| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: on the essence of good works and their fundamental relation to
faith; he would show, too, how the "best work," faith, must prove
itself in every way a living faith, according to the other
commandments. Luther does not proceed to this part, however,
until in the fundamental part he has said with emphasis, that the
believer, the spiritual man, needs no such instruction (1.
Timothy 1:9), but that he of his own accord and at all times does
good works "as his faith, his confidence, teaches him." Only
"because we do not all have such faith, or are unmindful of it,"
does such instruction become necessary.
Nor does he proceed until he has applied his oft repeated words
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: you never stirred out of her; the halt, the blind, the maimed, were not
more stationary in her than you were. And now you run away and forsake
your agreements. Not so, Socrates, if you will take our advice; do not
make yourself ridiculous by escaping out of the city.
'For just consider, if you transgress and err in this sort of way, what
good will you do either to yourself or to your friends? That your friends
will be driven into exile and deprived of citizenship, or will lose their
property, is tolerably certain; and you yourself, if you fly to one of the
neighbouring cities, as, for example, Thebes or Megara, both of which are
well governed, will come to them as an enemy, Socrates, and their
government will be against you, and all patriotic citizens will cast an
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Death of the Lion by Henry James: had formed part of my explanation, though I knew of it only by
hearsay - was, I could divine, very much what had made Mr. Pinhorn
nibble. It struck him as inconsistent with the success of his
paper that any one should be so sequestered as that. And then
wasn't an immediate exposure of everything just what the public
wanted? Mr. Pinhorn effectually called me to order by reminding me
of the promptness with which I had met Miss Braby at Liverpool on
her return from her fiasco in the States. Hadn't we published,
while its freshness and flavour were unimpaired, Miss Braby's own
version of that great international episode? I felt somewhat
uneasy at this lumping of the actress and the author, and I confess
|
