| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Than about now for you, before you fade,
And even your friends are seeing that you have had
Your cup too full for longer mortal triumph.
Well, you have had enough, and had it young;
And the old wine is nearer to the lees
Than you are to the work that you are doing.
HAMILTON
When does this philological excursion
Into new lands and languages begin?
BURR
Anon -- that is, already. Only Fortune
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: of the visitor's surroundings, and the atmosphere of affliction,
disease, and physical disgrace in which he breathes. I do not
think I am a man more than usually timid; but I never recall the
days and nights I spent upon that island promontory (eight days and
seven nights), without heartfelt thankfulness that I am somewhere
else. I find in my diary that I speak of my stay as a "grinding
experience": I have once jotted in the margin, "HARROWING is the
word"; and when the MOKOLII bore me at last towards the outer
world, I kept repeating to myself, with a new conception of their
pregnancy, those simple words of the song -
" 'Tis the most distressful country that ever yet was seen."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther: Therefore I exhort again that these two the water and the Word, by no
means be separated from one another and parted. For if the Word is
separated from it, the water is the same as that with which the servant
cooks, and may indeed be called a bath-keeper's baptism. But when it is
added, as God has ordained, it is a Sacrament, and is called
Christ-baptism. Let this be the first part regarding the essence and
dignity of the holy Sacrament.
In the second place, since we know now what Baptism is, and how it is
to be regarded, we must also learn why and for what purpose it is
instituted; that is, what it profits, gives and works. And this also we
cannot discern better than from the words of Christ above quoted: He
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