| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther: entirely external thing like the commandment, Honor thy father and thy
mother, which refers to bodily flesh and blood. Therein we regard not
the flesh and blood, but the commandment of God in which they are
comprehended, and on account of which the flesh is called father and
mother; so also, though we had no more than these words, Go ye and
baptize, etc., it would be necessary for us to accept and do it as the
ordinance of God. Now there is here not only God's commandment and
injunction, but also the promise, on account of which it is still far
more glorious than whatever else God has commanded and ordained, and
is, in short, so full of consolation and grace that heaven and earth
cannot comprehend it. But it requires skill to believe this, for the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from In the Cage by Henry James: to learn what other spot his presence might just then happen to
sanctify. For she thought of them, the other spots, as
ecstatically conscious of it, expressively happy in it.
But, gracious, how handsome was her ladyship, and what an added
price it gave him that the air of intimacy he threw out should have
flowed originally from such a source! The girl looked straight
through the cage at the eyes and lips that must so often have been
so near as own--looked at them with a strange passion that for an
instant had the result of filling out some of the gaps, supplying
the missing answers, in his correspondence. Then as she made out
that the features she thus scanned and associated were totally
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: man's business as his amusements. Nothing but money-grubbing can
be put forward to the contrary; no one but
Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell
From Heaven,
durst risk a word in answer. It is but a lying cant that would
represent the merchant and the banker as people disinterestedly
toiling for mankind, and then most useful when they are most
absorbed in their transactions; for the man is more important than
his services. And when my Royal Nautical Sportsman shall have so
far fallen from his hopeful youth that he cannot pluck up an
enthusiasm over anything but his ledger, I venture to doubt whether
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