Quotes from the Third Century

Just thought I would pass on a couple of great quotes from a Bishop in the early Church named Cyprian:

"I ask you to these facts known to the rest of our fellow bishops...Let all our people fix their minds not on death but rather on immortality; let them commit themselves to the Lord in complete faith and unflinching courage and make their confession with joy rather than in fear, knowing that in the contest the solider of God and Christ are not slain but rather win their crowns."

"This seems a cheerful world, Donatus, when I view it from this fair garden, under the shadow of these vines. But if I climbed some great mountain and looked out over the
wide lands, you know very well what I would see - brigands on the high roads, pirates
on the seas; in the amphitheaters men murdered to please applauding crowds; under all roofs misery and selfishness. It is really a bad world, Donatus, an incredibly bad world. Yet in the midst of it I have found a quiet and holy people. They have discovered a joy which is a thousand times better than any pleasures of this sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They have overcome the world. These people, Donatus, are the Christians - and I am one of them. "

Prayer and Joy are the Christians greatest weapons!