| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: "The roof of this house is dreadfully dilapidated; the outside
shutters are always closed; the balconies are hung with swallows'
nests; the doors are for ever shut. Straggling grasses have outlined
the flagstones of the steps with green; the ironwork is rusty. Moon
and sun, winter, summer, and snow have eaten into the wood, warped the
boards, peeled off the paint. The dreary silence is broken only by
birds and cats, polecats, rats, and mice, free to scamper round, and
fight, and eat each other. An invisible hand has written over it all:
'Mystery.'
"If, prompted by curiosity, you go to look at this house from the
street, you will see a large gate, with a round-arched top; the
La Grande Breteche |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: impotence, and become anxious by what means he may satisfy the
law--for the law must be satisfied, so that no jot or tittle of
it may pass away, otherwise he must be hopelessly
condemned--then, being truly humbled and brought to nothing in
his own eyes, he finds in himself no resource for justification
and salvation.
Then comes in that other part of Scripture, the promises of God,
which declare the glory of God, and say, "If you wish to fulfil
the law, and, as the law requires, not to covet, lo! believe in
Christ, in whom are promised to you grace, justification, peace,
and liberty." All these things you shall have, if you believe,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Ebb-Tide by Stevenson & Osbourne: 'Well, you see, it was a queer case,' replied Attwater. 'it was
a case that would have puzzled Solomon. Shall I tell it you?
yes?'
The captain rapturously accepted.
'Well,' drawled Attwater, 'here is what it was. I dare say you
know two types of natives, which may be called the obsequious
and the sullen? Well, one had them, the types themselves,
detected in the fact; and one had them together. Obsequiousness
ran out of the first like wine out of a bottle, sullenness
congested in the second. Obsequiousness was all smiles; he ran to
catch your eye, he loved to gabble; and he had about a dozen
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