This age then, Lord, whereof I have no remembrance,
which I take on others' word, and guess from other infants that I have
passed, true though the guess be, I am yet loth to count in this
life of mine which I live in this world. For no less than that which I
spent in my mother's womb, is it hid from me in the shadows of
forgetfulness. But if I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my
mother conceive me, where, I beseech Thee, O my God, where, Lord, or
when, was I Thy servant guiltless? But, lo! that period I pass by; and
what have I now to do with that, of which I can recall no vestige?
Passing hence from infancy, I came to boyhood, or rather it came
to me, displacing infancy. Nor did that depart,- (for whither went
it?)- and yet it was no more. For I was no longer a speechless infant,
but a speaking boy. This I remember; and have since observed how I
learned to speak. It was not that my elders taught me words (as,
soon after, other learning) in any set method; but I, longing by cries
and broken accents and various motions of my limbs to express my
thoughts, that so I might have my will, and yet unable to express
all I willed, or to whom I willed, did myself, by the understanding
which Thou, my God, gavest me, practise the sounds in my memory.
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