We beg you, sisters and brothers, 
     about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ 
                and our being gathered to him
not be to be easily shaken from  your understanding
nor alarmed because of a spirit,
                                                  or a word
                                                  or a letter (seeming to be from us)
to the effect that the Day of the Lord has come.

Take from us,
O God, all pride and vanity,
all boasting and self-assertion,
and give us the true courage that shows itself in gentleness,
the true wisdom that shows itself in simplicity,
and the true power that shows itself in modesty.

Charles Kingsley