MADAME FOURCHAMBAULT. You? I should like to knowFOURCHAMBAULT. He's a fine fellow of our own set, who loves Blanche, and whom she loves if I'm not mistaken.

MADAME FOURCHAMBAULT. You are entirely mistaken. You mean Victor Chauvet, Monsieur Bernard's clerk?

FOURCHAMBAULT. His right arm, rather. His alter ego.

MADAME FOURCHAMBAULT. Blanche did think of him at one time. But her fancy was just a morning mist, which I easily dispelled. She has forgotten all about him, and I advise you to follow her example.

FOURCHAMBAULT. What fault can you find with this young

man?

MADAME FOURCHAMBAULT. Nothing and everything. Even his name is absurd. I never would have consented to be called Madame Chauvet, and Blanche is as proud as I was. But that is only a detail; the truth is, I won't have her marry a clerk. FOURCHAMBAULT. You won't have! You won't have! But there are two of us.

MADAME FOURCHAMBAULT. Are you going to portion Blanche? FOURCHAMBAULT. I? No.

MADAME FOURCHAMBAULT. Then you see there are not two of us. As I am going to portion her, it is my privilege to choose my son-in-law.

FOURCHAMBAULT. And mine to refuse him. I tell you I won't have your little baron at any price.

MADAME FOURCHAMBAULT. Now it is your turn. What fault can you find with him, except his title?

FOURCHAMBAULT. He's fast, a gambler, worn out by dis

sipation.

MADAME FOURCHAMBAULT. Blanche likes him just as he is. FOURCHAMBAULT. Heavens! He's not even handsome.

MADAME FOURCHAMBAULT. What does that matter? Have n't I been the happiest of wives?

FOURCHAMBAULT. What? One word is as good as a hundred. I won't have him. Blanche need not take Chauvet, but she shan't marry Rastiboulois either. That's all I have to say. MADAME FOURCHAMBAULT. But, Monsieur — FOURCHAMBAULT. That's all I have to say.

[He goes out.]

SAINT AUGUSTINE.

AUGUSTINE (AURELIUS AUGUSTINUS), SAINT, the greatest of the Latin Fathers, was born at Tagasta, in Numidia, Africa, November 13, A.D. 354, and died at Hippo, near Carthage, where he was bishop, August 28, A.D. 430. His father, Patricius, was a prominent and wealthy citizen of Tagasta, and a Pagan; his mother, Monica, was an earnest and devoted Christian. Augustine was intended by his father as a "Rhetorician," or, as we would say, a 66 Professor," "and received the best education which the country and age afforded. His acquaintance with the Latin writers at least with Cicero and the poets-was thorough; his knowledge of Greek was apparently about equivalent to that of an ordinary college professor in our time.

Augustine was a voluminous writer. His extant works in the Benedictine edition (Paris, 1679-1700) fill eleven folio volumes. They were reprinted in a more compact form (1836-38) in twentytwo half volumes. An adequate translation into English of the most important of them is contained in the "Library of the Fathers.” Many of them relate to the religious polemics of the age. But several are of permanent value. Upon the treatise on "The Trinity," in fifteen books, he was occupied at intervals for nearly thirty years. The greatest of his works, in a theological point of view, is "The City of God" (" De Civitate Dei”), which was the main work of the last thirteen years of his life.

FROM ST. AUGUSTINE'S "CONFESSIONS."

HIS LIVING IDLE AT HOME CONTRIBUTED TO HIS SINS, FROM WHICH HIS HOLY MOTHER ENDEAVORED TO DIVERT HIM.

Now for that year my studies were intermitted, I being called home from Madaura, in which neighboring city I had been for a while applied to learning and oratory, and the expenses of my studying farther from home at Carthage, being in the mean time provided by the resolution of my father

which went beyond his wealth, he being a citizen of Tagaste, of a very small estate. To whom am I relating these things? Not to thee, O my God, but in thy presence, to my fellowmortals, of the same human kind as I am, how small soever a part of them it may be which shall light upon these my writings and to what end do I do this? But that both I and they who read this may reflect from how profound a depth we must still be crying to thee. And what is nearer to thy ears than a confessing heart and a life of faith? For who did not then highly commend my father, for laying out in behalf of his son, even beyond the strength of his estate, which was necessary for the carrying on his studies at that great distance from home; whereas many citizens, far more wealthy than he, did no such thing for their children; whilst in the mean time this same father took no care of my growing up to thee, or of my being. chaste, provided I was but eloquent [disertus] or rather [desertus] forsaken and uncultivated of thee, who art the one true and good Lord of thy field my heart.

But when in that sixteenth year of my age I began to live idly at home with my parents, whilst domestic necessities caused a vacation from school, the briers of lust grew over my head, and there was no hand to root them up. Nay, when that father of mine saw me in the Bagnio now growing towards man, and perceived in me the unquiet motions of youth, as if from hence he were big with hopes of grandchildren, he related it to my mother with joy; intoxicated with the generality of the world, by the fumes of the invisible wine of their own. perverse will, whilst forgetting thee their Creator, and loving thy creature instead of thee, they stoop down to rejoice in these lowest of things. But in my mother's breast thou hadst already begun thy temple, and the foundation of thy holy habitation; for my father was as yet only a Catechumen, and that but of late. She therefore, upon hearing it, was seized with fear and trembling; being concerned for me, though I was not baptized, lest I should stray into those crooked ways in which worldings walk, who turn not their face but their back upon thee.

Alas! and dare I say that thou wert silent, O my God, when I was wandering still farther from thee? And wast thou silent indeed? And whose then but thine were those words, which, by my mother, thy faithful servant, thou didst sing in my ears, though no part of it descended into my heart to perform it?

For she desired, and I remember how she secretly admonished me with great solicitude, to keep myself pure from women, and above all to take care of defiling any one's wife; which seemed to me to be but the admonitions of a woman, which I should be ashamed to obey; but they were thy admonitions, and I knew it not; and I supposed thee to be silent whilst she spoke, whereas by her thou didst speak to me and in her wast despised by me, by me her son, the son of thy handmaid thy servant, Psalm 115. But I knew it not, and rushed on headlong with so much blindness, that amongst my equals I was ashamed of being less filthy than others; and when I heard them bragging of their flagitious actions, and boasting so much the more by how much the more beastly they were, I had a mind to do the like, not only for the pleasure of it, but that I might be praised for it.

Is there anything but vice that is worthy of reproach? Yet I became more vicious to avoid reproach; and when nothing came in my way, by committing which I might equal the most wicked, I pretended to have done what I had not done, lest I should be esteemed more vile by how much I was more chaste. Behold with what companions I was walking in the streets of Babylon; and I wallowed in the mire thereof, as if it were spices and precious perfumes, and that in the very midst of it, the invisible enemy trod me down and seduced me, because I was willing to be seduced: neither did that mother of my flesh (who was escaped out of the midst of Babylon, but walked yet with a slow pace in the skirts thereof), as she admonished me to be chaste, so take care to restrain that lust (which her husband had discovered to her in me, and which she knew to be so infectious for the present and dangerous for the future) within the bounds of conjugal affection, if it could not otherwise be tured: she did not care for this method, for fear my hope should be spoiled by the fetters of a wife; not that hope of the world to come which my mother had in thee, but the hope of my proficiency in learning, upon which both my parents were too much intent: he because he scarce thought at all of thee; and of me nothing but mere empty vanities; and she, because she supposed that those usual studies of sciences would be no indrance, but rather some help towards the coming to thee. or so I conjecture, recollecting as well as I can the manners f my parents. Then also were the reins let loose to spend my time in play, beyond what a due severity would allow, which gave occasion to my being more dissolute in various inclina

tions; and in them all there was a mist intercepting, O my God, from me the serenity of thy truth, and my iniquities proceeded, as it were, from the fat, Psalm 72, v. 7.

HE CONFESSES A THEFT OF HIS YOUTH DONE OUT OF MERE WANTONNESS.

THY law, O Lord, punisheth theft, and a law written in the hearts of men, which even iniquity itself cannot blot out. For what thief is willing to have another steal from him? For even he that is rich will not endure another stealing for want. Yet I had a mind to commit theft, and I committed it, not for want or need, but loathing to be honest and longing to sin; for I stole that of which I had plenty, and much better. Neither was I fond of enjoying the things that I stole, but only fond of the theft and the sin. There was a pear-tree near our vineyard, loaded with fruit, which were neither tempting for their beauty nor their taste. To shake off and carry away the fruit of this tree, a company of wicked youths of us went late at night, having, according to a vicious custom, been playing till then in the yards; and thence we carried great loads, not for our eating, but even to be cast to the hogs; and if we tasted any of them, the only pleasure therein was, because we were doing what we should not do.

Behold my heart, O my God, behold my heart, of which thou hast had pity when it was in the midst of the bottomless pit. Behold, let my heart now tell thee what it was it then sought. That I might even be wicked without cause, and have nothing to tempt me to evil, but the ugly evil itself. And this I loved; I loved to perish, I loved to be faulty; not the thing in which I was faulty, but the very faultiness I loved. Oh! filthy soul, and falling from thy firmament to its utter ruin; affecting not something disgraceful, but disgrace itself.

N. B. After his return home to Africa he made ample restitution for those pears he had stolen.

THAT MEN SIN NOT WITHOUT SOME APPEARANCE OR PRETENCE OF GOOD.

THERE is a tempting appearance in beautiful bodies, in gold, and silver, and the rest. And in the sense of the touch there