| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: the offences of our beloved, cleanse them from our memories, take
them out of our mouths for ever. Let all here before Thee carry
and measure with the false balances of love, and be in their own
eyes and in all conjunctures the most guilty. Help us at the same
time with the grace of courage, that we be none of us cast down
when we sit lamenting amid the ruins of our happiness or our
integrity: touch us with fire from the altar, that we may be up
and doing to rebuild our city: in the name and by the method of
him in whose words of prayer we now conclude.
FOR SELF-FORGETFULNESS
LORD, the creatures of thy hand, thy disinherited children, come
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Tanach: Genesis 23: 6 'Hear us, my lord: thou art a mighty prince among us; in the choice of our sepulchres bury thy dead; none of us shall withhold from thee his sepulchre, but that thou mayest bury thy dead.'
Genesis 23: 7 And Abraham rose up, and bowed down to the people of the land, even to the children of Heth.
Genesis 23: 8 And he spoke with them, saying: 'If it be your mind that I should bury my dead out of my sight, hear me, and entreat for me to Ephron the son of Zohar,
Genesis 23: 9 that he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he hath, which is in the end of his field; for the full price let him give it to me in the midst of you for a possession of a burying-place.'
Genesis 23: 10 Now Ephron was sitting in the midst of the children of Heth; and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the hearing of the children of Heth, even of all that went in at the gate of his city, saying:
Genesis 23: 11 'Nay, my lord, hear me: the field give I thee, and the cave that is therein, I give it thee; in the presence of the sons of my people give I it thee; bury thy dead.'
Genesis 23: 12 And Abraham bowed down before the people of the land.
Genesis 23: 13 And he spoke unto Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land, saying: 'But if thou wilt, I pray thee, hear me: I will give the price of the field; take it of me, and I will bury 
The Tanach |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Toqueville: It is evident to all alike that a great democratic
revolution is going on amongst us; but there are two opinions as
to its nature and consequences. To some it appears to be a novel
accident, which as such may still be checked; to others it seems
irresistible, because it is the most uniform, the most ancient,
and the most permanent tendency which is to be found in history.
Let us recollect the situation of France seven hundred years ago,
when the territory was divided amongst a small number of
families, who were the owners of the soil and the rulers of the
inhabitants; the right of governing descended with the family
inheritance from generation to generation; force was the only
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