| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: I read it to Clarence, and said I proposed to send it
by a flag of truce. He laughed the sarcastic laugh he
was born with, and said:
"Somehow it seems impossible for you to ever fully
realize what these nobilities are. Now let us save a
little time and trouble. Consider me the commander
of the knights yonder. Now, then, you are the flag
of truce; approach and deliver me your message, and
I will give you your answer."
I humored the idea. I came forward under an
imaginary guard of the enemy's soldiers, produced my
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad: peasants appeared, waiting for us, two youths and one shaven old
man, with a thin nose like a sword blade and perfectly round eyes,
a character well known to the whole Carlist army. The two youths
stopped under the trees at a distance, but the old fellow came
quite close up and gazed at her, screwing up his eyes as if looking
at the sun. Then he raised his arm very slowly and took his red
boina off his bald head. I watched her smiling at him all the
time. I daresay she knew him as well as she knew the old rock.
Very old rock. The rock of ages - and the aged man - landmarks of
her youth. Then the mules started walking smartly forward, with
the three peasants striding alongside of them, and vanished between
The Arrow of Gold |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Augsburg Confession by Philip Melanchthon: tolerated in the churches for so many centuries by the very
men who were both able and in duty bound to correct them. For
in the Ten Commandments it is written, Ex. 20, 7: The Lord
will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain. But
since the world began, nothing that God ever ordained seems to
have been so abused for filthy lucre as the Mass.
There was also added the opinion which infinitely increased
Private Masses, namely that Christ, by His passion, had made
satisfaction for original sin, and instituted the Mass wherein
an offering should be made for daily sins, venial and mortal.
From this has arisen the common opinion that the Mass takes
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