the enthusiast and the man of the world, could all find acceptance here, and there was laid on no one more than he was able and willing to bear." The question as to the secret of the fascination that Manichæism was able to exercise even over the most intelligent Western minds, may receive a more concrete answer from the autobiographical account of Augustin’s own relations to the party.  What was it that attracted and enthralled, for nine years, him who was to become the greatest theologian of the age?  In his Confessions (Book III. ch. 6) he gives this impassioned account of his first connection with Manichæism:  "Therefore I fell among men proudly railing, very carnal and voluble, in whose mouth were the snares of the devil—the bird lime being composed of a mixture of the syllables of Thy Name, and of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, the Comforter.  These names departed not out of their mouths, but so far 27 forth as the sound and clatter of the tongue; for the heart was empty of truth.  Still they cried ‘Truth, Truth,’ and spoke much about it to me, yet it was not in them, but they spake falsely not of Thee only—who, verily art the Truth—but also of the elements of this world, Thy creatures… O Truth, Truth! how inwardly even then did the marrow of my soul pant after Thee, when they frequently and in a multiplicity of ways, and in numerous and huge books, sounded out Thy Name to me, though it was but a voice.  And these were the dishes in which to me, hungering for Thee, they, instead of Thee, served up the sun and the moon, Thy beauteous works—but yet Thy works, not Thyself, nay, nor Thy first works…Woe, woe, by what steps was I dragged down to the depths of hell!—toiling and turmoiling through want of Truth, when I sought after Thee, my God,—to Thee I confess it, who hadst mercy on me when I had not yet confessed, sought after Thee not according to the understanding of the mind in which Thou desiredst that I should excel the beasts, but according to the sense of the flesh." 38 The Relation of Manichæism to Christianity.