In those years when I first began to teach rhetoric in my native
town, I had made one my friend, but too dear to me, from a community
of pursuits, of mine own age, and, as myself, in the first opening
flower of youth. He had grown up of a child with me, and we had been
both school-fellows and play-fellows. But he was not yet my friend
as afterwards, nor even then, as true friendship is; for true it
cannot be, unless in such as Thou cementest together, cleaving unto
Thee, by that love which is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
Ghost, which is given unto us. Yet was it but too sweet, ripened by
the warmth of kindred studies: for, from the true faith (which he as a
youth had not soundly and thoroughly imbibed), I had warped him also
to those superstitious and pernicious fables, for which my mother
bewailed me. With me he now erred in mind, nor could my soul be
without him. But behold Thou wert close on the steps of Thy fugitives,
at once God of vengeance, and Fountain of mercies, turning us to
Thyself by wonderful means; Thou tookest that man out of this life,
when he had scarce filled up one whole year of my friendship, sweet to
me above all sweetness of that my life.
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