_Man_, he says, _is
so full of every kind of misery that, were it not repugnant to the
Christian religion, I should venture to affirm that if evil spirits
exist at all, they have posed into human form and are now atoning for
their crimes_.[4] And true Christianity--using the word in its right
sense--also regards our existence as the consequence of sin and error.
[Footnote 1: Cf. Clem. Alex. Strom. L. iii, c, 3, p. 399.]
[Footnote 2: Augustine _de civitate Dei_., L. xi. c. 23.]
[Footnote 3: Cf. _Fragmenta de philosophia_.]
[Footnote: 4: _De admirandis naturae arcanis_; dial L. p. 35.]
If you accustom yourself to this view of life you will regulate your
expectations accordingly, and cease to look upon all its disagreeable
incidents, great and small, its sufferings, its worries, its misery,
as anything unusual or irregular; nay, you will find that everything
is as it should be, in a world where each of us pays the penalty of
existence in his own peculiar way. Amongst the evils of a penal colony
is the society of those who form it; and if the reader is worthy of
better company, he will need no words from me to remind him of what he
has to put up with at present.
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