Sapphire. A variety of native corundum or aluminum sesquioxide. as the name of a gem the term is restricted to the transparent varieties of blue, pink, yellow, and other colors. The best specimens of the blue variety are nearly as valuable as the diamond. The sapphire is next to the diamond in hardness.

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“If we would hold the true course in love, our first step must be to turn our eyes not to man, the sight of whom might oftener produce hatred than love, but to God, who requires that the love which we bear to him be diffused among all mankind, so that our fundamental principle must ever be, Let a man be what he may, he is still to be loved because God is loved.”
–Calvin, Institutes