Similarly it
unfitted me for the labour of the fields, so that I threatened to become a
useless burden upon my parents, who were peasant-folk. To avoid this they
determined to make a monk of me; they offered me to God because they found
me unfitted for the service of man; and, poor, simple, self-deluded folk,
they accounted that in doing so they did a good and pious thing.
I showed aptitude in learning; I became interested in the things I studied;
I was absorbed by them in fact, and never gave a thought to the future; I
submitted without question to the wishes of my parents, and before I
awakened to a sense of what was done and what I was, myself, I was in
orders."
He sank his voice impressively as he concluded--"For ten years thereafter,
Agostino, I wore a hair-shirt day and night, and for girdle a knotted
length of whip-cord in which were embedded thorns that stung and chafed me
and tore my body. For ten years, then, I never knew bodily ease or proper
rest at night. Only thus could I bring into subjection my rebellious
flesh, and save myself from the way of ordinary men which to me must have
been a path of sacrilege and sin. I was devout. Had I not been devout and
strong in my devotion I could never have endured what I was forced to
endure as the alternative to damnation, because without consideration for
my nature I had been ordained a priest.
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