| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tao Teh King by Lao-tze: 2. (Its) admirable words can purchase honour; (its) admirable deeds
can raise their performer above others. Even men who are not good are
not abandoned by it.
3. Therefore when the sovereign occupies his place as the Son of
Heaven, and he has appointed his three ducal ministers, though (a
prince) were to send in a round symbol-of-rank large enough to fill
both the hands, and that as the precursor of the team of horses (in
the court-yard), such an offering would not be equal to (a lesson of)
this Tao, which one might present on his knees.
4. Why was it that the ancients prized this Tao so much? Was it not
because it could be got by seeking for it, and the guilty could escape
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Soul of a Bishop by H. G. Wells: stormy, so that the stained-glass windows looked absolutely dead.
For a little while the preacher prayed. Then in the attentive
silence the tenor of the preacher would begin, a thin jet of
sound, a ray of light in the darkness, speaking to all these men
as they had never been spoken to before....
Surely so one might call a halt to all these harsh conflicts.
So one might lay hands afresh upon these stubborn minds, one
might win them round to look at Christ the Master and Servant....
That, he thought, would be a good phrase: "Christ the Master
and Servant."....
"Members of one Body," that should be his text.... At last it
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: enough. He instances Archelaus, son of Perdiccas, the usurper of
Macedonia. Does not Socrates think him happy?--Socrates would like to know
more about him; he cannot pronounce even the great king to be happy, unless
he knows his mental and moral condition. Polus explains that Archelaus was
a slave, being the son of a woman who was the slave of Alcetas, brother of
Perdiccas king of Macedon--and he, by every species of crime, first
murdering his uncle and then his cousin and half-brother, obtained the
kingdom. This was very wicked, and yet all the world, including Socrates,
would like to have his place. Socrates dismisses the appeal to numbers;
Polus, if he will, may summon all the rich men of Athens, Nicias and his
brothers, Aristocrates, the house of Pericles, or any other great family--
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