Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/630

615 idea of the benefits of a holy life at times, he was led away into sin, even so as to glory in it; and his father, who cared little for those things, and only wished him to be learned and eloquent, was satisfied; but Monica grieved to see the increasing strength of his passions, wept and prayed for him, that he might not be wholly lost. Having been led away by the errors of the Manichees, and still continuing to sin without fear, she for nine years attempted to turn him from his evil ways, not only by remonstrances, but by fervent prayers to the Almighty. Her husband, after embracing the Christian faith, had left her a widow, and her darling son was now the only object of her solicitude.

She entreated a bishop to reason him out of his errors, and he was a person not backward to attempt this, when he found a docile subject. "But your son," said he, "is too much elated at present, and carried away with the pleasing novelty of his error, to regard any arguments, as appears by the pleasure he takes in puzzling many ignorant persons with his captious questions. Let him alone; only continue praying to the Lord for him; he will in the course of his study, discover his error." All this did not satisfy the anxious parent; with floods of tears she persisted in her request. When at last he, a little out of temper, on account of her importunity, said, "Be gone, good woman; it is not possible a child of such tears should perish."

For years did this amiable mother bear up against the sorrows she felt so severely, attentive to her own duties as a mother and a christian, and look forward with hope that this son, whom she nursed with so much care in illness would at last become sensible of his eternal