| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Augsburg Confession by Philip Melanchthon: in other civil ministrations; on the other hand, they admired
the monks and such like, and falsely imagined that the
observances of such men were more acceptable to God.
Thirdly, traditions brought great danger to consciences; for
it was impossible to keep all traditions, and yet men judged
these observances to be necessary acts of worship. Gerson
writes that many fell into despair, and that some even took
their own lives, because they felt that they were not able to
satisfy the traditions, and they had all the while not heard
any consolation of the righteousness of faith and grace. We
see that the summists and theologians gather the traditions,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: masses as far as one could see from the battlements.
At last the wind sprang up and a cloud appeared -- in
the right quarter, too, and just at nightfall. For a
little while I watched that distant cloud spread and
blacken, then I judged it was time for me to appear.
I ordered the torch-baskets to be lit, and Merlin liber-
ated and sent to me. A quarter of an hour later I
ascended the parapet and there found the king and the
court assembled and gazing off in the darkness toward
Merlin's Tower. Already the darkness was so heavy
that one could not see far; these people and the old
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Pierre Grassou by Honore de Balzac: the sofa, simple enough, was clean as that in the bedroom of some
worthy bourgeoise. All these things denoted the tidy ways of a small
mind and the thrift of a poor man. A bureau was there, in which to put
away the studio implements, a table for breakfast, a sideboard, a
secretary; in short, all the articles necessary to a painter, neatly
arranged and very clean. The stove participated in this Dutch
cleanliness, which was all the more visible because the pure and
little changing light from the north flooded with its cold clear beams
the vast apartment. Fougeres, being merely a genre painter, does not
need the immense machinery and outfit which ruin historical painters;
he has never recognized within himself sufficient faculty to attempt
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