Take up Your Cross

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.

Cyprian, a third-century martyr.