augustin's " fine Confessions make the reader envy his 
 transgressions." The ^visdom of some parts of his Con- 
 fessions may be doubted, but they were made to impress 
 the reader with his own intense abhorrence of sin, and 
 we must admire the fearless honesty and keen moral 
 sensibility of the man in revealing the secrets of his 
 former life, which otherwise would never have been 
 known. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CICEKO'S HOETENSniS. 
 
 Meanwhile, beneath this rushing stream of external 
 activity, the soul of Augustin sighed after true wisdom. 
 His ardent thirst for something ideal and enduring first 
 of all showed itself in the study of the Hortensius of 
 Cicero, which came up regularly in the course of his 
 education. This lost volume contained an encourage- 
 ment to true philosoj^hy, and gave the direction, in its 
 study, to aim at truth only, and, above all, to hail her 
 footsteps with enthusiasm and without regard to the in- 
 terest of party. This roused the young man to an ear- 
 nest struggle after truth. 
 
 " This book," says he, " transformed my inclinations 
 and turned my prayers to Thee, O God, and changed 
 my wishes and my desires. Every vain hope was ex- 
 tinguished ; and I longed, with an incredible fervor of 
 spirit, after the immortality of wisdom. I began to raise 
 myself that 1 might return to Thee. I studied this book 
 
20 SAINT AUGUSTIN. 
 
 ac^ain and again, not for the refinement of my language 
 nor for aid in the art of speaking, but in order that I 
 might be j)ersuaded bj its doctrine. Oh, how I burned, 
 my God — how I burned to fly back from the things of 
 earth to Thee. And I knew not what Thou hadst de- 
 signed with me. For with Thee is wisdom, and these 
 \vri tings excited me toward love, toward wisdom, toward 
 philosophy. And this particularly delighted me, that I 
 was not asked therein to love, to seek, to attain, and to 
 hold in firm embrace this or that scliool — but wisdom 
 alone, as she might reveal herself. 1 was charmed and 
 inflamed." 
 
 But the volume contained one blemish : the name of 
 Christ was not there. Such a secret power did that 
 name, imprinted on his tender soul, exert over him, 
 even during his wanderings. 
 
 In this thirst after truth he laid liold of the records of 
 revehation — that holy book to which his mother clung 
 with such reverent devotion. But there was yet a great 
 gulf fixed between him and the Bible. In order to be 
 understood it requires an humble, childlike disjDosition. 
 To the proud in spirit it is a book with seven seals. The 
 natural man perceives not the things that belong to the 
 Spirit of God : they are foohslmess unto him, because 
 they are spiritually discerned. Augustin was not yet ac- 
 quainted \vit.h the depth of his corruption, which the 
 Holy Scriptures disclosed to him on every page. " The 
 Scriptures," he says, " thrive among the childlike ; but 
 I refused to become a child, and thought myself great in 
 my own presumption." He desired not truth in her 
 simple beauty, but arrayed in a specious garb of rhetoric, 
 to flatter his vanity ; he desired her not as a chaste 
 virgin, but as a voluptuous courtesan. 
 
 Hence he now turned to the sect of the Manichreans, 
 
AUGUSTIN AMONG THE MANICHJEANS. ^1 
 
 who had the word truth always on their hps, but lield 
 their disciples captive in the bondage of error. 
 
 CllAPTEPv IV. 
 
 AUGUSTIN AMONG THE MANICH^ANS. 
 
 The Manichaeans, so called from their founder, the 
 Persian Mani, or Manichteus (died 274:), were a sect 
 allied to the Gnostics. They blended together heathen- 
 ism and Christianity in a fantastic system, which they set 
 up in opposition to Judaism and the Catholic Church. 
 The groundwork of their doctrine is the Old Persian 
 religion, into which a few Christian elements are intro- 
 duced in a distorted form. They were dualists ; they 
 taught, as Zoroaster, an original antagonism between 
 God and matter ; between the kingdom of light and the 
 kingdom of darkness ; between good and evil. Man 
 stands in the middle between both these kingdoms ; he 
 has a spark of light in him which longs after redemp- 
 tion, but, at the same time, is possessed of a corrupt 
 body and a corrupt soul, which are to be gradually anni- 
 hilated. To a certain degree they acknowledged Christ 
 as a Saviour, but confounded Him with the sun ; for 
 they were accustomed to drag down the spiritual ideas of 
 the gospel into the sphere of natural life. In the entire 
 economy of nature, which, along with the perfume of 
 the flower, sends the miasmatic breath, and causes the 
 gloomy night to succeed the clear day, they saw a con- 
 flict between the two opposite kingdoms ; in every plant 
 a crucified Christ, an imprisoned spirit of light, which 
 
22 SAINT AUGUSTIN. 
 
 worked itself up from the dark bosom of tlie eartli and 
 strove toward the siin. The class of the i:)erfect among 
 them durst slay or wound no animal, pluck no flower, 
 break no stalk of grass, for fear of injuring the higher 
 spirit dwelling in it. They regarded the whole Catholic 
 Church as contaminated by Judaistic elements. Mani is 
 the Paraclete or Advocate promised by Christ, who is to 
 restore again the true Church. They reproached the 
 orthodox Christians for believing blindly, on mere 
 authority, and for not elevating themselves to the stand- 
 point of independent knowledge. They, the Manichfe- 
 ans, thought themselves, on the contrary, in the posses- 
 sion of perfect knowledge, of truth in lier pure, unveiled 
 form. The words truth, science, reason, never out of 
 their mouths, were esteemed as excellent baits for stran- 
 gers. 
 
 These lofty pretensions and promises to unravel all the 
 riddles of existence, the longing after redemption, char- 
 acteristic of the system, its inward sympathy with the 
 life of nature, the dazzling show of its subtle dialectics 
 and polemics against the doctrines of the church, and the 
 ascetic severity of its course of life, explain the attractive 
 power which the J\Ianicha)an philosophy exerted over 
 many of the more profound spirits of the age, and the 
 extensive propagation which it met with even in the 
 West. 
 
 We can readily imagine how Augustin, taken up with 
 his struggles after truth, but at the same time full of in- 
 tellectual pride, as he then was, should be won over by 
 its delusive charms. He enrolled himself in the class of 
 the aiiditor^^ or catechumens. His mother mourned 
 over this new aberration, but was consoled by a dream, 
 in which a shining youth told lier that her son should 
 stand just where she stood. "Wlien she informed her son 
 
AUGUSTIN AMONG THE MANICH^ANS. 23 
 
 of it, lie interpreted tlie dream as implying tlie speedy 
 conversion of his mother to his side. " No, no," an- 
 swered she, " it was not said to me, where he is there 
 shalt thou be also ; but, where thou art, there shall he be 
 also. " Augiistin confesses that this prompt reply made 
 a greater impression on him than the dream itself. She 
 was likewise comforted by a bishop, who, at a former 
 period, had been himself a Manichaean. She begged 
 him to convince her son of his error. But he thought 
 disputation would be of no avail. She should only con- 
 tinue to pray for him, and gradually, of his own accord, 
 through study and experience, he would come to a 
 clearer understanding. " As sure as you live," he add- 
 ed, "it is not possible that a son of such tears should be 
 lost." Monnica treasured up these words as a prophetic 
 voice fi'om heaven. 
 
 For nine years, up to the twenty- eighth of his life, 
 Augustin remained in connection with these heretics — 
 led astray, and leading others astray. Their discovery of 
 seeming contradictions in the doctrines of the Church, 
 their polemics against the Old Testament, their specula- 
 tions concerning the origin of evil, which they traced 
 back to a primordial principle co-existent with God Him- 
 self, spoke to his understanding, while their symbolical 
 interpretations of the varied aspects of nature addressed 
 his lively imagination. 
 
 And yet, for all this, the deepest want of his reason 
 remained unsatisfied. At the time of the high church 
 festivals particularly, when all Christians flocked to the 
 services of the altar, in order to die with the Lord on 
 Good Friday, and rise again with Him on Easter morn- 
 ing, he was seized with a strong desire after their com- 
 munion. For this reason he took no step toward enter- 
 ing the higher class of the initiated, or elect, among the 
 
34 SAINT AUGUSTIN. 
 
 Maiilcliffians, but devoted himself more zealously to 
 those studies which belonged to his calliBg as a rhetori- 
 cian. 
 
 CIIAPTEP. Y. 
 
 THE LOSS OF A FKIEND. 
 
 After the completion of his course of study he re- 
 turned to Tagaste, in order to settle there as a teacher of 
 rhetoric. He was master of every qualification for in- 
 spiring his scholars with enthusiasm, and many of them, 
 especially Alypius, adhered to him through life with the 
 most heartfelt gratitude. 
 
 About this time he lost a very dear friend, who, with 
 an almost feminine susceptibility, had resigned himself 
 to the commanding power of his creative intellect, and 
 had even followed him into the mazes of Manichaeism. 
 lie was suddenly prostrated by a fever. Baptism was 
 administered to him without his knowledge ; Augustin, 
 who was with him night and day, made a mock of it. 
 But his friend, when he again became conscious, with- 
 stood him witli an independence that he had never be- 
 fore exhibited. The empty shadow of a Clirist, the sun, 
 the moon, the air, and whatever else was pointed out by 
 Maniehgeism to the soul thirsting after salvation, could 
 now yield him no comfort — but the simple, childlike 
 iiiith of the Catholic Churcli alone. In this faith he de- 
 parted, when the fever returned with renewed violence. 
 
 The death of this friend filled Augustin with inexpres- 
 sible anguish. Xeither the splendor of light, nor the 
 peaceful innocence of the flowers, nor the joys of the 
 
THE LOSS OF A FEIEND. 25 
 
 banquet, nor tlie pleasures of sense, liad any interest for 
 liim now ; even bis books, for a long wbile, lost tlieir 
 cliarms, " Everjtliing I looked u]3on was deatb. My 
 fatberland became a torment to me — my fatber's bouse a 
 scene of tbe deepest suffering. Above all, my eyes 
 sougbt after bim ; but be was not given back to me 
 again. I bated everytliing because be was not tbere. I 
 bad become a great enigma to myself. ' ' 
 
 He afterward saw bow wrong it was to place sucb un- 
 bounded dependence on tbe creature. " Ob, tbe folly," 
 be laments, " of not knowing bow to love men as men ! 
 Ob, foolisb man, to suffer wliat is buman beyond due 
 measure, as I tben did !" " Blessed is be, O Lord, wbo 
 loves Tbee," are bis inimitable words, " and bis friend 
 in Tbee, and bis enemy for Tby sake. lie alone loses 
 no dear ones, to wbom all are dear in Ilim, wbo can 
 never be lost to us. And wbo is He, but our God, tbe 
 God wbo made beaven and cartb, and fills tbem all ! 
 No one loses Tbee but be wbo forsakes Tbee." * 
 
 And yet we see in tins uncontrollable anguisb wbat a 
 deep fountain of love was gusbing in bis bosom. Could 
 tliis love only find its proper object, and be purified by 
 tbe Spirit of God, wbat a ricb ornament and source of 
 blessing must it become to tbe Cburcb and tbe world ! 
 At tbe same time tbis severe suffering reveals tbe inter- 
 nal weakness of tbe Manicbsean dogmas and of mere 
 buman wisdom. Tbeir consolations cannot reacb into 
 tbe dark liours of trouble ; tbeir promises are convicted 
 
 * Confess. IV. 9 : " Bealus quiamat Te, el amicum in Te, et inimicum 
 propter Te. Solus enim nullum carum amiltit, cui omnes in illo cari sunt, 
 qui non amiliiur. Et quis est isle, nisi Deus nosier, Deus qui fecit coeluni 
 et terrain, et iniplet ea, quia implen.do ea fecit ea ? Te nemo amittil, nisi 
 qui dimittitj et qui dimitlit, quo it, aut quo fug it, nisi a Te placido ad Te 
 iraium ? ' ' 
 
26 SAINT AUGUSTIISr. 
 
 of falseliood at the brink of tlie grave. It is true, in- 
 deed, that this visitation to his soul passed hy without 
 waking him up from his sleep of sin. Still, the death- 
 bed of his friend, which he could not banish from his 
 memory, had certainly the effect of undermining his 
 faith in the Manichsean system. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 AUGUSTIN LEAVES MANICH^ISM. 
 
 In consequence of this loss, which embittered his life 
 in his native city, and impelled also by an ambitious de- 
 sire for a distinguished career, Augustin went back to 
 Carthage, and opened there a school of forensic elo- 
 quence. Amid new relationships and in the society of 
 new friends his wounds were gradually healed, and he 
 went forward in his accustomed path with success, 
 though at times the recklessness of the students gave 
 him great pain. 
 
 He appeared also as an author, and published a large 
 philosophical work on Fitness and Beauty.* 
 
 For some time yet he adliered to Manichieism, until at 
 hist, in his twenty-ninth year, a crisis arrived. By de- 
 grees many doubts had arisen in his mind concerning the 
 system. His confidence in the boasted sanctity of the 
 Manichsean priesthood, the class of the elect, was shaken 
 by the rumor of secret vices, which held sway among 
 them, under the hypocritical mask of peculiar, ascetic 
 
 * Be Apia et Pulchro. 
 
AUGUSTIX LEAVES MAKICH J::iSM. 37 
 
 virtues. By the thorongli study of pliilosophy lie was 
 able to gain an insight into the many contradictions and 
 untenable points of Manichsean speculation. The notion 
 of evil as a substance co-eternal with God could not sat- 
 isfy his mind in its struggle after unity. 
 
 The Manichfeans were unable to solve his doubts, and 
 instead of attempting it, promised to introduce him to 
 their famous bishop, Faustus, who was then regarded as 
 their oracle. He lived at Mileve, a city in the north- 
 western part of I^umidia. Augustin himself was very 
 desirous of becoming acquainted with him. This honor 
 was at last granted. They met in Carthage. He discov- 
 ered in him a brilliant orator and a subtle dialectician, 
 but at the same time a man of moderate culture and 
 without any depth or earnestness of spirit. He compares 
 him to a cup-bearer who, with graceful politeness, pre- 
 sents a costly goblet without anything in it. "With 
 such things," says he, in allusion to his discourses, " my 
 ears are already satiated. They did not appear better 
 because beautifully spoken, nor true because eloquent, 
 nor spiritually wise because the look was expressive and 
 the discourse select. Thou, my God, hast taught me, 
 in wonderful and hidden ways, that a thing should not 
 seem true because portrayed with eloquence, nor false 
 because the breath of the lips is not sounded according 
 to the rules of art ; on tlie other hand, that a thing is 
 not necessarily true because conveyed in rude, nor false 
 because conveyed in brilliant, language ; but that wisdom 
 and folly are like wholesome and noxious viands — both 
 may be contained in tasteful t)r unadorned words, as 
 they in rough or finely- wrought vessels." In the pri- 
 vate conversations which he held with Faustus the latter 
 could not answer questions of vital importance to the 
 truth of the Manichaean system, and was obliged to re- 
 
28 SAIJTT AUGUSTIN. 
 
 sort to the Socratic confession of ignorance. But that 
 did not agree well with the intellectual arrogance of this 
 sect. 
 
 Now, after their boasted champion had so sadly disap- 
 pointed his expectations, Augustin resolved on breaking 
 with the heresy, although he did not yet formally re- 
 nounce his place among its adherents. 
 
 CHAPTER Yll. 
 
 EEEOE OVEEKULED FOE TEUTH. 
 
 Befoee we go on with our church-father let us take 
 a glance at the connection between his wanderings and 
 his later activity in the Church. The marvellous wisdom 
 of God reveals itself in bringing good out of evil and 
 making even the sins and errors of His servants contrib- 
 ute to their own sanctification and an increase of their 
 usefulness. "He overrules the wrath of men for His 
 glory." David's double crime followed by his repent- 
 ance, Peter's denial wiped out by his bitter tears, PauFs 
 persecuting zeal turned into apostolic devotion, have 
 been an unfailing source of comfort and encouragement 
 to Christians in their struggle with temptation and sin. 
 And yet by no means does this render wickedness ex- 
 cusable. To the question, " Shall we continue in sin 
 that grace may abound ?" the Apostle Paul answers with 
 liorror, "God forbid !" 
 
 The wild, reckless life of Augustin prepared him to 
 look afterward, in the light of grace, far down into the 
 abyss of sin — into the thorough corruption and ingrati- 
 
ERROR OVERRULED FOR TRUTH. 29 
 
 tude of the human heart. The bare thouglit of it must 
 have deeply troubled him, but the humility that can say 
 with Paul, " I am the chief of sinners," is one of the 
 most beautiful pearls in the crown of the Christian char- 
 acter, while spiritual pride and self-ri<i:hteousness gnaw 
 like worms at the root of piety. There is no church- 
 father who, in regard to deep, unfeigned humility, bears 
 so much resemblance, or stands so near to the great 
 apostle of the Gentiles as Augustin. He manifests iu 
 all his writings a noble renunciation of self in the pres- 
 ence of the Most Holy, and his spirit goes forth in 
 tliankfulness to the superabounding grace which, in spite 
 of his unworthiness, had drawn him up out of the 
 depths of corruption and overwhelmed him with mercy. 
 By his own painful experience he was also fitted to 
 develop the doctrine of sin, with such rare penetration 
 and subtlety, to refute the superficial theories of Pelagius, 
 and thus to render an invaluable service to theology and 
 the Church. Further, his theoretical aberration into 
 Manichaeism fitted him to overthrow this false and dan- 
 gerous system, and to prove, by a striking example, how 
 fruitless the search after truth must be outside of the 
 simple, humble faith in Christ. Thus also was St. Paul, 
 by his learned Pharisaic education, better qualified than 
 any other apostle for contending successfully against the 
 false exegesis and legal righteousness of his Judaistic 
 opponents. 
 
30 SAINT AUGUSTIN. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 AUGUSTIN A SCEPTIC IN KOME. 
 
 Aftee Augustin had lost faith in Manichseism he 
 found himself in the same situation as he was ten years 
 before. There was the same longing after truth, but 
 linked now with a feeling of desolation, a bitter sense of 
 deception, and a large measure of scepticism. He was 
 no longer at ease in Carthage. He hankered after new 
 associations, new scenes, new fountains out of which to 
 drink the good so ardently desired. 
 
 This disposition of mind, in connection with a dislike 
 for tlie rudeness of the Carthaginian students and the 
 exactions of friends, made him resolve on a journey to 
 Rome, where he ventured to hope for a yet ignore brill- 
 iant and profitable career as a rhetorician. '^ Thus he 
 drew niglier to the place where his inward change was to 
 be decided. 
 
 He endeavored to conceal his resolution from his 
 mother, who in the mean time had joined him at Car- 
 thage. But she found out something about it, and 
 wished eitlier to prevent him from going, or to go with 
 him. 
 
 Augustiu would listen to neither proposal, and resort: 
 ed to a trick to carry out his plan. One evening, in the 
 year 383, he went down to the sea-shore, in order to 
 take ship, near the place where two chapels had been 
 dedicated to the memory of the great church-father and 
 martyr, St. Cyprian. His mother suspected his design, 
 and followed him. He pretended that he merely wished 
 to visit a friend on board, and remain with him until his 
 departure. As she was not satisfied with this explana- 
 
AUGUSTIN A SCEPTIC IN" ROME. 31 
 
 tion, and unwilling to tarn back alone, be insisted on lier 
 spending at least tbat one niglit in tlie cbiireb of tbe 
 martyr, and tben be would come for ber. 
 
 "Wbile sbe was tbere in tears, praying and wrestling 
 witb God to prevent bis voyage, Angustin sailed for tlie 
 coasts of Ital}^, and bis deceived motber found berself 
 tbe next morning alone on tbe sbore of tbe sea. Sbe 
 bad learned, bowever, tbe beavenly art of forgiving, and 
 believing also, wbere sbe could not see. In quiet resig- 
 nation sbe returned to tbe city, and continued to pray for 
 tbe salvation of ber son, waiting tbe time wben tbe band 
 of Supreme Wisdom would solve tbe dark riddle. 
 Tbougb meaning well, sbe tbis time erred in ber prayer, 
 for tbe journey of Augustin was tbe means of bis salva- 
 tion. Tbe denial of the prayer was, in fact, tbe answer- 
 ing of it. Instead of tbe form, God granted ratber tbe 
 substance of ber petition in tbe conversion of ber son. 
 " Tberefore," says be — " therefore badst Tbou, O God, 
 regard to tbe aim and essence of ber desires, and didst 
 not do what sbe then prayed for, tbat Tbou migbtest do 
 for me wbat sbe continually implored. " 
 
 After a prosperous voyage across tbe Mediterranean 
 Auo'ustin found lode-ino; in Rome witb a Manicbsean 
 bost, of tbe class of tbe auditors, and mingled in tbe so- 
 ciety of tbe elect. He was soon attacked, in tbe bouse 
 of tbis heretic, by a disease brought on and aggravated 
 by tbe agonies of bis soul, dissatisfaction with his course 
 of life, homesickness, and remorse for the heartless 
 deception practised on his mother. Tbe fever rose so 
 high tbat signs of approaching dissolution bad already 
 appeared, and yet Providence had reserved him for a 
 long and active life. " Tbou, O God, didst permit me 
 to recover from tbat disease, and didst make the son of 
 Thy handmaid whole, first in body, that he might be- 
 
32 SAItiTT AUGUSTIN". 
 
 come one on whom Thou coiildst bestow a better and 
 more secure restoration." 
 
 Again restored to health, he began to counsel his com- 
 panions against Manichseism, to which before he had so 
 zealously labored to win over adherents. And yet he 
 could not lead them to the truth. His dislike to the 
 Church had rather increased. The doctrine of the in- 
 carnation of the Son of God had become particularly of- 
 fensiv^e to him, as it was to all Gnostics and Manichfeans. 
 He despaired of finding truth in the Church. Yet 
 scepticism could not satisfy him, and so he was tossed 
 wildly between two waters, that would not flow peace- 
 fully together. " The more earnestly and perse veringly 
 I reflected on the activity, the acuteness, and the depths 
 of the human soul, the more 1 was led to believe that 
 truth could not be a thing inaccessible to man, and came 
 thus to the conclusion that the right path to its attain- 
 ment had not hitherto been discovered, and that this path 
 must be marked out by divine authority. But now the 
 question arose what this divine authority might be, since 
 among so many conflicting sects each professed to teach 
 in its name. A forest full of mazes stood again before 
 my eyes, in which 1 was to wander about, and to be 
 compelled to tread, which rendered me fearful." 
 
 In this imsettled state of mind he felt himself draAvn 
 toward the doctrines of tlie New Academy.* This sys- 
 tem, whose representatives were Arcesilaus and Car- 
 neades, denied, in most decided opposition to Stoicism, 
 the possibility of an infallible knowledge of any object ; 
 it could only arrive at a subjective probability, not truth. 
 
 * Confess. V. 10 : " Etenim suhorla est ellam mild cogilatio, pruden- 
 tiores cceteris fuisse illos philosophos, quos Academicos appellant, quod 
 de omnibus dubitandum esse censuerant, nee aliquid vcri ab hcrmine com- 
 prehendi posss decreverant." 
 
AUGUSTIN IN MILAIST — ST. AMBROSE. 33 
 
 But our cliurcli-fatlier could not rest content with a 
 philosophy so sceptical. It onlj served to give liira a 
 deeper sense of his emptiness, and thus, in a negative 
 manner, to pave the way for something better. A change 
 in his external circumstances soon occurred which has- 
 tened the great crisis of his life. 
 
 After he had been in Rome not quite a year the pre- 
 fect Symmachus, the eloquent advocate of declining 
 heathenism, was requested to send an able teacher of 
 rhetoric to Milan. The choice fell on Augustin. The 
 recommendation of Manichasan patrons, and still more 
 his trial-speech, obtained for him the honorable and 
 lucrative post. He forsook Rome the more willingly 
 because the manners of the students did not please him. 
 They were accustomed to leave one teacher in the midst 
 of his course, without paying their dues, and go to an- 
 other. 
 
 With this removal to Milan we approach the great 
 crisis in the life of Augustin, when he was freed forever 
 from the fetters of Manichseism and scepticism, and be- 
 came a glorious light in the Church of Jesus Christ. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 AUGUSTIN IN MILAN — ST. AMBROSE. 
 
 In the spring of the year 38i Augustin, accompanied 
 by his old friend Alypius, journeyed to Milan, the sec- 
 ond capital of Italy and frequent residence of the Roman 
 Emperor. 
 
 The episcopal chair at that jolace was then filled by one 
 
34 SAINT AUGUSTIN". 
 
 of the most venerable of the Latin fathers, one who not 
 only earned enduring honors in the sphere of theology, 
 but also in that of sacred poetry and sacred music, and 
 distinguished himself as an ecclesiastical prince by the 
 energetic and M'ise management of his diocese and his 
 bold defence of the interests of the Church, even against 
 the Emperor himself. 
 
 Ambrose was born at Treves, in the year 34:0, of a 
 very ancient and ilhistrious family. His father was gov- 
 ernor of Gaul, one of the three great dioceses of the 
 Western Roman Empire. When yet a little boy, as he 
 lay sleeping in the cradle with his mouth open, a swarm 
 of bees came buzzing around, and flew in and out of his 
 mouth, without doing him any harm. The father, as- 
 tonislied at the unexpected vanishing of the danger, 
 cried out in a prophetic mood : *' Truly, this child, if he 
 lives, will turn out something great !" A similar story 
 is told of Plato. After the early death of the prefect 
 his pious widow moved to Eome with her three children, 
 and gave them a careful education. 
 
 Ambrose was marked out for a brilliant worldly career 
 by man, but not by God. After the completion of his 
 studies he made his appearance as an attorney, and ac- 
 quitted himself so well by his eloquent discourses that 
 Probus, the governor of Italy, appointed him his coun- 
 sellor. Soon after he conveyed to him the prefecture or 
 vicercgency of the provinces of Liguria and Jj^milia, in 
 Upper Italy, with the remarkable words, afterward in- 
 terpreted as an involuntary prophecy : " Go, and act, 
 not as judge, but as bishop." Ambrose administered 
 his office with dignity, justice, and clemency, and won 
 for himself universal esteem. 
 
 The Church of IMilan was then involved in a battle 
 between Arianisra, which denied the divinity of Christ, 
 
AUGUSTIN IN" MILAN — ST. AMBROSE. 35 
 
 and Nicene orthodoxy, which maintained the essential 
 eqnahty of the Son with the Father. Augentius, an 
 Arian, had succeeded in driving into exile the CathoHc 
 bishop Dionysius, and usurping tlie episcopal chair. But 
 he died in the year STJ:, 
 
 At the election of a new bishop bloody scenes were 
 apprehended. Ambrose thought it his duty as governor 
 to go into the church and silence the uproar of the par- 
 ties. His speech to the assembled multitude was sud- 
 denly interrupted by the cry of a child — " Ambrose, be 
 bishop !" As swift as lightning the voice of the child 
 became the voice of the people, who with one accord 
 would have him and no other for their chief shepherd. 
 
 Ambrose was confounded. He was then still in the 
 class of catechumens, and hence not baptized, and had, 
 moreover, so high an opinion of the dignity and respon- 
 sibility of the episcopal office that he deemed himself 
 altogether unworthy of it and unfit for it. He resorted 
 to flight, cunning, and the strangest devices to evade the 
 call. But it availed nothing ; and when now also the 
 imperial confirmation of the choice arrived, he submitted 
 to the will of God, which addressed him so powerfully 
 through these circumstances. After being baptized by 
 an orthodox bishop, and having run through the different 
 clerical stages, he received episcopal consecration on the 
 eighth day. 
 
 His friend Basil, of C^esarea, was highly rejoiced at 
 the result. " We praise God," so he wrote, " that in 
 all ages He chooses such as are pleasing to Him. He 
 once chose a shepherd and set him up as ruler over His 
 people. Moses, as he tended the goats, was tilled with 
 the Spirit of God, and raised to the dignity of a prophet. 
 But in our days He sent out of the royal city, the metrop- 
 olis of the world, a man of lofty spirit, distinguished by 
 
36 SAINT AUGUSTIN, 
 
 noble birtli and the splendor of riches and by an elo- 
 quence, at which the world wonders ; one who renounces 
 all these earthly glories, and esteems them but loss that he 
 may win Christ, and accepts, on behalf of the Church, 
 the helm of a great ship made famous by his faith. So 
 be of good cheer, O man of God !" 
 
 From this time forward until the day of his death, 
 which occurred on Good Friday of the year 307, Am- 
 brose acted the part of a genuine l)ishop : he was the 
 shepherd of the congregation, the defender of the op- 
 pressed, the watchman of the Church, the teacher of the 
 people, the adviser and reprover of kings. He began by 
 distributing his lands, his gold, and his silver among the 
 poor. His life was exceedingly severe and simple. He 
 took no dinner, except on Saturdays, Sundays, and the 
 festivals of celebrated martyrs. Invitations to banquets 
 he declined, except when his office required his presence, 
 and then he set an example of temperance. The day 
 was devoted to the duties of his calling, the most of the 
 niglit to prayer, meditation on divine things, the study 
 of the Bible and the Greek fathers, and the writing of 
 theological works. He preached every Sunday, and in 
 cases of necessity during the week, sometimes twice a 
 day. To his catechumens he attended with especial care, 
 but exerted an influence on a wider circle by means of 
 his writings, in which old Eoman vigor, dignity, and 
 sententiousness were united with a deep and ardent prac- 
 tical Christianity. He was easy of access to all — to the 
 lowest as well as the highest. His revenues were given 
 to the needy, whom he called, on this account, his stew- 
 ards and treasurers. With dauntless heart he battled 
 against the Arian heresy, and, as the Athanasius of the 
 "West, helped Nicene orthodoxy to its triumph in Upper 
 Italy. 
 
AUGUSTIN IN MILAN — ST. AMBROSE. 3? 
 
 Sucli "vras Ambrose. If any one was Utted for win- 
 ning over to the Church the highly-gifted stranger who 
 came into his neighborhood, it was he. Augustin 
 visited the bishop, not as a Cln-istian, but as a celebrated 
 and eminent man. He was received by him with pater- 
 nal kindness, and at once felt himself drawn toward him 
 in love. " Unconsciously was I led to him, my God, by 
 Thee, in order to be consciously led by him to Thee." 
 He also frequently attended his preaching, not that he 
 might be converted by him, and obtain food for his soul, 
 but that he might listen to a beautiful and eloquent ser- 
 mon. The personal character and renown of Ambrose 
 attracted him. The influence of curiosity was predomi- 
 nant ; and yet it could not but hapj)en that the contents 
 of the discourses also should soon make an impression 
 on him, even against his will. 
 
 " 1 began to love him," says he, " not, indeed, at first 
 as a teacher of the truth, which I despaired of finding in 
 Thy Church, but as a man worthy of my love. I often 
 listened to his public discourses, I confess, not with a 
 pure motive, but only to prove if his eloquence was equal 
 to his fame. I weighed his words carefully, while I had 
 no interest in their meaning, or despised it. I wos de- 
 lighted with the grace of his language, Mdiich was more 
 learned, more full of intrinsic value, but in delivery less 
 brilliant and flattering, than that of Faustus, the Mani- 
 chssan. In regard to the contents, there was no com- 
 parison between them ; for while the latter conducted 
 into Manichsean errors, the former taught salvation in 
 the surest way. From sinners, like I was then, salvation 
 is indeed far off ; yet was I gradually and unconsciously 
 drawing near to it. For although it was not my wish to 
 learn tohat he said, but only to hear how he said it (this 
 vain interest was left me, who despaired of the truth), 
 
38 SAINT AUGUSTIN". 
 
 still, along with the words, which 1 loved, there stole 
 also into my spirit the substance, which I had no care 
 for, because I could not separate the two. And while I 
 opened my heart to receive the eloquence which he ut- 
 tered, the truth also which he spake found entrance, 
 though by slow degrees."* 
 
 By this preaching the Old Testament was filled with 
 new light to Augustin. He had imbibed a prejudice 
 against it from the Manichseans. He regarded it as little 
 else than a letter that kills. Ambrose unfolded its life- 
 giving spirit by means of allegorical interpretation, which 
 was then in vogue among the Fathers, especially those 
 of the Alexandrian school. Its aim was, above all, to 
 spiritualize the historical parts of the Bible, and to resolve 
 the external husk into universal ideas. Thus gross vio- 
 lence was often done to the text, and things were dragged 
 into the Bible, which, to an unbiassed mind, were not 
 contained there, at least not in the exact place indicated. 
 And yet this mode of interpretation was born of the spirit 
 of faith and reverence, which bowed to the "Word of God 
 as to a source of the most profound truths, and, so far, 
 was instructive and edifying. To Augustin, who himself 
 used it freely in his writings, often to capriciousness, al- 
 though he afterward inclined rather to a cautious, gram- 
 matical, and historical apprehension of the Scripture, it 
 was then very acceptable, and had the good effect of 
 weaning him still further from Manichcsism. He soon 
 threw it aside altogether. But even the Platonic phil- 
 osophers, whom he preferred to it, he M^ould not blindly 
 trust, because "the saving name of Christ was wanting in 
 them," from which, according to that ineffaceable im- 
 pression of his pious childhood, he could never separate 
 the knowledge of the truth. 
 * Confess. V. 13, 14. 
 
AUGUSTIN A CATECHUMEN IN THE CATHOLIC CHUKCII. 31) 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 AUGUSTIN A CATECHUMEN IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 We would suppose that he was now ready to cast him- 
 self into the arms of the Church, which approached him 
 by a representative so worthy and so highly gifted. But 
 he had not yet come so far. Yarious difficulties stood in 
 the way. To think of God as a purely spiritual sub- 
 stance gave him peculiar trouble. In this lie was yet 
 under the influence of Manichceism, which clothed the 
 spiritual idea of God in the garb of sense. 
 
 Nevertheless, he took a considerable step in advance. 
 He enrolled himself in the class of the catechumens, to 
 which he had already belonged when a boy, and resolved 
 to remain there until he could arrive at a decision in his 
 own soul.* He says of his condition at this time, that 
 he had come so far already that any capable teacher 
 would have found in him a most devoted and teachable 
 scholar. 
 
 Thus did Augustin resign himself to the maternal care 
 of the communion in which he had received his early, 
 never-forgotten religious impressions. It could not hap- 
 pen otherwise than, after an honest search, he should at 
 last discover in her the supernatural glory, which, to the 
 offence of the carnal understanding, was concealed under 
 the form of a servant. A man possessed of his ardent 
 longing after God, his tormenting thirst for truth and 
 peace of mind, could obtain rest only in the asylum 
 
 * Confess. V. 14 : " Statui ergo tamdiu esse calechnmenus in calholica 
 eccksia, mild a parentibus commendata, donee aliquid cerll eluceret, quo 
 cursiim dirigerem. ' ' 
 
40 
 
 SAINT AUGUSTIN". 
 
 founded by God Himself, and see there all Lis desires 
 fulfilled bejond his highest hopes. 
 
 The Church had then emerged from the bloody field 
 of those witnesses who had joyfully offered up their litres 
 to show their gratitude and fidelity to the Lord who had 
 died for them. Their heroic courage, which overcame 
 the world ; their love, which was stronger than death • 
 their patience, which endured cruel tortures without a 
 miirmur, as lambs led to the slaughter ; and their hoi^e 
 which burst out in songs of triumph at the stake and on 
 the cross, were yet fresh in her memory. Everywhere 
 altars and chapels were erected to perpetuate their vir- 
 tues From a feeling of thankfulness for the victory so 
 dearly purchased by tlieir death, and in tlie consciousness 
 ot an uninterrupted communion with the glorified war- 
 riors their heavenly birthdays were celebrated.* While 
 heathenism in the pride of its power, its literature, and 
 Its art, was falling into decay, the youthful Church, sure 
 of her promise of eternal duration, pressed triumphantly 
 forward into a new era, to take possession of the wild 
 hordes of the invading nations who destroyed the Roman 
 Jimpire and communicate to them, along with faith in 
 he Eedeemer civihzation, morality, and the higher 
 b essmgs of life. The most noble and profound spirits 
 sought refuge m her communion, in which alone they 
 could find rest for their souls and quench their thirst 
 
 fot nt ? . ^ "i '"""^ "^^^^^^^^^ ^^- Vnnees and 
 potentates of earth, and reminded them of righteousness 
 
 !ffor dll'T'^f • ^^'^"^' ^'^""^ ^"^ ^^^P^tic period she 
 affo ded she! er to the oppressed, was a kind and loving 
 mother to the poor, the widow, and the orphan, and 
 opened^er treasures to all who needed help. They who 
 
 * So were the days of their death called. 
 
AUGUSTIN A CATECHUMEN IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 41 
 
 were weary of life found in the peaceful cells of her 
 monasteries, in communion with pilgrims of like spirit, 
 an undisturbed retreat, where thej could give themselves 
 wholly up to meditation on divine things. Thus she 
 cared for all classes, and brought consolation and comfort 
 into every sphere of life. She zealously persevered in 
 preaching and exhorting, in the education of youth for a 
 better world, in praj^er and in intercession for the bit- 
 terest enemies, and in ascriptions of glory to the Holy 
 Trinity. 
 
 Iler devotion concentrated itself on the festivals, 
 recurring yearly in honor of the great facts of the Gos- 
 pel, especially on Easter and Whitsuntide, when multi- 
 tudes of catechumens, of both sexes and all ages, clad in 
 white garments, the symbol of purity, were received into 
 the ranks of Christ's warriors, amid fervent prayers and 
 animating hynms of praise. The prince bowed with the 
 peasant in baptism before the common Lord ; the famous 
 scholar sat like a child among the catechumens ; and 
 blooming virgins, "those lilies of Christ," as Ambrose 
 calls them, made their vow before the altar to renounce 
 the world and live for the heavenly bridegroom. The 
 activity of Ambrose was in this respect attended by the 
 richest results. He would frequently, on the solemn 
 night before Easter, have as many incorporated into the 
 communion of the Church by baptism as five other bish- 
 ops together. 
 
 The Church of that time M'as still an undivided unity, 
 without excluding, however, great diversity of gifts and 
 powers. And this enabled her to overcome so victo- 
 riously heresies, schisms, persecutions, and the collected 
 might of heathenism itself. One body and one spirit, 
 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father 
 of all—this declaration of the apostle was more applicable 
 
42 SAIXT AUGL'STIX. 
 
 to the first centuries of the Church tlian to later periods. 
 The dweller on the Rhine found on the borders of the 
 African desert, and the Syrian on the shores of the 
 Rhone, the same confession of faith, the same sanctify- 
 ing power, and the same ritual of worship. The Chris- 
 tian of tlie fourth century felt himself in living commun- 
 ion with all the mighty dead, who had long before de- 
 parted in the service of the same Lord. That age had no 
 idea of an interruption in the history of God's kingdom, 
 a sinking away of the life-stream of Christ. From the 
 heart of God and His Son it has rolled down, from the 
 days of the apostles, through the veins of the Church 
 Catholic, amid certain infallible signs, in one unbroken 
 current to the present, in order gradually to fertilize the 
 whole round of earth, and empty itself into the ocean of 
 eternity. 
 
 And yet we have just as little reason to think the 
 Church at that time free from faults and imperfections 
 as at any other period. Some dream, indeed, of a 
 golden age of spotless purity. But such an age has 
 never been, and will only first appear after the general 
 resurrection. Even the Aj^ostolic Church was, in regard 
 to its membership, by no means absolutely pure and 
 holy ; for we need only read attentively and with un- 
 biassed mind any Epistle of the New Testament or the 
 letters to the seven churches in the Apocalypse, in order 
 to be convinced that they collectively reproved the con- 
 gregations to which they were sent, for various faults, 
 excrescences, and perversions, and warned them of 
 manifold errors, dangers, and temptations. When, 
 moreover, through the conversion of Constantine, the 
 great mass of the heathen world crowded into the 
 Church, they dragged along witli thciu also a vast 
 amount of corruption. A very sad and dreary jjicture 
 
AUGUSTIN A CATECHUMEN" IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 43 
 
 of the Christianity of the Niceiie period can be drawn 
 from the writings of the fathers of the fourth century 
 (Gregory Nazianzen, for example), so that the modern 
 Church in comparison appears in many respects hke a 
 great improvement. The march of Christianity is 
 steadily onward. 
 
 In spite of all these defects there were yet remedies 
 and salt enough to preserve the body from decay. The 
 militant Church, in her continuous conflict with a sinful 
 world, must ever authenticate and develop the power of 
 genuine sanctity, and this she did during the Nicene 
 period. We cannot mistake the agency of the Holy 
 Spirit, who, amid the stormy and passionate battles with 
 Arianism and semi-Arianism, at last helped the Nicene 
 faith to victory. And we cannot refuse genuine admira- 
 tion to those great heroes of the fourth century^ an 
 Athanasius, a Basil, a Gregory of Nyssa, a Gregory of 
 J^azianzum, a Chrysostora, an Ambrose, a Jerome, who 
 were distinguished as much by earnestness and dignity of 
 character and depth and vigor of piety as by their emi- 
 nent learning and culture, and who are, even to this day, 
 gratefully honored by the Greek, the Roman, and the 
 Protestant communions as true chxirGh-J'afhers. Not- 
 withstanding all the corruption in her bosom, the Cath- 
 olic Church of that age was still immeasurably elevated 
 above heathenism, sinking into hopeless ruin, and the 
 conceited and arrogant schools of the Gnostics and Man- 
 ichf^ans ; for she, and she alone, was the bearer of the 
 divine-human life-powers of the Christian religion, and 
 the hope of the world. 
 
44 SAINT AUGUSTIN". 
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 ARRIVAL OF MONNICA. 
 
 Such was the state of the Church wlien Augustin 
 entered the class of catechumens and listened attentively 
 to her doctrines. His good genius, Monnica, soon came 
 to Milan, as one sent by God. She could no longer stay 
 in Africa without her son, and embarked for Italy. 
 While at sea a storm arose, which made the oldest sailors 
 tremble. But she, feeling strong and secure under the 
 protection of the Almighty, encouraged them all, and 
 confidently predicted a happy termination to the voyage ; 
 for God had promised it to her in a vision. In Milan 
 she found her son delivered from the snares of Manichse- 
 ism, but not yet a believing professor. She was highly 
 rejoiced, and accepted the partial answer of her tearful 
 prayers as a pledge of their speedy and complete fulfil- 
 ment. " My son," said she, with strong assurance, " I 
 believe in Christ, that before I depart this life I shall see 
 thee become a believing. Catholic Christian." * 
 
 She found favor with Ambrose, who often sj^oke of 
 her with great respect, and thought the son happy who 
 had such a mother. She regularly attended his minis- 
 trations, and willingly gave up certain usages, which, 
 though observed by her at home, were not in vogue at 
 Milan, such as fasting on Saturdays and love-feasts at the 
 graves of the martyrs. "With renewed fervor and confi- 
 
 * Confess. VI. 1: " Placidissime et pectore pleno fiducice respondit mihi, 
 credere se in Christo, quod priusquam de hac vUa em'ujraret me visura 
 essel fidelem calhoUcum. ' ' 
 
MORAL CONFLICTS — PROJECT OF MARRIAGE. 45 
 
 dence slie now prayed to God, who liad already led the 
 darling of her heart to the gates of the sanctuary. She 
 was soon to witness the fulfilment of her desires. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MORAL CONFLICTS — PROJECT OF MARRIAGE. 
 
 AuGUSTEsr continued to listen to the discourses of Am- 
 brose and visit him at his house, although the bishop, 
 on account of pressing duties, could not enter so fully 
 as he wished into his questions and doubts. He now 
 obtained a more just idea of the doctrines of the Script- 
 ures and the Church than the perversions of the Mani- 
 chceans had afforded him. He saw " that all the knots 
 of cunning misrepresentation which these modern be- 
 trayers of the Divine Word had tied up could be un- 
 loosed, and that for so many years he had been assailing, 
 not the real faith of the Church, but chimeras of a fleshly 
 imagination." He now first began to prize and com- 
 prehend the Bible in some measure, while before it had 
 been to him a disagreeable volume, sealed with seven 
 seals ; and such it ever is to all those who wilfully tear 
 it loose from living Christianity, and drag it into the 
 forum of the carnal understanding, " which perceives 
 not the things of the Spirit of God," and thus factiously 
 constitute themselves judges over it, instead of surrender- 
 ing themselves to it in humble obedience. 
 
 Meanwhile he had many practical and theoretical strug- 
 gles to pass through before reaching a final decision. 
 About this time, in conjunction with his friends, among 
 
46 SAINT AUGUSTIN. 
 
 wliom were Alypius, who liad come with him to Milan, 
 and JSTebridius, who had lately left Africa, in order to 
 live together with Augustin, " in the most ardent study of 
 truth and wisdom," he resolved to form a philosophical 
 union, and, in undisturbed retirement, with a community 
 of goods, to devote himself exclusively to the pursuit of 
 truth. In such a self-created ideal world, which com- 
 mended itself to the lofty imagination of one so gifted 
 and noble as Augustin was, he sought a substitute for the 
 reality of Christianit^^and the deeper earnestness of prac- 
 tical life and activity. " Diverse thoughts were thus in 
 our hearts, but Thy counsel, O God, abides in eternity. 
 According to that counsel Thou didst laugh at ours, and 
 work out Thine own, to bestow on us the Spirit at the 
 set time." " While the winds were blowing from every 
 quarter and tossing my heart to and fro, time went by, 
 and I delayed in turning to the Lord, and put off living 
 in Thee from day to day, and did not put off dying daily 
 in myself. Desiring a life of blessedness, I shunned the 
 place where it dwelt, and sought it by flying from it." * 
 The romantic scheme fell to pieces, because the friends 
 could not agree as to whether marriage ought to be wholly 
 forbidden in their philosophical hermitage, as Alypius 
 desired, in the fashion of the ascetic piety of that age, 
 or not, as Augustin proposed. Tie was unable then to 
 give up the love of women. " 1 believed I would be- 
 come very unhappy if I was deprived of the embraces 
 of woman, and I did not consider the medicine of Thy 
 grace for the healing of this weakness, for 1 was inex- 
 perienced ; for I esteemed continency an affair of natural 
 ability of which I was not conscious, and was foolishly 
 
 * Confess. VI. 11 : " Amando hecdam vitam, timeham illam in sede sua, 
 ei ab eafugiens qucereham earn." 
 
MORAL CONFLICTS — PROJECT OF MARRIAGE. 47 
 
 ignorant of what the Scripture says ("Wisdom viii. 21), 
 that no one can be continent unless God gives him power. 
 Surely, Thou wouldst have given it to me had 1 prayed 
 to Thee with inward groaning, and with firm faith cast 
 my care upon Thee !" * 
 
 On this account Augustin resolved to enter into formal 
 wedlock, though for certain reasons the resolution was 
 never carried into effect. 
 
 His mother, who, in common with the whole Church 
 of that era, regarded perfect abstinence as a higher 
 grade of virtue, still, under the circumstances, eagerly 
 laid hold of the plan. In the haven of marriage she 
 believed him secure from debauchery, and then every 
 hindrance to his baptism, which she so ardently desired, 
 was also taken away. 
 
 Both looked around for a suitable match. The choice 
 was not easily made, for Augustin wished to find beauty, 
 amiability, refinement, and some wealth united in one 
 person. In this matter the mother, as usual, took coun- 
 sel of God in prayer. At last a lady was discovered an- 
 swerable to their wishes, who also gave her consent, but 
 because of her youth the nuptials had to be postponed 
 for two years longer. 
 
 Augustin immediately discharged his mistress, whom 
 he had brought with him from Carthage, and who, as 
 one would think, was best entitled to the offer of his 
 hand. This conduct is a serious blot on his character, 
 according to our modern notions of morality. But neither 
 he nor Monnica looked upon it in that light, and were 
 unconscious of doing any wrong. The unhappy outcast, 
 who appears to have loved him truly, and had been faith- 
 ful to him, as he to her, during the thirteen years of 
 
 * Confess. VI. 11. 
 
48 SAINT AUGUSTIN. 
 
 their intercourse, returned to Africa with a heavy heart, 
 and vowed that she would never know any other man. 
 Their natural son, Adeodatus, she left with his father. 
 
 Just after the separation Augustin felt with bleeding 
 heart the strength of his unlawful attachment. So strong 
 had the power of sensuality become in liim through 
 habit, that neither the recollections of the departed nor 
 respect for his bride could restrain him from forming a 
 new immoral connection for the interval. Along with 
 this carnal lust came also the seductions of ambition and 
 a longing after a brilliant career in the world. He felt 
 very miserable ; he must have been ashamed before his 
 own better self, before God and man. " But the more 
 miserable I felt, the nearer didst Thou come to me, O 
 God." The Disposer of his life had His hand over all 
 this. " 1 thought, and Thou M^ert with me ; 1 sighed, 
 and Thou heardst me ; I was tossed about, yet Thou 
 didst pilot me ; I wandered on the broad way, and still 
 Thou didst not reject me." 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 MENTAL CONFLICTS. 
 
 Yet more violent and painful were his theoretical con- 
 flicts, the tormenting doubts of his philosophic spirit. 
 
 The question concerning the origin of evil, which once 
 attracted him to the Manichseans, was again brooded 
 over with renewed interest. The heresy that evil is a 
 substance, and co-ctcrnal with God, he had rejected. 
 But whence then was it ? The Church found its origin 
 
MENTAL COlfFLICTS. 49 
 
 in tlie will of the creature, who was in the beginning 
 good, and of his own free choice estranged himself from 
 God. But here the question arose, Is not the possibility 
 of evil, imprinted by God in its creation on the will, 
 itself already the germ of evil ? Or could not God, as 
 the Almighty, have so created the will as to render the 
 fall impossible ? How can He then be a Being of perfect 
 goodness ? And if we transfer the origin of evil, as the 
 Church does, from the human race to Satan, through 
 whose temptation Adam fell, the difficulty is not thereby 
 settled, but only pushed further back. Whence, then, 
 the Devil ? and if he was first transformed from a good 
 angel into a devil by a wicked will, whence then that 
 wicked will ? 
 
 Here he was again met by the spectre of Gnostic and 
 Manichgean dualism, but soon reverted to the idea of the 
 absolute God, whom he had made the immovable ground- 
 pillar of his thinking, and who naturally cannot suffer 
 the admission of a second absolute existence. Perhaps 
 evil is a mere shadow. But how can anything unreal 
 and empty prepare such fears and torments for the con- 
 science ? 
 
 He revolved such questions in his mind, and found no 
 peace. " Thou, my God — Thou alone knowest what 1 
 suffered, but no one among men." He was not able to 
 communicate fully the tumult of his soul even to his most 
 intimate friends. But these conflicts had the good effect 
 of driving him to prayer and strengthening in him the 
 conviction that mind, left to itself, can never reach a satis- 
 factory result. 
 
50 SAINT AUGUSTIN. 
 
 CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF PLATONISM. 
 
 About this time, somewhere in tlie beginning of the 
 year 386, he fell in with certain Platonic and New Pla- 
 tonic writings, translated into Latin by the rhetorician 
 Victorinus, who afterward was converted to Christianity. 
 No doubt he had a general acquaintance with this phi- 
 losophy before. But now, for the first time, he studied 
 it earnestly in its original sources, to which he was intro- 
 duced by an admiring disciple. He himself says that it 
 kindled in him an incredible ardor.* 
 
 Platonism is beyond dispute the noblest product of 
 heathen speculation, and stands in closer contact with 
 Revelation than any other philosophical system of an- 
 fiqiiity. It is in some measure an unconscious prophecy 
 of Christ, in whom alone its sublime ideals can ever be- 
 come truth and reality. The Platonic philosophy is dis- 
 tinguished by a lofty ideality, which raises man above the 
 materialistic doings and sensual views of every-day life 
 into tlie invisible world, to the contemplation of truth, 
 beauty, and virtue. It is genuine ^yhilosajy/iy, or love of 
 wisdom, home-sickness — deep longing and earnest search 
 after truth. It reminds man of liis original likeness to 
 God, and thus gives him a glimpse of the true end of all 
 his endeavor. 
 
 Platonism also approaches Revelation in several of its 
 
 * Conir. Academ. II. 5 : " E'iam mild ipsi de me ipso incredibile in- 
 cendium in me concitarunt." Comp. my Ulsfory of the Aposl. Church, 
 p. 150 sqq., and my Church History, vol. II. p. 95 sqq., where the rela- 
 tion of Platonism to Christianity and to the Church Fathers is dis- 
 cussed in detail. 
 
INFLUENCE OF PLATONISM. 51 
 
 doctrines, at least in the fonn of obscure intimation. 
 We may here mention its presentiment of the unity, and, 
 in a certain measure, the trinity of the Divine Being; 
 the conception that the world of ideas is alone true and 
 eternal, and the world of sense its copy ; and further, 
 that the human soul has fallen away from a condition of 
 original purity, and merited its present suffering existence 
 in the prison of the body ; but that it should have long- 
 ing aspirations after its home, the higher world, free 
 itseK from the bonds of sense, and strive after the high- 
 est spiritual and eternal good. 
 
 Hence it was no wonder that Platonism to many culti- 
 vated heathens and some of the most prominent fathers, 
 especially in the Greek Church, became a theoretical 
 schoolmaster for leading to Christ, as the Law was a 
 practical schoolmaster to the Jews. It delivered Au- 
 gustin completely from the bondage of Manichsean dual- 
 ism and Academic scepticism, and turned his gaze inward 
 and upward. In the heiglit of his enthusiasm he be- 
 lieved that he had already discovered the hidden foun- 
 tain of wisdom. But he had soon to learn that not the 
 abstract knowledge of the truth, but living in it, could 
 alone give peace to the soul ; and that this end could only 
 be reached in the way of divine revelation and practical 
 experience of the heart. 
 
 Although the Platonic philosophy contained so many 
 elements allied to Christianity, there were yet two im- 
 portant points not found therein : iirst, the great mys- 
 tery, the Word made flesh ; and then love, resting on 
 the basis of humility.* The Platonic philosophy held 
 up before him beautiful ideals, without giving him power 
 
 * Confess. YII. 20 : " UM enim erai ilia cariias a'dijicans a fundru 
 m&nto humililaiis, quod est Chiistus Jesus f Aut quando illi Ubri [Pla- 
 tonici'] docerent me earn ?" 
 
SAINT AUGUSTIN. 
 
 to attain tliem. If lie attempted to seize them ungodly 
 impulses would suddenly drag him down again into the 
 mire. 
 
 CHAPTER XY. 
 
 STUDY OF THE SCEIPTUKES. 
 
 Thus the admonition to study the Holy Scriptures was 
 addressed to him once more, and in a stronger tone than 
 ever. He now gave earnest heed to it, and drew near 
 the holy volume with deep reverence and a sincere de- 
 sire for salvation. * 
 
 He was principally carried away with the study of the 
 Epistles of St. Paul, and read them through collectively 
 with the greatest care and admiration. Here he found 
 all those truths which addressed him in Platonism no 
 longer obscurely foreshadowed, but fulfilled ; and yet 
 much more besides. Here he found Christ as the Medi- 
 ator between God and man, between heaven and earth, 
 who alone can give us pow^er to attain those lofty ideals 
 and embody them in life. Here he read that masterly de- 
 lineation of the conflict between the spirit and the flesh 
 (Rom. vii.), which was literally confirmed by his own ex- 
 perience. Here he learned to know aright the depth of 
 the ruin and the utter impossibility of being delivered 
 from it by any natural wisdom or natural strength, and, 
 at the same time, the great remedy which God graciously 
 offers to us in His beloved Son. 
 
 Such light, such consolation, and such power the Pla- 
 
 * Confess. VII. 21 : " Itaque avidissime arripui venerabilem stilum 
 Spiriius tui, etprcv cceieris Apostolum Faulum," etc. 
 
STUDY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 53 
 
 tonic writings bad never yielded. " On tlieir pages," 
 lie says very beautifully, in tlie close of tbe seventb book 
 of bis Confessions, " no traces of piety like tbis can be 
 discovered ; tears of penitence ; Tby sacrifice, tbe broken 
 spirit ; tbe bumble and tbe contrite beart ; tbe bealing 
 of tbe nations ; tbe Bride, tbe City of God ; tbe earnest 
 of tbe Holy Spirit ; tbe cup of our salvation. No one 
 sings tbere : ' Truly my soul waitetb upon God ; from 
 Him cometb my salvation ; He only is my rock and my 
 salvation ; He is my bigb tower ; I sball not be greatly 
 moved.' (Ps. Ixii. 1, 2.) Tbere no one bears tbe invi- 
 tation : ' Come unto me, all ye tbat labor and are beavy- 
 laden, and 1 wnll give you rest.' (Matt. xi. 28.) Tbey 
 [tbe Platonists] disdain to learn of Him wbo is meek and 
 lowly in beart ; tbey cannot imagine wby tbe lowly sbould 
 teacb tbe lowly, nor understand wbat is meant by His 
 taking tbe form of a servant. For Tbou bast liidden it 
 from tbe wise and prudent, and revealed it unto babes. 
 It is one tiling to see afar off, from tbe summit of a 
 woody mountain, tbe fatberland of peace, and witbout 
 any patb leading tbitber, to wander around lost and weary 
 among byways, baunted by lions and dragons, tbat lurk 
 in ambusb for tlieir prey ; and quite anotber to keep 
 safely on a road tbat leads tbitber, guarded by tbe care 
 of a Celestial Captain, wbere no robbers, wbo bave for- 
 saken tbe beavenly army, ever lie in wait. Tliis made 
 a wonderful impression on my spirit, wlien 1 read tbe 
 bumblest of Tbine Apostles (1 Cor. xv. 9), and consid- 
 ered Tby works, and saw tbe deptbs of sin." 
 
5-i SAINT AUGUSTIN". 
 
 CHAPTER XYI. 
 
 augustin's conversion. 
 
 We now stand on the tlireshold of his conversion. 
 Theoretically he was convinced of the truth of the doc- 
 trines of the Church, but practically had yet to undergo, 
 in his bitter experience, the judgment of St, Paul : 
 " The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit 
 against the flesh." (Gal. v. IT.) No sooner did his 
 soul rise into the pure ether of connnunion with God 
 than the cords of sense drew him down again into the 
 foul atmosphere of earth. " The world," said he, " lost 
 its charms before Thy sweetness and before the glory of 
 Thy house, which I had learned to love ; but I was yet 
 Lound by strong ties to a woman." " 1 had found the 
 beautiful pearl ; 1 should have sold all I possessed to buy 
 it, and yet I hesitated." 
 
 Amid the tumult of the world he often sighed after 
 solitude. Desiring counsel, and unwilling to disturb the 
 indefatigable Ambrose, he betook himself to the vener- 
 able priest Simplicianus, who had grown gray in the ser- 
 vice of his Master. The priest described to him, for his 
 encouragement, the conversion of his friend Yictorinus, 
 a learned teacher of rhetoric at Rome, and translator of 
 the Platonic writings, who had passed over from the 
 Platonic philosophy to a zealous study of the Scriptures, 
 and cordially embraced the Saviour with a sacrifice of 
 great worldly gain. For a long time he believed he 
 could be a Christian without joining the Church, and Ij 
 when Simplicianus rephed to him : " 1 will not count/ 
 you a Christian before I see you in the Cliurch ol'i 
 Christ," Victorinus asked with a smile : " Do the walls, y 
 
AUGUSTUS'S COXVERSION". 55 
 
 then, make Christians ?" * But afterward he came to 
 see that he who does not confess Christ openly before the 
 world need not hope to be confessed by Him before His 
 Heavenly Father (Matt. x. 32, 33), and therefore submit- 
 ted in humble faith to the washing of baptism. 
 
 Augustin vv^ished to do likewise, but his will was not 
 yet strong enough. He compares his condition to that 
 of a man drunk with sleej), who wishes to rise up, but 
 now for the first time rightly feels the sweetness of slum- 
 ber, and sinks back again into its arms. In a still more 
 warning and pressing tone the voice sounded in his ears : 
 " Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, 
 and Christ shall shine upon thee'' (Eph. v. 14) ; but he 
 answered lazily : " Soon, yes, soon ! only wait a little ;" 
 and the soon passed on into hours, days, and weeks. In 
 vain his inward man delighted in the law of God, for 
 another law in his members warred against the law of his 
 mind, and brought him into captivity to the law of sin. 
 (Rom. vii. 22, 23.) His disquietude rose higher and 
 higher ; his longing became violent agony. Oftentimes 
 he would tear his hair, smite his forehead, wring his 
 hands about his knees, and cry out despairingly : " O 
 wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me out of 
 the body of this death ?" (Rom. vii. 24.) 
 
 These conflicts, in connection with the weight of his 
 literary labors, had exerted such an injurious influence on 
 his health that he began to think seriously of resigning 
 his post as a rhetorician. 
 
 One day, as he sat in a downcast mood with his bosom 
 friend Alypius, who was involved in similar struggles, 
 
 * Confess. VIII. 2 : " Ergo parietes faciunt Chrisiianos ?" This pas- 
 sage is sometimes torn from its connectioa and misused for a purpose 
 directly opposite ; since Augustin quotes it to show that a man 
 could not be a Christian without joining the visible Church. 
 
5G SAINT AUGUSTIKT. 
 
 tlieir countryman Pontitianus, a superior officer in the 
 Roman army, and at the same time a zealous Christian, 
 entered the chamber. He was surprised, instead of a 
 classic author or a Manichsean writer, to see the Epistles 
 of Paul lying on the table. He began a religious con- 
 versation, and in the course of his remarks took occasion 
 to speak of the Egyptian hermit Anthony (died 356), 
 who, in literal pursuance of the Saviour's advice to the 
 rich young man (Matt. xix. 21), had given up all his 
 property in order to live to the Lord unrestricted and 
 undisturbed, in solitude, and tliere to work out the salva- 
 tion of his soul. The two friends had as yet heard noth- 
 ing of the wonderful saint of the desert, the venerable 
 father of monachism, and just as little of a cloister out- 
 side of the walls of Mihan, under the supervision of Am- 
 brose, and were now charmed and ashamed at the infor- 
 mation. Their countryman related further how, during 
 his stay at Treves, two of his friends, who were both 
 engaged to be married, obtained, on a visit to a cell, the 
 biograpliy of Anthony ascribed to Athanasius, the great 
 " father of orthodoxy," and on reading it fell so in love 
 with the contemplative life and the higher perfection 
 there portrayed, that they threw up their commissions in 
 the army and took leave of the world forever. Their 
 brides did likewise. 
 
 This was a sting for the conscience of Augustin. The 
 soldiers and their brides had heard the call of the Lord 
 only once, and obeyed it immediately. And he ? It 
 was now more than twelve years since the Hortensius of 
 Cicero had stirred him up so powerfully to search after 
 truth, and ever clearer and clearer the voice of the Good 
 Shepherd had sounded in his ears. And yet his will rose 
 up in rebellion ; he was not ready to renounce the world 
 wholly, but desired to retain at least some of its pleasures. 
 
augustin's conversion. 57 
 
 Pontitianiis left the house. Then the storm in the 
 soul of Augustin broke loose with greater violence, and 
 expressed itself in the features of his countenance, his 
 looks, and his gestures still more than in his words. 
 " What has happened to us ?" said he to Alypius — " what 
 is it ? What hast thou heard ? The unlearned rise up 
 and lay hold of the kingdom of heaven, and we, with 
 our heartless knowledge — see how we wallow in flesh and 
 blood ! Shall we be ashamed to follow them because 
 they have gone before, and not ashamed not to follow 
 them at all f ' * 
 
 After he had said this, and more in a similar strain, he 
 rushed out with the Epistles of Paul in his hand into an 
 adjoining garden, where no one would be likely to inter- 
 rupt the agitation of his soul until God Himself should 
 allay it. For it was, as he said, despair or salvation, 
 death or life. Alypius followed in his footsteps. 
 
 " We removed as far as possible from the house. 1 
 groaned in spirit, full of stormy indignation that I had not 
 entered into covenant and union with Tliee, my God, 
 and all my bones cried out ; thither must thou go ! But 
 it was not possible to go by ship, or wagon, or on foot, as 
 we go to any place we please. For going thither and 
 coming there is nothing else than to will to go thither, 
 and to will y\\t\\f%tll power — not to waver and be tossed 
 to and fro with a divided will, which now rises up and 
 now sinks down in the struggle." f He was angry at 
 the perverseness of his will : " The spirit orders the 
 body, and it obeys instantly ; the spirit orders itself, and 
 
 * Confess. VIII. 8. 
 
 f Confess. VIII. 8 : " Nam non solum ire, verum eliam pervenire iV.uc, 
 nihil erat aliud, quamvelle ire, sed velle fortiter et integre; non semisaucium 
 hac aique hac versnre eijadare voluniatem, parte adsurgenie cum alia parte 
 cadenle ludantem." 
 
58 SAINT AUGUSTIN. 
 
 it refuses. The spirit orders the hand to move, and it 
 does it 60 quickly that one can scarcely distinguish be- 
 tween the act and the command ; the spirit commands 
 the spirit to will, and although the same, it will not do it. 
 Whence this monstrosity ? It is a disease of the spirit 
 that prevents it from rising up ; the will is split and 
 divided ; thus there are two wills in conflict with each 
 other, one good and one evil, and I myself it was who 
 willed and who did not will," 
 
 Thus was he pulled hither and thither, accusing him- 
 self more severely than ever, and turning and rolling in 
 his fetters until they should be wholly broken, by which, 
 indeed, he was no longer wholly bound, but only yet. 
 
 And when he had thus dragged up all his misery from 
 its mysterious depths, and gathered it before the eye of 
 his soul, a huge storm arose that discharged itself in a 
 flood of tears.* 
 
 In such a frame of mind he wished to be alone with 
 his God, and withdrew from Alypius into a retired cor- 
 ner of the garden. Here Augustin, he knew not how, 
 threw himself down upon the earth, under a fig-tree, and 
 gave free vent to his tears. " Thou, my Lord,'' he 
 cried, with sobbing voice, "how long yet? O Lord, 
 how long yet wilt Thou be angry ? Remember not the 
 sins of my youth ! IIow long ? how long ? To-morrow, 
 and again, to-morrow ? Why not to-day, why not now ? 
 Why not in this hour put an end to my shame ?" f 
 
 * Govfess. VIII. 12 : " Oborta est procella ingens, ferens ingentem 
 imbrem lacrymarum." 
 
 t Confess. VIII. 12 : "El non qaidem his verbis, sed in hac sententla 
 multa dixi iibi : El in Domine, nsquequo ? Usquequo, Domine, irasceris in 
 finem ? Ke mernor fueris iniquitaium nostrarum aatiquarum ! Sentiebam 
 enim eis me iene7-i. Jadabam voces miserabiles : Quamdiu f Quanidiu ? 
 Cras et eras? Quare non modo ? Quare non hac hora finis turpitudinis 
 meaef Dicebam hcec, etfi^bam amarissima contriiione cordis mei." 
 
augustin's conversion-. 59 
 
 Thus he prayed, supph'cated, sighed, wrestled, and 
 wept bitterly. They were the birth-joangs of the new 
 life. From afar he saw the Church in the beauty of 
 holiness. The glorified sj)irits of the redeemed, who 
 had been snatched from the abyss by the All-merciful 
 and transplanted into a heavenly state of being, beckoned 
 to him. Still more powerfully the longing burned 
 within him ; still more hot and rapidly beat the pulse of 
 desire after the Saviour's embrace ; as a weary, hunted 
 stag after the fresh water-brooks, so ^^anted his heart 
 after the living God and a draught from the chalice of 
 His grace. 
 
 The hour of deliverance had now come. The Lord 
 had already stretched out His hand to tear asunder the 
 last cords that bound his prodigal son to the world, and 
 press him to a warm, true father's heart. 
 
 As Augustin was thus lying in the dust and ashes of 
 repentance, and agonizing with his God in prayer, he 
 suddenly heard from a neighboring house, as though 
 from some celestial height, the sweet voice, whether of a 
 boy or a maiden he knew not, calling out again and 
 again, ''^ToUe lege, tolle lege f'' i.e., "Take and read." 
 It was a voice from God that decided his heart and life. 
 "Then 1 repressed," so he further relates in the last 
 chapter of the eighth book of his Confessions, " the 
 gush of tears, and raised myself up, while I received the 
 word as nothing else than a divine injunction to open the 
 Scriptures and read the first chapter that would catch 
 my eye. I had heard how Anthony, once accidentally 
 present during the reading of the gospel in church, had 
 felt himself admonished, as though what was read had 
 been specially aimed at him : ' Go, sell that thou hast, 
 and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in 
 heaven ; and come, follow me ' (Matt. xix. 20), and that, 
 
60 SAINT AUGUSTIN". 
 
 by this oracle, lie had been immediately converted, my 
 God, to Thee." 
 
 He hastened to the place where he had left the Holy 
 Book, and where Alypius sat ; snatched it up, opened, 
 and read : ' ' Let us walk honestly, as in the day ; 
 
 NOT IN REVELLING AND DRUNKENNESS, NOT IN CHAMBERING 
 AND WANTONNESS, NOT IN STRIFE AND JEALOUSY. BuT PUT 
 
 YE ON THE Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision 
 
 FOR THE flesh, TO FULFIL THE LUSTS THEREOF." (Rom. 
 
 xiii. 13, 14.)* 
 
 This passage of the Epistle to the Romans was exactly 
 suited to his circumstances. It called on him to renounce 
 his old, wild life, and begin a new life with Christ. He 
 found still more in it, according to the ascetic spirit of 
 the age, and resolved to renounce all the honors and 
 pleasures of the world, even his contemplated marriage, 
 in order to devote himself, without restraint, to the ser- 
 vice of the Lord and His Church, and, if possible, to 
 attain the highest grade of moral perfection. f 
 
 He read no further. That single word of God was 
 
 * After the original and the Vulgate : " et carnis providentiam ne 
 fecerids in concupiscentiis," which Augustin, in his present condi- 
 tion, understood as a challenge to renounce completely every desire 
 of the iiesh. Luther, on the contrary, has translated it : " Waiiet 
 des Leibes, dock also, dass er nicht geil werde," ■which gives a different 
 sense. But in such a case acbfia -would be used in the Greek instead 
 of adp^, and the conjunctive particle fi^ would stand after and not 
 before Tvpdvoiav. 
 
 f Cb«/css. Vin. 12: "ConverlisH vieadte, utnec uxorem quaererem, nee 
 aliquam spem scccuU hiijus, "etc. Anthony, whose example had wrought 
 powerfully in tbe conversion of Aiigustin, had, likewise, in literal 
 accordance with the words of Christ (Matt. xix. 21), sold all that he 
 bad, and given it to the poor. According to the views of the ancient 
 Church, which can be traced back as far as the second century, vol- 
 untary poverty, celibacy, and martyrdom were the way to a more 
 literal following of Christ and a higher grade of holiness and bliss. 
 
SOJOURN IN THE COUNTRY. 61 
 
 sufficient to decide his whole future. The gloomy 
 clouds of doubt and despondency rolled away ; the for- 
 giveness of his sins was sealed to him ; j^eace and joy 
 streamed into his bosom. With his finger on the passage 
 read, he shut the book, and told Alypius what had hap- 
 pened. The latter wished to read the words, and hit 
 upon the next following verse (xiv. 1), "Him that is 
 weak in the faith receive ye." He applied the warning 
 to himself. 
 
 Both hastened, in the first ardor of conversion, to 
 Monnica. The faithful soul must hear the glad tidings 
 before others. She cried aloud and exulted, and her 
 heart overflowed with thankfulness to the Lord, who, at 
 last, after long, long delay, had answered beyond her 
 prayers and comprehension. 
 
 This occurred in September of the year 386, in the 
 thirty-third year of his life. Truly says Augustin : "All 
 who worship Thee must, when they hear this, cry out : 
 Blessed be the Lord, in heaven and on earth ; great and 
 wonderful is His name !" 
 
 CHAPTER XVIL 
 
 SOJOURN IN THE COUNTRY. 
 
 Augustin continued in office the few remaining weeks, 
 till the autumnal holidays, and then handed in his resig- 
 nation as public teacher of forensic eloquence, partly on 
 account of a weakness of the breast, but chiefly because 
 he had firmly resolved to consecrate himself henceforth 
 wholly and entirely to the pursuit of divine things. 
 
G3 SAINT AUGUSTIX. 
 
 Along with his mother, liis son, and his brother Navi- 
 gius, Aljpius, and other friends, he now withdrew to 
 Cassiciacum, a villa lying near Milan, which belonged to 
 his friend Yerecundus.* He passed six months there 
 under the serene Italian sky, in view of the glorious 
 Swiss Alps, devoted to quiet meditation and preparation 
 for the rite of holy baptism. 
 
 He had asked the advice of Ambrose as to what parts 
 of Scripture he ought to study under his peculiar circum- 
 stances. The bishop recommended the Prophecies of 
 Isaiah. But as Augustin could not rightly understand 
 them he selected the Psalms, and found there just what 
 he desired — the hallowed expression of his deepest relig- 
 ious feelings, from the low, sad wail of penitence and 
 contrition up to the inspiring song of praise to the 
 Divine Mercy. Half the night he spent in their study 
 and in pious meditation, and enjoyed most blessed hours 
 of intimate communion with God. He now mourned 
 over and pitied the Manichasans for being so blind in 
 regard to the Old Testament, which they rejected. " I 
 wished only," he once thought, " they could have been 
 in my neighborhood without my knowing it, and could 
 have seen my face and heard my voice when in that re- 
 tirement 1 read the Fourth Psalm, and how that Psalm 
 wrought upon me." 
 
 A great part of the day he devoted to the education of 
 two young men from his native city. His j)ropensity for 
 speculative meditation w^as so strong that he resorted 
 with his company, in good weather, to the shade of a 
 large tree, and in bad to the halls of the baths belonging 
 to the villa, and, walking up and down in the freest 
 
 * Probably near the town Casciago in Lombardy, at the foot of a 
 group of hills, from which there is a sublime view of the Monte Kosa. 
 
SOJOUR^r IN" THE COUXTRY. 63 
 
 manner, delivered discourses on tliose philosopliical sub- 
 jects which stood in the nearest relation to the most 
 weighty practical interests of the heart — such as the 
 knowledge of the truth, the idea of genuine wisdom, the 
 life of blessedness and the way to it. Monnica took part 
 in the discussion, and showed a rare degree of good 
 sense and strength of intellect, so that the men forgot her 
 sex and thought that " some great man was in their cir- 
 cle." These discourses were written down, and thus the 
 earliest works of the great theologian, mostly philosophi- 
 cal in their contents, took their rise. 
 
 Of these the most important are : First, three books 
 against the sceptical school of the Later Academy {Con- 
 tra Academicos)^ which denied the possibility of know- 
 ing the truth. In o]3[)osition it was shown that scepti- 
 cism either abrogates itself or, in a modified form, as a 
 scheme of probabilities, bears witness to the existence of 
 truth, for the probable must presuppose the true. Not 
 the mere striving after truth, only the possession of it, 
 can render happy. But it is only to be found in God, 
 since He alone is happy who is in God and God in Ilim, 
 The second discourse is a tract on the Life of Blessedness 
 {De Beata Vita), in which these latter thoughts are 
 further developed. And last, his " Soliloquies," or 
 Discourses with his own Soul, concerning God, concern- 
 ing the highest good, concerning his own nature, immor- 
 tality, and the like. From these we will quote a single 
 j)assage, to show the state of his mind at that time. 
 
 " O God, Creator of the world" — thus he prayed to the Lord — 
 " grant me, first of all, grace to call upon Thee in a manner -well- 
 pleasing unto Thee ; that I may so conduct myself, that Thoti mayest 
 hear and then help me. Thou God, through whom all, that cannot 
 be of itself, rises into being ; who even dost not suffer to fall into 
 destruction what would destroy itself ; who never workest evil and 
 rulest over the power of evil ; who revealest unto the few who seek 
 
64 SAINT AUGUSTIISr. 
 
 after a true existence that evil can be overcome ; God, to ■whom the 
 universe, in spite of evil, is perfect ; God, whom what can love, loves 
 consciously or unconsciously ; God, in whom all is, and whom yet 
 neither the infamy of the creature can disgrace, nor his wickedness 
 defile, nor his error lead astray ; God, who hast preserved the knowl- 
 edge of the truth for the pure alone ; Father of truth. Father of 
 wisdom, Father of true and perfect life. Father of blessedness, Father 
 of the good and the beautiful, Father of our awakening and enlight- 
 ening, Father of the promise by which we are encouraged to return 
 unto Thee, I invoke Thee, Truth, in which and from which and 
 by which all is true, that is true ; O Wisdom, in which and from 
 which and by which all is wise, that is wise ; O true and most per- 
 fect Life, in which and from which and by which all lives, that lives ; 
 O Blessedness, in which and from which and by which all is blessed, 
 that is blessed ; O Beauty and Goodness, in which and from which 
 and by which all is good and beautiful, that is good and beautiful ; 
 
 spiritual Light, in which and from which and by which all is spirit- 
 ually light, that is spiritually light ; God, from whom to turn away 
 is to fall, to whom to turn again is to rise, in whom to remain is to 
 endure ; God, from whom to withdraw is to die, to whom to return 
 is to live again, in whom to dwell is to live ; God, Thou who dost 
 sanctify and jirepare us for an everlasting inheritance, bow down Thy- 
 self to me in pity ! Come to my help. Thou one, eternal, true Essence, 
 in whom there is no discord, no confusion, no change, no need, no 
 death, but the highest unity, the highest purity, the highest durabil- 
 ity, the highest fulness, the highest life. Hear, hear, hear me, my 
 God, my Lord, my King, my Father, my Hope, my Desire, my Glory, 
 my Habitation, my Home, my Salvation, my Light, my Life, hear, 
 hear, hear me, as Thou art wont to hear Thy Chosen. 
 
 " Already, I love Thee alone, follow Thee alone, seek Thee alone, 
 am prepared to serve Thee only, because Thou alone rulest in right- 
 eousness. O command and order what Thou wilt, but heal and open 
 mine ears, that I may hear Thy word ; deal and open mine eyes, that 
 
 1 may see Thy nod ; drive out my delusion, that I may recognize 
 Thee again. O gracious Father, take back again Thy wanderer. 
 Have I not been chastised enough ? Have I not long enough served 
 Thine enemies, whom Thou hast under Thy feet— long enough been 
 the sport of deception? Receive me as Thy servant, for I fly from 
 those who received me as a stranger, when I fled from Thee. In- 
 crease in me faith, hope, love, according to Thy wonderful and inim- 
 itable goodness. 
 
 " I desire to come to Thee, and again implore Thee for that by 
 
SOJOURN" IN" THE COUNTRY. G5 
 
 ■which I may come. For where Thou forsakest, there is destruction ; 
 but Thou dost not forsake, because Thou art the Highest Good, 
 which every one, who seeks aright, will surely find. But he seeks it 
 aright, to whom Thou hast given power to seek aright. Grant me 
 power, Father, to seek Thee aright ; shield me from error ! Let me 
 not, when I seek, find another in Thy stead. I desire none other 
 but Thee ; O let me yet find Thee, my Father ! But such a desire is 
 vain, since Thou Thyself canst purify me and fit me to behold Thee. 
 " Whatever else the welfare of my mortal body maj' need, I com- 
 mit into Thy hands, most wise and gracious Father, as long as I do 
 not know what may be good for me, or those whom I love, and will, 
 therefore, pray just as Thou wilt make it known at the time. Only 
 this I beseech out of Thy great mercy, that Thou wilt convert me 
 whollj' unto Thyself, and when I obtain Thee, suffer me to be noth- 
 ing else, and grant also, that, as long as I live and bear about this 
 body, I may be pure and magnanimous, just and wise, filled with 
 love and the knowledge of Thy wisdom, and worthy of an entrance 
 into Thy blessed kingdom." 
 
 There are iew traces of a specific cliurclily cliaracter in 
 these writings. They exhibit rather a Platonisin full of 
 high thoughts, ideal views, and subtle dialectics, in- 
 formed and hallowed by the spirit of Christianity. 
 ]\Iany things were retracted by him at a later pei'iod — 
 e.g., the Platonic opinion that the human soul had a pre- 
 existence before its present life, and that the learning of 
 a science is a restoration of it to memory, a disinterment, 
 so to speak, of knowledge already existing, but covered 
 ov^er in the mind. He had yet many steps to take before 
 reaching the depth and clearness of Christian knowledge 
 which distinguished his later writings, and before the 
 new life obtained full mastery within. 
 
 After his conversion, he did indeed abandon unlawful 
 sexual intercourse. But now the pictures of his former 
 sensual indulgence not seldom troubled his fancy in 
 dreams. This he regarded as sin, and reproached him- 
 self bitterly. " Am I," he cried out — " am I not then 
 dreaming what I am, O Lord, my God ? Is not Thj 
 
66 SAINT AUGUSTIN. 
 
 mighty hand able to purge all the weakness of my soul, 
 and frighten away with more abundant grace the con- 
 cupiscence of my dreams ? Yea, Thou wilt grant unto 
 me more and more Thy gifts, that my soul may follow 
 Thee and be with Thee even in dreams fall of purity ; 
 Thou, who art able to do more than we can ask or under- 
 stand." 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 AUGUSTIN S BAPTISM. 
 
 Ijst the beginning of the year 387 he returned to Milan, 
 and along with his preparation for baptism kept up his 
 literary activity. lie wished to portray the different 
 steps of human knowledge by which he himself had 
 been gradually led to absolute knowledge, for the pur- 
 pose of leading others to the sanctuary, and wrote works 
 on grammar, logic, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, phi- 
 losophy, music, and on the immortality of the soul, of 
 which only the last two were completed and have come 
 down to us."" 
 
 Meanwhile the wished-for hour of baptism arrived. 
 On Easter Sabbath of this year he received, at the hands 
 of the venerable Ambrose, this holy sacrament, in com- 
 pany with liis friend Alypius, who, as he says, always 
 differed from him for the better, and with his son Adeo- 
 datus, who was now fifteen years of age, and, preserved 
 
 * The book on grammar and the principles of logic and rhetoric in 
 the first volume of the Benedictine edition of Angiistin's works is 
 spurious, because it lacks the form of dialogue and the higher bear- 
 ing which he gave to his writings on these subjects. 
 
augustin's baptism. 67 
 
 from the evil courses of Lis father, had surrendered to 
 the Lord liis youthful soul, with all its rare endowments. 
 
 This solemn act and the succeeding festivals of Easter 
 and Whitsuntide, in which the Church entered her spirit- 
 ual spring, and basked in the warm sunlight of a Saviour 
 risen from the dead and eternally present by his Spirit, 
 made the deepest impression upon Augustin. 
 
 The solemnity of this festival was still further height- 
 ened by two circumstances — one connected with super- 
 stition and relic-worship, the other w^ith the effect of 
 hymns upon the heart. 
 
 The first was the miraculous discovery of the long- 
 concealed relics of the traditional protomartyrs of Milan, 
 Protasius and Gervasius — two otherwise unknown Roman 
 citizens and missionaries — who were believed to have 
 been beheaded in the persecution of l^ero or Domitiau. 
 These relics were conveyed into the Ambrosian Basilica, 
 and, according to the current belief of that credulous 
 age, wrought there an astonishing miracle in support of 
 Nicene orthodoxy against the Arian heresy.* 
 
 * Confess. IX. 7 : " Then didst Thou, by a vision, discover to Thy 
 forenamed bishop [Ambrose] where the bodies of Gervasius and 
 Protasius, the martyrs, lay hid (whom Thou hadst in Thy secret treas- 
 ury stored uncorrupted so many years), whence Thou mightest sea- 
 sonably produce them to repress the fury of a woman, but an Em- 
 press [Justina]." TTien Augustin relates the healing of demoniacs 
 and of a blind man by the touch of the relics. He again refers to 
 this noted miracle, in De, Civ. Dei xsii. 8, as having occurred in the 
 presence of an immense multitude. Ambrose explained it at length 
 in a sermon, wherein he said that the Arians admitted the fact of 
 healing, but denied the cause. Comp. his letter to his sister, Mar- 
 cellina, Ep. xxii. (al. LIV.). These are the two authorities for the 
 legend of the protomartyrs of Milan. The subject of post-apostolic 
 miracles is involved in inextricable difficulties. Augustin himself is 
 not consistent in this matter. See his opinions in SchafE's Church 
 History, vol. iii., 459 sqq. 
 
68 SAINT AUGUSTIlSr. 
 
 Just then, also, Ambrose had transplanted the Clinrch- 
 hymns of the East into his congregation, and had added 
 to them, as the father of Latin hymnody, productions of 
 his own, conceived and executed in a noble, liturgical 
 style. "I could not," says Augustin, " satiate myself 
 in those days with the wonderful delight of meditating 
 on the dej)th of Thy divine counsel in the salvation of 
 the human race. How did I weep amid Thy hymns and 
 chants, powerfully moved by the sweetly-sounding voice 
 of Thy Church ! Those tones poured into my ear ; the 
 truth dropped into my heart, and kindled there the lire 
 of devotion ; tears ran down my cheeks in the fulness 
 of my joy !" * 
 
 As is well known, Ambrose gets credit as the author 
 of the magnificent anthem, Te Deum laudamus, which 
 is worthy of a place among David's Psalms of thanks- 
 giving. A mediaeval tradition says that it was composed 
 by Ambrose and Augustin jointly, during the baptism of 
 the latter, as if by inspiration from above, each singing 
 in resjDonse, verse after verse. But neither Ambrose nor 
 Augustin alludes to it anywhere. The Te Deum is of 
 much later date (the sixth century), though several lines 
 can be traced to an older Greek original. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 monnica's last days and death. 
 
 Soon after his baptism, in the summer of the year 
 387, he entered on his homeward journey to Africa, in 
 company with his relatives and friends, in order to con- 
 
 * Covfess. IX. 6. 
 
monnica's last days and death. 69 
 
 tiniic there the life of divine contemplation already 
 begun in Cassiciacuni. Among them was Evodins of 
 Tagaste, a cultivated man, wlio was baptized a short time 
 before, and now forsook the service of the Emperor to 
 live in like manner exclusively for the higher ^,6rld. 
 
 Already had they reached Ostia at the month of the 
 Tiber, about a day's journey from liome ; already had 
 they made the necessnry preparations for embarking, 
 when the sudden death of Monnica frustrated the plan. 
 The faithful soul had now experienced the highest joy 
 for which she had wished to live — she had seen the 
 Saviour in the heart of her son, and could, like Hannah 
 and Simeon of old, depart in peace to that true home 
 which is more beautiful and sweeter far than Africa. 
 
 One day Augustin sat with his mother at a garden- 
 window in Ostia, and conversed with her about the rest 
 of eternity and its holy pleasures, which no eye has seen 
 and no ear heard, but which God has prepared for them 
 that love Him. Let us listen to his own narrative : 
 
 " Forgetting the past, and looking only toward the 
 future, we asked ourselves, in the presence of the Truth, 
 which Thou art, what the eternal life of the saints will 
 be. And we opened longingly the mouths of our hearts 
 to receive the celestial overflowings of Thy fountain, the 
 fountain of life, that is with Thee, that being bedewed 
 from it according to our capacity, we might meditate 
 carefully upon this solemn subject. When now our dis- 
 course had reached that point, tlmt no pleasure of corpo- 
 real sense, regarded in what brilliant light soever, durst 
 for a moment be named with the glory of that life, much 
 less compared with it, we mounted upward in ardent 
 longing, and wandered step by step through all the mate- 
 rial universe — the heavens, from which sun, moon, and 
 stars beam down upon the earth. And we rose yet 
 
70 SAINT AUGUSTIN". 
 
 higher in inward thought, discourse, and admiration of 
 Thy wonderful works, and on the wings of the spirit we 
 rose above these also, in order to reach yon sphere of 
 inexhaustible fulness, where Thou dost feed Israel to all 
 eternity upon the pastures of Truth, where life is, and 
 Truth by which all was made, that was there and will 
 be. But truth itself was not made ; it is as it was and 
 always will be ; for to have heen and to he are not in it, 
 but heing, because it is eternal. For to have heen and to 
 he are not eternal. While we were thus talking and de- 
 siring, we touched it gently in full rapture of heart, and 
 left bound there the first-fruits of the Spirit, and turned 
 again to the sound of our lips, where the word begins 
 and ends. And what is like Thy Word, our Lord, who 
 remains unchanged in Himself, and renews all ? We 
 spake thus : If the tumult of the flesh were silent, and 
 the images of earth, sea, and air were silent, and the 
 poles were silent, and the soul itself were silent, trans- 
 cending its own thoughts ; if dreams and the revelations 
 of fancy, and every language, and every sign, and every- 
 thing represented by them were silent ; if all were silent, 
 for to him who hears, all these say, Ave have not made 
 ourselves, but He who made us dwells in eternity ; if, 
 at this call, they were now silent, with ear uplifted to 
 their Creator, and He should speak alone, not by them, 
 but unmediated, so that we heard Jlis own Word, not 
 through a tongue of flesh, not through the voice of an 
 angel, not through the roar of thunder, not through the 
 dark outlines of a similitude, but from Himself, whom 
 we love in them, and whom, without them, we heard as 
 we now mounted, and witli the rapid flight of thought 
 touched the eternal truth that lies beyond them all ; if 
 this contemplation should continue, and no other foreign 
 visions mingle with it, and if this alone should take hold 
 
MON]SfICA S LAST DAYS AND DEATH. 71 
 
 of, and absorb, and wrap up its beholder in more inward 
 joys, and such a life as that of which, now recovering 
 onr breath, we have had a momentary taste, were to last 
 forever, would not then the saying, ' Enter into the joy 
 of your Lord,' be fulfilled ?' ' 
 
 In the presentiment that she would soon enter into the 
 joy of her Lord, Monnica, struck by the inspired words 
 of her son, said : " Son, what has befallen me ? Koth- 
 ing has any more charms for me in this life. What I 
 am yet to do here, and why I am here, I do not know, 
 every hope of this world being now consumed. Once 
 there was a reason why I should wish to live longer, that 1 
 might see you a believing Christian * before I die. God 
 has now richly granted me this beyond measure, in per- 
 mitting me to see you in His service, having totally 
 abandoned the world. Wliat yet have I to do here ?" 
 
 Ary Scheffer, the Frencli painter, of the romantic 
 school, has fixed on this sublime moment of elevation to 
 the beatific vision for his famous and beautiful, though 
 somewhat sentimental picture of Monnica and her son. 
 
 " Together 'neath the Italian heaven 
 They sit, the mother and her son, 
 He late from her by errors riven. 
 Now both in Jesns one : 
 The dear consenting hands are knit. 
 And either face, as there they sit, 
 Is lifted as to something seen 
 Beyond the blue serene." 
 
 Five or six days after this conversation and foretaste 
 of the eternal Sabbath-rest of tlie saints, the pious 
 mother was attacked bv a fever, which in a short time 
 
 * Or more strictly, after the original, Confess. IX. 10, Chrislianum 
 caiholicum, " a Catholic (or orthodox) Christian," in distinction not 
 merely from a Pagnnus, but also and particularly from a Christianus 
 hcertticus and schismaticus, which Augustin had formerly been. 
 
72 SAINT AUGUSTIN". 
 
 exhausted ber vital powers. Her two sons were contin- 
 ually at. lier bedside. Augustin was now indeed more 
 tban ever bowed down with grief that he had caused her 
 so manj tears and pains, and sought, by the last tender 
 offices of love, to make as much amends as possible. 
 Monnica read his heart, and assured him with tender 
 affection that he had never spoken an unkind word to 
 her. Before, it had always been her wish to die at 
 home and rest beside the grave of her husband. But 
 now this natural wish was merged into loftier resignation 
 to the will of God : " Bury my body somewhere here," 
 said she, " and do not concern yourselves on its account ; 
 only this I beg of you, that you will be mindful of me 
 at the altar of God, where you will be." * To the ques- 
 tion, whether it would not be terrible to her to be buried 
 so far from her fatherland, she replied : " ^Nothing is far 
 from God ; and there is no fear that He will not know 
 at the end of time where to raise me up." 
 
 Thus, in the fifty-sixth year of her age, on the ninth 
 day of her sickness, this noble- hearted woman expired in 
 the arms of her son, at the mouth of the Tiber, on the 
 shore of the Mediterranean Sea, which separated Italy 
 from the land of her birth. Yet, long after her death, 
 has she consoled and comforted thousands of anxious 
 mothers and encouraged them in patient waiting and 
 perseverance in prayer. Her memory remains forever 
 dear and blessed to the Christian world, f 
 
 * Confess. IX. 11 : " Tantum illud vos rogo, ut ad Domini aliare meml- 
 nerilis mei, uhifuerilis." This thanksgiving and praj'er for the dead 
 can be traced, in its innocent form, as far back as the second cen- 
 tury, and became the fruitful germ of the doctrine of purgatory. 
 Neither Monnica nor Augustin grasped the full meaning of St. Paul's 
 assurance that it is " very far better to bo with Christ " (Phil. i. 23). 
 
 I In an epitaph of Bassus, ex-Consul, dating from the early part of 
 the fifth century, Monnica is addressed as " Mother of Virtues," and 
 
monnica's last days and death. 73 
 
 Adeodatus cried aloud. Augiistin himself could 
 scarcely restrain by force the gush of tears and quiet the 
 overpowering feelings of grief which were rushing into 
 his heart. He believed it was not becoming " to honor 
 such a corpse with the tearful wailings and groans which 
 are usually given to those who die a miserable — yea, an 
 eternal death. " For his mother had not died miserably : 
 she had merely entered into the joy of her Lord. When 
 the weeping had subsided, his friend Evodius took up 
 the psalter : "I will sing of mercy and judgment ; unto 
 Thee, O Lord, will 1 sing" (Ps. ci. 1) ; and the whole 
 house joined in the response. 
 
 After the corpse had been buried, and the holy Sup- 
 2)er celebrated on the grave, according to the custom of 
 the age, in the consciousness of a communion of saints 
 uninterrupted by death, Augustin, iinding himself at 
 home alone with his God, gave his tears free vent, and 
 wept sorely and long over her who had shed so many 
 tears of maternal love and solicitude on his account. But 
 he begs his readers to fulfil the last wish of his mother, 
 and remember her at the altar of the Lord with thanks- 
 giving and i^rayer. " In this transitory life let them re- 
 member my parents with pious affection, and my broth- 
 ers, who, under Thee, the Father, are children in the 
 mother, the Catholic Church, and my fellow-citizens in 
 the heavenly Jerusalem, after Vvdiich Thy people sigh 
 
 Augustin as her yet " happier offspring." This shows the early rev- 
 erence paid to her memory. See the epitaph in Brieger's " Zeit- 
 schrift fiir Kirchengeschichte," vol. 1, p. 228. Monnica is a saint in 
 the lloman calendar, April 4 {Sancfa Mmnica vidua). Her bones 
 were translated from Ostia to Kome in 1430 under Pope Martin V., 
 and deposited in a chapel dedicated to Augustin. She often appears 
 in medieval jDictures ; especially famous is Ary Scheff er's St. Augustin 
 et sa mere Ste. Monique (1845). It is in the same style as his Dante 
 and Beatrice. 
 
74 SAINT AUQUSTIN. 
 
 from tlie beginning to the end of their pilgrimage, so 
 that what she asked of me in her last moments may be 
 more abundantly fulfilled to her by the prayers and con- 
 fessions of many, than by my prayers alone." * 
 
 These words are taken from the conclusion of the his- 
 torical part of the Confessions, in which Angustin, with 
 the rarest candor and in a spirit of the severest self-criti- 
 cism and unfeigned humility, in presence of the whole 
 world, acknowledges to God his sins and errors, and 
 praises, with devout gratitude, the wonderful hand 
 which, even in his widest wanderings, guided him, took 
 hold of him, in the anxiety and prayers of his mother, 
 in the better inclinations of his heart, in his internal con- 
 flicts, his increasing discontent, and his pining after God, 
 and led him at last, after many storms, into the haven of 
 faith and peace. In this autobiography we behold the 
 great Church-doctor of all ages " lying in the dust of 
 humility in converse with God and basking in the sun- 
 light of His iove, his readers only sweeping before him 
 like shadows." He takes all his glory, all his greatness, 
 all his culture, and lays them devoutly at the feet of free 
 grace. His deepest feeling is — " All that is good in me 
 is Thy ordering and Thy gift ; all that is evil is my guilt 
 and my judgment, " Ko motive, drawn from anything 
 without, prompted him to this public confession. It 
 sprang from the innermost impulse of his soul. " 1 be- 
 lieve," says he, " and therefore I speak, as Thou, Lord, 
 knowest. Have I not confessed my guilt before Thee, 
 and hast Thou not forgiv^en the sins of my soul ? Never 
 will I excuse or justify myself before Thee, who art 
 Truth itself ; no, I will not justify myself before Thee ; 
 for if Thou art strict to mark iniquity, who can stand ?" 
 
 * Confess. IX. 13, conclusion. 
 
SECOND VISIT TO ROME, AND RETURN TO AFRICA. 75 
 
 Most toncliing is liis sad complaint that he was converted 
 to the Lord so late in life, since one single hour of com- 
 munion with Him is worth mere than all the joys of the 
 world besides. " 1 have lov^ed Thee late, whose beauty 
 is as old as eternity, and yet so new ; I have lov^ed Thee 
 late. And lo ! Thou wert within, but I was without, 
 and sought Thee there. And amid Thy beautiful crea- 
 tion 1 covered myself with loathsomeness, for Thou wert 
 with me, and I not in Thee. The external world held me 
 far from Thee, though it were not, if I were not in Thee. 
 Thou didst call loud and louder, and break through my 
 deafness ; Thou didst beam down bright and brighter, 
 and overcome my blindness ; Thou didst breathe, and I 
 recovered breath and life again, and breathed in Thee. 
 I would taste Thee, and hungered and thirsted. Thou 
 didst touch me, and, burning, 1 longed after Thy peace. 
 If ever 1 may live in Thee, with all that is in me, then 
 will pain and trouble leave me ; filled wholly with Thee, 
 all within me will be life." 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 SECOND VISIT TO ROME, AND RETURN TO AFRICA. 
 
 In consequence of the death of his mother Augustin 
 changed his plan of travel, and went, first of all, with 
 his company to Eome, where he remained ten months. 
 
 During this time he publicly attacked his former 
 friends, the Manich^eans. He was better fitted than any 
 one of his contemporaries for confuting their errors. 
 "I could not," says he, in his Retractions, " bear in 
 
76 S.\INT AUGUSTIN. 
 
 silence tliat the Manicliseans should delude the ignorant, 
 through boasting, by their false, decej^tive abstemious- 
 ness and moderation ; and elevate themselves even above 
 true Christians, with whom they are not worthy to be 
 compared ; and so 1 wrote two books, the one on the 
 Morals of the Catholic Church, the other on the Morals 
 of the Manicliseans," 
 
 Toward autumn of the year 388, he sailed to Africa, 
 and, after a transient stay in Carthage with his friend 
 Innocentius, a godly man, who had just then been deliv- 
 ered by prayer from a dangerous sickness, he proceeded 
 to a country-seat near Tagaste, which, along with other 
 real estate, he had inherited from his father. In literal 
 obedience to the command of Christ to the rich young 
 man (Matt, xix, 21), and in imitation of the example of 
 many saints of previous ages, he sold his possessions and 
 gave the proceeds to the poor, retaining, as it appears, 
 his dwelling and the necessary means of subsistence. 
 
 Here he lived with his friends three years in a com- 
 plete community of goods, retired from the world, in 
 prayer, study, and meditation, lie was, however, fre- 
 quently interru])ted by the inhabitants of the city asking 
 counsel about their spiritual and temporal affairs, ]^u- 
 merous philosophical, polemical, and theological writings 
 are the fruits of this sojourn in the country. 
 
 In the year 391 Augustin was called by an imperial 
 commissioner to the Numidian seaport, Hippo Regius, 
 the Bona of our time. Pie is yet known among the 
 natives of that place as " The Great Christian" (Rumi 
 Kebir), Hippo was destroj-ed by the Yandals soon after 
 Augustin 's death. Since the French conquest of Al- 
 giers it was rebuilt, and is now one of the finest towns in 
 North Africa, numbering over ten thousand inhabitants — 
 French, Moors, and Jews. A monument was erected 
 
AUGUSTIN PRIEST AND BISHOP OF HIPPO. 77 
 
 to Angnstin, his bronze statue on a pedestal of white 
 marble. On the summit of the hill is a large Catholic 
 charitable institution, where possibly may hav'c been his 
 garden, from which, looking out to the sea and up to 
 heaven, he mused on " the City of God." 
 
 CHAPTEE XXI. 
 
 AUGUSTIN PEIEST AND BISHOP OF HIPPO. 
 
 Haying arrived at Hippo, he was forced into public 
 office against his will. For, on one occasion, as he was 
 listening to a sermon of the Bishop Yalerius, a native of 
 Greece, and the latter remarked that the congregation 
 needed a priest, the people cried out for Augustin. 
 
 He was amazed, and burst into tears, for he did not 
 wish to give up his peaceful, ascetic and literary retire- 
 ment, and did not consider himself qualified for the re- 
 sponsible station. He followed, however, the guidance of 
 that Hand which drew him, as it does every true reform- 
 er, into the arena of public life against his own inclination. 
 He only begged for some months to prepare for the solemn 
 office, and assumed its duties on Easter of the year 392. 
 
 His relation to the bishop was very pleasant. Yalerius 
 acknowledged the decided intellectual superiority of 
 Augustin, and, without envy, gave it free play for the 
 public good. He allowed him to preach frequently, 
 contrary to the usual custom of the African bishops, who 
 granted this privilege to the priests only during their 
 absence. Soon after he made him an associate, with the 
 consent of the Bishop of Carthage. But when Augustin 
 
78 SAINT AUGUSTIN". 
 
 learned the existence of a decree of the Council of Nicsea, 
 forbidding two bishops in one congregation, he had a 
 resolution passed by a Synod of Carthage that, in order 
 to prevent similar irregularities, the Church canons 
 should be read by every clergyman before ordination. 
 
 In the year 395, Valerius died, and Augustin was now 
 sole Bishop of Hippo, and remained so till the day of his 
 death. He says in one of his Epistles : " So exceed- 
 ingly did I dread the episcopate that, because my reputa- 
 tion had now begun to be of some account among the 
 servants of God, I would not go to any placfe where I 
 knew there was no bishop. I did what I could that in a 
 low place I might be saved, lest in a high one I should be 
 perilled. But the servant must not oppose his Master. 
 I came to this city to see a friend whom I thought 1 
 might gain to God, that he might live with us in the 
 monastery ; I came as being safe, the place having a 
 bishop already. I was laid hold of, made a presbyter, 
 and by this step came to the episcopate." 
 
 In this position he was now to unfold, during a period 
 of thirty-eight successive years, first as priest, and then 
 as bishop, the rich treasures of his genius for the benefit 
 of the congregation, and the whole Church in his age and 
 all coming centuries. He was indispensable. Difficul- 
 ties of deep and universal importance were arising, with 
 which he alone was fitted to cope. 
 
 Erasmus complains that the powers of Augustin were 
 wasted upon Africa, and thinks that he might have pro- 
 duced still nobler fruits in Italy or Gaul. He was mis- 
 taken. Africa presented at the time a strange mixture 
 of native barbarism, imported civilization of the Ro- 
 mans, Christianity, and lingering heathenism, not unlike 
 the present aspect of French Algiers or British East 
 India. Araspices still offered sacrifices. Riotous feasts 
 
augustin's domestic life. 79 
 
 of heatlien idols were nominally changed into services in 
 honor of Christian martyrs. The Christian forces were 
 divided. The Donastist Schismatics were almost as nu- 
 merous as the Catholics, and tlie ManichfEan heretics, not 
 to mention smaller sects, were spread over all the cities. 
 It was no rare thing to find even in a smaller town three 
 rival bishops — Catholic, Donatist, and Manichsean. But 
 it was just in conflict with these antagonistic elements 
 that Augustin's genius developed its resources ; and in 
 contrast with the surrounding vices and signs of approach- 
 ing decay his virtue and piety shine with the greater 
 lustre. Such a man belongs to the world at large and 
 to all ages. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 augustin's domestic life. 
 
 "We will now first glance at Augustin's private life, 
 then consider him as bishop, and lastly exhibit his public 
 activity in the Church and the world of letters, and its 
 influence upon succeeding generations. 
 
 His mode of living was very simjjle, and bore that 
 ascetic character which accords rather with the genius of 
 Catholicism than of Protestantism ; but it was also free 
 from narrow bigotry and Pharisaical self-righteousness, 
 which connect themselves so readily with monastic piety. 
 
 He dwelt with his clergy in one house, and strove with 
 them to copy after the first community of Christians 
 (Acts iv. 81). All things were common : no one had 
 more than another ; even he himself was never pre- 
 ferred. God and His Church were enough for them. 
 
80 SAINT AUGUSTIN. 
 
 Whoever would not consent to this was not admitted into 
 his clerical body. 
 
 lie was extremely sparing in his diet, and lived mostly 
 on herbs and pulse. After the custom of those coun- 
 tries, wine was placed before all, a certain measure to 
 each, yet of course further indulgence was severely re- 
 buked. While they sat at tal)le a passage from some 
 good book was read aloud, or they conversed freely to- 
 gether, but were never allowed to attack the character 
 of any one who was absent. Augnstin enforced the ob- 
 servance of this rule of brotherly love very strictly. His 
 clothing and house furniture were decent, without show 
 or luxury. He was particularly prudent in regard to the 
 female sex, for he permitted no woman, not even his 
 nearest relative, to live in the episcopal house, Nor 
 did he trust himself to enter into conversation with any, 
 except in the presence of an ecclesiastic. Personally he 
 preferred, like St. Paul and most of the Fathers, the un- 
 married estate (1 Cor. vii, 1, 7, 8). In this he must be 
 judged by the ascetic standard of the early Church, 
 which, in opposition to heathen immorality, went to the 
 opposite extreme of an overestimate of virginity as a 
 higher form of virtue than chastity in married life. 
 
 He also estal)lished a kind of theological seminary, 
 where candidates could prepare themselves in a practical 
 as well as theoretical manner, for their important duties 
 as preachers of the Gospel. They certainly could find no 
 better instructor. Already as a priest he had attracted 
 to Hippo his old friends Alypius and Evodius, and sev- 
 eral new ones, among whom were Possidius and Severus, 
 for the prosecution of mutual studies, and these formed 
 the beginning of that theological nursery out of which 
 ten bishops and many inferior clergy went forth from 
 time to time. 
 
ADMINISTRATION" OF THE EPISCOPAL OFFICE. 81 
 
 CHAPTEE XXllI. 
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF THE EPISCOPAL OFFICE AND PUBLIC 
 ACTIVITY. 
 
 As a bishop, Augustin was prc-eminentlj faitlifiil and 
 conscientious in the discharge of liis manifold duties. 
 He felt deeply the solemn responsibilities of the spiritual 
 calling. "There is nothing," says he, "in this life, 
 and especially in this age, more easy, more agreeable, 
 and more acceptable to men than the office of bishop or 
 presbyter or deacon, if its duties are performed at pleas- 
 ure and in a time-serving spirit ; but in the eyes of God 
 nothing more miserable, more sad, more damnable. Like- 
 wise, there is nothing in this life, and especially in this 
 age, more difficult, more laborious, more dangerous than 
 the office of bishop or presbyter or deacon, but also more 
 blessed before God, if a man conducts himself therein as 
 a true soldier under the banner of Christ." * 
 
 To the ministry of the Word he applied himself dili- 
 gently, preaching often five days in succession, and on 
 some days twice. Whenever he found time he j)repared 
 himself for it. When, out of the fulness of inspiration 
 he spoke from the holy place, he felt that human lan- 
 guage was insufficient to express, in a fit and lively man- 
 
 * Ep. 21, torn. xi. ed. Bened. Words well worthy of being pon- 
 dered on by every candidate of Theology. " Nihil est in hacvita,et 
 maxime hoc tempore, facilius et laetius et homitiibus acr.epiabilius episcopi, 
 ant presbyteri, aid diaconi officio, si perfnndorie aique adulalorie res 
 agatvr ; sed nihil apvd Deum miserius el iristius et damnabilius. Item 
 nihil est in hac vita, el maxime in hoc tempore, difficiliits, laboriosius, per- 
 iculosius episcopi, aid presbyteri, aid diaconi officio ; sed apud Deum nihil 
 beatius, si eo modo mililetur, quo nosier iniperalor jubtt." 
 
83 SAINT AUGUSTIN. 
 
 iier, the tlionglits and feelings wliicli streamed through 
 liis soiil with the speed of hghtning. He set before him 
 as the aim of spiritual oratory to preach liimself and his 
 hearers into Christ, so that all might live with him and 
 he with all in Christ. This was his passion, his honor, 
 his boast, his joj, his riches. 
 
 He frequently spent w^iole days in bringing about a 
 reconciliation between parties who were at variance. It 
 was irksome to a man of his contemplative disposition, 
 but a sense of duty rendered him superior to the dis- 
 agreeable nature of the occupation. He speaks of " the 
 perplexities of other people's differences in secular mat- 
 ters," which he was asked to decide or to adjust by 
 mediation ; and alludes to " innumerable other ecclesias- 
 tical toils, which no one perhaps believes who has not 
 tried." Like Ambrose, he often interceded with the 
 authorities in behalf of the unfortunate, and procured 
 for them either justice or mercy. He took the poor 
 under his special care, and looked upon each clergyman 
 as their father. Once, when he observed that but little 
 was cast into the collection-boxes, he concluded his ser- 
 mon with the words : "I am a beggar for beggars, and 
 take pleasure in being so, in order that you may be num- 
 bered among the children of God." Like Ambrose, he 
 even melted up the vessels of the sanctuary, in extreme 
 cases, for the relief of the suffering and the redemption 
 of the prisoner. Unlike many bishojis of his time, he 
 does not seem to have set his heart upon the enrichment 
 of the Church. He would accept no legacy where in- 
 justice w^ould be done to the natural heirs, for "the 
 Church desires no unrighteous inheritance ;" and there- 
 fore he praised Bishop Aurelius, of Carthage, in a ser- 
 mon, because he had restored, without solicitation, his 
 entire property to a man who had willed it to the Church, 
 
ADMINISTRATION OF THE EPISCOPAL OFFICE. 83 
 
 and whose wife had afterward unexpectedly borne hhn 
 children. 
 
 Along with his seminary for the clergy he also estab- 
 lished religious societies for women. Over one of these 
 his sister, a godly widow, presided. On one occasion he 
 assnred his congregation that he could not easily find 
 better, bnt had also nowhere fonnd worse people than in 
 these cloisters. 
 
 But the activity of Angustin extended beyond the 
 limits of his own congregation, and reached the entire 
 African — yea, the entire Western Church. He was the 
 leading genins of the African Synods, which were held 
 toward the close of the fourth and the beginning of the 
 fifth century, at Carthage, a.d. 397, 403, 411, 413, 419, 
 and in other places, particularly against the Donatists 
 and Pelagians. He took the liveliest interest in all the 
 questions which were then agitated, and was unwearied 
 in devoting his powers to the general good. 
 
 The Catholic Church had at that time three great ene- 
 mies, who threatened to deface and tear her in pieces at 
 every point, and had even forced themselves into the 
 congregation of Hippo. These were Manichaeism, Don- 
 atism, and Pelagianism. Augustin was their great oppo- 
 nent and final conqueror. The whole spiritual power of 
 the Latin Church concentrated itself, so to speak, in 
 him for the overthrow of these antagonists. He left no 
 lawful means unemployed for the expulsion of the evil. 
 But he principally fought with the weapon of argument, 
 and wrote a large number of works which, although de- 
 signed specially for the necessities and circumstances of 
 the time, yet contain a store of profound truths for all 
 ages. 
 
84 SAINT AUGUSTIN. 
 
 CHAPTER. XXIV. 
 
 LAST YEARS AND DEATH, 
 
 In his latter years Angustin cast one more glance be- 
 hind upon Ills entire literary course, and in liis Retrac- 
 tions subjected it to a severe criticism. His writings 
 against the Semi-Pelagians, in which a milder and more 
 gentle spirit reigns, belong to this jjeriod. Like Luther 
 and Melanchtlion, he was inclined to melancholy with 
 the failure of his bodily strength. This was increased by 
 much bitter experience, and the heavy misfortunes which 
 befell his fatherland. 
 
 The Yandal king, Genseric, with fifty thousand war- 
 riors, among whom were Goths and Alani, in May of the 
 year -±28, crossed over from Spain to Africa, which was 
 now filled with confusion and desolation. These barba- 
 rians raged more fiercely than wild beasts of prey, re- 
 duced towns and villages to ashes, spared no age or sex, 
 were especially severe against the orthodox clergy, be- 
 cause they themselves were Arians, and changed that 
 beautiful country into a desert. 
 
 Augustin was of the opinion that the bishops at least 
 should stand by their congregations in the hour of need, 
 that the bonds which the love of Christ had knit should 
 not be rent asunder, and that they should endure quietly 
 whatever God might send. " Whoever flies," he wrote 
 to Bishop Quodvultdeus, " so that the Church is not de- 
 prived of the necessary ministrations, he does what God 
 commands or permits. But whoever so flies that the 
 flock of Christ is left without the nourishment by which 
 it spiritually lives, he is an hireling, who, seeing the wolf 
 come, flies because he has no care for the sheep." 
 
LAST YEAKS AND DEATH. 85 
 
 Boniface, the cominander-in-cliief of tlie imperial 
 forces in Africa, who was friendly to Augustin, though 
 tlie occasion of niucli trouble to him, was beaten by the 
 Yandals, and threw himself with the remnant of his army 
 into the fortified city of Hippo, where Possidius and 
 several other bishops had taken refuge. Augustin was 
 sorely oppressed by the calamities of his country and the 
 destruction of divine worship, which could now be cele- 
 brated only in the strongholds of Carthage, Cirta, and 
 Hippo. At table he once expressed himself to his friends 
 in the following language : " "What I pray God for is 
 that He will deliver this city from the enemy, or if He 
 has determined otherwise, that He may strengthen His 
 servant for his sufferings, or, which I would rather, that 
 He will call me from this world to Himself." 
 
 The last wish was granted him. In the third month 
 of the siege he was attacked by a violent fever, and ten 
 days before his death he withdrew into retirement, after 
 having, up till that time, proclaimed the AVord of God 
 to his congregation without interruption. He spent this 
 season in reading the penitential psalms, which were at- 
 tached to the wall by his bedside, in holy meditations, 
 tears, prayers, and intercessions. He once said that no 
 one, especially no priest, ought to depart this life with- 
 out earnest repentance, and wrote concerning himself : 
 " I will not cease to weep until He comes, and I appear 
 before Him, and these tears are to me pleasant nutri- 
 ment. The thirst which consumes me, and incessantly 
 draws me toward yon fountain of my life — this thirst is 
 always more burning when I see my salvation delayed. 
 This inextinguishaole desire carries me away to those 
 streams, as well amid the joys as amid the sorrows of this 
 world. Yea, if I stand well with the world I am 
 wretched in myself, until I appear before God." 
 
86 SAINT AUGUSTIN. 
 
 On the 28th of August, 430, in the seventy-sixth year 
 of his age, the great man peacefully departed into a bhss- 
 ful eternity, in the full possession of his faculties, and in 
 the presence of his friends. 
 
 He left no will, for, having embraced voluntary pov- 
 erty, he had nothing to dispose of, except his books and 
 manuscripts, which he bequeathed to the Church. " 
 
 Soon after Hippo was taken. Henceforth Africa was 
 lost to the Romans, and vanished from the arena of 
 Church History. The culminating point of the spiritual 
 greatness of the African Church was also that of her 
 ruin. But her ripest fruit, the spirit and the theology of 
 Augustin, could not perish. It fell on the soil of Europe, 
 where it has produced new glorious flowers and fruits, 
 and to this day exerts a mighty influence in Catholic and 
 Protestant Christendom. 
 
 CHAPTER XXy. 
 
 ADGUSTIN S WKITINGS. 
 
 ArGUSTiN is the most fruitful author among the Latin 
 Church-Fathers. His writings are almost too numerous. 
 One of his biographers reckons them, including about 
 four hundred sermons and two hundred and seventy let- 
 ters, at ten hundred and thirty. Others reduce the whole 
 
 * His friend and biographer, Possidins, says, Vit. Aug. c. 31 : " Tes- 
 tamentum nullum fecit, quia unde foceret, pauper Dei non habuit. Ec- 
 cksice hibliothecam omnesque codices diligenler posteris cxislodiendos semper 
 jubebaV 
 
augustin's avritikgs. ^ 87 
 
 number to two Imndred and thirty-two, and the larger 
 ones to ninety-three. They fill eleven folio volumes in 
 the Benedictine edition of Augustin's works.* 
 
 They contain his views in every department of theol- 
 ogy, the rare treasures of his mind and heart, and a true 
 expression of the deepest religious and churchly move- 
 ments of his age, and at the same time secured an im- 
 measurable influence upon all succeeding generations, 
 lie wrote out of the abundance of his heart, not to ac- 
 quire literary fame, but moved by the love of God and 
 man. 
 
 In point of learning he stands far behind Origen, Euse- 
 bius, and Jerome ; but in originality, depth, and wealth 
 of thought he surpasses all the Greek and Latin Fathers, 
 lie knew no Hebrew and very little Greek, as he mod- 
 estly confesses himself. f He neglected and disliked the 
 noble language of Hellas in his yoath, because he had a 
 bad teacher, and was forced to it. But after his conver- 
 sion, during his second residence in Rome, he resumed 
 the study of it, and acquired a sufiicient elementary 
 knowledge to compare the Latin version of the Script- 
 ures with the Septuagint and the Greek Testament.:}: 
 
 * A considerable number of them have been translated into Eng- 
 lish, especially the Confessions, the City of God, and the Homilies on 
 the Psalms, and St. John. See the Oxford " Library of the Fathers," 
 1S37 sqq., and Clark's edition of the " Works of Aurelius Augustine," 
 ed. by Marcus Dods, D.D., Edinburgh 1871-1876, 15 vols. 8vo. 
 
 t " Grcecce linguas perpnrum assecidus sum, et prope nihil." Contra 
 Llieras Petiliani II. 38. Comp. De Trinitate III. Proo^m. ; Confess. I. 
 14 ; YII. 9. 
 
 1;. He gives the etymology of several Greek words, as aluviov, 
 avddeua, h/naivia, /.ojoc, etc. ; he correctly distinguishes between 
 yevvdv and riKrecv, hTa<j)idl^Eiv and -dd-reiv, tn'X'i and -pocEvx'i, ~voi] 
 and TTVEv^ua. He amends the Itala in about thirty places from the 
 Septuagint, and in three places from the Greek Testament (John 
 
88 , SAINT AUGUSTIN. 
 
 Gibbon, usually very accurate, underestimates him wlien 
 he says that " the superficial learning of Augustin was 
 confined to the Latin language," and that " his style, 
 though sometimes animated by the eloquence of passion, 
 is usually clouded by false and affected rhetoric."* The 
 judgment of Dr. Baiir, who had as little sympathy with 
 Augustin's theology, but a far better knowledge of it, is 
 more just and correct : " There is scarcely another theo- 
 logical author so fertile and withal so able as Augustin. 
 His scholarship was certainly not equal to his genius ; 
 yet even that is sometimes set too low, when it is asserted 
 that he had no acquaintance at all with the Greek lan- 
 guage ; for this is incorrect, though he had attained no 
 great proficiency in Greek." f 
 
 viii. 25 ; xviii. 37 ; Rom. i. 3). He also corrects Julian, his Pelagian 
 antagonist, by going back to the Greek. He explains the Greek mon- 
 ogram Ix'&vg (-De Uiv. Dei xviii. 23). He mentions the opinion (De 
 Civ. Dei xx. 19) that in 2 Thess. ii. 4 we should render the Greek {t'lQ 
 Tov vaov Toil i?£OTj), not in templo Dei, but more correctly in lemphim Dei, 
 as if Antichrist and his followers were themselves the temple of God, 
 the Church. He probably read Plotinus and Porphyry in the original. 
 Comp. Loesche : De Augusiino Floiinizante in dodrina de Deo, Jena, 
 1880. 
 
 * Decline and Fall, Ch.. XXXHI. He adds that "Augustin pos. 
 sessed a strong, capacious, argumentative mind ; he boldly sounded 
 the abyss of grace, predestination, free will, and original sin ; and 
 the rigid system of Christianity which he framed or restored has 
 been entertained with public applause and secret reluctance by the 
 Catholic Church." He says in a note : " The Church of Eome has 
 canonized Aiigustin and reprobated Calvin." 
 
 t Dogmengesch. I. 1, p. 61 ; comp. the section on Augustin in the 
 second volume of Baur's Church History. Comj^are also tbe judgments 
 of Vlllemain, Tahkdu de Veloquence chrelienne au IV" siccle, Paris, 1849» 
 p. 373 ; of Ozanam, La civilization au cinquicme siccle (vol. I. 272, in 
 Glj'n's translation) ; and the eloquent account of the veteran and 
 liberal historian, Karl Hase, in the first volume of his Lectures on 
 Church History, Leipzig, 1885, vol. I. 514 sqq. 
 
augustin's wkitings. 89 
 
 His style may indeed be blamed for verbosity, negli- 
 gence, and frequent rejietition, but lie says : "I would 
 rather be censured by the grammarians than not under- 
 stood by the people ;" and, upon the whole, he had the 
 language wholly at command, and knew how to wield 
 the majestic power, the dignity and music of t)ie Latin in 
 a masterly manner. His writings are full of ingenious 
 puns, and rise not seldom to strains of true eloquence 
 and poetic beauty. Several of his pregnant sentences 
 have become permanently lodged in the memory of the 
 Christian world. Such words of genius and wisdom 
 engraven upon the rock are worth more than whole libra- 
 ries written upon the sand. The following are among 
 his most striking and suggestive thoughts : 
 
 Cor nostrum inquletum est donee requiescat in Te. 
 Our heart is restless until it rests in Thee. 
 Novum Testamenium in Vetere latet, Veius in Novo patet. 
 The New Testament is concealed in the Old, the Old is revealed ia 
 the New. 
 
 Ubi amor ibi trinilas. 
 
 Where love is there is trinity. 
 
 Distingue tempora, et concordabit Scriptura. 
 
 Distinfjuish the times, and the Scriptures will agree. 
 
 Da quod jnbes, etjnbe quod vis. 
 
 Give what Thou commandest, and command what Thou wilt. 
 
 Fides praicedit iniellectum. 
 
 Faith precedes knowledge. 
 
 Non vincil nisi Veritas ; victoria veritatis est caritas. 
 
 Truth only is victorious ; the victory of truth is charity. 
 
 Nulta infelicltas franrjit, quern felicitas nulla corrumpit. 
 
 No misfortune can break him whom no fortune corrupts. 
 
 Deo servire vera libertas est. 
 
 To serve God is true libei'ty. 
 
 To Augustin is also popularly but falsely ascribed the 
 famous and beautiful device of Christian union : 
 
 In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas. 
 
 In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity. 
 
90 SAINT AUGUSTIN. 
 
 This sentence cannot be found in liis writings. It is 
 too liberal for a Catholic divine, and is probably of 
 Protestant origin. It has been traced to Rupert Mel- 
 denius and Richard Baxter, two irenical divines of the 
 seventeenth century, one a German Lutheran or Melanch- 
 thonian, the other an English Presbyterian, who in the 
 midst of the fury of theological controversies grew sick 
 of strife and longed after union and peace. 
 
 Since his productive period as an author extends over 
 four decades of years, from his conversion to the even- 
 ing of his life, and since he imfolded himself before the 
 eyes of the public, contradictions on many minor points 
 were unavoidable ; wherefore, in old age, he subjected 
 his literary career to a conscientions revision in his 
 detractions, and, in a spirit of genuine Christian hu- 
 mility, recalled much that he had maintained before 
 from honest conviction. But not all his changes are im- 
 provements. He had more liberal views in his younger 
 years. 
 
 His philosophical writings, which were composed soon 
 after his conversion, and which are yet full of Platonism, 
 we have already mentioned. 
 
 His theological works may be divided into five classes :* 
 
 1. ExEGETicAL Writings. Here w^e may name his 
 Expositions of the Sermon on the Mount (393), of the 
 Epistle to the Galatians (394:), of the Psalms (415), of 
 John (416), his Harmony of the Gospels (400), and an 
 extensive commentary on the first three chapters of 
 Genesis (415). 
 
 His strength lies not in knowledere of the oriirinal lan- 
 
 * For a fuller account see the author's Church Iltsiory, vol. III. 
 (revised ed. 1884), p. 1005 sqq. For his philosophical works and 
 opinions the reader is referred to Ritter, Erdmann, Ueberweg, Nour- 
 rison, Gangauf , and A. Dorner, mentioned there, p. 989 and 1039. 
 
augustin's writings. 91 
 
 guages, nor in liistorical and grammatical exegesis, in 
 which he was excelled by Jerome among the Latins, and 
 Chrjsostom, Theodoret, and Theophvlact among the 
 Greeks, bnt in the development of theological and relig- 
 ious thought. He depended mostly on the imperfect 
 Itala, which was current before Jerome's Yulgate, 
 Hence he often misses the natural sense. But he had an 
 uncommon familiarity and full inward sympathy with 
 the Holy Scriptures, and often penetrates their deepest 
 meaning by spiritual intuition. He is ingenious and 
 suggestive, even where he violates the grammar or loses 
 himself in allegorical fancies. He exercised also a con- 
 siderable influence on the final settlement of the canon of 
 Holy Scripture, whose limit was so firmly fixed at the 
 Synods of Hippo in the year 393, and of Carthage in 
 397, that even now it is universally received in the Cath- 
 olic and Evangelical churches, with the exception of a 
 difference in regard to the value of the Old Testament 
 Apocrypha, which the Council of Trent included in the 
 Canon, while the Protestant Confessions exclude them 
 or assign them a subordinate position. 
 
 2. Apologetic Writings. To these belong pre-emi- 
 nently his twenty-two books on the " City of God '' {De 
 Civitate Dei), begun in 413 and finished in 426, in the 
 seventy-second year of his life. It is his most learned 
 and influential work. It is a noble and genial defence 
 of Christianity and the Church, in the face of the ap- 
 jjroaching downfall of the old Roman Empire and classic 
 civilization, in the face of the irruption of the wild, 
 northern barbarians into Southern Europe and Africa, 
 and in the face of the innumerable misfortunes and 
 calamities by which the human race was scourged during 
 that transition-period, and which were attributed by the 
 heathen to the decay of the ancient faith in the gods, 
 
92 SAINT AUGUSTIN-. 
 
 and laid to the charge of Christianity. Aiigiistin shows 
 that all these events are the result of a process of internal 
 putrefaction long since begun, a judgment to the heathen, 
 and a powerful call on them to awake and repent, and at 
 the same time a healthful trial to Christians, and the 
 birth-throes of a new spiritual creation. Then he turns 
 from the view of a perishing natural world and her rep- 
 resentative, the city of Rome, conquered and laid waste 
 by Alaric, the King of the Goths, in the year 410, to the 
 contemplation of a higher, supernatural world — to the 
 City of God, founded by Christ upon a rock ; this city 
 can never be destroyed, but out of all the changes and 
 revolutions of time must rise, phoenix-like, with new 
 power and energy ; and after the fulfilment of her 
 earthly mission shall be separated even from external 
 communion with the world, and enter into the Sabbath 
 of eternal rest and sj)iritual repose. " The City of God " 
 is the first attempt at a philosophy of history, viewed 
 under the aspect of two antagonistic kingdoms. 
 
 3. Dogmatic and Pole^siic Works. These are very 
 numerous and important. Augustin was particularly en- 
 dowed as a speculative divine, a powerful reasoner, and 
 an acute controversialist. There is scarcely a theolog- 
 ical question which he did not revolve in his mind over 
 and over again. He ascended the highest heights and 
 sounded the deepest depths of religious speculation. Ilis 
 opinions are always worth considering, lie had very 
 strong convictions, but was free from passion, and never 
 indulged in personalities. He was forci])le in matter 
 and sweet in spirit, and spoke " the truth in love." 
 
 Among: his doo-matic works we mention the fifteen 
 books on the Holy Trinity (against the Arians) ; the 
 hand-book {Jinchiridlon) on Faith, Hope, and Love ; and 
 the four books on Christian doctrine {De Doctrinob 
 
augustin's writings. 93 
 
 Christiana), a liermeneutic dogmatic compendium for 
 religious teachers, and instruction in the development of 
 Christian doctrine from the Holy Scripture. 
 
 His polemic treatises may again be divided into three 
 classes : 
 
 {a) Anti-Manichoean Writings : " On the Morals of 
 the Manichseans ;" on the " Morals of the Catholic 
 Church;" on "Free Will;" on the "Two Souls;" 
 " Against Faustus," and others. They are the chief 
 source of our knowledge of the Manichsean errors, and 
 their refutation. They belong to his earliest works. 
 They defend the freedom of will against fatalism ; after- 
 wards he changed his opinion on that subject. 
 
 {h) Anti-DonatistiG Writings : " On Baptism against 
 the Donatists ;" " Against the Epistle of Parmenianus ;" 
 " Against Petilianus ;" " Extract from the Transactions 
 of the Religious Conference with the Donatists ;" and 
 others. They are the chief source of our knowledge of 
 the remarkable Donatistic schism in Africa, which beo-an 
 long before Augustin's time, and was overcome prin- 
 cipally by his intellectual ability. They treat chiefly of 
 the essence and the attributes of the Church and her 
 relation to the world, of the evil of schism and separa- 
 tion. They complete the development of the Catholic 
 idea of the Church, her visible unity and universality, 
 which was begun already by Ignatius and Irenreus, and 
 carried on by Cyprian. They were composed between 
 393 and 420. 
 
 Unfortunately he approved also of coercive measures 
 of state for the suppression of the separatistic movement, 
 and supported it by a false exegesis of the passage, 
 " Compel them to come in" (Luke xiv. 23). He thus 
 furnished the chief authority in the middle ages for those 
 cruel persecutions of heretics which blacken so many 
 
94 SAINT AUGUSTIN. 
 
 pages of Churcli History, and from -wliich, if lie could 
 have foreseen tlieni, his own Christian feehngs would 
 have shrunk back in horror. Thus great and good men, 
 even without intending it, have, through mistaken zeal, 
 occasioned much mischief. 
 
 ((?) Anti-Pelagian Writings, of the years 411-420, to 
 which are to be added the aiiti- Semi- Pelagian writings 
 of the last years of his life. We mention here the books 
 " On Nature and Grace ;" " On Merit and Forgive- 
 ness ;" " On Grace and Free- Will ;" "On the Spirit 
 and the Letter ;" " On Original Sin ;" " On the Pre- 
 destination of the Saints ;" " On the Gift of Persever- 
 ance" {De Dono PerseverantloB) ; " Against Pelagius 
 and Coelestius ;" " Against Julian" (a bishop of Eclanura 
 in Apulia, infected with Pelagianism). In these treatises 
 Augustin develops his profound doctrines of original sin, 
 the natural inability of man for good ; of the grace and 
 merit of Christ ; of eternal election ; of faith and per- 
 severance to the end — in opposition to the shallow and 
 superficial errors of the contemporaneous monks, Pela- 
 gius and Ccelestius, who denied natural depravity, and 
 just so far overthrew the value of divine grace in Christ. 
 
 These books belong to his most meritorious labors, and 
 are decidedly evangelical, though not free from exag- 
 gerations. They have exerted a greater influence on the 
 Reformers of the sixteenth century, especially on Luther, 
 Melanchthon, and Calvin, than any of his own or of all 
 other human productions besides,* Ilis anti-Pelagian 
 views of sin and grace and divine foreordination are 
 technically called " the Augustinian sj'stem," and this 
 
 * I furnished a detailed representation of the Pelagian controversy 
 and Augustin' s views in connection with it for the " Bibliotheca 
 Sacra and Theological Review" of Andover for the year 1848, vol. v,, 
 p. 205-243, and in my Qhurch History, vol. III., 783-865. 
 
augustin's writings. 95 
 
 again is often, though erroneously, identified with the 
 Calvinistic system of theology. But he held along with 
 it other views which are essentially Catholic and un- 
 protestant, especially on the Church, on baptism, on jus- 
 tification, on asceticism. 
 
 4. Ascetic and Practical Writings. Among these 
 we may number the "Soliloquies;" "Meditations;" 
 " On the Christian Conflict ;" "On the Excellency of 
 Marriage," and a great mass of sermons and homilies, 
 part of which were written out by himself and part taken 
 down by his hearers. Of these there are about four 
 hundred, besides those which that indefatigable editor of 
 unpublished manuscripts. Cardinal Angelo Mai, has 
 discovered among the treasures of the Vatican Library, 
 and given to the press. 
 
 5. Autobiographical, or writings which concern his 
 own life and personal relations. Here belong the inval- 
 uable " Confessions," already known to us — his exhibi- 
 tion of himself to the time of his conversion ; the " Re- 
 tractions, ' ' his revision and self -correcting retrospect at 
 the close of his splendid career in the Church and the 
 fields of literature ; lastly, a collection of two hundred 
 and seventy letters, in M^hich he exhibits a true picture 
 of his external and internal life. 
 
96 SAINT AUGUSTIN. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVl. 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF AIJGUSTIN ON HIS OWN AND SUCCEED- 
 INa GENERATIONS. 
 
 From this comprehensive mass of writings it is easy to 
 determine the significance and influence of Augustin, 
 
 In the sphere of theology, as well as in all other 
 spheres of literature, it is not the quantity, but the qual- 
 ity of the intellectual product which renders it most 
 effective. The apostles have written but little ; and 
 yet the Gospel of St. John, for example, or the Epistle 
 to the Romans exert more influence than whole libraries 
 of excellent books — yea, than the literatures of whole 
 nations. Tertullian's " Apology ;" Cyprian's short 
 treatise on the " Unity of the Church ;" Anselm's " Cur 
 Deus Aomo," and '■'■ Monologium f Bernhard's tracts on 
 " Despising the World," and on " The Love of God ;" 
 the anonymous little book of " German Theology," and 
 similar productions, which may be contained in a couple 
 of sheets, have moved and blessed more minds than tlie 
 numerous abstruse folio volumes of many scholastics of 
 the Middle Ages and old Protestant divines. Augustin's 
 " Confessions ;" the simple little book of the humble, 
 secluded monk, Thomas a Kempis, on the " Imitation 
 of Christ ;" Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress ;" Arndt's 
 " True Christianity," have each converted, edifled, 
 strengthened, and consoled more persons than whole 
 ship-loads of indifferent religious books and commen- 
 taries. 
 
 But Augustin was not only a voluminous writer, but also 
 a profound thinker and subtle reasoner. Ilis books, with 
 all the faults and repetitions of isolated parts, are a spon- 
 
THE INFLUENCE OF AUGUSTIN. 97 
 
 taneous outflow from the marvellous treasures of his 
 liighly-gifted mind and his truly pious heart. Although 
 he occupied one of the smaller bishoprics, he was yet, in 
 fact, the head and leading spirit of the African Church, 
 around whom Aurelius of Carthage, the primate of 
 Africa, Evodius of Uzala, Fortunatus of Cirta, Possidius 
 of Calama, Alypius of Tagaste, and many other bishops 
 willingly and gladly ranged themselves — yea, in him 
 the whole Western Church of antiquity reached its high- 
 est spiritual vigor and bloom. His appearance in the 
 history of dogmas forms a distinct epoch, especially as it 
 regards anthropological and soteriological doctrines, 
 which he advanced considerably further, and brought to 
 a greater clearness and precision than they had ever had 
 before in the consciousness of the Church. For this was 
 needed such a rare union of the speculative talent of the 
 Greek, and of the practical spirit of the Latin Church 
 as he alone possessed. As in the doctrines of sin and 
 grace, of the fall of Adam and the redemption of Christ, 
 the two cardinal points of practical Christianity, he went 
 far beyond the theology of the Oriental Church, which 
 devoted its chief energies to the development of the 
 dogmas of the Holy Trinity and the person of Christ, so 
 at the same time he opened up new paths for the prog- 
 ress of Western theology. 
 
 Not only over his own age, but over all succeeding 
 generations also, he has exercised an immeasurable influ. 
 ence, and does still, as far as the Christian Church and 
 theological science reach, with the exception of the 
 Greek Church, which adheres to her own traditions and 
 the decisions of the seven Oecumenical Councils. It 
 may be doubted if ever any uninspired theologian has 
 had and still has so large a number of admirers and disci- 
 ples as the Bishop of Hippo. While most of the great 
 
98 SAINT AUGUSTIN". 
 
 men in the history of the Church are claimed either by 
 the Catholic or by the Protestant Confession, and their 
 influence is therefore confined to one or the other, he 
 enjoys from both a respect equally profound and endur- 
 ing. 
 
 On the one hand, he is among the chief creators of the 
 OatJiolic theology. Through the whole of the Middle 
 A^^-#iM>m Gregory the Great down to the Fathers of 
 Trent, he was the highest theological authority. Thomas 
 Aquinas alone could in some measure contest this rank 
 w^ith him. By his fondness for speculation and his 
 dialectic acumen he became the father of mediteval 
 scholasticism / and at the same time, by his devotional 
 fervor and spirit glowing with love, the author of 
 mediaeval Tnysticism. Hence the most distinguished 
 representatives of scholasticism — as Anselm, Peter Lom- 
 bard, Thomas Aquinas — and the representatives of mys- 
 ticism — as Bernhard of Clairvaux, Hugo of St. Victor, 
 and Tau'ler— 'filVe collectively appealed to his authority, 
 been nourished on his writings, and saturated with his 
 spirit. ■ Even at this day the Catholic Church, notwith- 
 standing her condemnation of many doctrines of Augus- 
 tin, under the names of Protestant, and Jansenist here- 
 sies, counts him among her greatest saints and most illus- 
 trious doctors. 
 
 It must not be omitted that he is responsible also for 
 many grievous errors of the Roman Church. He advo- 
 cated the principle of persecution ; he taught the damna- 
 tion of unbaptized infants ; he anticipated the dogma of 
 the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary ; and 
 his ominous word, Roma locuta est, causa finita est, 
 might almost be quoted in favor of the Vatican decree 
 of papal infallibility. These errors lie like an incubus 
 on the Roman Church. Error is all the more tenacious 
 
THE INFLUENCE OF AUGUSTIN". 09 
 
 and dangorons the greater the truth it contains, and the 
 greater and wiser the man who advocates it. 
 
 But, on the other hand, this same Angustin has also 
 an evanqelical- Protestant siffniticance. Next to the 
 Apostle Pant, lie was the chief teacher of the whole body 
 of the Keformers of the sixteenth century, and his ex- 
 egetical and anti-Pelagian writings were the main source 
 from which they derived their views on the depravity of 
 human nature and the excellence of the forgiving, regen- 
 erating, and sanctifying grace of God in Christ, and op- 
 posed the dead formalism, self-righteous Pelagianism, 
 and stiff mechanism of the scholastic theology and monk- 
 ish piety of that age. As is well known, they followed 
 him from the very beginning even to the dizzy abyss of 
 the doctrine of predestination, which Luther (in his work 
 De /Se7'vo Arhitrio) and Calvin reproduced in its most 
 rigorous form, in order to root out Pelagianism and 
 Semi-Pelagianism, and with them all human boasting. 
 OFATugustin they always speak with high esteem and 
 love, which is the more remarkable because they are 
 otherwise very free not only with the mediasval school- 
 men, but with the ancient Fathers, and sometimes even, 
 in the passionate heat of their opposition to slavish rever- 
 ence, treat them with neglect and contempt.* 
 
 * la this, as everywhere, Luther is especially outspoken and char- 
 acteristic. His contempt for Scholasticism, which he derives from 
 " the acciirsed heathen Aristotle," is well known. Even the writings 
 of Thomas Aquinas, for whom the Lutheran theologians of the seven- 
 teenth century had great resjject, he once calls " the dregs of all 
 heresies, error, and destruction of the Gospel." Neither did he spare 
 the ancient Fathers, being conscious of the difference between Prot- 
 estant and Patristic theology. "All the Fathers," he once saj'S 
 without ceremony, " have erred in faith, and, if not converted before 
 death, are eternally damned." " St. Gregory is the useless fountain- 
 head and author of the fables of purgatory and masses for souls. He 
 
100 SAINT AUGUSTIN. 
 
 I will add the most recent estimates of Augustin by 
 Protestant historians in confirmatiou of the views ex- 
 pressed in this chapter. 
 
 "vraa very ill acquainted •with Christ and His Gospel ; he is entirely 
 too superstitious ; the Devil has cor^^^pted him." On Jerome, •whose 
 Vulgaia •was indispensable in his translation of the Bible into Ger- 
 man, he •was particularly severe on account of his monastic tenden- 
 cies and legalism. He calls him a " heretic •who has ■written much 
 profanity. He has deserved hell more tban heaven. I know no one 
 of the Fathers to •whom I am so hostile, as to him. He -writes only 
 about fasting, virginity, and such things." For the same reason he 
 condemns Ht. Basil, one of the chief promoters of monachism : 
 " He is good for nothing ; is only a monk ; I •would not give a straw 
 for him." Of Chrysostom, the greatest expounder of the Scrijitures 
 and pulpit-orator of the Greek Church, but of whom certainly he had 
 only the most superficial knowledge, he says, " He is worth nothing 
 to me ; he is a babbler, wrote many books, which make a great show, 
 but are only huge, wild, tangled heaps and crowds and bags full of 
 words, for there is nothing in them, and little wool sticks." Now- 
 adays not a solitary Lutheran theologian of any learning will agree 
 with him in this view. The Beformer was at times dissatisfied with 
 Augustin himself, because, amid all his congeniality of mind, he 
 could not just find in him his "sola fide." " Augustin has often 
 erred, he is not to bo trusted. Although good and holy, he was yet 
 lacking in true faith as well as the other Fathers." Bat over against 
 this casual expression stand a num ber of eulogies on Augustin. 
 
 Luther's words must not be weighed too nicely, else any and every- 
 thing can be proven by him, and the most irreconcilable contradic- 
 tions shown. We must always judge him according to the moment 
 and mood in which he spoke, and duly remember his bluntness and 
 his stormy, warlike nature. Thiis, the above disparaging sentences 
 upon some of the greatest theologians are partly annulled by his 
 churchly and historical feeling, and by many expressions, like that 
 in a letter to Albert of Prussia (a.d. 1532), where he declares the im- 
 portance of tradition in matters of faith, as strongly as any Catholic, 
 In reference to the real presence of Christ in the Lord's Su^jper, he 
 says : " Moreover this article has been unanimously believed and 
 held from the beginning of the Christian Church to the present 
 hour, as may be shown from the books and writings of the dear 
 Fathers, both in the Greek and Latin languages, which testimony 
 
THE INFLUENCE OF AUGUSTIN. 101 
 
 Dr. Bindemann, one of tlie best Protestant biographers 
 of Augustin, tlms sums np his estimate of his character 
 and influence : "Augustin is one of the most extraordinary 
 lights in the Church, In importance he takes rank be- 
 hind no teacher who has labored in her since the days of 
 the apostles. It may well be said that the first place 
 among the Church Fathers is due to him, and at the time 
 of the Reformers only a Luther, by reason of the ful- 
 ness and depth of his spirit and his nobleness of charac- 
 ter, was worthy to stand at his side. He is the highest 
 point of the development of the Western Church before 
 the Middle Ages. From him the Mysticism, no less than 
 the Scholasticism of the Middle Ages, has drawn its life ; 
 he forms the mightiest pillar of Roman Catholicism ; 
 and the leaders of the Reformation derived from his 
 M-ritings next to the study of the Holy Scriptures, espe- 
 cially the Paulinian Epistles, those princij)les which gave 
 birth to a new era." Drvjiurtz (in the ninth edition 
 of his Cliurch History^ 1885) calls Augustin "the 
 greatest, mightiest, and most influential of all the fathers, 
 from whom the entire doctrinal and ecclesiastical devel- 
 opment of the Occident proceeded, and to whom it re- 
 turns again and again in all its turning-points. ' ' Dr. Carl 
 
 of the entire holy Christian Church ought to be sufficient for us, even 
 if we had nothing more. For it is dangerous and dreadful to hear or 
 believe anything against the unanimous testimony, faith, and doctrine of 
 the entire holy Christian Church, as it has been held unanimously in all the 
 world up to this year 1500. "Whoever now doubts of this, ho does just 
 as much as though he believed in no Christian Church, and con- 
 demns not only the entire holy Christian Church as a damnable 
 heresy, but Christ Himself, and all the apostles and prophets, who 
 founded this article, when wo say, ' I believe in a holy Christian 
 Church,' to which Christ bears powerful testimony in Matt, xxviii. 
 20 : ' Lo I am with you always to the end of the world,' and Paul 
 in 1 Tim. iii. 15 : * The Church is the pillar and ground of the 
 truth.'" 
 
102 SAINT AUGUSTIN. 
 
 Burk (in liis Church History, 1885) says that in Angustin 
 ancient and modern ideas are melted, and that to his 
 authority the papal church has as much right to appeal 
 as the churches of the Reformation. Dr. Karl Hase, of 
 Jena, who, after lecturing on Church History from 1831 
 to 1883, is now (1885) publishing his lectures, emphasizes 
 the liberal features of Angustin, and remarks that 
 " a right estimate of his importance as an author can 
 only be made when we perceive how the scholastics and 
 mystics of the Middle Ages lived upon his riches, and 
 how even Luther and Calvin drew out of his depths.'' 
 
 The great genius of the African Church, from whom 
 the Middle Ages and the Reformation have received an 
 impulse alike powerful, though in different directions, 
 has not yet fulfilled the work marked out for it in the 
 counsels of Divine Wisdom. lie serves as a bond of 
 union between tlie two antagonistic sections of "Western 
 Christendom, and encourages the hoj^e that a time may 
 come when the injustice and bitterness of strife will be 
 forgiven and forgotten, and the discords of the past be 
 drowned forever in the sweet harmonies of perfect 
 knowledge and perfect love. 
 
 This end may be afar off. It will come when the 
 "City of God" is completed. " Then and there " (to 
 use the closing words of his admirable work) " wc shall 
 rest and see, see and love, love and praise. This is 
 what shall be in the end without end. For what other 
 end do we propose to ourselves than to attain to the 
 Kingdom of which there shall be no end ?" 
 
 What Angustin has so beautifully said of men as indi- 
 viduals may, with great propriety, be applied also to the 
 ages of the Church : " Thou, O Lord, hast created us 
 for Thyself, and our hearts are without rest until they 
 rest in Thee." 
 
THE AUGUSTINIAN SYSTEM. 103 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE AUGUSTINIAN SYSTEM. 
 
 A FEW words more on tlie anti-Pelagian system of 
 Angustin, wliicli is so closely interwoven with tlie history 
 of Protestant theology. It is imbedded in the Confes- 
 sions of the Reformation ; it rnled the scholastic theol- 
 ogy of the Lntheran and Reformed churches during the 
 seventeenth century ; it was gradually undermined first 
 by the Arminian movement in Holland, then by the 
 "VVesleyan Methodism in England and America, and by 
 the rationalistic revolution of the last century, but is still 
 held by the schools of strict orthodoxy in the Lutheran 
 and Calvinistic churches, with this difference, however, 
 that the Lutheran Formula of Concord teaches a tmi- 
 versal call in connection with a ])articular election^ and 
 rejects the decree of reprobation. 
 
 The Roman Church accepted Augustinianism only in 
 part and in subordination to her sacramentarian and sac- 
 erdotal system. The Greek Clmrch ignored it altogether, 
 although Pelagius was condemned with Nestorius by the 
 Qi^cumenical Council of Ej^hesus in 431, without a doc- 
 trinal statement of the controv^erted points. 
 
 TJie Augustinian system assumes but one probation of 
 man and but one act of freedom, which was followed by 
 a universal slavery of sin and by a partial redemption ; 
 God choosing by an eternal decree of grace from the 
 mass of perdition a definite number of the elect for 
 salvation, and leaving the rest to their deserved ruin. It 
 suspends the eternal fate of Adam and his unborn ]30s- 
 terity, which ke represented, ujDon a single act of dis- 
 obedience, which resulted in the damnation of untold 
 
104 SAINT AUGUSTIis'. 
 
 millions of immortal beings, including all unbaptized in- 
 fants dying in infancy. That act, with its fearful con- 
 sequences, was, of course, eternally foreseen by the 
 omniscient God, and must in some sense also have been 
 decreed or foreordained, since nothing can happen with- 
 out His sovereign and almighty will. Augustin and the 
 Protestant Confessions stop within the infralapsarian 
 scheme, which puts the fall only under a permissive 
 decree, and makes Adam and the race responsible for sin. 
 Here is an inconsistency, which has its root in a strong 
 sense of God's holiness and man's guilt. The siipra- 
 lapsarian scheme, which was developed by a school in 
 Calvinistio churches, but never obtained symbolical sanc- 
 tion, is logically more consistent, but practically more 
 revolting by including the fall itself in an efficient de- 
 cree of God, and making sin the necessary means for 
 the manifestation of divine mercy in the saved, and of 
 divine justice in the lost. 
 
 Melanchthon in his later years, and the Arminians 
 after him, felt the speculativ^e and moral difficulties of 
 Augustinianisni, but were no more able to remove them 
 by their compromise theories than the Semi-Pelagians of 
 old. Yea, even Calvin, while accepting in faith the ab- 
 solute decree, called it a '"'' deGvetum Jtorribile, attamen 
 verum. ' ' 
 
 Long before Augustin, Origen had taught another 
 solution of the problem of sin, based on the Platonic 
 theory of pre- existence ; he went even beyond the be- 
 ginning of history where Augustin began, and assumed 
 a pre-historic fall of every individual soul (not of the 
 race, as Augustin held), but also a final salvation of all. 
 
 Schleiermacher combined the Augustinian or Calvin- 
 istic predestinarianism with the Origenistic restoration- 
 ism, and taught a universal election, which unfolds itself 
 
THE AUGUSTINIAN SYSTEM. 105 
 
 by degrees, and, while involving a temporary reprobation 
 of the impenitent, results in the final conversion and res- 
 toration of all men to holiness and happiness. Pantheism 
 goes still further, and makes sin a necessary transition 
 point in the process of moral evolution, but thereby cuts 
 the nerve of moral responsibility, and overthrows the 
 holiness of God. 
 
 Thus the deepest and strongest minds, both philoso- 
 phers and theologians, have been wrestling again and 
 again with the dark, terrific problem of sin and death in 
 its relation to an all-wise, holy, and merciful God, and 
 yet have reached no satisfactory solution except that 
 God overrules evil for a greater good. The Angustinian 
 system contains a vast amount of profound truth, and 
 has trained some of the purest and strongest types of 
 Christian cliaracter. among the Jansenists and Huguenots 
 of France, the Calvinists of Holland, the Puritans of 
 England, the Covenanters of Scotland, and the Pilgrim 
 Fathers of l^ew England. Nevertheless, as a system it 
 is unsatisfactory, because it assumes an unconscious and 
 yet responsible pre-existence of the race in Adam, and 
 because it leaves out of sight the universal benevolence 
 and impartial justice of God to all His creatures, and 
 the freedom and individual responsibility of man, who 
 stands or falls with his own actual sins. But it will re- 
 quire another theological genius even deeper and broader 
 than Origen, Augustin, Thomas Aquinas, Calvin, and 
 Schleiermacher, to break the spell of that system by sub- 
 stituting a better one from the inexhaustible mines of 
 the Scripture, which contains all the elements and aspects 
 of the truth, without giving disproportion to one and 
 doing injustice to another. 
 
 The study of history liberalizes and expands the mind, 
 and teaches us to respect and love, without idolatry, 
 
lOG SAINT AUOUSTIN. 
 
 every great and good man notwithstanding his errors of 
 iudmnent and defects of character. There never was an 
 unerring and perfect being on earth but One who is 
 more than man, and who alone could say : "1 am the 
 Way, and the Truth, and the Life. ' ' 
 
 P.S. — This biography is an enlarged revision of the author's St. 
 Augustin, which was published in German by W. Hertz, in Berlin, 
 1854, and admirably translated by his friend, Professor Thomas C. 
 Porter (New York, and London, Samuel Bagster & Sons, 1854), but has 
 long since been out of print. The changes and additions are con- 
 siderable, but the popular character and aim have been retained. 
 
MELA:N^CHTHOIsr. 
 
 HIS YOUTH AND EDUCxVTION. 
 
 Philip Melanchthon, the second leader of tlie German 
 Reformation and the " Teacher of Germany" {Prcecep- 
 tor GermanicB)^ was iT^orauof honest and pious j^arents, 
 February 16th, 149 7j., fourteen years after Luther, at 
 Bretten, in the beautiful and fertile Palatinate, now be- 
 longing to the Grand Duchy of Baden. 
 
 His parents were in comfortable circumstances, and 
 had five children, Philip being the oldest. His father, 
 Georg Schwarzerd, was a manufacturer of arms for the 
 E'TectoF Philip of the Palatinate, and formerly resided at 
 Heidelberg. He once made a skilfully contrived armor 
 for the Emperor Maximilian L, in which this last of 
 the mediaeval knights conquered a bold Italian in a tour- 
 nament. Melanchthon himself afterward prepared the 
 spiritual weapons for the conflict of Germany with the 
 Pope of Rome. His mother, Barbara Renter, is de- 
 scribed as a prudent, economical, and benevolent woman. 
 She was a niece of the celebrated classical and Hebrew 
 scholar John Reuchlin, of Pforzheim, who suffered much 
 persecution from ignorant Dominican monks for pro- 
 moting Biblical learning.* 
 
 * See Forstemann, Die, Schwarzerde, oder Znsammenstellung der Xach- 
 richten fiber ]\lelanchtho)i' s Gesrhlecht, in the " Theol. Studien imd 
 Kritiken," 1830, i>. 119 sqq. Also Carl Schmidt, Philipp Jlelanchthon, 
 Elberfeld, 1801, p. 1-6. 
 
108 MELANCHTHOK. 
 
 Melanclithon lost liis father in early boyhood, but 
 Reuchlin took charge of his education, gave him, ac- 
 cording to the literary fashion of the age, his Greek 
 name Melanchthon^ or MelantJion,^ in exchange for the 
 German family name Schwarzerd {Black- eartK),, to- 
 gether with the rare and costly present of a Latin Bible, 
 and sent him to the Latin school at Pforzheim (1507), 
 and to the Universities of Heidelberg (1509) and Tubin- 
 gen (1512). 
 
 He studied philosophy, mathematics, natural science, 
 law, and medicine, but especially the Greek and Roman 
 classics, which were then raised to life again after a long 
 sleep in the dust of ages, and which kindled the fire of 
 enthusiasm for liberal culture among scholars in Italy, 
 France, England, Holland, and Germany. It was an 
 age of literary discovery preparatory to the Reformation, 
 and in many respects resembles our own age of restless 
 progress. It was the century of the Renaissance, when 
 the world and the Church renewed their youth. " The 
 studies flourish," said Ul rich von Hutten, "the spirits 
 are awake, it is a luxury to live." And Luther wrote in 
 1522 : "If you read all the annals of the past, you will 
 find no century like this since the birth of Christ. Such 
 building and planting, such good living and dressing, 
 such enterprise in commerce, such stir in all the arts, has 
 not been since Christ came into the world. And how 
 numerous are the sharp and intelligent wits who leave 
 nothing hidden and unturned ! Even a boy of twenty 
 years knows more nowadays than was formerly known 
 by twenty doctors of divinity." 
 
 * Ho spellocl his name Melanclithon till 1531 ; afterward he adopted 
 the shorter form, for easier ijronunciation. In the University of 
 Heidelberg he was immatriculated as " Philippus Schwarzerd da 
 Brdlen." The Greek name is from iitlav, black, and x'^'^^y earth. 
 
MELAJSrCIITIION IN TUBINGEiT. 109 
 
 In theology Melanchtlion had at that time less inter- 
 est, as it was taught in the dry, barren method of medi- 
 aeval scholasticism in the last stages of dissolution ; but 
 he had received a pious training at home, and took great 
 delight in public worship, and in reading the Greek 
 Testament, and the lives of saints. 
 
 By the extraordinary precocity of his genius, in con- 
 nection with great modesty and amiability of character, 
 he attracted favorable attention, and rose witli unex- 
 ampled rapidity to the highest rank of classical and gen- 
 eral scholarship. He wrote and spoke the ancient lan- 
 guages better than his native German. He composed 
 poetry in Latin and Greek. He learned the Hel)xew 
 from Reuchlin's Grammar, which marks an epoch in 
 Hebrew learning. At the age of fourteen (1511) he took 
 the degree of Bachelor of Arts ; three years later (151-1) 
 that of Master of Arts^ In 1516 the famous Erasmus , 
 theprince of classical scholars, gave him the testimony : 
 " My God ! what expectations does Philip Melanchtlion 
 excite, who is yet a youth — yea, we may say a mere boy, 
 and has already attained to eqaal eminence in the Greek 
 and Latin literature r_ /What acumen in demonstration ! 
 AVlTat j^urily "andf' elegance of style ! What rare learn- 
 ing ! "What comprehensive reading ! What tenderness 
 and refinement in his extraordinary genius !" * 
 
 MELANCIITnON IN TUUINGEN". 
 
 Melanchtlion commenced his public life in the Univer- 
 sity of Tiibingen, on the beautiful banks of the Neckar, 
 as lecturer on ancient literature, and editor and com- 
 mentator of Aristotle and other classics. In 1518 he 
 
 * Annotat. ad Nov. Test., Basel, 151G, fol. 555. 
 
110 MELANCHTUON. 
 
 pnblislied a Greek Grammar, which passed through many 
 editions, and was nsed as a text-book long after his death. 
 The influence of his fatherly friend Reuchlin, who de- 
 fended the cause of liberal learning and progress against 
 obscurantism and stagnation, and especially the careful 
 study of the Bible, which he carried with him every- 
 where, opened his eyes to the sad condition of the 
 Church and the priesthood, and disposed him favorably 
 to the reform movement, which commenced, during his 
 residence at Tubingen, with the famous controversy of 
 Luther and Tetzel (1517), and at once attracted the 
 attention of every educated man. The jirotest against 
 the profane traffic in indulgences was the occasion of the 
 Reformation, but the cause lay deeper, in the aspirations 
 after freedom from the fetters of popery. So the firing 
 at Fort Sumter in South Carolina occasioned the civil 
 war in America, while the real cause was the institution 
 of slavery. The Ninety-five Theses of the lonely monk 
 at Wittenberg were the spark that kindled a fire all over 
 Europe and opened a new chapter in the history of the 
 world. 
 
 MELANCnTHON IN WITTENBERG. 
 
 At the recommendation of Reuchlin, the Elector 
 Frederic the Wise, of Saxony, the cautious and faithful 
 patron of Luther, called the promising scholar from 
 Tiibingen to the Greek professorship in the University 
 of Wittenberg, which that prince had founded in 1502, 
 and which had just acquired a European celebrity by the 
 outbreak of the Reformation. 
 
 Melanchthon declined calls to Ingolstadt and Leipzig, 
 but accepted that to Wittenberg. He arrived there on 
 the 25th of August, 1518, nearly one year after the pub- 
 lication of Luther's Theses (October 31st, 1517), and two 
 
MELA5TCHTH0]Sr IN "WITTENBERG. Ill 
 
 years before tlie burning of tlie Pope's bull of excommu- 
 nication (December lOtli, 1520). j^ext to the " Luther- 
 haus " and the Castle Clinrcli, the most interesting 
 building in the quaint old town of Wittenberg on the 
 banks of the Elbe is the house of Melanchthon in the Col- 
 legienstrasse. It bears the inscription on the outer wall : 
 
 " Hier wohnte lelirte 
 
 und starb Pbilipp 
 
 Melanchthon." 
 
 ("Here dwelt, taught, and died Philipp Melanchthon.") 
 
 It is a three-story building, and belongs to the Prus- 
 sian government, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. having 
 bought it from its former owner. Melanchthon's study 
 is on the first story ; there he died. Behind the house 
 is a little garden which was connected with Luther's 
 garden. Here, under tlie shade of the tree, the two 
 Reformers may often have exchanged views on the stir- 
 ring events of the times, and encouraged each other in 
 the great conflict with popery. 
 
 Althongh yet a youth of twenty-one years of age, 
 Melanchthon at once gained the esteem and admiration 
 of his colleagues and hearers. He was small of stature, 
 unprepossessing in his outward appearance, and ex- 
 tremely diffident and timid. But his high and nol)le 
 forehead and his fine blue eyes, full of fire, rev^ealed the 
 beauty and strength of his inner man. His learning was 
 undoubted, and his moral and religious character above 
 suspicion. His introductory address, delivered four days 
 after his arrival, on "the Improvement of the Studies 
 of Youth," "^ dispelled all fears; it contained the pro- 
 gram of his academic teaching, and marks an epoch in 
 
 * De Corrigendis Adolescentium Studils, in the Corpus Reformatorum, 
 XI. 15 sqq. See Schmidt, I. c. 29 sq. 
 
112 MELANCHTHON". 
 
 the history of liberal education in Germany. He de- 
 sired to lead the student to the sources of knowledge, and 
 by a careful study of the languages to furnish the key for 
 the proper understanding of Christianity, that they might 
 become living members of Christ and enjoy the fruits 
 of His heavenly wisdom. 
 
 He at first devoted himself to j^hilological pursuits, and 
 did more than any of his contemporaries, not excepting 
 Erasmus, to revive the study of the Greek language and 
 literature, which did such essential service to the cause 
 of Biblical learning, and materially promoted the tri- 
 umph of the Reformation. He called the ancient lan- 
 guages the swaddling-clothes of the Christ-child ; Luther 
 compared them to the sheath of the sword of the Spirit. 
 Melanchthon was master of the ancient languages, Luther 
 master of the German ; the former, by his co-operation, 
 secured accuracy to the German Bible ; the latter, idio- 
 matic force and poetic beauty. 
 
 In the year 1519 Melanchthon graduated as Bachelor of 
 Divinity ; the degree of Doctor he modestly declined. 
 From that time on he was a member of the theological 
 faculty, and delivered also theological lectures, especially 
 on exegesis. He taught two hours every day a variety 
 of topics, including ethics, logic, Greek grammar, and 
 literature. In the latter period of his life he devoted 
 himself exclusively to sacred learning. He was never 
 ordained, and never ascended the pulpit ; but for the 
 benefit of foreign students who were ignorant of Ger- 
 man, he delivered every Sunday in his lecture-room a 
 Latin sermon on the Scripture lessons. He was the most 
 popular teacher at "Wittenberg. 
 
 His and Luther's fame attracted students from all parts 
 of Christendom. He had, at times, as many as fj-om 
 fifteen hundred to two thousand hearers (the whole Uni- 
 
LUTHER A^STD MELAXCHTHON". 113 
 
 versity numbered at one time three thousand students), 
 including princes, counts, and barons, and heard occa- 
 sionally as many as eleven languages at his frugal but 
 hospitable table. Subsequently he received several calls 
 to Tubingen, Kiirnberg, and Heidelberg, and was also 
 invited to Denmark, France, and England ; but he pre- 
 ferred remaining in Wittenberg till his death. 
 
 He drew up the statutes of the University, which are 
 regarded as a model. By his advice and example the 
 higher education in Germany was regulated. 
 
 LUTHER AND MELANCHTHON. 
 
 Immediately after his arrival at the Saxon University, 
 on the Elbe, Melanchthon entered into an intimate rela- 
 tion with Luther, and became his most useful and influ- 
 ential CO- laborer in the work of reformation. He looked 
 up to his elder colleague with the veneration of a son, 
 and was carried away and controlled (sometimes against 
 his better judgment) by the fiery genius of the Protestant 
 Elijah ; while Luther regarded him as his superior in 
 learning and moderation, and was not ashamed to sit 
 humbly at the feet of the modest and diffident youth. 
 He attended several of his exegetical lectures, and pub- 
 lished them, without his wish and knowledge, for the 
 benefit of the Church. 
 
 The friendshij) of these two great men is one of the 
 most delightful chapters in the religious drama of the 
 sixteenth century. It rested on mutual personal esteem 
 and hearty German affection, but especially on the con- 
 sciousness of a providential mission intrusted to their 
 united labors. Although somewhat disturbed, at a later 
 period, by slight doctrinal differences and occasional ill- 
 humor, it lasted to the end ; and as they worked together 
 
114 MELANCHTHON. 
 
 for the same cause, so they now rest under the same 
 roof in the church at Wittenberg, at whose doors Lather 
 had nailed the war-cry of the Reformation. 
 
 Melanchthon descended from South Germany, Luther 
 from North Germany ; Melanchthon from the well-to-do 
 middle classes of citizens and artisans, Luther from the 
 peasantry. Melanchthon had a quiet, literary preparation 
 for his work ; Luther experienced much hardship and 
 severe moral conflicts. The former passed through the 
 door of classical studies, the latter through the door of 
 mystic contemplation and monastic asceticism ; the one 
 was foreordained to a professor's chair, the other to the 
 leadership of an army of conquest. 
 
 Luther best understood and exj^ressed the difference of 
 character, and it is one of his noble traits that he did not 
 allow it to interfere with the esteem and admiration for 
 his younger friend and co-worker. " I prefer the books 
 of Master Philippus to my own," he wrote in 1529. 
 " I am rough, boisterous, stormy, and altogether warlike, 
 fii>;htino: a<2;ainst innumerable monsters and devils. I am 
 bom for the work of removing stumps and stones, cut- 
 ting away thistles and thorns, and clearing the wild for- 
 ests ; but Master Philippus comes along softly and 
 gently, sowing and watering with joy, according to the 
 gifts which God has abundantly bestowed upon him." 
 
 Luther was incomparably the stronger man of the two, 
 and differed from Melanchthon as the wild mountain tor- 
 rent differs from the quiet stream of the meadow, or as 
 the rushing tempest from the gentle breeze, or, to use 
 a Scriptural illustration, as the fiery Paul from the con- 
 templative John. Luther was a man of war, Melanchthon 
 a man of peace. Luther's writings smell of powder ; 
 his words are battles ; he overwhelms his opponents with 
 a roaring cannonade of argument, eloquence, passion, 
 
LUTHER AND MELANCHTHON", 115 
 
 and abuse. Melanclitlion excels in moderation and amia- 
 bility, and often exercised a happy restraint npon the 
 unmeasured violence of his colleague. Luther was a 
 creative genius and pioneer of new paths ; Melanchthon 
 a highly gifted scholar of untiring industry. The one 
 was emphatically the man for the people, abounding in 
 strong and clear sense, popular eloquence, natural wit, 
 genial humor, intrepid courage, and straightforward 
 lionesty. The other was a quiet, considerate scholar — a 
 man of order, method, and taste, and gained the literary 
 circles for the cause of the Reformation. He is the 
 principal founder of a Protestant theology. He very 
 properly represented the evangelical cause in all the theo- 
 logical conferences with the Roman Catholic party at 
 Augsburg, Speier, "Worms, Frankfort, Ratisbon, where 
 Luther's presence would only have increased the heat of 
 controversy, and widened the breach. 
 
 Without Luther the Reformation would never liave 
 taken hold of the common people ; without Melanchthon 
 it would never have succeeded among the scholars of 
 Germany. The former was unyielding and nncompro- 
 misino; ao-ainst Romanism and Zwinglianism : the other 
 was always ready for compromise and peace, as far as his 
 honest convictions would allow, and sincerely labored to 
 restore the broken nnity of the Church. He was even 
 willing, as his qualified subscription to the Articles of 
 Smalcald shows, to admit a certain supremacy of the 
 Pope {jure hiimano), provided he would tolerate the free 
 preaching of the gospel. But Popery and evangelical 
 freedom will never agree. 
 
 The one was the boldest, the most heroic and com- 
 manding ; the other, the most gentle, pious, and consci- 
 entious of the Reformers. Melanchthon had less cour- 
 age, and felt, more keenly and painfully than any other, 
 
116 MELANCHTHON. 
 
 the tremendous responsibility of tlie great religions move- 
 ment in which he was engaged. He wonld have made any 
 personal sacrifice if he could have removed the confusion 
 and divisions attendant upon it.* On several occasions 
 he showed, no doubt, too much timidity and weakness ; 
 but his concessions to the enemy, and his disposition to 
 compromise for peace and unity's sake, proceeded al- 
 ways from pure and conscientious motives. 
 
 The two Wittenberg Reformers were evidently brought 
 together by the hand of Providence, to supply and com- 
 plete each other, and by their united talents and ener- 
 gies to carry forward the German Reformation, which 
 would have assumed a very different character if Jt had 
 been exclusively left in the hands of either of them. 
 Without Luther, Melanclithon would have become a 
 second Erasmus, though with a profounder interest in 
 religion, and the Reformation would liave resulted in a 
 liberal theological school instead of giving birth to a 
 Church. However much the humble and unostentatious 
 labors and merits of Melanclithon are overshadowed by 
 the more striking and brilliant deeds of the heroic 
 Luther, they were, in their own way, quite as useful and 
 indisjDensable. The "• still small voice " often made 
 friends to Protestantism where the earthquake and 
 thunder-storm produced only terror and convulsion. 
 
 DOMESTIC AND PEIVATE LIFE. 
 
 Melanchthon, being not an ordained clergyman or 
 monk, like Luther and other Reformers, had no vow of 
 celibacy that might hinder him from entering the mar- 
 
 *"Der Schmnrz der KirchenspaUung ist iief (lurch seine schuldlose Secle 
 gegangen." Hase, Eirchengesch., 10th ed. (1877), p. 385. 
 
DOMESTIC AND PRIVATE LIFE. 117 
 
 ried state. In August, 1520, when twenty- three years of 
 age, he married Catharina Krapp, the worthy daughter 
 of the burgomaster of Wittenberg. He followed in this 
 step not so much his own inclination as the advice of 
 Luther, who was anxious for his health, and hoped that 
 a good u^ife would keep him from excess of study, and 
 prolong his usefulness. Luther himself married four 
 years later, not so much from inclination as for the pur- 
 pose, as he said, of pleasing his father, teasing the pope, 
 and vexing the devil. 
 
 Melanchthon's marriage proved a happy one, but was 
 not free from the usual cares and trials. He declared that 
 his wife was worthy of a better husband. His intimate 
 friend and biographer, Camerarius, gives her a most 
 favorable testimony. She died during his absence in 
 Worms, in 1537. When he heard the sad news he 
 looked up to heaven with a sigh and said, " Soon I shall 
 follow thee." By her he had two sons and two daugh- 
 ters. He was a very affectionate father. Occasionally 
 strangers would find him in the nursery, rocking the 
 cradle with one hand and holding a book in the other. 
 He called his house " a little church" (ecdesiold). He 
 was in the habit of repeating the Apostles' Creed three 
 times every day in his family. 
 
 His son Philip studied law, grieved his father by a 
 secret marriage, became a notary public, and died in his 
 eightieth year, without children. His daughter Anna 
 married Georg Sabinus, a poet of light character, 
 brought up in his family. She died young, and left three 
 daughters to cheer the old age of their grandfather. His 
 younger daughter, Magdalena, was the wife of a distin- 
 guished physician and professor, Caspar Peucer, who, 
 after his death, ruled the University of Wittenberg, but 
 was cruelly persecuted and kept ten years in prison 
 
118 MELANCHXnON. 
 
 by tlie Elector Augustus, on account of Krypto-Cal- 
 vinism, of which he was the leader. 
 
 His mode of living was very simple, but free from 
 ascetic austerity. Wittenberg was then a town of 
 miserable dwellings in a sandy plain on the borders of 
 civilization. Coming from the fertile Palatinate, 
 Melanchthon complained at first that he could hardly get 
 decent food. His highest salary was only three hundred 
 guilders. In the first year he could not afford to buy 
 a new dress for his wife. When Cardinal Bembo of 
 Rome heard of his scanty support, he exclaimed : " O 
 ungrateful Germany !" It seems that neither he nor 
 Luther received any compensation for their books, except 
 indirectly in the shape of occasional presents. But his 
 hospitality and benevolence were unbounded and often 
 abused. In this respect he was like Luther. Both had 
 the German faculty of being happy on a small capital. 
 They preferred plain living with high thinking to plain 
 thinking with high living. Poverty with contentment is 
 the lot of scholars v/ho accomplish most for the good of 
 the world. The apostles and ancient fathers fared no 
 better. 
 
 Melanchthon' s heart was open to tender and affection- 
 ate friendship. With Joachim Camerarius he was one 
 heart and one soul. His relation to Luther was disturbed 
 on the surface, but not at the bottom, and in the funeral 
 oration he called him the Elijah who had roused the 
 Church of God. His honesty, integrity, unselfishness, 
 conscientiousness, and amiability are acknowledged by 
 all. On the other hand, he was irritable, timid, and want- 
 ing in firmness of character. He unfortunately yielded 
 Lis consent to the double marriage of Philip of Hesse. 
 This is the greatest mistake which the Reformers of Ger- 
 many made, and admits of no excuse. But Melanchthon 
 
DOMESTIC AND PRIVATE LIFE. 119 
 
 repented of it so deeply that he was brought to the brink 
 of death at Weimar in 1540.* Lnther, who was made 
 of sterner stuff, interposed for his recovery with liis most 
 earnest prayers, summoning all the resources of his faith 
 and all the promises of God, and he succeeded. 
 
 Melanchthon's approval of the execution of Servetus 
 for heresy is anotlier deplorable act, but this must be 
 charged to the intolerance of the age and the prevailing 
 union of Church and State which made an offence 
 against the one an offence against the other, and punish- 
 able by both. In this respect the Reformers did not rise 
 above the theory of the Middle Ages. They had no 
 proper conception of religious toleration and hberty. 
 
 Melanchthon shared also the traditional superstitions in 
 regard to astrology, spectres, witchcraft, and covenants 
 with the devil. Pope Paul III. consulted the stars before 
 he took a journey, or convened an important consistory. 
 Even Lord Bacon, and the great astronomers Tycho 
 de Brahe and Kepler did not altogether reject astrology. 
 Luther had no faith in it, and was in this respect ahead 
 of his age. He argued against it from the example of 
 Esau and Jacob, who were born at the same time and 
 under the same stars, and yet of totally different charac- 
 ter. On the other hand, Luther had personal encounters 
 with the Evil One, and threw the inkstand at him in the 
 Wartburg. He also believed in the motion of the sun 
 around the earth, and objected, in a conversation with 
 Melanchthon, to the Copernican system that Joshua bade 
 the sun to stand still, and not the earth. 
 
 * ' ' Wie hat der Teufel dieses Organon geschiindet /" said Lutlier, ■when 
 he saw the corpse-like form of his friend. 
 
120 MELANCHTHON. 
 
 THE CLOSING YEARS. 
 
 After Luther's death, in 1546, Melanchthon lost the 
 strongest outward support of his character, and his natu- 
 ral timidity and irresoluteness appeared more promi- 
 nently than before. The times also became too violent 
 for so peaceful a man. The war between Catholics and 
 Protestants broke out at last. Charles Y. defeated the 
 Lutheran princes at Miihlberg (April 2-lth, 1547), entered 
 Wittenberg, and stood thoughtful before the grav^e of 
 Luther, in the castle church. Although he regretted 
 that he had not burned the archheretic at Worms, he 
 promptly dechned the proposal of one of his gene: als, 
 to dig up and burn his bones and to scatter the 
 ashes to the four winds, with the noble and dignified 
 answer : " I war against the living, not the dead." The 
 University w^as dissolved. Melanchthon fled with his 
 family and Luther's widow to Braunschweig, and after- 
 ward to Nordhausen, lie returned after the victory of 
 Elector Moritz of Saxony over the Emperor, and labored 
 twelve more years at the head of the University, which 
 rose again to a high degree of prosperity. He was con- 
 sulted from near and far as a sort of oracle in theology 
 and education. But he was violently assailed from 
 Magdeburg and Jena by Elacius, his former pupil and 
 jprotegd^ by Westphal, Ilesshusius, and other fanatical 
 Lutherans, who forgot his invaluable services to the 
 Lutheran Church, and openly charged him with treason 
 to the cause of truth. 
 
 The ground of this charge was his yielding disposition 
 to Popery on the one hand, and to Calvinism on the 
 other. He submitted to the Augsburg and Leij^zig com- 
 promises, called Interim, which the Emperor imposed 
 upon the Protestants, but which fell to pieces with his 
 
THE CLOSIXG YEARS. 121 
 
 defeat. Melanchthoii liad not the courage of a martyr, 
 and hoped hy submission to ceremonies in themselves 
 indifferent to prevent the reintroduction of Popery and 
 to save the cause of the Reformation for better times. 
 He gave still greater offence to the same bigoted jiarty 
 by his growing disposition to unite with the Reformed, 
 which was strengthened by his intimate personal and 
 theological friendshij? with Calvin since they met at 
 theological conferences in 1539 and 1540. He mastered 
 his sensitive temper, and answered the attack^ of his 
 former friends and pupils by silence. He sought to gain 
 his enemies by kindness. The violent controversies in 
 the Lutheran Church continued long after his death, 
 and were adjusted at last by the " Formula of Con- 
 cord ' ' and the triumph of strict Lutheran orthodoxy 
 (1577). 
 
 Add to these public calamities and personal attacks the 
 growing weakness and sickness of the body, and various 
 domestic bereavements, and we need not wonder that 
 the last years of Melanchthon were years of grief and 
 sorrow rather than of joy and pleasure. He experienced 
 the full measure of that melancholy which cast its shade 
 over the closing scenes of Luther, and many other great 
 and good men. He often prayed to be delivered from 
 the " fury of theologians" {rabies theologorum). 
 
 His personal sufferings, however, did not affect him 
 near as much as his care for the Church. He uttered 
 the noble sentiment : "If my eyes were a fountain of 
 tears, as rich as the river Elbe, I could not sufficiently 
 express my sorrow over the divisions and distractions of 
 Christians." His heart and soul longed and prayed, in 
 unison with the spirit of his divine Master, that all be- 
 lievers "may be perfected into one," even as He and 
 the Father are one (John xvii. 23). His last lecture 
 
122 MELANCHTHON. 
 
 treated of Christ's agony in Gethsemane, liis last sermon 
 was on the sacerdotal prayer of our Lord. 
 
 HIS DEATH. 
 
 Finally, the hour of his deliverance came. He died 
 peacefully on the 19th of April, 1500, aged sixty-three 
 years, in the presence of about twenty friends and rela- 
 tives, who were greatly edified by his prayers and 
 patience during his last sufferings. He found much 
 comfort in the following thoughts, which he had writ- 
 ten down in Latin on a piece of paper : on one side, 
 " Thou slialt be free from sin, free from cares, and 
 from the fury of theologians ;" on the other side : 
 " Thou shalt come into the light, thou shalt see God 
 and behold the Son of God ; thou shalt learn those won- 
 derful mysteries which pass our comprehension in this 
 life, as the cause of our creation and present condition, 
 the mystery of the union of the divine and human nature 
 in Christ." His sole care was not for himself, but for 
 the unity and peace of the Church. When Professor 
 Peucer, his son-in-law, asked him, a few hours before 
 liis departure, whether he desired anything, he answered : 
 " Nothing but heaven." 
 
 His last audible words were a hearty yea and amen to 
 the prayer of the Psalmist (Ps. xxxi. 5), recited by one of 
 his colleagues : " Into Thine hand I commend my spirit : 
 Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, Thou God of truth !" 
 
 During the polemical era of the seventeenth century 
 Melanchthon's name was under a cloud. But with the 
 revival of evangelical theology in the nineteenth century 
 his memory was revived. On April 9th, 1860, the tri- 
 centennial celebration of his death was held with great 
 enthusiasm throughout Protestant Germany. At Wit- 
 tenberg, where "he lived, taught, and died" (as the 
 
HIS PUBLIC CHAKACTER AXD SERVICES. 123 
 
 inscriptioti on his house reads), the corner-stone of a 
 noble monument to his memory, erected at the side of 
 that of Luther, was laid on that occasion in the name of 
 the King of Prussia, by his brother, the Prince Eegent, 
 now Emperor of Germany. The festival oration was 
 delivered by the venerable Dr. Nitzsch, of Berlin, the 
 last surviving professor of the once famous University 
 of Wittenberg, now merged in that of Halle. There is 
 now no Protestant divine of any weight in Europe or 
 America who does not pronounce the name of Melanch- 
 tlion with veneration and gratitude. 
 
 niS PUBLIC CHAEACTEE AND SERVICES. 
 
 Melanchthon is the model of a Christian scholar. He 
 combined the highest scientific and literary culture which 
 was attainable in his age, with an humble and childlike 
 Christian faith. Love to God and to man and supreme 
 regard to truth animated and controlled his studies and 
 whole life. 
 
 He was emphatically the theologian of the Lutheran 
 Church, and posterity gave him the honorable title 
 ^^ Prceceptof Germanuey He was a man of thought, 
 not of action. Luther was great in both, and in this 
 resembled St. Paul. Luther produced ideas, and ex- 
 jjressed them very clearly, with original force and fresh- 
 ness, but not in logical, systematic form, and often with 
 too great polemical vehemence, and regardless of their 
 connections and consequences. He did not fear to con- 
 tradict himself, and always spoke as he felt at the mo- 
 ment. Melanchthon's mind, though far less vigorous 
 and original, was much better disciplined and propor- 
 tioned, more calm and circumspect. 
 
 The literary fertility of Melanchthon is astounding. 
 His works fill twenty-eight large volumes of the Cor- 
 
124 MELANCHTHON". 
 
 jpus Reformatorum, edited by Bretschneider and Bind- 
 seil (1836-60). They embrace theology, philosophy, 
 philology, nielhodology, and the science of education. 
 He wrote a large number of manuals, dissertations, ora- 
 tions, polemical tracts, church ordinances, counsels, pref- 
 aces, and letters. 
 
 His greatest work is the Atigshurg Confession^ the 
 most important and most generally received creed of the 
 Lutheran Church. He drew it up, during the German 
 Diet of 1530, with the utmost care, moderation, and con- 
 scientiousness ; and he afterward, though without author- 
 ity, improved and altered it in the edition of 1540, to 
 make it acceptable to the Reformed. Hence the dis- 
 tinction between the " altered "' and " unaltered " Con- 
 fession of Augsburg. The former has often been sub- 
 scribed by German Reformed Churches ; also by Calvin, 
 while at Strassburg ; but it was disowned l)y orthodox 
 Lutherans, and gave rise to violent disputes. He also wrote 
 \}iiQ Apology of the Aiigslnirg Confession, in opposition to 
 t\\Q'Ro\Yi^\\ Refutation I and it likewise gradually as- 
 sumed symbolical authority in the Luthej'an Church. It is 
 one of the best theological treatises of that excited period. 
 
 He issued the first Protestant system of didactic theol- 
 ogy, under the title Loci Cominnnes Rerxnn Theolo- 
 gicarum (first edition, December, 1521). They pro- 
 ceeded from his lectures on the Epistle to the Romans. 
 Although very defective in the first editions, and after- 
 ward surpassed by Calvin's Institutes^ the book is re- 
 markable for its simplicity, clearness, freshness, and 
 thoroughly evangelical tone. Luther thought it worthy 
 of a place in the canon.* It passed through five revis- 
 
 * He called it " lihe.r invidus, non solum immortaUiale, sed et canone 
 ecdesiastlco dignus." 
 
HIS PUBLIC CHARACTER AND SERVICES. 125 
 
 ions and more tlian thirty editions before the author's 
 death, and was used, long afterward, as a text-book of 
 didactic theology in the Lutheran universities, as tlie 
 "Sentences" of Peter the Lombard had been used, for 
 the same purpose, in tlie Middle Ages. Strange that 
 the two greatest dogmatic works of the Reformation 
 were produced by lay theologians ; for neither Melanch- 
 thon nor Calvin were ordained by human hands, but 
 both fully made good the evangelical principle of the 
 general priesthood of believers. 
 
 Besides, we have from Melanchthon a number of 
 Biblical Commentaries. They are not near as satisfac- 
 tory as one might expect from his superior classical 
 attainments, and were far surpassed by those of Luther, 
 Calvin, and Beza ; yet they were extremely poj^ular 
 with the hearers, and served a valuable purpose in bring- 
 ing to light the natural sense, and evangelical ideas of the 
 Scriptures in support of the cause of the Reformation. 
 
 Melanchthon's theology was not so consistent through- 
 out as that of Calvin, who had a more philosophical and 
 logical mind, and rose at a more advanced period of the 
 Reformation. His changes may be regarded as an evi- 
 dence of a want of independence and stability ; but they 
 prove also the flexible and progressive character of his 
 mind, and his willingness to learn and improve, even 
 in old age, and honestly to retract his errors. They 
 grew, moreover, out of the nature of the Protestant 
 movement, in its first stages, which was not the result of 
 a previous calculation, but a gradual historical process. 
 Like Luther, Melanchthon developed his system before 
 the eyes of the public, keeping pace with the prog- 
 ress of the Reformation itself. The overbearing influ- 
 ence of Luther, too, carried him unconsciously to many 
 extreme positions, which on calmer reflection, especially 
 
126 MELANCHTHO^r. 
 
 after Luther's death, lie felt it his duty to modify. 
 Wliile Luther held fast to the views he once had ac- 
 quired, Melanchthon subjected his views to constant 
 revision with liis expanding knowledge. His theology 
 was in perpetual motion, but his fundamental religious 
 convictions and his love to Christ remained unchanged 
 and deepened under all his theological changes. 
 
 Thus he gave wp the rigid view of an absolute predes- 
 tination of good and evil, which he had expressed in the 
 first edition of his JLoci Tkeologici, and in his Com- 
 mentary on the Epistle to the Romans (1523), in almost 
 as strong terms as Luther had done in his tract on " The 
 Slavery of the Human "Will," against Erasmus (1525). 
 He traced the adultery of David and the treason of Judas, 
 as well as the conversion of Paul, to a divine decree. But 
 in the later editions of his Zocl he adopted what has 
 been termed the synergistic scheme : teaching a co-oper- 
 ation of the preceding divine and the consenting human 
 will in the work of conversion and sanctitication, and 
 throwing the responsibility of perdition upon the dis- 
 obedient will of the sinner. He anticipated in part the 
 Arminian theory, which half a century after his death 
 sprung up in Holland. He also modified the doctrine of 
 justification by faith alone, so as to lay greater stress 
 upon the necessity for good works than he or Luther 
 had done before — not, indeed, as a cause, but as an indis- 
 pensable evidence of justification. 
 
 These changes in the articles of predestination, free- 
 dom, and justification may be regarded in the light of 
 a concession and approach to the Catholic system, with- 
 out giving up, however, the essentially evangelical basis. 
 
 On the other hand, in the sacramental controversy, he 
 evidently made an approach, since 1534, and more de- 
 cidedly in 1510 (when he changed the tenth article of 
 
HIS PUBLIC CFARACTER AND SERVICES. 127 
 
 tlie Augsburg Confession), to the Reformed type of doc- 
 trine, by relaxing the Lutheran tlieorj of the real cor- 
 poreal presence of Christ in, with, and under the elements 
 of the Eucharist, and leaning to Calvin's view of a 
 spiritual real presence and fruition of Christ's body and 
 blood, by faith. For reasons of prudence and from love 
 of peace he declined, in his old age, to take an active 
 part in the renewed sacramental war between Westphal 
 and Calvin, and to a give a final, unmistakable expres- 
 sion of his views on this mysterious subject. He hoped 
 that both theories might be tolerated in the evangelical 
 churches. One of his la&t acts and testimonies, in the 
 very year of his death, was a protest against the exclu- 
 siveness of the bigoted Hesshiisius, and a virtual indorse- 
 ment of the position of the Reformed party at Heidel- 
 berg, which immediately afterward triumphed in the 
 Palatinate, under the lead of his favorite pupil, Zacliarias 
 Ursinus, the Calvinist Caspar Oleviaflus, and the pious 
 Elector Frederic IH. His mild, amiable, and peaceful 
 spirit breathes in the Heidelberg Catechism, which was 
 prepared by these divines by order of the Elector and 
 became the doctrinal standard of the German and Dutch 
 Reformed Churches in Euroj)e and America. 
 
 Melanchthon thus is a connecting link between the 
 Lutheran and Reformed Confessions, equally honored by 
 both. He represents the spirit and aim of Christian 
 union on the basis of the everlasting gospel as revealed 
 in tlie Xew Testament and in the life and example of 
 our Lord. To him applies the beatitude : 
 
 "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be 
 called the children of God." 
 
EEMIlsriSOETsfOES OF I^TEAI^DER. 
 
 SKETCH OF HIS LIFE."^ 
 
 The life of Neander, " the Father of Church History," 
 was spent in the study and lecture-room, among books 
 and with students, but is not without romantic interest, 
 especially his youth. He had a strongly marked individ- 
 uality above most of his contemporaries, and passed 
 through striking changes in his religious experience. 
 
 * A biograjihy of Neander, though long expected, is still a desider- 
 atum. The task was intrusted to his pupil, Dr. Schneider, but he 
 never found leisure to carry it out. We have, however, important 
 contributions, viz., Neander's Letters to the poet Chamisso (in Cha- 
 misso's works) from the period of his youth, and his paper which 
 contains a sort of baptismal confession (1805, first piiblished by 
 Kling, 1851) ; Krabbe's Charakteristik Neaiider's (Hamburg, 1852) ; 
 Hagenbach's article on Neander's Verdicnste um die KircJiengeschichle 
 (in the Sludien und Kriiiken, 1851) ; Ullmann's admirable Preface 
 to the third edition of Neander's Kirchengeschiclde (translated in the 
 first vol. of the Am. ed.) ; Professor Jacobi's Erinnerungen an Nean- 
 der (from one of his faithful pupils, Halle, 1882) ; and Uhlhorn's 
 article in Herzog's Encyklopa:die, revised ed., vol. x., 447-457 
 (abridged in Schaflf-Herzog, II., p. 1G12 sqq.). The author of these 
 Jieminiscences wrote several brief sketches of Neander, in his Klrch- 
 enfreund (1851) ; in Germany, its Univcrs'dies and Divines (Philadelphia, 
 1857), in Appletons' Am. Gydopcedia, and in Funk's Ilomileiic lievieio 
 (New York, 1885) ; but this is fuller than any. The first centennial 
 of Neander's birth will no doiibt be celebrated in 1889, as the cen- 
 tennial of Schleiermacher's birth was celebrated in 1868. Then we 
 may expect a number of commemorative addresses, and perhaps a 
 full biography worthy of his name. 
 
SKETCH OF HIS LIFE. 129 
 
 Ilis original name was David Mendel. He was born 
 of Jewisli parents, at Gottingen, on January 17th, 1789 
 (the year of the French Revohition), converted to Chris- 
 tianity, and baptized at Hamburg, nnder the significant 
 name of Neander {vso? avr/p, Neiv-man), in his seven- 
 teenth year, on February 15th, 1806. 
 
 He received his chissical education in the Gymnasium 
 (Jolianneum) at Hamburg (1803-1806), under the direc- 
 tion of the learned John Gurlitt. He at once attracted 
 the attention of teachers and students by the contrast be- 
 tween his appearance and attainments. He had hardly 
 body enough to slielter his mind. He looked like a sim- 
 pleton, and yet toolc tlie lead of his class in industry and 
 progress. His memory was extraordinary, and he 
 soon became as familiar with Latin and Greek as with 
 his native tongue. The thoughtless indulged in sports 
 at his expense, but he ignored them, and lived in a world 
 of abstraction. It is related of Thomas Aquinas, the 
 master theologian of the Middle Ages, that he was de- 
 spised by his fellow-students and called hos mutus ; but 
 after he ojiened his mouth in an academic disputation, 
 his teacher, Albertus Magnus, exclaimed : " We call him 
 the mute ox, but his voice will soon be heard throughout 
 the world !" And the prophecy was fulfilled. 
 
 iSTeander stood a brilliant examination when he left 
 college, and deliv^ered, April 30th, 1805, with clear, 
 sonorous voice, a parting address, De Judmis optima con- 
 ditione in civitatem recipiendis. He then entered the 
 academic department of the Jolianneum, to prepare 
 more thoroughly for the University. His mother wished 
 him to become a merchant, for which calling, although a 
 Jew, he was absolutely unfit. He himself first intended 
 to study law, like Luther and Calvin, but soon M'isely 
 exchanged it for theology, and stuck to it. Being very 
 
130 REMINISCENCES OF NEANDER. 
 
 poor, he was supported bj Dr. Stieglitz and a scliolarsliip 
 which Gurlitt "secured for him. 
 
 From 1806 to 1809 he pursued his studies in the Uni- 
 versities of Ilalle and Gottingen. In Ilalle the mighty 
 genius of Schleiermacher introduced him into the princi- 
 ples of Christian dogmatics and ethics ; but the suspen- 
 sion of the University by Napoleon, after the battle of 
 Jena, compelled him to flee. lie travelled with Neu- 
 mann on foot to Gottingen, where he arrived fatigued 
 and pennyless, but was kindly received by Gesenius, the 
 eminent Hebrew scholar. He attended chiefly the lect- 
 ures of Planck, the pragmatic historian of the doctrinal 
 controversies in the Lutlieran Cliurch, to whom he after- 
 ward dedicated, with filial gratitude, a volume of his 
 Church History. 116' was urged by him to remain in 
 Gottingen as Bepetent, and to devote himself to the 
 academic career. 
 
 But Neander returned to Hamburg, and was exam- 
 ined for the ministr3^ He preached his first sermon at 
 Wandsbeck, near Hamburg, on the Divine Logos (John 
 1:1); but he was evidently better fitted for the chair 
 than the pulpit. At one time his manuscript flew down 
 upon his hearers, but he preached on as if notln'ng had 
 happened. His favorite study was now the Gospel of 
 John. His friendship with Claudius of Wandsbeck led 
 him more deeply into practical Christianity. In 1810 he 
 made the acquaintance of the Swabian poets Karl Mayer, 
 Gustav Schwab, and Justinus Kerner, 
 
 In the autumn of 1810 he went to Heidelberg, and his 
 mother and sisters soon followed him, to take care of his 
 feeble health. In the following year he began his aca- 
 demic career as Privatdocent of Theology in that Uni- 
 versity, on the banks of the JSTeckar, with a dissertation 
 on the relation between knowledge and faith, as con- 
 
SKETCH OF niS LIFE. 131 
 
 ceived bj Clement of Alexandria. In 1S12 he was al- 
 ready made Professor Extraordinary, and published a 
 monoi^raph on Julian the Apostate. This book settled at 
 once his vocation as an historian of the Christian religion. 
 
 In 1813, yet a youtli like Melanchthon, whom he 
 strongly resembles in other respects also, he received, at 
 Schleiermacher's suggestion, a call as Professor of 
 Church History in the University of Berlin, which had 
 been founded a few years before (1810). This youngest 
 of the German Universities rose with unexampled rapid- 
 ity to the first rank through the fame of eminent teachers 
 in every branch of science and literature, such as 
 Schleiermacher, Neander, Marheineke, De Wette, Tho- 
 luck, Ilengstenberg, in theology ; Fichte, Hegel, Schel- 
 ling, in philosopliy ; Buckh, and Lachmann, in classical 
 philology ; Savigny, and Stahl, in jurisprudence ; Pitter, 
 in geography ; Panke, in history, the last survivor of 
 that wonderful galaxy. 
 
 Neander labored in Berlin as lecturer and writer, by 
 doctrine and by example, incessantly till his death, on 
 the lith of July, 1850. Only now and then he broke 
 the uniformity of his existence by a vacation trij), in 
 company with his sister or with some student, for the 
 benefit of his feeble health, and to consult rare books 
 and unpublished manuscripts in the libraries at Vienna, 
 Munich, and other cities. On these journeys he usually 
 had with him a trunk full of church fathers, " for a little 
 reading on the way." He led the life of a learned 
 Benedictine in the midst of a noisy city. He had always 
 a crowded lecture-room, and was the most popular and 
 useful, as well as the most esteemed and beloved profes- 
 sor of that great University during its first half century. 
 His chair has never as yet been filled by a successor of 
 equal power and influence. 
 
132 REMINISCENCES OE NEANDER. 
 
 NEANDER S TRAINING FOR HIS WORK. 
 
 Behind the simple framework of Lis outer existence 
 lay bid a ricli intellectual and spiritual life. It is inter- 
 esting to follow its gradual development on to full matu- 
 rity, and to trace the different influences whicli led him 
 to his peculiar theological standj)oint and his calling as 
 an historian of Christianity. 
 
 Among these influences we must first mention his de- 
 scent from that wonderful people which was intrusted 
 with the oldest revelations of God, and which, like the 
 bush of Horeb, shines and burns in history without being 
 consumed. His father was a common Jewish peddler 
 and usurer, and neglected to provide for his family. 
 But his mother, Esther {iiee Gottschalk), was a respect- 
 able, pious, and agreeable Jewess, and related to the 
 philosopher, Moses Mendelssohn, of Berlin, and the 
 Medical Counsellor, Dr. Stieglitz, of Hanover. Soon 
 after the birth of David, her youngest child, she sepa- 
 rated from her worthless husband, removed with her five 
 children to Hamburg, and struggled hard to sup23ort 
 them. Neander cherished her memory, and no doubt 
 tliouo;ht of her when he described the mouldinp; iiiflu- 
 ence of pious mothers upon the ancient fathers. He 
 ever regarded Hamburg as his proper home, and gave it 
 a substantial proof of affection at the great fire of 1842, 
 by a liberal contribution of one thousand Prussian dollars 
 for the relief of the sufferers. Gottingen, his real birth- 
 place, he called " Philistropolis." His brothers and sis- 
 ters, and finally also his mother, left the synagogue and 
 embraced the Christian religion. His sister Hannah ac- 
 companied him as a guardian angel through life.* 
 
 * His oldest brother, Dr. Andr. K. Joh. Mondcl, born 1780, an 
 
neander's training for his work. 133 
 
 If tliere ever was a sincere and intelligent convert from 
 Judaism to Christianity it is Neander. The new name 
 wliich he assumed at his baptism in 1806, was Johann 
 August Wiliielm Neandee, in memory of Johann 
 Gurlitt, his teacher, August Yarnhagen von Ense, and 
 Wilhelm Neumann,, his friends who assisted as sponsois. 
 Ilis chief name expressed at the same time the fact that 
 he had become a new creature in Christ Jesus. lie be- 
 longs to the line of converts which begins with Paul of 
 Tarsus. His transition was less abrupt and radical 
 than tliat of the former persecutor, but he resembles the 
 Apostle of tiie Gentiles in purity of motive, strength of 
 conviction, unselfish devotion to the religion of his 
 choice, and zeal for the freedom in Christ from the 
 bondage of legalism, as also in the weakness (if not the 
 awkwardness) of his " bodily presence" (2 Cor. 10 : 10). 
 Tie bore the heavenly treasure in an earthen vessel. 
 When the King of Prussia once asked him, " What is 
 the best evidence of Christianity ?" he is said to have 
 replied, " The Jews, yonr Majesty." 
 
 The second controlling clement in his training was the 
 philosophy of Plato, which of all heathen philosophies 
 approaches nearest to the gospel, and aided in the con- 
 version of Justin Martyr, Augustin, and other ancient 
 
 esteemed physician, was baptized June 25th, 1806, and died, un- 
 married, of typhoid fever. His second brother, a travelling merchant, 
 had been baptized two years before Neander, and died insane, as also 
 his sister Betty. The oldest sister, Henriette Scholz, born 1777, em- 
 braced Christianity in 1807. His second sister, Hannchen, born 
 1782, was baptized on March 22d, 1807. The youngest sister, Bettj', 
 born 1788, became a Christian on November 7th, 1809, and finally the 
 mother professed the same faith in 1810, shortly before Neander' s 
 removal to Heidelberg. Bee Kling, in Uilmann's " Studien und 
 Kritiken," 1851, p. 516 sqq. I knew personally Mrs. Scholz and 
 her daughter, and Hannchen Neander. 
 
134 EEMINISCENCES OF NEANDER. 
 
 fathers. It fulfilled a similar office in Neander. It 
 kindled in him an enthusiasm for the ideals of truth, 
 beauty, and goodness. William Neumann, his fellow- 
 student in the academic college at Hamburg, wrote of 
 liim, February 11th, 1806 : " Plato is his idol and never- 
 ceasing war-cry. He sits day and night over him, and 
 there are few who received him so fully and with such 
 purity of soul. Upon the world round about he looks 
 with supreme contempt." Next to the Dialogues of 
 Plato he admired and studied the moral treatises and 
 biographies of the noble Plutarch. He joined with 
 sympathizing friends a philosophico-poetical society 
 under the name of the " Polar Star" {to rov noXov 
 affrpov), and explained in the evening meetings Plato 
 and Sophocles. 
 
 He was also, like Schleiermacher, in early contact with 
 the Romantic school of the two brothers Schlegel, Tieck, 
 and Novalis, which revived the poetry and religion of 
 the Middle Ages in opposition to the cold and dreary 
 scepticism of the times. 
 
 But the Platonic idealism and Romantic sentimental- 
 ism could not satisfy his mind. He found rest in a solid 
 Christian realism. 
 
 Last, though not least, we must mention the stimulat- 
 ing influence of Schleiermacher, the German Plato, who, 
 by his Discourses on Beligion (1799), like a priest in the 
 outer court of nature, conducted so many of the noblest 
 and most gifted youths of Germany out of the dry heath 
 of the then dominant Rationalism to the garden of 
 Revelation. Ncander read his Discourses, and Mono- 
 logues with enthusiasm, before he heard his lectures at 
 Halle. He stood indebted to him, as he himself cheer- 
 fully acknowledged, for manifold quickening impulses, 
 and they remained good^'riends as colleagues through 
 
neandek's training for nis work. 135 
 
 life, althoiigli tlioy differed in weighty points. Neander 
 liad a much stronger sense of sin, and no sympatliy with 
 pantheism, and was more positive and realistic in his 
 religions convictions. He was inferior to Schleiermacher 
 as an original thinker and system -builder, but surpassed 
 him as a regenerator of practical religion among the stu- 
 dents of Germany. Schleiermacher was admired and 
 feared ; Neander was esteemed and beloved. Schleier- 
 macher stimulated the intellect ; Neander moved the 
 heart. He announced to his students the death of 
 Schleiermacher, February 12th, 183-4, with these words : 
 " To-day the man passed away from whom in future a 
 new epoch in theology wnll be dated." They remind 
 one of the way in which Melanchthon announced in the 
 lecture-room the death of Luther. 
 
 The fermentation produced in his mind by these vari- 
 ous influences is reflected in an unripe but very remark- 
 able essay from his pen, which he addressed to a pastor in 
 Hamburg before his baptism, and which Avas first pub- 
 lished after his death by Dr. Kling in 1851.* It is an 
 attempt to trace the epochs in the development of relig- 
 ion, and strangely mixes Platonism, Komanticism, and 
 Christianity, but arrives at the satisfactory conclusion : 
 " I recognize in the Christian religion the absolute 
 truth, the most perfect religion, the only way to salva- 
 tion." He passed, as it were, before his conversion, 
 
 * In Ullmann's Studien und KrU'iJcen, 1851, No. II., p. 4G0 sqq. ; 
 and in Schaff's Deutsche Kirchenfreund for 1851, p. 283-297. The 
 manuscript bears the title : " Ein Versuch, d'm Religion in ihren EnU 
 wicklungsstnferi dialeklisch zu eonstiniiren," with the marginal note of 
 Pastor Bossau ; " Von A. Neander, als er 16 Jahre all uai:" It was 
 handed to Bossau by Neander, and then came into the possession of 
 P. Baring, Bossau's son-in-law, who lent it to Dr. Kling for publi- 
 cation. • 
 
13G REMINISCENCES OF NEANDER. 
 
 tlirongli the world-liistorical process of preparation for 
 the advent of the Saviour of mankind. 
 
 Thus was Neander fitted out for his life-work, to be the 
 historian of Christianity. Moses and Plato were the 
 tutors who led him to Christ and enabled him to view 
 the Christian religion as the fulfilment of all the nobler 
 aspirations of the Jewish and Gentile world, and as the 
 final and perfect religion of mankind. Before liiui 
 church history had been degraded by German Rationalism 
 into a godless history of human errors and follies, 
 l^eander effected a revolution. He revealed in it a 
 golden chain of manifestations of Christ's truth and love 
 and a fulfilment of His promise to be with His disciples 
 to the end of the world. He showed it to be a contin- 
 uous commentary on the parable of the leaven which 
 gradually leavens the whole lump of humanity. He 
 traced the footsteps of the Hedseraer in all His followers. 
 He sympathized with everything that is Christian, 
 whether he found it in the Greek or Roman or Evangeli- 
 cal churches, or among persecuted heretics. He had no 
 sectarian or partisan zeal. He viewed and judged all 
 phenomena from the Christological centre. Truth and 
 justice were his sole aim. His charity was as broad as 
 humanity. He thus made church history a book of in- 
 struction, edification, and comfort, on the firm founda- 
 tion of profound and accurate learning, critical mastery 
 of the sources, spiritual discernment, ps^^chological in- 
 sight, and sound, sober judgment. In the hands of 
 Rationalists and Deists church history was a dreary 
 desert. Neander changed it into a garden of God, full 
 of flowers and fruits. 
 
 In his large-hearted Christian sympathy and catholicity 
 lies his chief and lasting merit as an historian. It makes 
 him a blessinir to all denominations. The earlier vol- 
 
THE OUTWARD APPEARANCE. 137 
 
 limes of liis History have been superseded in part by the 
 rapid progress of discovery and research since his death, 
 but they will nevertheless continue to be a mine of intel- 
 lectual and spiritual wealth ; while the spirit of evangel- 
 ical catholicity which pervades all his works is a perma- 
 nent gain and a wholesome stimulus and guide to every 
 student of theology. 
 
 But we do not intend here to enlarge on his writings, 
 of which we have spoken elsewhere. We confine our- 
 selves to pei^sonal reminiscences of what he was as a man, 
 as a teacher, and as a Christian. 
 
 THE OUTWARD APPEARANCE. 
 
 In his appearance, to begin with what struck every one 
 in an unusual degree, Neander was a perfect original — 
 we might say, one of the rarest natural curiosities. Yet 
 his uncommon exterior betokened an uncommon interior. 
 Even his clothing — a well-worn coat of ancient cut (we 
 never knew him to wear a dress-coat) ; jack-boots reach- 
 ing above the knees ; a white cravat carelessly tied, 
 often on one side of the neck, or behind it ; an old-fash- 
 ioned hat set aslant on the back of his head — all this 
 presented an oddity which seemed to mock the elegant 
 refinement of Berlin, and yet he was greeted respectfully 
 by everybody who knew him, from the king to the 
 lounger at the street-corner. 
 
 lie was of a slender bodily frame, of middling size, 
 with strongly marked Jewish, though at the same time 
 most benevolent and good-natured, features ; the eyes, 
 deeply seated and full of fire, were overshadowed, as 
 with an umbrella, by an unusually strong, bushy pair of 
 eyebrows. 
 
 Thus he sat in his solitary study in the Markgrafen 
 Strasse, "No. 51, surrounded with the spirits of church 
 
138 REMINISCENCES OF NEANDER. 
 
 fathers, schoolmen, mystics, and reformers, whose works 
 lay on all sides in learned disorder — against the walls, on 
 the floor, on tables and chairs — so that visitors could 
 scarcely find a place on an old-fashioned sofa for sitting 
 down ; while the way out into the dining-room and into 
 the decently furnished parlor of his sister led over the 
 printed monuments of bygone ages. 
 
 His absolute freedom from all that belongs to the 
 show of vanity, and his indifference to things external, 
 gave occasion to ludicrous anecdotes. He walked once 
 through the streets with a broom under his arm instead 
 of an umbrella. Another time, in the lecture-room, he 
 took a brush out of his pocket instead of his note-book. 
 Being lost in the streets, he called to a cabman to take 
 liim home, and was surprised that he did not know the 
 number of the house, saying, " My good man, I thought 
 yon knew it, as you are a droschky driver." They 
 waited till a student accidentally arrived and relieved 
 them of embarrassment. When the tailor brought him 
 a new pair of pantaloons, he put them on over the old 
 the VvTong way, and cut off one leg as superfluous. Once. 
 he set off for the university in his dressing-gown, but 
 was happily fetched back by his amanuensis. On an- 
 other occasion, having once got with one foot into the 
 gutter, he hobbled along the whole length of the street 
 in this predicament ; and as soon as he reached home, he 
 sent for a physician to cure him of his imaginary lame- 
 ness. Se non e vero, e hen trovato. I cannot vouch for 
 these funny stories ; some, no doubt, had their origin in 
 the creative imagination of his students, or were exag- 
 gerations of facts. But it is quite certain that the Ger- 
 man professor had less common than uncommon sense, 
 and moved in an ideal world, with his eyes half shut to 
 the real world around him. 
 
KEAJTDEE IN" THE LECTURE-KOOM:. 139 
 
 NEANDER IiST THE LECTURE-EOOM!. 
 
 Still more odd, if possible, was the appearance of tlie 
 good man on the rostrum.* As he could hardly have 
 found the way by himself, and must have been put in 
 danger by the moving crowd of vehicles and men, a stu- 
 dent accompanied, him from the Markgrafen Strasse, 
 passing the royal library and the Oj^era-platz to the uni- 
 versity building unter den Linden. From the reading- 
 room, where the professors meet during recess, he pro- 
 ceeded alone into his lecture-room, which was quite close 
 at hand, shooting in sideways ; he seized, first of all, a 
 couple of goose-quills, which most be regularly laid upon 
 the desk beforehand, to keep his fingers employed, and 
 then began his lecture, without any other help than that 
 of some illegible notes and citations. There he stood, 
 constantly changing the position of his feet ; bent for- 
 ward, frequently sinking his head, and then again throw- 
 ing it on high, especially when roused to polemic zeal 
 against pantheism or formalism — at times threatening 
 even to overturn the rostrum — but all the while spinning 
 forth from his mind a train of facts and ideas with intense 
 earnestness, or unfolding, with penetrating insight and 
 loving sympathy, the development of a Christian doc- 
 trine, or the principles of Christian ethics, or the spirit- 
 ual character of a great and good man. 
 
 The whole scene was so strange and eccentric that one 
 who heard him for the first time could hardly contain 
 himself for astonishment, and had no power at all to fol- 
 low him with the pen. And yet the earnestness and the 
 enthusiasm of the eccentric professor, the extraordinary 
 
 * In my book on Gtrman UniversUies (1857) I gave a picturo of 
 Neander in the lecture-room, drawn by one of his students. 
 
liO REMINISCENCES OF NEANDEll. 
 
 learning and profound tliouglit that flowed in an inces- 
 sant stream from his head and heart, restrained all 
 laughter — nay, his personal aspect itself had always, 
 even on the first acquaintance, something that inspired 
 reverence and at the same time called fortli confidence 
 and love. In a short time, moreover, one grew accus- 
 tomed to his strange exterior, the comical form vanished 
 before its own solid contents, and served only to make 
 him the object of higher admiration. For Neander all 
 this was perfectly natural, without the remotest thought 
 of effect. Altogether there never was a man more free 
 from affectation and ostentation. 
 
 HOME LIFE. 
 
 All these singularities of his outward appearance indi- 
 cated that he was a stranger on this eaj'th, and that he 
 was formed wholly for the kingdom of heaven. Plis 
 ignorance of worldly life and business, his freedom 
 from the temptations of vanity, his superiority to much 
 that, for others, forms an indispensable need, his in- 
 difference toward the material side of existence, fitted 
 him for his purely inward calling and for undisturbed 
 communion with the quiet spirit-world of the past. 
 
 " He was," as Hase characterizes him, " a monk in 
 his habits, poor for himself, rich for others." His wants 
 were very few. He was as a1)stemious in practice as an 
 ancient ascetic, but liberal in theory, and very hospitable. 
 He entertained the students once a week at the tea-table, 
 and often gave dinner-parties to friends, talking theology, 
 while they enjoyed the dinner, and listened to his wisdom. 
 
 He was never married, and consecrated his whole 
 time to the service of the Lord, as an eunuch for the 
 kingdom of God's sake (Matt. xix. 12). He belonged 
 
HANNAH NEANDER. 141 
 
 to the exceptions, for whom the life of celibacy is .a 
 moral clutj, and the means of greater activity and 
 success, as it was for Paul and Barnabas. A lady friend 
 once jokingly suggested a companion to him ; he looked 
 perplexed, and asked : " How could I find time for 
 courting ?" An American pro-slavery divine created 
 considerable merriment at Neander's dinner-table when 
 lie asked him, whether he would be willing by marriage 
 with a colored wotnan to give practical proof of his doc- 
 trine of equality, which he so emphatically asserted. 
 
 HANNAH NEANDER. 
 
 Instead of a wife, however, God had given him a true 
 female companion in the person of an unmarried sister, 
 who sacrificed a youthful attachment for his sake, fol- 
 lowed him from Judaism to Christianity, assumed the 
 care of his modest wants with the most tender devotion, 
 attended him almost daily in his walks unter den Linden 
 and in the Thiergarten, kept him informed about tlio 
 latest German and English novels, and with kind hospi- 
 tality entertained his numerous friends and pupils. 
 
 Sister Hannah, or Hannchen, was also highly peculiar : 
 like him, intensely Jewish outside and intensely Christian 
 inside ; highly intellectual, not wanting in genuine wit and 
 literary culture, but at the same time a good housekeeper 
 and altogether a very sensible, practical person, supplying 
 thus her brother's defect. When she brought him his 
 breakfast or a glass of water, he knew that he must be 
 hungry or thirsty ; when she gave him medicine, he took 
 it like a child ; when she provided for him a new suit, he 
 put it on, unless she forgot to take away the old one. 
 
 The peaceful and innocent living together of this orig- 
 inal pair, called the " Neander children," had in it some- 
 
1-12 REMIlsriSCENCES OF NEANDER. 
 
 thing uncommonly toncliing, and no one could mistake 
 the wise hand of Providence in their connection, for 
 the accomplishment of the great spiritual work to which 
 JS^eander bad been predestinated. 
 
 Miss Hannah Keander survived her brother four 
 years. I saw her last on a visit to Berlin, in the spring 
 of 1854, sitting before his bust, with tears in her eyes, 
 indulging in reminiscences of their happy life, and long- 
 ing to join him in the better world. It was a most 
 affecting interview. A few weeks afterward her mortal 
 remains were laid beside those of her brother in the 
 Jerusalem Cemetery of Berlin, to rest till the day of 
 resurrection. 
 
 NEANDER AS A TEACHER. 
 
 Neander was an enthusiastic teacher. Ho had that 
 rare personal magnetism which drew the hearers irresis- 
 tibly into the current of his thoughts, and made them 
 forget everything else. Pie prepared himself most care- 
 fully for his lectures, and threw his whole soul into 
 them. He was totus in illis. He made the labors of 
 authorship subservient to his immediate dut}^ as profes- 
 sor. He gave the students the best results of his im- 
 wearied studies in ever fresh reproduction and adaptation 
 to the times. He tried to reach their heart as well as 
 their intellect, and first and last to lead them to Christ, as 
 the pure source of all wisdom. His own self was ab- 
 sorbed in the cause. He impressed them with the con- 
 viction : here is a thoroughly learned and thoroughly 
 good man, who speaks from the overflowing fullness of 
 knowledge and experience, with the single purpose of 
 promoting the glory of Christ and the good of his fel- 
 low-men. His lectures were inspiring and edifying as 
 well as instructive. 
 
NEANDER AS A FRIEND OF THE STUDENTS. 143 
 
 What lie said of Sclielling was even more true of 
 liimself : " He awakened in the German youtli that love 
 which gives wings for soaring on high (the i'pcoi nrspo- 
 cpvrop).'''' '^ Ilis mission, says Ullmann, was " to light up 
 a fire in the soul ; and hardly any other teacher has suc- 
 ceeded in doing it so well. ' ' 
 
 Ko wonder that the students were enthusiastically de- 
 voted to him in return. As often as his birthday came 
 round they brought him some suitable present and a 
 serenade, to which was added not unfrequently a grand 
 torchlight procession ; not only his own immediate 
 pu]jils, but students also from the other faculties, join- 
 ing with lively interest in the occasion. 
 
 NEANDEE AS A FRIEND OF THE STUDENTS. 
 
 Ilis interest in the students was not confined to the 
 lecture-room. He had toward them the feelings of a 
 friend and a father, as well as a teacher, and they filled 
 the place of sons who were denied him. 
 
 Never, perhaps, was the love of a professor toward 
 his pupils so deep and strong. Tholuck alone, among 
 contemporary divines, could compare with him in this 
 respect ; he, too, had no children, but a most excellent 
 wife, and adopted, as it were, the students as his sons 
 and companions on his daily promenades and in his house. 
 
 Neander used to invite as many students as his room 
 would hold to tea on Saturday evening. He led the 
 conversation in a low, deep voice, entered with aifection- 
 ate sympathy into their thoughts and feelings, and an- 
 swered their questions, while playing with a goose-quill 
 
 * See his dedicatory preface to Sclielling of the first volume of his 
 revised Church History, which appeared in 1842, after Schelling's 
 lectures in Berlin. 
 
144 EEMINISCENTCES OF NEANDER. 
 
 or kneading a bit of wax in his fingers. lie never used 
 tobacco in any form, but such innocent occupations of the 
 hand seemed to facilitate the movements of his mind. 
 The venerable Nitzsch, his friend and colleague, had the 
 habit in the lecture-room to unbutton his coat from bot- 
 tom to top, then to take a jDinch of snuff, and slowly to 
 button the coat again, and to repeat this process to the 
 end of the lecture. 
 
 AYhile jS^eander presided over the theological discus- 
 sions, his sister attended to the tea-table, indulged in inno- 
 cent small talk, harmless jokes and merry laughs, pro- 
 pounded riddles, told funny anecdotes and marvellous 
 ghost stories, or asked such embarrassing questions as, 
 " Herr Candidat, are you engaged to be married?"" 
 Though an old-maid herself, her heart kept young and 
 fresh, and, like her brother, she felt most at home 
 among students. Hospitable as he was, he seldom ac- 
 cepted invitations, and then only for the sake of his sister. 
 
 The professors of German Universities receive a part 
 of their income from the lecture fees of students. To 
 get a remission of the honorarium from ISTeander was 
 the easiest thing in the world ; and he was very often 
 imposed upon by those who might easily have paid 
 the small sum. The Society for Sick Students in Berlin, 
 founded by his pupils on his birthday, 1826, owed its 
 origin to him, and he devoted to it the whole profits of 
 some of his writings (his Gelegenheltsschriften, which 
 passed through several editions), as he gave the copy 
 money he received for other works to Bible societies. 
 Every one in want or need found in him a sympathizing 
 heart and liberal hand. 
 
 I have still a lively remembrance of his interest in a 
 young man who was blind. Earnestly thirsting after 
 religious knowledge, the youth had attended his lectures 
 
KEANDER AS A FRIE:N"D OF THE STUDEXTS. 145 
 
 in 1840 on church history and exegesis, and spoke 
 afterward with grateful satisfaction of the spiritual 
 benefit they had afforded him. When Keander heard 
 of his poverty, he showed great emotion, inquired with 
 staring eyes and nervous agitation into all the details, and 
 then hurried away to his sister to procure him help. I 
 happened to be in his study at the time, and the scene 
 struck me the more deeply, as oSTeander, by reason of 
 his total lack of practical tact, had himself the air of one 
 perfectly helpless ; and witli his eager readiness to assist 
 want, was still in a quandary as to how it should be done, 
 till his sister or amanuensis came to his relief. And 
 how much good did he do which never came to light ! 
 for lie was the man precisely to abhor all show, and not 
 let his left hand know what was done by his right. 
 
 Neander gave toucliing expression to the tenderness 
 of his friendship in his dedicatory prefaces, and especially 
 in his memorial tribute to Hermann Hossel, one of his 
 favorite and most promising students, who died in the 
 spring of life. Another proof came to light long after 
 his death in a letter published by a " Septuagenarian Sol- 
 dier" in the Evangelical Church Gazette of Berlin (Sep- 
 tember, 1867). This soldier when a young man, in 1823, 
 called on Neander, whom he knew only from his writ- 
 ings, for advice and comfort, being in great spiritual 
 doubt and conflict. The professor stopped his work, 
 encouraged the stranger, accompanied him down-stairs, 
 and wrote to him the following effective letter of com- 
 fort : 
 
 " Mt dear Friend : My thoughts have been constantly full of you 
 and of your condition ever since I became acquainted with your 
 ■warm heart, and my heartiest prayers and desires ascend to heaven 
 that He, from whom cometh down every good gift, ."^nd who has 
 promised to be always near to the bruised and burdened heart, will 
 give you His peace, and that He will heal your wounded heart with 
 
146 REMINISCEISrCES OF NEANDER. 
 
 His own infinite love, so richly given us in Christ Jesus ! This will 
 surely be, if you only do not make yourself unhappy ; instead of 
 clinging to yourself, let your thoughts go out like a child toward Him, 
 without whom you cannot indeed feel your misery, which we all, aa 
 poor sinners, share with you— and let yourself be led by Him. He 
 has so loved you that He gave His only Son for you, that you might 
 have eternal life, which is surely, irreversibly yours. He has spared 
 not His own Son, bxit given Him up for you ; how shall He not with 
 Him give j'ou all things ? Who can accuse you when God will justify 
 you in Christ Jesus ? Who can condemn you, when Christ has died 
 for you, and is ever at the right hand of God ? Neither tribulation, 
 nor distress, nor doubt, nor thoughts which rise against your will, 
 nor power of darkness, nor hell, can separate you from the love of 
 God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 
 
 " These are not my words, but the words of God Almighty, spoken 
 directly to you in the Scriptures, which you must so believe and fol- 
 low as that you can laugh at your gloomy thoughts ; comforted and 
 joyful in your trust in the Almighty Lord, from whose hand no man 
 can pluck you, follow your calling M^hich He has committed to you. 
 Childlike obedience is the sacrifice well-i^leasing to God. 
 
 " I cannot, without more certaintj' than I now have, answer defi- 
 nitely your question, whether it is best for you, in your present con- 
 dition, to read the Idea Fldei. 
 
 " I do not know that you are now in a state to comprehend prop- 
 erly a consecutive book upon religious subjects ; whether it were 
 not better to give yourself up to reading the Holy Scriptures, alter- 
 nately with your friends, and talking about it with them. Do not in- 
 dulge in solitary thought ; stir yourself up in the society of pious 
 friends, and talk with them about other than strictly religious mat- 
 ters. Give yourself to the calling which God has intrusted to you. 
 Could you not also be associated with dear Professor Eitter, whose 
 affection for you will surely not fail ? 
 
 ' ' I am always at your service, gladly, with all that our God gives 
 me. 
 
 " I thank you for your undeserved confidence, and once more, with 
 my whole heart, wish for you the blessing of the Lord, who is surely 
 near to you, in as great a measure as you desire— as He is to all who 
 call upon Him with broken hearts. 
 
 " With my whole heart, yours, 
 
 " Neandee." 
 
HIS INTEREST IN FOREIGNERS. 147 
 
 HIS INTEREST IN FOREIGNERS. 
 
 Neander's sympatliy knew no bounds of nationality 
 and creed. As he was ready to serve every German 
 youth, so had he a warm M'elcomo also for every foreigner 
 who visited him as a theological student, or as a friend 
 of the kingdom of God. In Switzerland, France, Eng- 
 land, Scotland, and America there are many worthy 
 ministers still living who have experienced his kindness 
 and hospitality, and hold him in thankful remembrance. 
 Through such visits, where his familiarity with the French 
 and English languages did him excellent service, he scat- 
 tered noble seed into distant lands, which has since 
 sprung up in quiet stillness, and is now yielding fruit a 
 hundredfold. 
 
 For Americans he had a certain partiality, as the free- 
 dom of the church and religious life, undisturbed by 
 political influence, fell in specially with his taste, lie 
 heartily approved the voluntary principle, the self-sup- 
 port and self-government of the churches, which ruled 
 in the apostolic and ante-Nicene age. lie admired the 
 great energy and progress of America, but he often 
 expressed his abhorrence of the institution of slav^ery, 
 and was at a loss to understand how it could be tolerated 
 and even defended in a free country in this nineteenth 
 centur}^ Nor did he approve of sectarian divisions 
 and distractions ; for he was emphatically a man for 
 union, and sought the one in the manifold no less than 
 the manifold in the one. 
 
 Among his American pupils was Dr. Edward Itobin- 
 son, the pioneer of Palestine exploration ; and when I 
 first met him in New York, in 1814, with letters of in- 
 troduction from Neander and Ritter, he said to me : 
 
148 EEMINISCENCES OF NEAISTDER. 
 
 " Of all men I ever knew, August Neander and Hein- 
 rich Ritter are the greatest and the best." 
 
 Neander's library was transferred to American soil, and 
 is among the literary treasures of the Baptist Theological 
 Seminary at Rochestei', N. Y. 
 
 CHAEACTEE OF NEANDER. 
 
 Neander presented a rare combination of virtues re- 
 filled by grace. He was truly an an'ima Candida^ an 
 Israelite without guile, like Nathanael. He was a legiti- 
 mate descendent of Abraham, without the cunning and 
 selfishness of Jacob. He had the noble traits of his 
 Jewish ancestry, but none of its besetting vices. He 
 was a Jew in his outward appearance, but a genuine 
 Christian and nobleman within. 
 
 His characteristic traits were simplicity, generosity, 
 humility, and love. 
 
 He presented a striking illustration of the words of 
 our Lord — " Except ye become like little children, ye 
 shall not enter the kingdom of heaven." He was truly 
 a child in malice, though a giant in knowledge. His 
 spirit lay clear and open before God and men. He had 
 the simplicity of the dove, without the wisdom of the 
 serpent. He gave his confidence to everybody, and 
 could not easily believe an evil report. Hence he was 
 often deceived. With all his theoretical knowledge of 
 human nature he was liable to err in the aj^plication to 
 particular persons. As has been said, he knew man bet- 
 ter than inen. 
 
 We liave already spoken of his unselfish devotion to 
 his students and to all who were in need of his counsel 
 and help. He had for his own person few wants ; his 
 clothing was of the plainest sort ; his moderation in eat- 
 
CHARACTER OF ^STEANDER. 149 
 
 ing and drinking reminded one of the lives of the old 
 ascetics and of St. Anthony, who felt ashamed of the 
 need of earthly food. By reason of his impractical na- 
 ture, moreover, and his total abstraction from the world; 
 he was indeed wholly ignorant of the value of money, 
 and had not his sister taken care of it, he would no doubt 
 have brought himself to beggary over and over again by 
 sheer benevolence. In this respect he showed not a 
 trace of his Jewish descent. 
 
 Of conjugal love he knew nothing ; and yet how 
 highly he conceived of the dignity and worth of woman ! 
 How beautifully he has portrayed the influence of pious 
 mothers upon the character of Gregory ISTazianzen, 
 Chrysostom, and Augustin ! How tenderly devoted was 
 he toward his sisters, especially to that one who gave 
 herself up to the care of his earthly wants, that his rich 
 mind might be consecrated to the undisturbed service of 
 religion ! 
 
 This rare character, full of childlike simplicity, tender 
 conscientiousness, unwearied professional fidelity, and 
 warm, self-sacrilicing love — this life wholly consecrated 
 to the advancement of truth and piety — was rooted and 
 secured throughout in the grace of humility. Xeander 
 kncv/ the corruption of human nature, and the necessity 
 of its redemption in Christ ; placed himself cheerfully in 
 tlie great concern of life by the side of the least ; with 
 all his uncommon learning preferred the simple, un- 
 adorned preaching of the gospel for poor sinners to the 
 most brilliant displays of rhetoric ; listened on Sunday, 
 with close attention and devotion, to the message of the 
 foolishness of the cross, Avhicli yet puts to shame all the 
 wisdom of this world ; and with all his popuhirity and 
 his world-wide fame never allowed himself to be blinded 
 by vanity and pride. He remained, to the last breath, 
 
150 REMINISCENCES OF NEANDER. 
 
 as humble as a child, and would be nothing in himself, 
 but all only in and through Christ, " It is the most 
 difficult of all arts," he says in his beautiful essay on 
 Paul and James, " to deny and to empty one's self, to 
 become nothing in ourselves, in order that we may be 
 all in the Lord alone. In this art we remain pupils 
 through life, but it brings the richest and most glorious 
 fruits for eternity. Oh, that we may exclaim with the 
 Apostle of the Gentiles, ' I have been crucified with 
 Christ ; and it is no longer 1 that liveth, but Christ liveth 
 in me !' " On the last celebration of his birthday, when 
 his students lauded him with their customary enthusiasm, 
 he answered with a touching confession of his sin and 
 weakness and entire dependence on the forgiving mercy 
 of our Saviour. One of his favorite mottoes, which he 
 wrote in my album, was, " Theologia crucis, non 
 cjlorioi f and according to this motto he lived till life's 
 frail tenement gave way, and his spirit passed into the 
 full vision of the crucified One in glory. 
 
 We must not suppose^ however, that Neander was free 
 from human frailty. He had a sensitive and irritable 
 temper, and at times was even intolerant. "With all his 
 love and gentleness, he was yet capable also of very strong 
 and decided aversion and indignation. This is by no 
 means unpsychological. Hatred is only inverted love. 
 The same force that draws toward it what is in harmony, 
 rejiels from it with equal determination what is of a con- 
 trary nature. John, the disciple of love, who lay on 
 Jesus' bosom, was at the same time " a son of thunder," 
 and ready to pray down fire from heaven upon the en- 
 emies of his Master ; yea, according to ancient story, he 
 forsook a public bath suddenly, when he found it con- 
 tained Cerinthns, the Gnostic heretic. Both sides of 
 his character are reflected in the fourth Gospel and in 
 
CHARACTER OF NEANDER. 151 
 
 tlie Apocalypse ; tlie former is full of love and tender- 
 ness ; the latter resounds with thunder and lightning. A 
 similar combination of mildness and harshness, attracting 
 love and repulsing hatred, was characteristic of lieander. 
 As an historian he could do justice to the most differ- 
 ent tendencies, and took even heretics, as far as possible, 
 into his protection ; but when kindred manifestations 
 came l)efore him in our time and in the same University 
 he showed himself impatient and intolerant, at least in 
 private conversation. He M'as often morbidly irritated 
 and passionately excited about the pantheistic philosophy 
 of Hegel on the one hand, and the stiff, angular ortho- 
 doxy of Hengstenberg on the other. Hegel had died in 
 1832, but his philosophy was then at the zenith of its 
 power and influence in Prussia, and represented by Mar- 
 heineke in the theological faculty. Hengstenberg was 
 a younger colleague of ISTeander, and the fearless cham- 
 pion of orthodoxy in the chair and in his writings. 
 Neander saw in these opposite tendencies two dangerous 
 extremes, which threatened to rob the youth of Germany 
 of the treasure of evangelical freedom, which he prized 
 above all things. From the Hegelian philosophy he 
 feared the despotism of thought ; from the strict ortho- 
 doxy the despotism of the letter. He hated the one-sided 
 intellectualism and panlogism of the former, the narrow 
 spirit and harsh judgments of the latter. There Chris- 
 tianity seemed to him to lose itself in the clouds of ideal- 
 ism, here to stiffen into dead formalism. Besides, ho 
 held it altogether vain to seek the restoration by force of 
 any past period of the Church as sucli, or to dream of 
 infusino; new life aojain into that which has been once for 
 all judged and set aside by the course of history. Yet, 
 after all, he had a sincere personal regard for Hengsten- 
 berg, who stood firm as a rock against the waves of Ka- 
 
1^^ KEMINISCENCES OF KEANDER. 
 
 tionalism, and who fully reciprocated the esteem of Nean ''-1 
 der. He never indulged in personalities, and was! 
 ahvajs controlled by pure motives and love for the truth 
 
 The character of Neander was universally esteemed^' 
 and admired. True, he also had decided theological 
 enemies. For the Orthodox of the more strict class he'was' 
 in many points too lax and liberal ; for the Eationalist, 
 too positive and firm ; but for his person all entertained! ■ 
 a sort of sacred veneration, and treated him with more) 
 mildness and forbearance than is usual with such dif- 
 ference of views. Even Strauss, the author of the 
 mythical theory of the Gospel history, when ^eandei 
 came out m strong defence of the gennineness of tlu 
 (Tospel of John, was led to abandon his doubt fora whilf 
 (in the third edition of his Leben Jesit, 1837), althouc.1 
 when he saw the fatal consequences of this concession h( 
 returned (in the fourth edition, 1840) to his formei 
 sceptical view. 
 
 The reasons for this general esteem are apparent. 
 J^eander s deep and accurate learning were not sufficieni 
 to protect him against the " fury of theologians." What 
 constituted a tower of strength and made him invulner- 
 able was his all-controlling love of truth and justice, his 
 modesty and humility, his moral purity and integrity 
 These qualities at once struck even the superficial 
 observer, and admitted of no doubt, for he always showed 
 liimseK as he was, without any concealment or reserva- 
 tion. An attack upon his character, an impeachment 
 ot his motives, could have sprung only from stock-blind 
 passion, would have awakened indignation among those 
 who knew him, and so must have resulted almost inevi- 
 tably in the moral discomfiture of the antagonist 
 
HIS THEOLOGY. 153 
 
 HIS THEOLOGY. 
 
 Neander was one of those trnlj great men with whom 
 .heorj and practice, head and heart, are beautifully 
 Mended. Not without reason had he chosen for his motto : 
 '' Pectus est, quod iheologum facit.'^'' Marheineke and 
 he Hegelians contemptuously called him the jpectoral 
 theologian. lie pursued theology, not as an exercise of 
 the understanding merely, but also as a sacred occupa- 
 tion of the heart, which he felt to be intimately connected 
 with the highest and most solemn interests of man, his 
 eternal welfare and worth. 
 
 The living centre and heart's blood of theology was 
 for him faith in Jesus Christ, as the highest revelation of 
 a holy and merciful God, as the fountain of salvation 
 and sanctifying grace for the world. Whatever he 
 found that was really great, noble, good, and true in 
 history he referred, directly or indirectly, to the divine- 
 human person of the Redeemer, in whom he humbly 
 adored the central sun of all history and the innermost 
 sanctuary of the moral universe. 
 
 There are, no doubt, more orthodox theologians than 
 Neander ; some of his views are hazy, and lack clear 
 and sharp outlines ; he was more profound than acute, 
 more comprehensive than definite. He was, to use an 
 Anglican phrase, an evangelical broad-churcliman. "With 
 all his regard for the symbolical books, he would never 
 confine himself to their measure, and conscientiously 
 refused to sign the Augsburg Confession. But there 
 are few divines in whom doctrine was to the same ex- 
 tent life and power, in whom theoretic conviction had 
 so fully passed over into flesh and blood, in whom the 
 love of Christ and of man glowed with so warm and 
 bright a flame. In this unfeigned, life-breathing piet}^, 
 
154 RE1IINISCEN"CES OF NEANDER. 
 
 which had its root in Christ's person and gospel, and I 
 formed the foundation of his theology, laj the irresistible 
 attraction of his lectures for every piously disjiosed 
 hearer, and the edifying character of all his writings. l 
 
 AVhile in this practical bent of his theology he sym- i 
 pathized with the pietistic school of Spener and Francke, ( 
 which asserted just this practical side of religion — the \ 
 rights of the heart, the necessity of a tlieologia regenito- 
 7'um, over against a lifeless orthodoxy of the intellect — ■ 
 he was, on the other hand, far removed from pietistic 
 narrowness and bigotry. His extended historical studies 
 had served to enlarge his naturally liberal mind to the 
 most comprehensive catholicity. He never lost his sound 
 and simple sight for the main object — the life of Christ 
 proceeding from a supernatural source^ — but he thought 
 too highly of this to compress it into the narrow bounds 
 of a human formula, or some single tendency or school. 
 He saw in it rather such an inexhaustible depth of sense, 
 as could be in some degree adequately expressed only 
 in an endless variety of gifts, powers, periods, and na- 
 tionalities. 
 
 What a difference is there not, for example, between 
 an Origen and a TertuUian, a Chrysostom and an 
 Augustin, a Bernard and a Thomas Aquinas, a Luther 
 and a Mclanchthon, a Calvin and a Fenelon ; or, when 
 v/e go back to the Apostolical Church itself, between a 
 Peter and a John, a James and a Paul, a Martha and a 
 Mary ! And yet ISTeander knew how to trace out and 
 greet with jo^'ous gratitude the same image of Christ 
 variously reflected in all. He had little interest in the 
 secular surroundings and artistic ornaments of church 
 history, but he always moved in the deep, and brought 
 out the internal, spiritual and eternal relations, and 
 traced everywhere the pervading and sanctifying influ- 
 
THE LAST BniTHDAY. 155 
 
 ence of the gospel working npoii every variety of temper 
 and constitution. 
 
 The wideness of his heart was an essential element in 
 his practical piety. Between it and his studies there 
 existed a relation of reciprocal encouragement and sup- 
 port. Thus was Keander, in the noblest sense, a friend 
 of man, because Christ's friend ; at home in all spheres 
 of His kingdom, the exact imjDression of evangelical 
 catholicity, and an interpreter of the precious doctrine 
 of the communion of saints, which transcends all limits 
 of time and sj^ace, and comprehends all the children of 
 God under the one head — Jesus Christ. 
 
 THE LAST BIRTHDAY. 
 
 Amono; the charmino; features of German and Swiss 
 family life are the annual commemorations of birth, 
 marriage, and other family events. 
 
 Neander's birthday was an occasion of great interest to 
 his friends and students. On his last birthday, Hannah, 
 as usual, invited a large company to dinner. There sat 
 at his right hand the court-chaplain Ehrenberg, his 
 favorite preacher ; at his left the philosopher Schelling, 
 who in his old age created a literary sensation in Berlin 
 by his lectures on the Pliilosophy of Mythology and the 
 Philosophy of Bevelation, and broke down the supremacy 
 of Hegel ; there was Prediger Lisco, another of his 
 favorite preachers, the author of The Parahles of 
 Jesus and a monograph on the Dies IrcB ; his col- 
 league, Professor Strauss, the court-chaj)lain, and friend 
 of his youth ; his other colleague. Dr. ImmanuelNitzsch, 
 a homo gravis, and, like him, denominated one of the 
 Church Fathers of the nineteenth century ; Professor 
 Piper, one of his early pupils, and an expert in Christian 
 
156 REMINISCENCES OF NEANDER. 
 
 arcliseology ; Dr. Trendelenburg, Professor of Philosoplr 
 in tlie University ; Dr. Krummaclier, the hero of th' 
 German pulpit and author of Elijah the Tishlj'de ', Lachs 
 the Director of the Deaf and Dumb Institution ; Dr 
 Julius, an enthusiast for prison reform, after the Penn 
 sylvania system of solitary confinement ; and Director 
 Ranke, brother of the historian. A truly illustrious com- 
 pany ! His friends and colleagues, Dr. Twesten, the 
 successor of Schleierraacher, Leopold Ranke, the his- 
 torian, and Ileinrich Pitter, the founder of scientific 
 geography, were also usual guests of Neander on such 
 occasions, but I do not find their names on the list of 
 those present at the last birthday dinner. 
 
 After dinner followed the customary toasts. The 
 genial Strauss, who excelled in sparkling postprandial 
 speeches, eulogized Neander's Church History, but an- 
 nounced the startling news that he was not the sole author 
 of it. The guests looked at each other in surprise ; 
 iS^eander turned on his chair ; Hannah looked indignant, 
 when Strauss continued : " Yes, that work could never 
 have been written without a helpmate, and that helpmate 
 is among us — Hannah Neander, the most devoted of sis- 
 ters, who relieved him of care and anxiety, that he might 
 wholly devote himself to his calling ; long life to her !" 
 Strauss laughed heartily, the guests shouted applause, and 
 the Neander children looked at each other with a com- 
 placent smile. 
 
 Toward evening friend after friend, male and female, 
 entered the parlor with hearty congratulations. Suddenly 
 the flickering glare of a torchlight procession was seen 
 in the street, and about a hundred students began to sing, 
 with clear, strong voices : " The Lord is my Shepherd ; 
 1 shall not want." A deputation of the students was 
 admitted, and thanked their beloved teacher for continu- 
 
SICKNESS AND DEATH. 157 
 
 iiig his lectures, notwitlistanding liis bodily infirniitj and 
 blindness. They were forbidden of late to offer him 
 presents of books or ornaments as they had done before, 
 but begged him to accept instead a liberal donation for 
 his " Society for the Relief of Sick Students.' ' JSfeander, 
 unable any more, as in former years, to address the sercn- 
 aders from the window, expressed, with trembling voice, 
 his thanks to his " dear fellow-students and beloved 
 friends," to Avhose fellowship he owed his youthfulness 
 in old age, and then most heartily shook hands with every 
 one, as they came up by his request from the street, after 
 throwing their torches together in a heap. The students 
 parted with a good-night by singing, 
 
 ^''Integer vitm scelerisque purus.'''' 
 
 Tliis last birthday of Neander on earth was soon to be 
 followed by the celebration of his first birthday in 
 heaven. 
 
 SICKNESS AND DEATH. 
 
 Neander had a frail and delicate constitution. In the 
 last years of his life he became, in a peculiar sense, a 
 theologian of the cross, with the painful experience that 
 the via lucis is indeed also a via crucis. Tie was doomed, 
 like the illustrious author of Paradise Lost, to an 
 almost total loss of sight, long before weakened by 
 incessant study. His faith gave him power to bear this 
 calamity, doubly sev^ere to an historian. To him might 
 be applied what St. Anthony once said to the blind 
 teacher, Didymus of Alexandria ; " Let it not trouble 
 thee to be without the eyes with which even flies can see ; 
 but rejoice rather that thou hast the eyes that angels see 
 with, for the vision of God and His blessed light." He 
 could say what was said of Milton : 
 
158 REMINISCENCES OF NEANDEIi. 
 
 "On my bended knee 
 
 I recognize Thy purpose, clearly shown : 
 My vision Thou hast dimmed, that I might see 
 Thyself— Thyself alone." 
 
 Not a murmur, not a sound of complaint or discontent^ 
 passed Neander's lips ; and in tliis way the crown was 
 set npon liis character bj patience and quiet resignation 
 to God's will. 
 
 lie did not suffer himself to be interrupted in his work 
 by this affliction, and showed in it a rare power of will 
 over opposing nature. Not only did be continue to 
 hold his lectures as before with the most conscientious 
 fidelity, but he went forward unceasingly also in his 
 literary labors, with the help of a reader and amanuensis. 
 Nay, even within a few months of his death lie founded, 
 in connection with Dr. Julius Miiller, of Halle, and Dr. 
 Nitzsch, of Berlin, a valuable periodical {Deutsche 
 Zeitschriftfur christliche Wissenschaft und cJiristlichcs 
 Lehen)^ and furnished for it a numl^er of excellent 
 articles (such as a retrospect of the first half of this 
 century, one on the difference between Hellenic and 
 Christian ethics, another on the practical exposition of 
 the Bible), in which he still soared with unabated 
 strength, like an eagle. 
 
 What his departed friend Schleiermacher had wished 
 for himself in his Monologues, and afterward actually 
 received, was grnnted also to Neander, the privilege 
 namely of dying in the full possession of his mental 
 powers and in the midst of his work. Only eight days 
 before his death, on the occasion of a visit from Giitzlaff, 
 who was regarded by many as "the Apostle of the 
 Cliinese," he made an address with youthful freshness 
 on the Chinese Mission, and looked hopefully forward to 
 the future triumphs of the kingdom of God, the setting 
 
SICKNESS AND DEATH. 159 
 
 fortli of wliose growth, under the guidance of the two- 
 fold likeness of the mustard-seed and leaven, he con- 
 sidered the great business of his own life. 
 
 On the following Monday, the 8th of July, he delivered 
 his last lecture, in the midst of severe pain from an attack 
 of sickness, so that his voice several times failed, and 
 he was scarcely able with the help of students to come 
 down the steps of the rostrum. But notwithstanding 
 this, immediately after dinner, which he hardly touched, 
 he set himself again to dictating for the last volume of 
 his Church History^ which was to describe the close of 
 the Middle Ages and the preparation for the Keforma- 
 tion, until exhausted nature fastened him to his bed. 
 
 Then he had his last and severest trial to endure, in 
 ceasing to work for the kingdom of his Divine Master, 
 which had always been his life and joy. Several times 
 he wanted to gather himself up again, and became almost 
 impatient when the physician refused to allow it. But 
 his affectionate sister now reminded him of what he used 
 to say to her in sickness, to engage her submission to 
 medical treatment : "It conies from God ; therefore 
 must we suit ourselves to it cheerfully." Calmed at 
 once, and as it were ashamed, he replied : " That is 
 true, dear Hannah ; it all comes from God, and we must 
 thank IJini for it." So formerly St. Chrysostom, whose 
 life and deeds jSTeander had delighted to portray, expired 
 in l)anishment with the exclamation : " God be praised 
 for all !" 
 
 A few hours before his dissolution, on Saturday after- 
 noon, the modern " Father of Church History" once 
 more collected his sinking strength, and taking up the 
 thread of his unfinished work just where he had left off 
 before, dictated an account of the so-called " Friends of 
 God," those remarkable German Mystics of the four- 
 
160 REMINISCENCES OF NEANDER. 
 
 teenth and fifteenth centuries, who helped ^o prepare the 
 "way for the evangehcal Reformation. 
 
 After this appropriate conclusion of his literary activ- 
 ity, about half-past nine o'clock, he longed for rest, 
 and in a sort of half dream, as at the end of a toilsome 
 journey, addressed his sister with the significant words : 
 " / am wea7'y, let us go home P'' When the bed had 
 been put in order for his last slumber, he threw the whole 
 tenderness and affection of his heart once again into a 
 scarcely audible " Good-night 1'''"^ 
 
 lie slept for four hours, breathing always more softly 
 and slowly ; and with tlie morning of the Lord's Day, 
 on what is styled in the Christian year the Sunday ^f 
 Refreshing, he awoke in the morning of eternity among 
 the spirits of the just made perfect. There in the com- 
 pany of the great and good men of past ages, with whom 
 he was so familiar, he rests from his labors, in adoration 
 of llim who is the beginning and end of all history. 
 
 IS'eander died within a few weeks of several prominent 
 men of his age — a statesman of England, a President of 
 the United States, and a King of France. He had 
 occupied no ministerial post, like Sir Robert Peel ; had 
 won no laurels of victory on the battle-field, like Presi- 
 
 * There is a slight variation in the reports of his significant fare- 
 well words. Kauh {Zun Geddchtniss Aug. Neand,, p. 9) gives them : 
 " Icli bin rniide ; icir wollen unsfertig maclien, um riach Hause zu gehen." 
 Krummacher (p. 25) : " Ich bin rniide ; loir wollen uns fertig machen und 
 nnch JIause gehen." Str.iuss (p. 18) : " Ich bin mude, lass wis nach 
 Hause gehen." He omits the words : " Let us get ready." All agree 
 as to the last word — " Good-night." Strauss adds : " Lieher, theurer 
 Freund, wir horen deinen Abschiedsgruss, wir, Deine Schiller, Beine 
 Freunde, Deine Verwandlen, Deine verwais'e Schioesier. Wir horen ihn 
 heute auf's Keue und werden ihn bis ans Ende unserer Tage hijren ; und 
 wir ericiedern ihn mil miserem beienden : Oule Nacht, das Dich in die 
 Ewigkeit hiniibcrbcgleitei." 
 
SICKNESS AXD DEATH. 161 
 
 dent Taylor ; had adorned no tlirone, like Louis Philippe ; 
 and in the loud tumult of worldly life his voice was not 
 heard. But from his lecture-room and solitary study he 
 exercised an influence quite as far-reaching and endur- 
 ing as that of any of his companions in life and death. 
 His influence was only more deep and beneficent by being 
 inward and spiritual, and will continue to be felt without 
 interruption as long as theologians and ministers of the 
 gospel shall be trained for their heaven appointed work. 
 Though political history knows nothing of the quiet, 
 humble scholar in Berlin, his name shines but the more 
 illustriously for this in the records of the kingdom of 
 heaven, which will outlast all governments of earth. 
 Tliough no monument should be raised to him of brass 
 or marble, a far better memorial is already secured to 
 him in the grateful hearts of thousands who have been 
 his hearers, or readers, or who in coming time shall draw 
 from his works a knowledge of the sorrows and joys, the 
 conflicts and triumphs, the all-pervading and transform- 
 ing power of the Christian religion, as well as from his 
 life the priceless lesson, that all true spiritual and moral 
 greatness roots itself in simplicity, humility, and love. 
 
 " The dead are not dead, but alive." 
 
 Ik- 
 Hannah Neandor never recovered from the death of 
 her brother. Her cheerfulness was gone. She walked, 
 no more unter den Linden and in the Thiergarten ; 
 she never visited Carlsbad again ; she kept on a wid- 
 ow's mourning, and moved away from the Markgrafen- 
 strasse to a desolate home nearer her brother's grave. 
 There she sat hour after hour with her weary, half-blind 
 eyes fixed upon a bust of Neander. When a friend 
 wished her a happy birthday, she replied : "Don't ! I 
 
162 REMINISCEIfCES OF NEANDER. 
 
 have no more birthdays, for I have no more life." She 
 died July 2d, 1854. 
 
 THE FUNERAL. 
 
 Seldom did a death create more genuine sorrow, and 
 a funeral attract more attention in Berlin and through- 
 out Germany than that of Neander. 
 
 Dr. Friedrich Strauss, Neander's colleague and tlie 
 favorite chaplain of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV., deliv- 
 ered an address in the house ; Dr. Friedrich W. Krum- 
 macher, the greatest pulpit orator of Germany, spoke at 
 the open grave in the Jerusalem Churcli-yard ; and Dr. 
 K. Immanuel JSIitzsch, Professor of Theology, concluded 
 the solemnities with an address in the Aula of the Uni- 
 versity before the assembled learning of the metropolis. 
 
 Strauss chose for his text the words : " That disciple 
 therefore whom Jesus loved saitli unto Peter, It is the 
 Lord" (John 21 : 7). lie cliaracterized his departed friend 
 as a genuine disciple of St. John, lilled with the love of 
 Christ, who in all the paths of church history traced the 
 miracles of Christ's love, but who also, like the " Son of 
 thunder," kindled in wrath against the enemies of his 
 Master. And truly he was a forerunner of the Johan- 
 nean love and |>eace which sooner or later will dawn 
 npon the Church and solve its discords. Krummacher 
 called him " one of the noblest of the noblemen in the 
 kingdom of God, a prince in Zion," of whom it may 
 be said, as of John, '' that that disciple should not die." 
 Nitzsch spoke of his merits as an historian who revolu- 
 tionized church history, and made it a book of devotion 
 as well as instruction, who awakened sympathy for every 
 manifestation of Christ's spirit, and v.'ho fully verified 
 the word, " Seek the tliinga that are above where Christ 
 is, and not the things that are upon the earth." "He 
 
A VISIT TO NEANDER'S GRAVE. 103 
 
 left," said Nitzsch, " the Lest example of true greatness 
 based on simplicity and humility — Have j>ia animay * 
 
 On the 25th of August, 1S84:, I made, in company with 
 a Lutheran clergyman^ Dr. Stuckenberg, then Ameri- 
 can chaplain in Berlin, a pilgrimage to Neander's grave 
 in the Alte Jerusalemer KirchJiof. There he rests be- 
 tween his mother and his sister Hannah. An iron railing 
 surrounds the lot, and a cypress grows on the mortal 
 remains. A marble bust of Neander in relief, erected 
 by his sister, marks his grave, and bears the simple in- 
 scription : 
 
 August Keandeb 
 
 geb. 16 Jan. 1789 
 
 gest. 14 Juli 1850. 
 
 Dem unvergesslichen Bruder 
 
 die Schwester. 
 
 1 Cor. xiii. 12. 
 
 The verse referred to was a favorite text, which is 
 added to his picture in the Boston edition of his Church 
 Ristory : ' ^ Now we see in a mirror, darkly ; but then 
 face to face : now I know in part ; but then shall I know 
 even as also I have been known." 
 
 To his right repose the ashes of Neander's mother and 
 married sister, marked by two iron crosses, with the in- 
 scription : 
 
 * Zum Gedachtniss August Meander's, herausgegeben zum Besten des 
 Neanderschen Krankenvereins, Berlin (Karl Wiegandt), 1850, pp. 36. 
 This pamphlet contains an account of Neander's last illness by S. 
 Kauh, Lie. theol., and the throe funeral addresses of Strauss, Krum- 
 macher, and Nitzsch. 
 
164 KEMIiflSCENCES OF ifEANDER. 
 
 Eine eclle Frau, ei?ie gute Mutter, 
 
 EleojStoke ]N"eander, 
 
 geb. Frankfurt a. 2L, Sept. 24 1755, 
 
 gest. Berlin^ 7 Juli 1818. 
 
 The name of his married sister : 
 
 Caroline Henrietta Scholtz (1778-1860). 
 
 To the left of Neander rests his faithful sister Hannah, 
 who took such good care of him. A marble cross is 
 erected on her grave, and bears the inscription : 
 
 Johanna Neander, 
 gestorhen 2 Juli 1854. 
 
 On the back — 
 
 ' ' Selig sind, die hn Herrn sterben. ' ' 
 (" Blessed are those who die in the Lord.") 
 
 On the same and the following day, and in company 
 with the same American friend, I visited the graves of 
 Fichte, Hegel (and his wife, who survived him several 
 years),* Schleiermacher (and his wife and son Nathan- 
 ael), Marheineke, Steffens, and other celebrities of the 
 Berlin University. They awakened in me touching 
 reminiscences of the days of my youth ; but none made 
 60 deep an impression on my heart as the grave of my 
 beloved teacher and friend, Neander. 
 
 * Hegel died in 1831, nine years before I came to Berlin, but I 
 knew his widow very well. Her maiden name was Marie von 
 Tucher. Her cousin, Mrs. Dr. Tholuck, introduced me to her in 1840. 
 She was an excellent, pious lady, and a friend of Gossner. She was 
 much disturbed by the developments of the radical left wing of 
 Hegel's school (the so-called " Hegelingen"), and the appearance of 
 the infidel Life of Jesus, by Strauss ; but she assured me that her 
 husband would have utterly disowned it. She believed him to be a 
 good Christian, though he seldom went to church. He used to make 
 the characteristic excuse : " Mein Uebes Kind, das Denken ist auch 
 Qotiesdieyist." 
 
A LETTER OF NEANDER. 1G5 
 
 I also called on his only surviving colleague, Leopold 
 von Ranke, the greatest living historian, who after 
 publishing many special histories of the highest merit 
 is crowning his life's work, in his ninetieth year (he 
 was born in 1795, six years after his friend Keander), 
 by dictating, with unclouded mind out of the fulness of 
 information, a general history of the world. He gave 
 me a most interesting account of his daily habits and his 
 views on some of the great problems^ of the age. He is 
 in full sympathy with the evangelical catholic spirit of 
 Neander. I shall not forget his wise words concerning 
 the controlling power of religion in the course of history. 
 
 A LETTER OF NEANDEK. 
 
 For several years (from 1840 to 1844) it was my priv- 
 ilege to enjoy the personal acquaintance of Neander, 
 first as a student, afterward as a teacher in the Unis^er- 
 sity. 1 heard his lectures on modern church historj^, 
 which were never published. He frequently invited me 
 to dinner with older and wiser men, and I spent many 
 hours in his study. 1 never left his presence without an 
 impression of his greatness and goodness. It was es- 
 pecially at his recommendation that I received and accept- 
 ed a call as professor of church history and exegesis from 
 the German Reformed Church in the United States. I 
 never regretted that 1 followed his advice ; for America 
 has proved to me a second and better fatherland. 
 
 It was therefore a natural feeling of gratitude which ' 
 prompted me to dedicate to him the first German edition 
 of my History of the Apostolic Churck, which was finished 
 during his life, but not published till after his death. In 
 reply to my request for permission, he wrote to me with 
 trembling hand, when nearly blind, the following letter, 
 which is no doubt one of his last. It shows his kindness 
 
166 REMINISCENCES OF NEANDER. 
 
 of heart, and gives his view's on the abortive political 
 convulsions which shook Germany in the closing years 
 of his life. 
 
 Mein theubek Feeund : 
 
 Icli kann Ihnen nur meinen herzlichen Dank sagen fiir das Zeichen 
 Hires liebevollen A.ndenkens, das Sie mir offentlich geben, und fiir 
 die Ehre, die Sie mir erweisen wollen, indem ich Ihnen zu Ihrem 
 Werke alle Erleuchtung und Kraft von oben wiinsche. 
 
 Was Ihr Journal betrifft,* so glaube ich, ich habe etwas von dem- 
 selben durch Ihre Giite, fiir die ich herzlich danke, erhalten. Es ist 
 gut, dass Sie mich daran erinnern. Ich kann jetzt leicht etwas ver- 
 gessen und unbenutzt liegen lassen, da ich nur durch fremde Augen 
 lesen kann, seit zwei Jahren leidend an den Folgen einer auf die 
 Augen zuriickgefallenen Gicht. 
 
 Ich hatte mir vorgenommen, Ihnen zugleich mit diesem Briefe 
 etwas Neues von mir und meine neuen Auflagen zuzusenden ; aber 
 es ist nun unterblieben, da es sich gerade trifft, dass ich alle Exem- 
 plare friiher verschenkt habe. Wenn der gniidige Gott mich nicht 
 mit meiner Augenkrankheit heimgesucht hatte, wiirde ich wohl liingst 
 die Freude gehabt haben, meinen neuen Band der Kirchengeschichte 
 bis auf die Reformation, vielleicht die Eeformationsgeschichte selbst, 
 Ihnen zusenden zu konnen. 
 
 Was man in dem traurigen Jahre 1848 in unserem armen Vater- 
 lande Freiheit nannte, ist etwas ganz anderes, als was der aus den 
 Bliithen englischer Frommigkeit stammende Geist in Ihrem Amerika 
 sucht und meint. Es war hier der Kampf zwischen Atheismus und 
 Christenthum, zwischen Vandalismus und achter Bildung. Schon vor 
 Jahrzehnden weissagte ich es, dass die Weltweisheit des einseitigen 
 Logismus, des Verstandesfanatismus und der Selbstvergtitterung zu 
 diesen Folgen ihrer consequenten Negationen fiihren mtisse, wie 
 durch die Popularisirung derselben geschehen ist. Nicht, als ob 
 diese Weltweisheit allein die Schuld triige, aber sie war der conse- 
 quenteste wissenschaftliche Ausdruck des herrschenden Zeitbewiisst- 
 seins und seiner Richtung. Dabei laugne ich nicht, dass auch 
 wahre Bediirfnisse im Zeitgeiste vorhanden sind, und dass nur durch 
 Befriedigung derselben, welche allein das Evangelium zu gewahren 
 vermag, dauernde Heilung erfolgen kann. 
 
 Wir stehen am Kande des Abgrundes, des Untergangs alt-europai- 
 scher Bildung, oder an den Grenzen, wo eine neue schopf erische Aera 
 
 * " Der Deutsche Kirchenfreund," publ. Mercersburg, Pa., 1848-1854. 
 
A LETTER OF KEANDER. 1G7 
 
 diirch mannigfache Stiirme sich anbahnen soil, ein neuer grosser Act 
 in dem Weltumbildungsprocesse des Christenthums. Wir wollen 
 von der Gnade des langmiithigen Gottes das Letztere hoffen. 
 
 Ihnen den reichsten gottlichen Segen fiir all die Ihrigen, fiir Ihren 
 Beruf und AUes, was der gnadige Gott in Ikre Hiinde gelegt liat, 
 ■wiinschend, verbleibe ich 
 
 herzlich der Ihrige, 
 
 A. Neandee. 
 Berlin, den 28sien Oct. 1849. 
 
 My deak Fbiend : 
 
 I can only return my hearty thanks to you for the testimony you 
 publicly offer me of your affectionate remembrance, and for the honor 
 you propose to show me, while I desire for you in your work all 
 illumination and strength from on high. 
 
 As regards your Journal, I believe something of it, through your 
 kindness, has reached me, for which you have my hearty thanks. It 
 is well that you have reminded me of it. I may now easily forget 
 anything, and let it lie unused, as I can read only through other 
 people's eyes, having suffered for two years past from the conse- 
 quences of a paralysis settled in my own, 
 
 I had intended to send you along with this letter something new of 
 my publications and new editions ; but it is now omitted, as it just 
 so happens that all my copies have already been given away. If the 
 good Lord had not visited me with disease in my eyes, I would 
 have had the pleasure long since of being able to send you a new 
 volume of the Church Hisioi-y as far as the Keformation, and perhaps 
 by this time even the History of the Befonnation itself. 
 
 What men called freedom in our poor fatherland, during the 
 mournful year 1848, is something very different from what is sought 
 and meant by the spirit which has been horn from the best English 
 piety in your America. It was a conflict here between atheism and 
 Christianity, between vandalism and true civilization. Even many 
 years ago I predicted that the secular wisdom of a one-sided intel- 
 lectual fanaticism, and self-deification must lead to this proper con- 
 sequence of its negations, as by their popularization has now come 
 to pass. Not as though this philosophy alone were in fault, but it 
 was the most strictly consequent scientific expression of the reigning 
 spirit of the age and its tendency. Nor will I deny that there are 
 true wants also at hand in the spirit of the age, and that nothing 
 short of their satisfaction, which the gospel alone has power to 
 secure, can bring any lasting relief. 
 
168 REMINISCENCES OF NEANDER. 
 
 "We stand on the brink of an abyss, the downfall of the old Euro- 
 pean culture, or else on the confines of a new creative era, to be 
 ushered in through manifold storms — another grand act in the 
 world-transforming process of Christianity. From the mercy of a 
 long-suffering God we will hope for the last. 
 
 Praying that God's richest blessing may rest on your family, on 
 your work, and all that the merciful God has intrusted to your hands, 
 I remain 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 A. Neandeb. 
 
 Berlin, 28ih Oct., 1849. 
 
 165 
 
THE SCHAFF-HERZOG ENCYCLOPEDIA* 
 
 A RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA ; or, Dictionary of Biblical, Historical, 
 Doctrinal and Practical Theology. Based on the Real-Encyklopadie of 
 Herzog, Plitt and Hauck. Edited by Philip Schaff, D.D., LL.D., 
 assisted by Rev. Samuel M. Jackson, M.A., and Eev. D. S. Schaflf, and 
 438 of the ablest scholars in Europe and America. In three large 
 volumes. Royal 8vo, cloth, per roZ. §0.00; sheep, $7.50; half morocco, 
 $9.00; full morocco, gilt. $12.00. 
 
 OPINIONS OF AMERICAN CRITICS: 
 
 BoswellD. Hitchcock, D.D.: " I know of no work that equals it." 
 Howard Crosby, D.D., LL.D.: "A standard authoriiy on all reUglous 
 knowledge." 
 Bishop Simpson : "A very valuable work of reference." 
 Morgan Dix, D.D., LL.D.: " Unsurpassed by anything yet published." 
 \V. Ormiston, D.D., LL.D.: "Shows laborious carefulness and vigilant 
 accuracy." 
 Prof. M. B. Riddle, D.D.: " The entire work is most excellent." 
 Charles S. Robinson, D.D.: " Unequaled for scholarship, clearness, con- 
 densation." 
 Prof. A. A. Hodge, D.D.: "For a long time it can have no rival." 
 Noah Porter, D.D., LL.D.: "I do not hesitate to recommend it." 
 E. J. Wolf, D.D.: " An extraordinary example ofviultum, inparvo." 
 E. D. Morris, D. D.: " Characterized by ability and thoroughness." 
 R. S. Siorrs, D.D.: " A work of immense value." 
 Prof. Edwards A. Park, D.D.: "Preeminently valuable." 
 John Hall, D.D.: " Of great and lasting value." 
 T. W, Chambers, D.D.; " In fullness, fairness, accuracy it is unequaled." 
 
 OPINIONS OF FOREIGN CRITICS: 
 
 Prof. H. Calderwood, D.I>., University of Edinburg: " A most valuable 
 religious encyclopaedia." 
 
 Rev. Samuel G. Green, D.D., Sec. London Religious Tract Society: "The 
 Schaflf-Herzog Encyclopedia is most satisfactory in every respect." 
 
 Prof. Edward Reuss, D.D. , University of Strasburg; " The work is exceed- 
 ingly rich, handsomely gotten up; indispensable to the student; it 
 must succeed." 
 
 • An Appendix to The Schaflf-Herzog Encyclopjedia, being " A Dictionary 
 of Living Divines," will be published in 1886. 
 
 FUNK & WAGNALLS, Publishers, lo & la Dey St., New York. 
 
THE OLDEST CHURCH MANUAL. 
 
 CALLED '• TEACHING OF THE APOSTLES, witli niustrations and 
 Fac-similes of the Jerusalem MS., and Cocnate ■Documents. Edited 
 by Philip Schaff, D.D., LL.D. 8vo, cloth, 301 pp., $2.50. 
 
 OPINIONS OF FOREIGN CRITICS : 
 
 Z)r. Piummer (Master of UnivcKity College, Durham): "It is the best 
 ■work on the Didacke that has as yet appeared, and those who have not 
 provided themselves with a commentary ou the newly discovered treas- 
 ure should provide themselves with Dr. Schaflf's most interesting book." 
 
 Dr. Oscar von GfWiardt (of Berlin, the discoverer of the Latin fragment of 
 the Didache): "A true standard work, which shows on every page the 
 proof of the mastery of the material and literature, even into the remotest 
 corners, and makes an impression on the whole of an exhaustive treat- 
 ment of all questions connected with the Didache." 
 
 Thi British Quarterly Review (Oct, '85): " With characteristic enthusiasm 
 and learning, patience and comprehensiveness. Dr. Schaff has made a 
 study of the Teaching of the Apostles, and presents it to us in a complete 
 literary, ecclesiastical and theological setting. Scarcely anything related 
 to it is omitted. . . . It is by far the most complete apparatus criticus for 
 the study of that interesting and important document." 
 
 From the Athenaeum, TionAon: " The most copious work on the Didache 
 which has yet appeared, even exceeding Harnack's. The industry of the 
 author is unusual. The volume is a monument of comprehensive knowl- 
 edge and careful elaboration. Like all Dr. SchafTs books, it is characterized 
 by extensive erudition." 
 
 Dr. KrawutzJ^y (of B.X6B\&u): " I find your work as interesting and valu- 
 able as it is rich in its contents, notwithstanding the difference of our 
 views on some points." 
 
 Prof. Massebieau (of the Protestant Theol. Faculty of Paris): "This 
 beautiful work on the Didache is most complete in every respect." 
 
 Prof. Menegoz{o{ TaiiB): " A remarkable book on the Didache which I 
 have read with the greatest interest." 
 
 Bishop Ligh' foot : " A very complete and useful edition of the Didache, 
 fuU of interest, both from the subject and from the treatment." 
 
 OPINIONS OF AMERICAN CRITICS : 
 Howard Crosby, D.D., LL.D.: " An exhaustive and intensely interesting 
 
 work which all students of church history should possess." 
 Prof. Heman Lincoln of Brown University: "Dr. SchafTs edition is beyond 
 
 comparison the best we have seen, and leaves nothing to be desired." 
 The Congregationalist, Jinston: " Biblical scholars will recognize in this 
 
 work a most scholarly, candid and comprehensive treatise," 
 
 FUNK & WAGNALLS, Publishers, lo and i2 Dey St.. New York. 
 
LIBRARY OF RELIGIOUS POETRY. 
 
 A COLLECTION OF THE BEST POEMS OF ALL AGES AND TONGUES. 
 Edited by Phillip Schafif, D.D., LL.D., and Arthur Gilman, M. A. New 
 Edition. Superbly bound. Eoyal 8vo, 1.004 pp., cloth, $6.00. 
 
 Full Page Steel Engravings. 
 
 John Milton. William Cowper. 
 
 Kobcrt Si'Uthey. Edmun 1 f>'pencer. 
 
 J. G. Whittier. Isaac NVatts. 
 
 Henry W. Longfellow. William Cullen Bryant. 
 
 Heury Kirk White. Dante. 
 
 William Shakespeare. Alfred Tennyson. 
 
 Jnhn Hall, D.D. : "ItisJList, discriminating and impartial in its selec- 
 tions. Nowhere else can oce find in a volume so much varied wealth of 
 devout sentiment and imagery, with enough of the personal in brief 
 biographical notes and good jiortraits, to aid the memory and imagina- 
 tion." 
 
 J. G. Whittier: " I have read with entire satisfaction The Library nf 
 Religiius Poetry. It supplies a want which has been long felt, and its 
 compilers deserve the highest ijraise for the thoroughness of their work. 
 Their good taste and sound ju 'gment are manifest on every page." 
 
 Noah Porter, Pres. Vale College: "In the variety and good judgment 
 and excellence of its selections, it must ijrove a house treasure to any 
 family." 
 
 Mark Hopkins, D.D., LL.D. : " The selections are ample and judicious, 
 and the arrangement is admirable. I know of nothing like it in the English 
 
 Prof Moses Coit Tyle--, Unio . nf Wisconsin : "1 have enjoyed this work. 
 I am instantly impressed by the catholicity as well as the delicacy of its 
 principles of selection." 
 
 Thomas R. Pi/nchon D.D.. ex-Pres. Tiinily College : " It is absolutely es- 
 sential to erery scholar, and cannot but have a most powerful influence in 
 cultivating the taste and purifying the imagination." 
 
 Oliver Wmdell Holmes: " The idea of coUscting, classifying and publish- 
 ing in a tingle volume, pocrcs of the nature of those here brought to- 
 gether Eei=ms to mo a most happy one, I cannot eloubt that it will be wel- 
 comed as a great accession to every English and American Library." 
 
 Roswell D. Hitchcock, D D : ' Such a collection of choice poems, so care- 
 fully arranged, mnst be the growth of years. It fairly tires me to thinli of 
 the labor it has ovideLtlj cost. B'jt I expect much comfort from it in 
 weary hours." 
 
 FUNK & WAGNALLS, Publishers, lO and 12 Dey St., New York. 
 
Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries 
 
 Th 
 
 '^ 1 1012 01236 8306 
 
 W} 
 
 Date Due 
 
 flh •> ^^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 9mm- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 U 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 f