Saint Augustin | Page 8

first a son, Navigius, whom we shall meet later on at Milan,
and also a daughter, of whom we do not even know the name, but who
became a nun, and superior of a convent in the diocese of Hippo. For us
the features of these two other children of Monnica and Patricius are
obliterated. They are concealed by the radiance of their illustrious great
brother.
Monnica was fond of telling stories of her girlhood to her son. He has
handed down some of them to us.
She was brought up strictly, according to the system of that time. Both
her parents came of families which had been Christian, and
Catholic-Christian, for many generations. They had never been carried
away by the Donatist schism; they were people very obstinate in their
convictions--a character quite as frequent in Africa as its opposite, the
kind of Numidian or Moor, who is versatile and flighty. It is not
unimportant that Augustin came from this hard-headed race, for this it
was, with the aid of God's grace, that saved him--the energetic temper
of his will.

Still, if the faith of the young Monnica was confirmed from her earliest
years, it is not so much to the lessons of her mother that she owed it, as
to the training of an old woman-servant of whom she always spoke
with gratitude. In the family of her master, this old woman had a place
like the one which to-day in a Turkish family is held by the nurse, the
dada, who is respected by all the harem and all the household.
Doubtless she herself was born in the house and had seen all the
children born. She had carried Monnica's father on her back when he
was little, just as the Kabylian women or the Bedouin nomads carry
their babies still. She was a devoted slave, just a bit unreasonable--a
veritable housedog who in the zeal of guardianship barks more than is
necessary at the stranger who passes. She was like the negress in the
Arab houses to-day, who is often a better Muslem, more hostile to the
Christian, than her employers. The old woman in Monnica's family had
witnessed the last persecutions; she had perhaps visited the confessors
in prison; perhaps she had seen flow the blood of the martyrs. These
exciting and terrible scenes would have been graven on her memory.
What inflamed stories the old servant must have told her young
mistresses, what vital lessons of constancy and heroism! Monnica
listened to them eagerly.
Because of her great faith, this simple slave was revered as a saint by
her owners, who entrusted her with the supervision of their daughters.
She proved a stern governess, who would stand no trifling with her
rules. She prevented these girls from drinking even water except at
meals. Cruel suffering for little Africans! Thagaste is not far from the
country of thirst. But the old woman said to them:
"You drink water now because you can't get at the wine. In time to
come, when you are married and have bins and cellars of your own,
you'll turn up your nose at water, and your habit of drinking will be too
much for you."
Monnica came near fulfilling the prophecy of the honest woman. It was
before she was married. As she was very well-behaved and very
temperate, she used to be sent to the cellar to draw the wine from the
cask. Before pouring it into the flagon she would sip just a little. Being
unaccustomed to wine, she was not able to drink more; it was too
strong for her gullet. She did this, not because she liked the wine, but
from naughtiness, to play a trick on her parents who trusted her, and

also, of course, because it was prohibited. Each time she swallowed a
little more, and so it went on till she ended by finding it rather nice, and
came to drinking greedily one cup after another. One day a slave-girl,
who went with her to the cellar, began to grumble. Monnica gave her a
sharp answer. Upon this the girl called Monnica a drunkard....
Drunkard! This bitter taunt so humiliated the self-respect of the future
saint, that she got the better of her taste for drink. Augustin does not
say it was through piety she did this, but because she felt the ugliness
of such a vice.
There is a certain roughness in this story of childhood, the roughness of
ancient customs, with which is always mingled some decency or
dignity. Christianity did the work of polishing the soul of Monnica. At
the time we are dealing with, if she was already a very devout young
girl, she was far as yet from being the grand Christian that she became
afterwards.
When she married Patricius