| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Augsburg Confession by Philip Melanchthon: Article V: Of the Ministry.
That we may obtain this faith, the Ministry of Teaching the
Gospel and administering the Sacraments was instituted. For
through the Word and Sacraments, as through instruments, the
Holy Ghost is given, who works faith; where and when it
pleases God, in them that hear the Gospel, to wit, that God,
not for our own merits, but for Christ's sake, justifies those
who believe that they are received into grace for Christ's
sake.
They condemn the Anabaptists and others who think that the
Holy Ghost comes to men without the external Word, through
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Hellenica by Xenophon: you will exercise your leadership. Reverse the case. The
Lacedaemonians have issued a general order summoning you to join them
in the field; it is plain again, you will be sending your heavy
infantry and your cavalry. You see what follows. You have invented a
pretty machine, by which they become leders of your very selves, and
you become the leaders either of their slaves or of the dregs of their
state. I should like to put a question to the Lacedaemonian Timocrates
seated yonder. Did you not say just now, Sir, that you came to make an
alliance on terms of absolute equality, 'share and share alike'?
Answer me." "I did say so." "Well, then, here is a plan by which you
get the perfection of equality. I cannot conceive of anything more
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: distressing by contrast with the wealth of memories of his
impetuous youth and the sensual pleasures of middle age. The
unbeliever who in the height of his cynical humor had been wont
to persuade others to believe in laws and principles at which he
scoffed, must repose nightly upon a PERHAPS. The great Duke, the
pattern of good breeding, the champion of many a carouse, the
proud ornament of Courts, the man of genius, the graceful winner
of hearts that he had wrung as carelessly as a peasant twists an
osier withe, was now the victim of a cough, of a ruthless
sciatica, of an unmannerly gout. His teeth gradually deserted
him, as at the end of an evening the fairest and best-dressed
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