Letter 294

294. To Festus and Magnus

It is fitting, no doubt, for fathers to take forethought for their own children, for farmers to care for their plants and seeds, and for teachers to be concerned for their pupils, especially when through natural aptitude these give promise of better hopes for themselves. For the farmer rejoices in his toil when his ears of grain swell or his plants grow; pupils too gladden their teachers, and children their fathers—the one advancing toward virtue, the other toward growth. But we have over you a care so much the greater, and a hope so much the better, as godliness is better than every art, and better than all living things and fruits together; and this godliness, rooted and nourished by us in your souls while they are still tender and pure, we pray to see advance to perfect maturity and to fruits in season, your own love of learning lending its aid to our prayers. For know well that both our goodwill toward you and the cooperation of God lie stored up in your own purposes; and when these are directed aright toward what is needful, God, called upon as a fellow-worker, will be present even uncalled, and every man who loves God will come of his own accord to teach. For the eagerness of those able to teach something useful is invincible, when the souls of the learners are kept clean of all resistance.

Nor, indeed, does separation of body hinder this, since the One who fashioned us, out of the abundance of His wisdom and love for mankind, did not confine our understanding within the bounds of the body, nor the power of words to the tongue, but gave something more, even from time, to those able to help—so that they can pass on their teaching not only to those far separated in space, but indeed to those born very long after. And experience confirms this saying for us, since those who lived many years before teach the young, their teaching being preserved in writing; and we, though so far separated in body, are ever together in mind, and converse with ease, our teaching hindered neither by land nor by sea—if you have any care for your own souls.