Thus, the wicked, under pressure of affliction, execrate God and blaspheme; the good, in the same affliction, offer up prayers and praises. This shows that what matters is the nature of the sufferer, not the nature of the sufferings. Stir a cesspit, and a foul stench arises; stir a perfume, and a delightful fragrance ascends. But the movement is identical.

St. Augustine, City of God, Book I, chapter 8

The City of God is still a widely read classic. It is available in many languages and always in print. It deserves to be, and not only for its historical importance as a source of a main stream of ideas about every Christian’s need in every age to work out for him- or herself the relationship between the world of political present reality and the world to come. It is still a corrective for every reader. In a world in which the small beer of political gossip had all the enticement of a modern newspaper’s front page, Augustine proposed a larger agenda. He encourages people to think big, to look up, beyond the advantage of the present moment, and to form the habit of setting what they do in the context of eternity.

From G.R. Evans’ Introduction to Bettenson’s translation of St. Augustine’s City of God