--Ralph Waldo Emerson.

The practical weakness of the vast mass of modern pity for the poor
and the oppressed is precisely that it is merely pity; the pity is
pitiful but not respectful. Men feel that the cruelty to the poor is
a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is injustice
to equals; nay, it is treachery to comrades.

--G.K. Chesterton.

Be ye all like-minded, compassionate, loving as brethren,
tender-hearted, humble-minded: not rendering evil for evil, or
reviling for reviling; but contrariwise blessing.

--1 Peter 3. 8, 9.

God of justice, may I pause to remember that while I may do a mean act
and keep it hidden from others, I cannot keep it hidden from myself,
nor from thee. Help me to have a nobler sense of the quality of life,
and less anxiety for the quantity, that I may avoid harshness and
selfishness, and be given to tenderness and justice. Amen.




JANUARY ELEVENTH

Alexander Hamilton born 1757.