St. Augustine was born in the year 354, at Tagaste, a small town of Numidia in Africa. His parents were of good condition, yet not very rich; his father was an idolator, but by the holy example and prudent conduct of St. Monica, his wife, he at length learned the humility and meekness of the Christian religion, and was baptized a little before his death. Augustine went to school first in his own town; then his father, who perceived Augustine's excellent genius and wonderful disposition for learning, sent him to Madoura, a neighboring city, where he studied grammar, rhetoric and poetry. When he was sixteen years old, his father made him return to Tagaste and kept him a whole year at home. During this time the young man slighting the advice of his mother, fell into lewd company, being induced to it by idleness. Towards the end of the year 370 Augustine was sent to Carthage. There he easily held the foremost place in the school of rhetoric, and applied himself to his studies with so much eagerness and pleasure, that it was with great difficulty, that he was drawn from them. But his motives were only vanity and ambition. When he once desired to read the holy scriptures, he was offended with the simplicity of the style, and swelling with pride, as if he was endued with a great genius, he could not relish their humility, or penetrate their spirit. About his nineteenth year he fell into the sect of the Manichees, in which he continued between eight and nine years. In his twentieth year, to ease his mother of the charge of his education, his father having already died, St. Augustine left Carthage, and set up a school of grammar and rhetoric at Tagaste. Here St. Monica employed all efforts, admonitions, entreaties, severity to convert her son, but all were vain. By the loss of an intimate friend, who had been for several years the companion of his studies, Augustine was afflicted so grievously, that all places and things where he had previously enjoyed him, were turned into bitter torment. Not being able any longer to bear his native country, he removed to Carthage, where time and new connections wore of his grief. At Carthage he opened a school of rhetoric, and gained great applause in the public disputations. Here St. Augustine met the Manichean bishop Faustus, from whom he expected the solution of many doubts. But he found, that Faustus was a good speaker, but said no more than the rest of the Manichees, only explained himself with greater grace and facility. He now disapproved entirely of the Manichean sect, but his prepossessions against the catholic faith hindered him from turning his enquiries on that side.

Being disgusted by the disorderly behaviour of the students at Carthage, he resolved to go to Rome. At Rome he lodged with a Manichean, merely on account of former acquaintance, and because he was not yet resolved to become a member of any other religion. His school was soon frequented by the greatest wits of that age, and none ever went from it, without being struck with admiration at his learning and parts. But finding the scholars there often unjust enough, not to pay their salaries to their masters, he grew weary of the place. It happened about this time, that deputies were sent from Milan to Symmachus, the prefect of Rome, requiring that he should sent thither some able master of rhetoric. Augustine having given proofs of his capacity, was selected by Symmachus and accordingly sent. At Milan he became acquainted with the holy bishop St. Ambrose. Augustine frequently attended his sermons. Although Augustine aimed only at gratifying his ears, and despised the matter, which the bishop treated, yet the sermons like a distilling rain insensibly made impressions on his heart, and caused the seeds of virtue to spring forth therein. In the search of truth he was still perplexed! about the origin of evil, and suffered a secret anguish in his soul, to which only God was witness. It happened in the mean time, that one Potitianus, an African, who had an honorable employment in the emperor's court, and was a very religious man, came one day to pay a visit to Augustine and his friend Alipius: and finding a book of St. Paul's epistles lying on the table, took occasion to speak to them of the life of St. Anthony, and was surprised to find that his name had been to that hour unknown to them. Potitianus also related the example of two friends of his, who by reading the life of St. Anthony, became so inflamed with the love of God, as immediately to embrace the same kind of life. The discourse of Potitianus had a powerful influence on the mind of St. Augustine. When Potitianus had departed, he withdrew from his friend Alipius, threw himself down under a fig-tree, and there gave free vent to a torrent of tears. Whilst thus weeping with most bitter contrition of heart for his past life, he on a sudden heard as it were the voice of a child singing the words: "Tolle, lege, Tolle, lege," that is, take up and read, take up and read. He interpreted the voice to be nothing less than a divine admonition, remembering that St. Anthony was converted from the world to a life of retirement, by hearing an oracle of the gospel read. He immediately rose up, suppressed his tears, and returned to look for the book of St. Paul s epistle's. He opened it, and read in silence the following words on which he first cast his eyes: "Not in revelling and drunkenness: not in impurities, strifes and envy: but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provisions for the flesh in its concupiscences. (Rom. xiii. 18.) He would read no farther, all his former hesitation was dispelled, all his doubts solved. He told Alipius what had passed in his soul; they immediately went in, and told the good news to St. Monica, who had followed her son into Italy, and came to him at Milan.

The conversion of St. Augustine happened in the year 386, the thirty second of his age. At the same time he determined to quit his school and profession of teaching rhetoric. He retired to a country-house in the neighborhood of Milan, where he wholly employed himself in prayer and study. Here he strenuously labored, by the practice of austere penance, by the strictest watchfulness over his heart and senses, and by most fervent and humble prayer to purify his affections, to disengage them perfectly from the inordinate love of creatures, and preparing himself for the grace of leading a new life in Christ, and becoming in him a new creature. In the beginning of the lent of 387 Augustine returned to Milan to prepare himself for baptism, which he received from St. Ambrose on Easter-eve of the same year. Soon after, desiring to devote himself entirely to the divine service in a life of solitude, he resolved to return into Africa. On his way thither, he lost his holy mother, St. Monica, who died in the seaport of Ostia. He landed at Carthage about September 388, made only a very short stay, making all possible haste to retire to his house in the country, with certain devout friends. There he lived almost three years entirely disengaged from all temporal concerns, serving God in fasting, prayer, good works, meditating upon His law, day and night, and instructing others by his discourses and books. In the house all things were common, and were distributed according to every one's necessities, no one among them having the least thing at his own disposal. The religious order of the hermits of St. Augustine dates its foundation from this epoch in 388. When St. Augustine was ordained priest and removed to Hippo, many of his religious brethren followed thither, and with the assistance of his bishop Valerius, he founded there a new monastery. Valerius, who was a Greek and had moreover an impediment in speaking, appointed Augustine to preach to the people in his own presence. Augustine preached constantly, sometimes every day, and sometimes twice on the same day. He did not desist even when he was so weak as to be scarce able to speak; but he seemed to gather strength in preaching and his ardor for the salvation of souls made him forget the pains of sickness. Valerius finding himself sinking under the weight of his years and infirmities, had Augustine chosen as his coadjutor. Although the saint protested, he was at length compelled to acquiesce in the will of heaven and was consecrated in the year 395. Valerius died the following year. In this new dignity the saint was obliged to live in the episcopal house; but he engaged all the priests, deacons and subdeacons that lived with him, to renounce all property, and to engage themselves to embrace the rule, which he established there. The saint's clothes and furniture were modest. He exercised hospitality, but his table was frugal. At table he loved rather reading or literary conferences than secular conversation, and to warn his guests to shun detraction, he had the following distich written upon his table:

This board allows no vile detractor place,
Whose tongue will charge the absent with disgrace.

He employed whatever could be spared of the revenues of his church in relieving the poor; he even sometimes melted down part of the sacred vessels to redeem captives. He prevailed upon his flock to establish the custom of clothing all the poor of each parish once a year.

Augustine always trembled at the danger of secret complacency, or vain glory amidst the praise of others. Sincere humility made him love, at every turn, to confess his ignorance. Nothing gave him greater confusion and mortification than the esteem of others, or their opinion of his learning. From this sincere humility the saint wrote his Confessions, a book in which he divulges all the sins of his youth, and in which he shows the ways, by which the divine mercy led him to repentance and conversion.

Augustine was indefatigable in refuting the heretics, who were at his time very numerous in the northern part of Africa. Indeed at Hippo, the Donatists were before the arrival of the saint so numerous that the Catholics formed but a small minority. By the learning and indefatigable zeal of Augustine, supported by the sanctity of his life, the catholics began to gain ground exceedingly. At this the Donatists were so much exasperated, that some of them proposed to kill him, and made even several attempts at performing their desire, all of which, however, were foiled. He wrote many works both against these heretics, as also against the Manichees, the Pelagians, the Jews and the pagans.

About the year 428 northern Africa was visited by a terrible scourge. The Vandals under Genseric with an army of 80,000 men sailed from Spain to Africa. Possidius, Bishop of Calama, an eye witness, describes the dreadful ravages by which the Vandals filled with horror and desolation all those rich provinces. He saw the cities in ruin, the houses in the country razed to the ground, the inhabitants either being slain or having fled. Within a short time there were only three cities remaining, that were not in ruins: Carthage, Hippo and Cirta. About the end of May in the year 430 the Vandals appeared before Hippo. The siege continued fourteen months. Augustine did all in ms power to alleviate the miseries of the besieged, he consoled the dying, tended the wounded and fed the poor. He spoke much to his people on resignation to the divine will under all the scourges which their sins deserved, and the necessity of averting the divine anger by sincere penance. In the third month of the siege the saint was seized with a fever and from the first moments of his illness doubted not, but that it was a summons of God who called him to Himself. He ordered the penitential psalms of David to be written out, and hung in tablets upon the wall by his bed; and as he there lay sick, he read them with abundance of tears. Not to be interrupted in these devotions, he desired about ten days before his death, that no one should come to him, except at those times when either the physicians came to visit him, or his food was brought to him. This was constantly observed, and all the rest of his time was spent in prayer. Though the strength of his body daily and hourly declined, yet his senses and intellectual faculties continued sound to the last. He calmly resigned his spirits into the hands of God, on the 28th of August, 430. The body of the saint was brought to Sardinia, and thence to Pavia, where they now rest in the church named after him, St. Augustine.

PRAYER OF THE CHURCH. Attend to our supplications, O Almighty God, and by the intercession of blessed Augustine, Thy confessor and bishop, graciously grant the effect of Thy wonted mercy to those, to whom Thou grantest confidence to hope for forgiveness. Through our Lord.

EPISTLE, (ii. Tim. iv. 1 - 8.) Dearly Beloved: I charge thee before God and Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living and the dead, by His coming, and His kingdom: Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine. For there shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine: but according to their own desires they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears, and will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables. Be thou vigilant, labor in all things, do the work of an evangelist, fulfil thy ministry. Be sober. For I am even now ready to be sacrificed: and the time of my dissolution is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. As to the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord the just judge will render to me in that day: and not only to me, but to them also that love His coming.