Zadig and other tales Author:Voltaire Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: COSI-SANCTA, OR A LITTLE HARM FOR A GREAT GOOD. AN AFRICAN TALE. (1746.) — COSI-SANCTA, OR A LITTLE HARM FOR A GREAT GOOD. AN AFRICAN TALE. (1746.) ... more » T T is a maxim founded upon error that it is not allowable - to commit a small fault in order that a greater good may result. . St. Augustine was decidedly of this opinion, as it is easy to see from his mention of that little occurrence which took place in his diocese, under the procon- sulship of Septimus Aeindynus, and which is related in his work entitled " The City of God."' There lived at Hippo an old parish priest, a great founder of brotherhoods, and father-confessor to all the young damsels in the neighbourhood; who had the reputation of being a man inspired by God, because he took upon himself to utter predictions, a vocation in which he acquitted himself tolerably well. One day a young girl was brought to him named Cosi- Sancta, the most beautiful in all the province. Her father and mother were Jansenists, and they had brought her up in the strictest principles of virtue ; and of all the admirers that she had had, not one had been able to cause her so 1 The reference should have been to St. Augustine's " Treatise upon the Sermon on the Mount" (lib. i. chap. xvi.). much as a moment's distraction in the midst of her devotions. She had been for some time betrothed to a little withered old man, whose name was Capito, a councillor in the inferior court of justice at Hippo. He was a cross and crabbed little man, not without some sense of humour, but affected in his conversation, given to sneers, and fond of ill-natured ridicule; moreover, he was as jealous as a Venetian, and would not for all the world have consented to be on friendly terms with his wife's lovers. The young creature did all she could to ...« less