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.
“Are you dejected? here is comfort. Are you sinful? here is righteousness. Are you led away with present enjoyments? here you have honours, and pleasures, and all in Christ Jesus. You have a right to common pleasures that others have, and besides them you have interest in others that are everlasting, that shall never fail; so that there is nothing that is dejecting and abasing in man, but there is comfort for it in Christ Jesus.”
–Richard Sibbes, Description of Christ