| Jody | | posted 16-Jun-2000 7:52am |
It was attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr.--_The A.A. Grapevine,_ January 1950, pp. 6-7; also June Bingham, _Courage to Change,_ p. iii (1961), where the version differs somewhat. Alcoholics Anonymous has used this prayer, with minor changes in wording, since about 1940. The Anglican publishing house, Mobray of London, for more than a century has identified it as a General or Common Prayer of fourteenth-century England, according to a reader of _American Notes and Queries,_ June 1970, p. 154. In _Ausblick von der Weibertreu_ by Christoph Duncker, p. 1 (1973), the lines are attributed to a Johann Christoph Oetinger, deacon in Weinnsberg from 1762 to 1769. Another reader of _American Notes and Queries,_ October 1969, p. 25, gives a nearly identical quotation and states that it can be traced to Friedrich Christoph Oetinger (1702-1782), German theologian and theosophist, without giving a source.
Reference: Platt, Suzy, ed. _Respectfully Quoted: a Dictionary of Quotations Requested from the Congressional Research Service._ Washington: Library of Congress, 1989. p. 276. |
