Page:King Alfred's Old English version of St. Augustine's Soliloquies - Hargrove - 1902.djvu/52

XLVI ALFRED'S VERSION OF THE SOLILOQUIES mean when he said in his Gospel: "The unrighteous shall go into everlasting punishment, and the righteous into everlasting life?"'

The authority of the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and holy fathers having been appealed to, the question is then asked by Reason: 'Why canst thou not believe all these?' Augustine answers: 'I say that I believe them, and also know exactly that it is all true that God has said either through himself or through them; for there are more of these happenings in the holy books than I can ever reckon. Therefore I am now ashamed that I ever doubted about it, and I acknowledge that I am very rightly convinced, and I shall always be much happier when thou dost convince me with such things than I ever was when I convinced another man. All this I knew, however, before, but I forgot it, as I fear also that I shall do this.'

Reason expresses wonder that any one should doubt the immortality of the soul, the highest and best of all God's creatures, when even the lowest and meanest creature does not utterly perish and pass away. Let the mind turn inward, and search for other examples to prove the same truth. The mind will, if discreet, say that it desires knowledge of past, present, and future things, because it knows it shall always exist. Hence 'there is no doubt that souls are immortal. Believe thine own reason, and believe Christ, the Son of God, and believe all his saints, for they were very reliable witnesses; and believe thine own soul, which always says to thee through the reason that it is in thee; it says also that it is everlasting, be cause it wishes everlasting things. It is not such a foolish creature as to seek what it can not find, or wish that which it has not, or which belongs not to it. Give up now unjust doubting. It is clear enough that thou art ever lasting, and shalt ever exist'.

1 61. 30-62. 1. 62. 7-19. 63. 32-64. 6.