By Michael Pakaluk, The Catholic Thing - St. Augustine’s conversion began, on his own telling, when, as a nineteen-year-old boy – roughly the age of a college sophomore today – he encountered a dialogue by Cicero called the Hortensius: Quite definitely it changed the direction of my mind, altered my prayers to You, O Lord, and gave me a new purpose and ambition. Suddenly all the vanity I had hoped in I saw as worthless, and with an incredible intensity of desire I longed after immortal wisdom. ...