Weake she makes strong, and strong thing does increase,
Till it the pitch of highest praise exceeds.

--Edmund Spenser.

Perfect good-breeding is the result of nature and not of education;
for it may be found in a cottage, and may be missed in a palace.
'Tis the genial regard for the feeling of others that springs from
an absence of selfishness.

--Disraeli.

Can a fig tree, my brethren, yield olives, or a vine figs? neither
can salt water yield sweet.

--James 3. 12.

Heavenly Father, help me to value my thoughts, words, and deeds. If at
the close of the day, there may be one who has been wounded by my
injustice, may I be willing to make quick atonement. May I avoid the
ways and words that hurt; and not only wish rightly and work rightly,
but speak to enrich others with tenderness. Amen.




JANUARY SEVENTEENTH

John Ray died 1705.