| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young: in the world, for this lady knew the things that little girls only
could remember. If she had thought about it she would have told the
lady about the tiny apple-trees with the very, very small apples on
them, and other rows of apple-trees over those, and other rows on
top of those, and on top of all a row of big round red apples.
Then the lady might have said: Yes, there were apple-trees like that
in the world, for all the nursery walls were papered like that, with
a row of big round red apples at the top.
But Bessie Bell did not think of or remember that then; she just
leaned up against the lady and swung one of her little feet up and
down, back and forth, as she sat on the stone bench: she was so
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: punished. My devil had been long caged, he came out roaring. I
was conscious, even when I took the draught, of a more unbridled,
a more furious propensity to ill. It must have been this, I
suppose, that stirred in my soul that tempest of impatience with
which I listened to the civilities of my unhappy victim; I
declare, at least, before God, no man morally sane could have been
guilty of that crime upon so pitiful a provocation; and that I
struck in no more reasonable spirit than that in which a sick
child may break a plaything. But I had voluntarily stripped
myself of all those balancing instincts by which even the worst of
us continues to walk with some degree of steadiness among
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther: practices of children to cross themselves when anything monstrous or
terrible is seen or heard, and to exclaim: "Lord God, protect us!"
"Help, dear Lord Jesus!" etc. Thus, too, if any one meets with
unexpected good fortune, however trivial, that he say: "God be praised
and thanked; this God has bestowed on me!" etc., as formerly the
children were accustomed to fast and pray to St. Nicholas and other
saints. This would be more pleasing and acceptable to God than all
monasticism and Carthusian sanctity.
Behold, thus we might train our youth in a childlike way and playfully
in the fear and honor of God, so that the First and Second Commandments
might be well observed and in constant practice. Then some good might
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