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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: resignation of Christians was then seen in all its glory. He depicted
martyrs at the burning stake, and almost stripped them of their merit
by stripping them of their sufferings. He showed their inner angel as
dwelling in the heavens, while the outer man was tortured by the
executioner's sword. He described angels dwelling among men, and gave
tokens by which to recognize them.
He next strove to drag from the very depths of man's understanding the
real sense of the word fall, which occurs in every language. He
appealed to the most widely-spread traditions in evidence of this one
true origin, explaining, with much lucidity, the passion all men have
for rising, mounting--an instinctive ambition, the perennial
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