The Life of Saint Monica

								

and even striking everybody who came in his way, she would look at
him with gentle eyes that showed neither fear nor anger. She never
answered sharply, even though his rude words wounded her cruelly. He
had once raised his hand to strike her, but he had not dared;
something--he did not know what--withheld him.
Later, when his anger had subsided, and he was perhaps a little
ashamed of his violence, she would meet him with an affectionate
smile, forgiving and forgetting all. Only if he spoke himself, and,
touched at her generous forbearance, tried shamefacedly to make
amends for his treatment of her, would she gently explain her
conduct. More often she said nothing, knowing that actions speak more
loudly than words. As her greatest biographer says of her: "She spoke
little, preached not at all, loved much, and prayed unceasingly."
When the young wives of her acquaintance, married like herself to
pagan husbands, complained of the insults and even blows which they
had to bear, "Are you sure your own tongue is not to blame?" she
would ask them laughingly; and then with ready sympathy would do all
she could to help and comfort and advise. They would ask her secret,
for everyone knew that, in spite of the violence of Patricius's
temper, he treated her with something that almost approached respect.
Then she would bid them be patient, and love and pray, and meet
harshness with gentleness, and abuse with silence. And when they
sometimes answered that it would seem weak to knock under in such a
fashion, Monica would ask them if they thought it needed more
strength to speak or to be silent when provoked, and which was
easier, to smile or to sulk when insulted? Many homes were happier in
consequence, for Monica had a particular gift for making peace, and
even as a child had settled the quarrels of her young companions to
everybody's satisfaction.
To the outside world Patricius's young wife seemed contented and
happy. She managed her affairs well, people said, and no one but God
knew of the suffering that was her secret and His. Brought up in the
peace and piety of a Christian family, she had had no idea of the
miseries of paganism. Now she had ample opportunity to study the
effects of unchecked selfishness and of uncontrolled passions; to see
how low human nature, unrestrained by faith and love, could fall.
Her mother-in-law treated her with suspicion and dislike, for the
slaves, never weary of inventing fresh stories against her,
misrepresented all her actions to their mistress. Monica did not seem
to notice unkindness, repaying the many insults she received with
little services tactfully rendered, but she felt it deeply.
"They do not know," she would say to herself, and pray for them all
the more earnestly, offering her sufferings for these poor souls who
were so far from the peace of Christ. How was the light to come to
them if not through her? How could they learn to love Christ unless