[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 15674]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

                                 PRAYER

  The Chaplain, the Reverend Daniel P. Coughlin, offered the following 
prayer:
  The Book of Proverbs tells us, Lord:
  ``The fruit of virtue is a tree of life, but violence takes lives 
away.''
  Lord, our God, let virtue triumph over violence.
  If virtue were to find strength even in the war-torn parts of the 
world, violence would be rejected as the way to peace. Neither trees 
nor life survive on a battlefield.
  So quickly, violent words can be tossed around a household, casting a 
cloud over a family, and expressions of violence can even find their 
way into the language of lawmakers and the courts of a land.
  Drown all forms of violent behavior with virtue, Lord. The hand may 
reach for a weapon, a mind can plot vengeance, but violence springs 
from the heart. That is why the hearts of Americans, Lord, need so much 
virtue that there is no room for violence, on our streets, in our 
speech or our daily reactions to today, tomorrow, forever. Amen.

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