Week 51 Day 1

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Salt of the Earth

Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.

Matthew 5:13

Strive thou with studious care to find

Some good thy hands may do;

Some way to serve and bless mankind,

Console the heart, relieve the mind,

And open comforts new.

When Abraham Lincoln learned of the impending death of a friend’s fiancée, he comforted his friend by saying, “I almost feel a presentiment that the Almighty has sent your present affliction expressly for that object. . . . If she is, as you fear, to be destined for an early grave, it is indeed a great consolation to know that she is so well prepared to meet it. Her religion, which you once disliked so much, I will venture you now prize most highly.” Lincoln was saying to his friend that there was good in this horrid thing, the death of his fiancée. The good was that he might find God through it. Because of her death, he would become the salt of the earth.