When they had once resolved to devote
themselves to the service of religion, the question
arose, how they might best improve and employ[{10}]
the talents committed to them. Somehow, the
idea of marrying and taking orders, or taking
orders and marrying, building or improving their
parsonages, and showing forth the charities, the
humanities, and the gentilities of a family man,[{15}]
did not suggest itself to their minds. They fancied
that they must give up wife, children, property,
if they would be perfect; and, this being taken
for granted, that their choice lay between two
modes of life, both of which they regarded as[{20}]
extremes. Here, then, for a time, they were in
some perplexity. Gregory speaks of two ascetic
disciplines, that of the solitary or hermit, and that
of the secular;[27] one of which, he says, profits
a man's self, the other his neighbor. Midway,[{25}]
however, between these lay the Cœnobite, or
what we commonly call the monastic; removed
from the world, yet acting in a certain select
circle. And this was the rule which the friends
at length determined to adopt, withdrawing from[{30}]
mixed society in order to be of the greater service
to it.
[27] [Greek: azyges] and [Greek: migades].
The following is the passage in which Gregory
describes the life which was the common choice
of both of them:[{5}]
"Fierce was the whirlwind of my storm-toss'd mind,
Searching,'mid holiest ways, a holier still.
Long had I nerved me, in the depths to sink
Thoughts of the flesh, and then more strenuously.
Yet, while I gazed upon diviner aims,[{10}]
I had not wit to single out the best:
For, as is aye the wont in things of earth,
Each had its evil, each its nobleness.
I was the pilgrim of a toilsome course,
Who had o'erpast the waves, and now look'd round,[{15}]
With anxious eye, to track his road by land.
Then did the awful Thesbite's image rise,
His highest Carmel, and his food uncouth;
The Baptist wealthy in his solitude;
And the unencumbered sons of Jonadab.[{20}]
But soon I felt the love of holy books,
The spirit beaming bright in learned lore,
Which deserts could not hear, nor silence tell.
Long was the inward strife, till ended thus:—
I saw, when men lived in the fretful world,[{25}]
They vantaged other men, but risked the while
The calmness and the pureness of their hearts.
They who retired held an uprighter port,
And raised their eyes with quiet strength towards heaven;
Yet served self only, unfraternally.[{30}]
And so, 'twixt these and those, I struck my path,
To meditate with the free solitary,
Yet to live secular, and serve mankind."
AUGUSTINE AND THE VANDALS
"The just perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart; and men of mercy are taken away, for there is none to understand; for the just man is taken away from before the face of evil."
I
I began by directing the reader's attention to
the labors of two great bishops, who restored
the faith of Christianity where it had long been
obscured. Now, I will put before him, by way
of contrast, a scene of the overthrow of[{5}]
religion,—the extinction of a candlestick,—effected, too,
by champions of the same heretical creed which
Basil and Gregory successfully resisted. It will
be found in the history of the last days of the
great Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, in Africa.[{10}]
The truth triumphed in the East by the power of
preaching; it was extirpated in the South by the
edge of the sword.
Though it may not be given us to appropriate
the prophecies of the Apocalypse to the real[{15}]
events to which they belong, yet it is impossible
to read its inspired pages, and then to turn to
the dissolution of the Roman empire, without
seeing a remarkable agreement, on the whole,
between the calamities of that period and the[{20}]
sacred prediction. There is a plain announcement
in the inspired page, of "Woe, woe, woe, to
the inhabitants of the earth"; an announcement
of "hail and fire mingled with blood," the
conflagration of "trees and green grass," the
destruction of ships, the darkening of the sun, and the[{5}]
poisoning of the rivers over a third of their course.
There is a clear prophecy of revolutions on the
face of the earth and in the structure of society.
And, on the other hand, let us observe how fully
such general foretokenings are borne out, among[{10}]
other passages of history, in the Vandalic
conquest of Africa.
The coast of Africa, between the great desert
and the Mediterranean, was one of the most
fruitful and opulent portions of the Roman world.[{15}]
The eastern extremity of it was more especially
connected with the empire, containing in it
Carthage, Hippo, and other towns, celebrated as
being sees of the Christian Church, as well as
places of civil importance. In the spring of the[{20}]
year 428, the Vandals, Arians by creed, and
barbarians by birth and disposition, crossed the
Straits of Gibraltar, and proceeded along this
fertile district, bringing with them devastation
and captivity on every side. They abandoned[{25}]
themselves to the most savage cruelties and
excesses. They pillaged, ravaged, burned,
massacred all that came in their way, sparing not even
the fruit trees, which might have afforded some
poor food to the remnant of the population, who[{30}]
had escaped from them into caves, the recesses
of the mountains, or into vaults. Twice did this
desolating pestilence sweep over the face of the
country.