Meanwhile my sins were being multiplied, and my concubine being torn
from my side as a hindrance to my marriage, my heart which clave
unto her was torn and wounded and bleeding. And she returned to Afric,
vowing unto Thee never to know any other man, leaving with me my son
by her. But unhappy I, who could not imitate a very woman, impatient
of delay, inasmuch as not till after two years was I to obtain her I
sought not being so much a lover of marriage as a slave to lust,
procured another, though no wife, that so by the servitude of an
enduring custom, the disease of my soul might be kept up and carried
on in its vigour, or even augmented, into the dominion of marriage.
Nor was that my wound cured, which had been made by the cutting away
of the former, but after inflammation and most acute pain, it
mortified, and my pains became less acute, but more desperate.
To Thee be praise, glory to Thee, Fountain of mercies. I was
becoming more miserable, and Thou nearer. Thy right hand was
continually ready to pluck me out of the mire, and to wash me
thoroughly, and I knew it not; nor did anything call me back from a
yet deeper gulf of carnal pleasures, but the fear of death, and of Thy
judgment to come; which amid all my changes, never departed from my
breast.
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