That was an unequalled moment in Augustin's life. Following immediately upon the mental crisis which had even worn out his body, he seems to be experiencing the pleasure of convalescence. He slackens, and, as he says himself, he rests. His excitement is quenched, but his faith remains as firm as ever. With a cairn and supremely lucid mind he judges his condition; he sees clearly all that he has still to do ere he becomes a thorough Christian. First, he must grow familiar with the Scripture, solve certain urgent questions--that of the soul, for example, its nature and origin--which possessed him just then. Then he must change his conduct, alter his ways of thought, and, if one may so speak, disinfect his mind still all saturated with pagan influences: a delicate work--yes, and an uneasy, at times even painful, which would take more than one day. After twenty centuries of Christianity, and in spite of our claim to understand all things, we do not yet realize very well what an abyss lies between us and paganism. When by chance we come upon pagan traces in certain primitive regions of the South of Europe, we get muddled, and attribute to Catholicism what is but a survival of old abolished customs, so far from us that we cannot recognize them any more. Augustin, on the contrary, was right next to them. When he strolled over the fields and through the woods around Cassicium, the Fauns and woodland Nymphs of the old mythology haunted his memory, and all but stood before his eyes. He could not take a walk without coming upon one of their chapels, or striking against a boundary-mark still all greasy from the oil with which the superstitious peasants had drenched it. Like himself, the old pagan land had not yet quite put on the Christ of the new era. He was like that Hermes Criophorus, who awkwardly symbolized the Saviour on the walls of the Catacombs. Even as the Bearer of Rams changed little by little into the Good Shepherd, the Bishop of Hippo emerged slowly from the rhetorician Augustin. He became aware of it during that languid autumn at Cassicium--that autumn heavy with all the rotting of summer, but which already promised the great winter peace. The yellow leaves of the chestnuts were heaped by the roadside. They fell in the brook which flowed near the baths, and the slowed water ceased to sing. Augustin strained his ears for it. His soul also was blocked, choked up by all the deposit of his passions. But he knew that soon the chant of his new life would begin in triumphal fashion, and he said over to himself the words of the psalm: _Cantate mihi canticum novum_--"Sing unto me a new song." Unfortunately for Augustin, his soul and its salvation was not his only care at Cassicium: he had a thousand others. So it shall be with him throughout his life. Till the very end he will long for solitude, for the life in God, and till the end God will charge him with the care of his brethren. This great spirit shall live above all by charity.