The Life of Saint Monica

								

place where she had sat with her grandmother earlier in the day, she
paused a moment and looked out between the tall pillars into the
starlit night, where the palm-trees stood like dark shadows against
the deep, deep blue of the sky. She clasped her hands, and her lips
moved in prayer. "Oh God," she murmured, "to suffer for Thee and for
Thy Faith!" God heard the whispered prayer, and answered it later.
There is a living martyrdom as painful and as bitter as death, and
Monica was called to taste it.

CHAPTER II
HOW ST. MONICA LIVED IN THE PAGAN HOUSEHOLD OF HER HUSBAND PATRICIUS
Although there were many Christians in Roman Africa, pagan manners
and customs still survived in many of her cities. The people clung to
their games in the circus, the cruel and bloody combats of the arena,
which, though forbidden by Constantine, were still winked at by
provincial governors. They scarcely pretended to believe in their
religion, but they held to the old pagan festivals, which enabled
them to enjoy themselves without restraint under pretence of
honouring the gods. The paganism of the fourth century, with its
motto, "Let us eat, drink, and be merry," imposed no self-denial; it
was therefore bound to be popular.
But unrestrained human nature is a dangerous thing. If men are
content to live as the beasts that perish, they fall as far below
their level as God meant them to rise above it, and the Roman Empire
was falling to pieces through its own corruption. In Africa the
worship of the old Punic gods, to whom living children used to be
offered in sacrifice, had still its votaries, and priests of Saturn
and Astarte, with their long hair and painted faces and scarlet
robes, were still to be met dancing madly in procession through the
streets of Carthage.
The various heretical sects had their preachers everywhere,
proclaiming that there were much easier ways of serving Christ than
that taught by the Catholic Church. It was hard for the Christian
bishops to keep their flocks untainted, for there were enemies on
every side.
VVhen Monica was twenty-two years old her parents gave her in
marriage to a citizen of Tagaste called Patricius. He held a good
position in the town, for he belonged to a family which, though poor,
was noble. Monica knew little of her future husband, save that he was
nearly twice her age and a pagan, but it was the custom for parents
to arrange all such matters, and she had only to obey.
A little surprise was perhaps felt in Tagaste that such good
Christians should choose a pagan husband for their beautiful
daughter, but it was found impossible to shake their hopeful views
for the future. When it was objected that Patricius was well known
for his violent temper even amongst his own associates, they answered
that he would learn gentleness when he became a Christian. That
things might go hard with their daughter in the meantime they did not
seem to foresee.