Confessions (1900) - Page 12

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Chapter XV.—He entreats God, that whatever useful things he learned as a boy may be dedicated to Him, . . . . .	17
Chapter XVI.—He disapproves of the mode of educating youth, and he points out why wickedness is attributed to the gods by the poets,	17
Chapter XVII.—He continues on the unhappy method of training youth in literary subjects, . . . . . .	19
Chapter XVIII.—Men desire to observe the rules of learning, but neglect the eternal rules of everlasting safety, . . . .	20

BOOK SECOND

HE ADVANCES TO PUBERTY, AND INDEED TO THE EARLY PART OF THE SIXTEENTH YEAR OF HIS AGE, IN WHICH, HAVING ABANDONED HIS STUDIES, HE INDULGED IN LUSTFUL PLEASURES, AND, WITH HIS COMPANIONS, COMMITTED THEFT.


Chapter I.—He deplores the wickedness of his youth, . . . .	23
Chapter II.—Stricken with exceeding grief, he remembers the dissolute passions in which, in his sixteenth year, he used to indulge, .	23
Chapter III.—Concerning his father, a freeman of Thagaste, the assistant of his son's studies, and on the admonitions of his mother on the preservation of chastity, . . . . . . .	25
Chapter IV.—He commits theft with his companions, not urged on by poverty, but from a certain distaste for well-doing, . . .	28
Chapter V.—Concerning the motives to sin, which are not in the love of evil, but in the desire of obtaining the property of others, .	28
Chapter VI.—Why he delighted in that theft, when all things which under the appearance of good invite to vice, are true and perfect in God alone, . . . . . . . . .	30
Chapter VII.—He gives thanks to God for the remission of his sins, and reminds every one that the Supreme God may have preserved us from greater sins, . . . . . . . .	32
Chapter VIII.—In his theft he loved the company of his fellow-sinners,	33
Chapter IX.—It was a pleasure to him also to laugh when seriously deceiving others, . . . . . . . .	33
Chapter X.—With God there is true rest and life unchanging, . .	34