Chapter 26

And so Augustin forgot his sufferings and his human disappointments in the thought that, in spite of all, the Church is eternal. The City of God gathered in the wreckage of the earthly city: "The Goth cannot capture what Christ protects"--_Non tollit Gothus quod custodit Christus_. And as his sufferings increased, he turned all his thoughts on this unending City, "where we rest, where we see, where we love," where we find again all the beloved ones who have gone away. All--he called them all in this supreme moment: Monnica, Adeodatus, and her who had nearly lost herself for him, and all those he had held dear....

On the fifth day of the calends of September, Augustin, the bishop, was very low. They were praying for him in the churches at Hippo, and especially in the Basilica of Peace, where he had preached and worked for others so long. Possidius of Guelma was in the bishop's room, and the priests and monks. They sent up their prayers with those of the dying man. And no doubt they sang for the last time before him one of those liturgical chants which long ago at Milan had touched him even to tears, and now, since the siege, in the panic caused by the Barbarians, they dared not sing any more. Augustin, guarding himself even now against the too poignant sweetness of the melody, attended only to the sense of the words. And he said:

"My soul thirsts after the living God. When shall I appear before His face?"

Or again:

"He Who is Life has come down into this world. He has suffered our death, and He has caused it to die by the fullness of His life.... Life has come down to you--and will you not ascend towards Him and live?..."

He was passing into Life and into Glory. He was going very quietly, amid the chanting of hymns and the murmur of prayers.... Little by little his eyes were veiled, the lines of his face became rigid. His lips moved no more. Possidius, the faithful disciple, bent over him. Like a patriarch of the Scriptures, Augustin of Thagaste "slept with his fathers."...

* * * * *

And now, whatever may be the worth of this book, which has been planned and carried out in a spirit of veneration and love for the saint, for the great heart and the great intellect that Augustin was, for this unique type of the Christian, the most perfect and the most admirable perhaps that has ever been seen--the author can only repeat in all humility what was said fifteen hundred years ago by the Bishop of Guelma, Augustin's first biographer:

"I do desire of the charity of those into whose hands this work shall fall, to join with me in thanksgiving and blessing to Our Lord, Who has inspired me to make known this life to those present and those absent, and has given me the strength to do it. Pray for me and with me, that I may try here below to follow in the steps of this peerless man, whom, by God's goodness, I have had the happiness of living with for such a long time...."

THE END