| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: serve and be useful to others in all that he does; having nothing
before his eyes but the necessities and the advantage of his
neighbour. Thus the Apostle commands us to work with our own
hands, that we may have to give to those that need. He might have
said, that we may support ourselves; but he tells us to give to
those that need. It is the part of a Christian to take care of
his own body for the very purpose that, by its soundness and
well-being, he may be enabled to labour, and to acquire and
preserve property, for the aid of those who are in want, that
thus the stronger member may serve the weaker member, and we may
be children of God, thoughtful and busy one for another, bearing
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Summer by Edith Wharton: from which it seemed to be divided by a knife-edge of
quivering light; and above this wall of flame the whole
sky was a pure pale green, like some cold mountain lake
in shadow. Charity lay gazing up at it, and watching
for the first white star....
Her eyes were still fixed on the upper reaches of the
sky when she became aware that a shadow had flitted
across the glory-flooded room: it must have been Harney
passing the window against the sunset....She half
raised herself, and then dropped back on her folded
arms. The combs had slipped from her hair, and it
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: heart stood still. After so much raising of the elbow, so
much outcry of fictitious thirst, here at last was enough
drinking for a lifetime. Truly, of our pleasant vices, the
gods make whips to scourge us. And secondly he was condemned
to be hanged. A man may have been expecting a catastrophe
for years, and yet find himself unprepared when it arrives.
Certainly, Villon found, in this legitimate issue of his
career, a very staggering and grave consideration. Every
beast, as he says, clings bitterly to a whole skin. If
everything is lost, and even honour, life still remains; nay,
and it becomes, like the ewe lamb in Nathan's parable, as
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