Jonathan Edwards born 1703.
Denis Diderot born 1713.
Horace Walpole born 1717.
Nancy Hanks died 1818.
Chester A. Arthur, Vermont, twenty-first President
United States, born 1830.
H.R. Guy de Maupassant born 1850.
Earth gets its price for what earth gives us;
The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,
The priest has his fee who comes and shrives us,
We bargain for the graves we lie in;
At the devil's booth are all things sold,
Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;
For a cap and bells our lives we pay,
Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking;
'Tis heaven alone that is given away,
'Tis only God may be had for the asking.
--James Russell Lowell.
The free gift of God is eternal life.
--Romans 6. 23.
Gracious Father, may the world speak to me of thy gifts, and of the
peace and power which it freely offers. May I not pass by thy great
appeals, and prefer to purchase at a great cost my indolence and
dissipation. Amen.