What is it to me,
though any comprehend not this? Let him also rejoice and say, What
thing is this? Let him rejoice even thus! and be content rather by not
discovering to discover Thee, than by discovering not to discover
Thee.
Hear, O God. Alas, for man's sin! So saith man, and Thou pitiest
him; for Thou madest him, but sin in him Thou madest not. Who
remindeth me of the sins of my infancy? for in Thy sight none is
pure from sin, not even the infant whose life is but a day upon the
earth. Who remindeth me? doth not each little infant, in whom I see
what of myself I remember not? What then was my sin? was it that I
hung upon the breast and cried? for should I now so do for food
suitable to my age, justly should I be laughed at and reproved. What I
then did was worthy reproof; but since I could not understand reproof,
custom and reason forbade me to be reproved. For those habits, when
grown, we root out and cast away. Now no man, though he prunes,
wittingly casts away what is good. Or was it then good, even for a
while, to cry for what, if given, would hurt? bitterly to resent, that
persons free, and its own elders, yea, the very authors of its
birth, served it not? that many besides, wiser than it, obeyed not the
nod of its good pleasure? to do its best to strike and hurt, because
commands were not obeyed, which had been obeyed to its hurt? The
weakness then of infant limbs, not its will, is its innocence.
Pages:
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33