Chapter 37. He is Forcibly Goaded on by the Love of Praise.
60. By these temptations, O Lord, are we daily tried; yea, unceasingly are we tried. Our daily furnace is the human tongue. And in this respect also do You command us to be continent. Give what You command, and command what You will. Regarding this matter, You know the groans of my heart, and the rivers Lamentations 3:48 of my eyes. For I am not able to ascertain how far I am clean of this plague, and I stand in great fear of my secret faults, which Your eyes perceive, though mine do not. For in other kinds of temptations I have some sort of power of examining myself; but in this, hardly any. For, both as regards the pleasures of the flesh and an idle curiosity, I see how far I have been able to hold my mind in check when I do without them, either voluntarily or by reason of their not being at hand; for then I inquire of myself how much more or less troublesome it is to me not to have them. Riches truly which are sought for in order that they may minister to some one of these three lusts, or to two, or the whole of them, if the mind be not able to see clearly whether, when it has them, it despises them, they may be cast on one side, that so it may prove itself. But if we desire to test our power of doing without praise, need we live ill, and that so flagitiously and immoderately as that every one who knows us shall detest us? What greater madness than this can be either said or conceived? But if praise both is wont and ought to be the companion of a good life and of good works, we should as little forego its companionship as a good life itself. But unless a thing be absent, I do not know whether I shall be contented or troubled at being without it.
By St. Augustine
