A prayer

Lord, behold our family here assembled. We thank Thee for
this place in which we dwell; for the love that unites us; for
the peace accorded us this day; for the hope with which we
expect the morrow; for the health, the work, the food, and the
bright skies that make our lives delightful; for our friends
in all parts of the earth, and our friendly helpers in this
foreign isle [Samoa]... Give us courage, gaiety, and the quiet
mind. Spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies. Bless
us, if it may be, in all our innocent endeavors. If it may not
be, give us the strength to encounter that which is to come,
that we be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate
in wrath, and in all changes of fortune and down to the gates
of death, loyal and loving to one another.
... Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)