Page:King Alfred's Old English version of St. Augustine's Soliloquies - Hargrove - 1902.djvu/231

62.30—63.34] ''them. They all so change, however, that they pass away, and suddenly come again and return to that same beauty and to the same winsomeness for the children of men, in which they were before Adam sinned. Now thou canst perceive that no creature so fully passeth away that it cometh not again, nor so fully perisheth that it doth not become something. Now that the weakest creatures do not pass away entirely, why then supposest thou that the most blessed creature should entirely depart?''

''A. Alas! I am beset with wretched forgetfulness, so that I can not remember it as well as before. Methinks now that thou hadst explained it to me clearly enough by this one example, though thou hadst said nothing more.''

''R. Seek now in thyself the examples and the signs, and thou canst know well what thou before wouldst know, and what I explained to thee by the concrete examples. Ask thine own mind why it is so desirous and so zealous to know what was formerly, before thou wert born, or ever thy grandfather was born; and ask it also why it knoweth what is now present and what it seeth and heareth every day; or why it wisheth to know what shall be hereafter. Then I suppose it will answer thee, if it is discreet, and say that it desireth to know what was before us for the reason that it always existed since the time that God created the first man; and therefore aspireth to what it formerly was, to know what it formerly knew, although it is now so heavily weighed with the burden of the body that it can not know what it formerly knew. And I suppose that it will say to thee that it knoweth what it here seeth and heareth, because it is here in this world; and I suppose also that it will say that it wisheth to know what shall happen after our days, because it knoweth that it shall ever be.''

A. Methinks now that thou hast clearly enough said that every man's soul ever is, and ever shall be, and ever was since God first made the first man.

''R. There is no doubt that souls are immortal. Believe thine own reason, and believe Christ, the Son of God, and''