Leaves From St Augustine Author:Augustine General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1886 Original Publisher: Burns and Oates Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can... more » select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: II. DEATH OF ST. MONICA. (Confess, . ix. c. 10.) As the day approached on which she (Monica) was to bid farewell to this life, which day, O Lord, Thou didst know, though we knew it not, it happened by the secret workings of Thy providence (as I believe) that she and I were standing alone at a window which looked on to the garden of the house inhabited by us. Here, by the mouth of the Tiber, after a toilsome journey, we were resting apart from the crowd with a view to continuing it by sea. We were discoursing together alone very sweetly, and, forgetting the past in our desire to grasp the future, were asking each other in the presence of the unvarying Truth, which Thou art, what that eternal life of the saints would be which eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor heart of man has imagined. But yet we gasped with the mouth of our heart after those heavenly streams of Thy fountain, the fountain of life, of which Thou art the source, in order that, drawing hence what strength we were able, we might in some way or other form a picture of this ineffable mystery. When, in our conversation, we had reached that point at which pleasure of the senses, however great, and corporeal light, however dazzling, seemed for the exceeding joy of eternal life to be unworthy not only of comparison, but even of mention, we raised ourhearts to God in still more burning love, and viewed successively all corporeal things, and heaven itself, whence sun, moon, and stars shine upon the earth. And still we rose higher by our secret contemplation, by our praise and admiration of Thy works. Th...« less