And lo, I
was now in my thirtieth year, sticking in the same mire, greedy of
enjoying things present, which passed away and wasted my soul; while I
said to myself, "Tomorrow I shall find it; it will appear manifestly
and I shall grasp it; to, Faustus the Manichee will come, and clear
every thing! O you great men, ye Academicians, it is true then, that
no certainty can be attained for the ordering of life! Nay, let us
search the more diligently, and despair not. Lo, things in the
ecclesiastical books are not absurd to us now, which sometimes
seemed absurd, and may be otherwise taken, and in a good sense. I will
take my stand, where, as a child, my parents placed me, until the
clear truth be found out. But where shall it be sought or when?
Ambrose has no leisure; we have no leisure to read; where shall we
find even the books? Whence, or when procure them? from whom borrow
them? Let set times be appointed, and certain hours be ordered for the
health of our soul. Great hope has dawned; the Catholic Faith
teaches not what we thought, and vainly accused it of; her
instructed members hold it profane to believe God to be bounded by the
figure of a human body: and do we doubt to 'knock,' that the rest 'may
be opened'? The forenoons our scholars take up; what do we during
the rest? Why not this? But when then pay we court to our great
friends, whose favour we need? When compose what we may sell to
scholars? When refresh ourselves, unbending our minds from this
intenseness of care?
"Perish every thing, dismiss we these empty vanities, and betake
ourselves to the one search for truth! Life is vain, death
uncertain; if it steals upon us on a sudden, in what state shall we
depart hence? and where shall we learn what here we have neglected?
and shall we not rather suffer the punishment of this negligence?
What, if death itself cut off and end all care and feeling? Then
must this be ascertained.
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