"This is a cheerful world as I see it from my garden under the shadows of
my vines. But If I were to ascend some high mountain and look over the
wide lands, you know very well what I would see: brigands on the
highways, pirates on the sea, armies fighting, cities burning; in the
amphitheaters men murdered to please the applauding crowds; selfishness
and cruelty and misery and despair under all roofs. It is a bad world,
Donatus, an incredibly bad world. But I have discovered in the midst of
it a quiet and holy people who have learned a great secret. They are
despised and persecuted, but they care not. The are masters of their
souls. They have overcome the world. These people, Donatus, are the
Christians--and I am one of them."

This quote is from a letter to a friend speaking of a new found joy by
Saint Cyprian, a third-century martyr. 200?-258, Father of the Church,
bishop of CARTHAGE (c.248). He supported the papal view that Christians
who had apostatized under persecution should be readmitted to the
church. He was martyred in the persecution of the Roman emperor
Valerian.