The Kiss

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  “Ryabovitch pulled the bed-clothes over his head, curled himself up in bed, and tried to gather together the floating images in his mind and to combine them into one whole. But nothing came of it. He soon fell asleep, and his last thought was that someone had caressed him and made him happy—that something extraordinary, foolish, but joyful and delightful, had come into his life. The thought did not leave him even in his sleep. When he woke up the sensations of oil on his neck and the chill of peppermint about his lips had gone, but joy flooded his heart just as the day before.” The Kiss By Anton Chekhov (1860–1904)

The potency of Free Will

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"A man's free will cannot cure him even of a toothache or a sore finger, and yet he madly thinks it is in his power to cure his soul of sin. Actually, the greatest judgment which God Himself can in this present life inflict upon a man is to leave that man in the hand of his own boasted free will."

-- Augustus Toplady (1749-1778)

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