it was true happiness._
For neither do we say that certain Christian emperors were therefore
happy because they ruled a long time, or, dying a peaceful death,
left their sons to succeed them in the empire, or subdued the
enemies of the republic, or were able both to guard against and to
suppress the attempt of hostile citizens rising against them. These
and other gifts or comforts of this sorrowful life even certain
worshippers of demons have merited to receive, who do not belong to
the kingdom of God to which these belong; and this is to be traced to
the mercy of God, who would not have those who believe in Him desire
such things as the highest good. But we say that they are happy if
they rule justly; if they are not lifted up amid the praises of those
who pay them sublime honours, and the obsequiousness of those who
salute them with an excessive humility, but remember that they are
men; if they make their power the handmaid of His majesty by using
it for the greatest possible extension of His worship; if they fear,
love, worship God; if more than their own they love that kingdom
in which they are not afraid to have partners; if they are slow to
punish, ready to pardon; if they apply that punishment as necessary
to government and defence of the republic, and not in order to
gratify their own enmity; if they grant pardon, not that iniquity may
go unpunished, but with the hope that the transgressor may amend his
ways; if they compensate with the lenity of mercy and the liberality
of benevolence for whatever severity they may be compelled to
decree; if their luxury is as much restrained as it might have been
unrestrained; if they prefer to govern depraved desires rather than
any nation whatever; and if they do all these things, not through
ardent desire of empty glory, but through love of eternal felicity,
not neglecting to offer to the true God, who is their God, for their
sins, the sacrifices of humility, contrition, and prayer. Such
Christian emperors, we say, are happy in the present time by hope,
and are destined to be so in the enjoyment of the reality itself,
when that which we wait for shall have arrived.