The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso: With that she met a bold and lovesome knight,
Lord Godfrey's youngest brother, Eustace hight.
XXXIV
This was the fowl that first fell in the snare,
He saw her fair, and hoped to find her kind;
The throne of Cupid had an easy stair,
His bark is fit to sail with every wind,
The breach he makes no wisdom can repair:
With reverence meet the baron low inclined,
And thus his purpose to the virgin told,
For youth, use, nature, all had made him bold.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: forefathers, your chieftains, would have spoken in a like case.
May you never regret this choice, my brethren, Men of the Otomie.'
And so it came to pass that when we left the City of Pines we took
from it to Cuitlahua the emperor, a promise of an army of twenty
thousand men vowed to serve him to the death in his war against the
Spaniard.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE CROWNING OF GUATEMOC
Our business with the people of the Otomie being ended for a while,
we returned to the city of Tenoctitlan, which we reached safely,
having been absent a month and a day. It was but a little time,
Montezuma's Daughter |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: but unbelief.
It is certainly true that, in the sight of men, a man becomes
good or evil by his works; but here "becoming" means that it is
thus shown and recognised who is good or evil, as Christ says,
"By their fruits ye shall know them" (Matt. vii. 20). But all
this stops at appearances and externals; and in this matter very
many deceive themselves, when they presume to write and teach
that we are to be justified by good works, and meanwhile make no
mention even of faith, walking in their own ways, ever deceived
and deceiving, going from bad to worse, blind leaders of the
blind, wearying themselves with many works, and yet never
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