The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: unfortunate children, but as children with a mystical and an
incurable taint of SIN. Kindly easy-going Christians may resent
this statement because it does not tally with their own attitudes,
but let them consult their orthodox authorities.
One must distinguish clearly here between what is held to be sacred
or sinful in itself and what is held to be one's duty or a nation's
duty because it is in itself the wisest, cleanest, clearest, best
thing to do. By the latter tests and reasonable arguments most or
all of our institutions regulating the relations of the sexes may be
justifiable. But my case is not whether they can be justified by
these tests but that it is not by these tests that they are judged
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Master of the World by Jules Verne: action. Smoke had floated above the mountain and once the country
folk passing near had heard subterranean noises, unexplainable
rumblings. A glow in the sky had crowned the height at night.
When the wind blew the smoky cloud eastward toward Pleasant Garden, a
few cinders and ashes drifted down from it. And finally one stormy
night pale flames, reflected from the clouds above the summit, cast
upon the district below a sinister, warning light.
In presence of these strange phenomena, it is not astonishing that
the people of the surrounding district became seriously disquieted.
And to the disquiet was joined an imperious need of knowing the true
condition of the mountain. The Carolina newspapers had flaring
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe: same practice farther in the country.
This plain country continues in length from Winchester to Salisbury
(twenty-five miles), from thence to Dorchester (twenty-two miles),
thence to Weymouth (six miles); so that they lie near fifty miles
in length and breadth; they reach also in some places thirty-five
to forty miles. They who would make any practicable guess at the
number of sheep usually fed on these Downs may take it from a
calculation made, as I was told, at Dorchester, that there were six
hundred thousand sheep fed within six miles of that town, measuring
every way round and the town in the centre.
As we passed this plain country, we saw a great many old camps, as
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