| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: perhaps also in heaven, yet it does not follow thence that we
should invoke and adore the angels and saints, and fast, hold
festivals, celebrate Mass in their honor, make offerings, and
establish churches, altars, divine worship, and in still other
ways serve them, and regard them as helpers in need [as
patrons and intercessors], and divide among them all kinds of
help, and ascribe to each one a particular form of assistance,
as the Papists teach and do. For this is idolatry, and such
honor belongs alone to God. For as a Christian and saint upon
earth you can pray for me, not only in one, but in many
necessities. But for this reason I am not obliged to adore and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: Liberals rather strengthened than weakened my resolve to cross the
floor of the house. It made it more necessary, I thought, to leaven
the purely obstructive and reactionary elements that were at once
manifest in the opposition. I assailed the land taxation proposals
in one main speech, and a series of minor speeches in committee.
The line of attack I chose was that the land was a great public
service that needed to be controlled on broad and far-sighted lines.
I had no objection to its nationalisation, but I did object most
strenuously to the idea of leaving it in private hands, and
attempting to produce beneficial social results through the pressure
of taxation upon the land-owning class. That might break it up in
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: having spoken after my manner, than speak in your manner and live. For
neither in war nor yet at law ought I or any man to use every way of
escaping death. Often in battle there can be no doubt that if a man will
throw away his arms, and fall on his knees before his pursuers, he may
escape death; and in other dangers there are other ways of escaping death,
if a man is willing to say and do anything. The difficulty, my friends, is
not to avoid death, but to avoid unrighteousness; for that runs faster than
death. I am old and move slowly, and the slower runner has overtaken me,
and my accusers are keen and quick, and the faster runner, who is
unrighteousness, has overtaken them. And now I depart hence condemned by
you to suffer the penalty of death,--they too go their ways condemned by
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