Elder Paul H. Dunn, Part Four: The Female Milton

For Part One, Part Two, Part Three, or even Part Five, Part Six, or Part Seven, click on the appropriate link.

Time to head back to Conference quotes again. 

Man, but I am digging on Elder Dunn's bishop! He was a definite kindred spirit.

Again, he corners poor teenage Elder Dunn in his talk, "What is a Teacher? The bishop senses this kid is still having trouble thinking, but this bishop really cares and wants to help him. 

He comes out with another bit of wisdom for Elder Dunn to remember:

The Quote

"...example sheds a genial ray 

which men are apt to borrow. 

So first improve yourself today 

and then your friends tomorrow.’” 

Never in my life have I heard this one, so I doubted I would be able to find it.

And I didn't...but in the process of not finding it, I was pleased to hear about a writer I'd never encountered before, one Lydia Sigourney, who was often referred to as 'the female Milton'.

 

The quote seems often attributed to her, but I was unable to find it in the works I have access to at the moment.

It's definitely a scriptural sort of quote though, reminding me very much of Christ's Sermon on the Mount, where He said: 

 

And why beholdest thou the mote 

that is in thy brother’s eye, 

but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, 

Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; 

and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

Thou hypocrite, 

first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; 

and then shalt thou see clearly 

to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

 

She wrote a lot of works, poetry and stories, and I'm looking forward to learning more about my third cousin seven times removed in days to come. Hoping for yet another historical kindred spirit in her.