The Life of Saint Monica

								

home late, she accepted humbly the correction that awaited her, for
she knew that she had disobeyed--although unintentionally--her
nurse's orders.
Monica had been wilfully disobedient once, and all her life long she
would never forget the lesson her disobedience had taught her. It was
a rule of her old nurse that she should take nothing to drink between
meals, even in the hot days of summer in that sultry climate. If she
had not courage to bear so slight a mortification as that, the old
woman would argue, it would go ill with her in the greater trials of
life. Monica had become used to the habit, but when she was old
enough to begin to learn the duties of housekeeping her mother had
desired that she should go every day to the cellar to draw the wine
for the midday meal. A maid-servant went with her to carry the
flagon, and the child, feeling delightfully important, filled and
refilled the little cup which was used to draw the wine from the cask
and emptied it carefully into the wine-jar. When all was finished, a
few drops remaining in the cup, a spirit of mischief took sudden
possession of Monica, and she drained it off, making a wry face as
she did so at the strange taste. The maid-servant laughed, and
continued to laugh when the performance was repeated the next day and
the day after. The strange taste became gradually less strange and
less unpleasant to the young girl; daily a few drops were added,
until at last, scarcely thinking what she did, she would drink nearly
the fill of the little cup, while the servant laughed as of old. But
Monica was quick and intelligent, and was learning her household
duties well. Finding one day that a piece of work which fell to the
lot of the maid who went with her to the wine-cellar was very badly
done, she reproved her severely. The woman turned on her young
mistress angrily.
"It is not for a wine-bibber like you to find fault with me," she
retorted.
Monica stood horrified. The woman's insolent word had torn the veil
from her eyes. Whither was she drifting? Into what depths might that
one act of disobedience so lightly committed have led her had not God
in His mercy intervened? She never touched wine for the rest of her
life unless largely diluted with water. God had taught her that "he
who despises small things shall fall by little and little," and
Monica had learnt her lesson. She had learnt to distrust herself, and
self-distrust makes one marvellously gentle with others; she had
learnt, too, to put her trust in God, and trust in God makes one
marvellously strong. She had been taught to love the poor and the
suffering, and to serve them at her own expense and inconvenience,
and the service of others makes one unselfish. God had work for
Monica to do in His world, as He has for us all if we will only do
it, and He had given her what was needful for her task.
That night on the way to her chamber, as the young girl passed the