| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: "He smites his chest," whispered Stubb, "what's that for? methinks it
rings most vast, but hollow."
"Vengeance on a dumb brute!" cried Starbuck, "that simply smote thee
from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing,
Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous."
"Hark ye yet again--the little lower layer. All visible objects,
man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event--in the living
act, the undoubted deed--there, some unknown but still reasoning
thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the
unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How
can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall?
Moby Dick |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians by Martin Luther: Faith must of course be sincere. It must be a faith that performs good
works through love. If faith lacks love it is not true faith. Thus the Apostle
bars the way of hypocrites to the kingdom of Christ on all sides. He
declares on the one hand, "In Christ Jesus circumcision availeth nothing,"
i.e., works avail nothing, but faith alone, and that without any merit
whatever, avails before God. On the other hand, the Apostle declares that
without fruits faith serves no purpose. To think, "If faith justifies without
works, let us work nothing," is to despise the grace of God. Idle faith is not
justifying faith. In this terse manner Paul presents the whole life of a
Christian. Inwardly it consists in faith towards God, outwardly in love
towards our fellow-men.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: be, high or low, some traces of an enclosure."
For a century the Dent de Vilard had been used by both parties without
coming to extremities; it stood as a sort of party wall between the
communes of Riceys and les Rouxey, yielding little profit. Indeed, the
object in dispute, being covered with snow for six months in the year,
was of a nature to cool their ardor. Thus it required all the hot
blast by which the revolution of 1830 inflamed the advocates of the
people, to stir up this matter, by which Monsieur Chantonnit, the
Maire of Riceys, hoped to give a dramatic turn to his career on the
peaceful frontier of Switzerland, and to immortalize his term of
office. Chantonnit, as his name shows, was a native of Neuchatel.
Albert Savarus |
