Hear, O God. Alas, for man's sin! So saith man, and Thou pitiest
him; for Thou madest him, but sin in him Thou madest not. Who remindeth
me of the sins of my infancy? for in Thy sight none is pure from sin,
not even the infant whose life is but a day upon the earth. Who remindeth
me? doth not each little infant, in whom I see what of myself I remember
not? What then was my sin? was it that I hung upon the breast and
cried? for should I now so do for food suitable to my age, justly
should I be laughed at and reproved. What I then did was worthy reproof;
but since I could not understand reproof, custom and reason forbade
me to be reproved. For those habits, when grown, we root out and cast
away. Now no man, though he prunes, wittingly casts away what is good.
Or was it then good, even for a while, to cry for what, if given,
would hurt? bitterly to resent, that persons free, and its own elders,
yea, the very authors of its birth, served it not? that many besides,
wiser than it, obeyed not the nod of its good pleasure? to do its
best to strike and hurt, because commands were not obeyed, which had
been obeyed to its hurt? The weakness then of infant limbs, not its
will, is its innocence. Myself have seen and known even a baby envious;
it could not speak, yet it turned pale and looked bitterly on its
foster-brother. Who knows not this? Mothers and nurses tell you that
they allay these things by I know not what remedies. Is that too innocence,
when the fountain of milk is flowing in rich abundance, not to endure
one to share it, though in extremest need, and whose very life as
yet depends thereon? We bear gently with all this, not as being no
or slight evils, but because they will disappear as years increase;
for, though tolerated now, the very same tempers are utterly intolerable
when found in riper years.