MANNER OF LIFE IN LATER PERIOD
swallow a camel. All proud and evil-disposed men place their prudence in finding fault with and blaming others; and all generous and truly Christian souls place their prudence in judging all things according to circumstances, and hence in excusing such faults as may have arisen from weakness, and in inveighing against such evils as may have been done on purpose. The same also happens in a general way in that which concerns governments: faults, numberless faults may be found in all, so that volumes might be filled with them. Should I undertake to make known all the mistakes of which I have heard, and which I know from my own experience to have happened in England and Holland to the detriment of justice and the public good, I believe I might fill a whole book with lamentations; when, nevertheless, those governments, together with our own in Sweden, are the very best in Europe, as every inhabitant, notwithstanding all the shortcomings which happen there, is safe in his life and property, and no one is a slave, but they are all free men. The Honorable Houses of the Diet will allow me to go still higher: if in this world there should exist a heavenly government, consisting of men who
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