Quod Deterius Potiori Insidiari Soleat

Are not those boys who are beaten by their preceptors, for whatever errors they commit, better than those who have no schoolmaster? And are not those who are reproved by their teachers, for all the errors they commit in the arts which they are studying, better than those who receive no such reproof? And are not those young men who have been accounted especially worthy of that natural superintendence and government, which those who are parents exercise over their children, more fortunate and better than those who have had no such protectors? And if they have not such natural protectors, do they not receive guardians as governors in a secondary rank, who are accustomed to be appointed over them out of pity for their orphan state; to fill the place of parents to them in all things that are expedient?

Let us, therefore, address our supplications to God, we who are self-convicted by our consciousness of our own sins, to chastise us rather than to abandon us; for if he abandons us, he will no longer make us his servants, who is a merciful master, but slaves of a pitiless generation: but if he chastises us in a gentle and merciful manner, as a kind ruler, he will correct our offences, sending that correcting conviction, his