| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: it begat habits of peace and patience in those that professed and
practiced it ". Indeed, my friend, you will find Angling to be like the
virtue of humility, which has a calmness of spirit, and a world of other
blessings attending upon it.
Sir, this was the saying of that learned man And I do easily believe, that
peace, and patience, and a calm content, did cohabit in the cheerful
heart of Sir Henry Wotton, because I know that when he was beyond
seventy years of age, he made this description of a part of the present
pleasure that possessed him, as he sat quietly, in a summer's evening,
on a bank a-fishing. It is a description of the spring; which, because it
glided as soft and sweetly from his pen, as that river does at this time,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: works of a great writer. Though not yet[66] widely known in this
country, M. Taine has obtained a very high reputation in Europe.
He is still quite a young man, but is nevertheless the author of
nineteen goodly volumes, witty, acute, and learned; and already
he is often ranked with Renan, Littre, and Sainte-Beuve, the
greatest living French writers.
[66] That is, in 1868.
Hippolyte Adolphe Taine was born at Vouziers, among the grand
forests of Ardennes, in 1828, and is therefore about forty years
old. His family was simple in habits and tastes, and entertained
a steadfast belief in culture, along with the possession of a
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians by Martin Luther: VERSE 2. Unto the churches of Galatia.
Paul had preached the Gospel throughout Galatia, founding many churches which
after his departure were invaded by the false apostles. The Anabaptists in our
time imitate the false apostles. They do not go where the enemies of the
Gospel predominate. They go where the Christians are. Why do they not invade
the Catholic provinces and preach their doctrine to godless princes, bishops,
and doctors, as we have done by the help of God? These soft martyrs take no
chances. They go where the Gospel has a hold, so that they may not endanger
their lives. The false apostles would not go to Jerusalem of Caiaphas, or to
the Rome of the Emperor, or to any other place where no man had preached
before as Paul and the other apostles did. But they came to the churches of
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