| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Disputation of the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences by Dr. Martin Luther: useful, if they do not put their trust in them; but altogether
harmful, if through them they lose their fear of God.
50. Christians are to be taught that if the pope knew the
exactions of the pardon-preachers, he would rather that St.
Peter's church should go to ashes, than that it should be
built up with the skin, flesh and bones of his sheep.
51. Christians are to be taught that it would be the pope's
wish, as it is his duty, to give of his own money to very many
of those from whom certain hawkers of pardons cajole money,
even though the church of St. Peter might have to be sold.
52. The assurance of salvation by letters of pardon is vain,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: more capable of enjoying their costly possessions than they
were; because they had paid the money and he had received the
pleasure. And the occasion is a fair one for self-
complacency. While the one man was working to be able to buy
the picture, the other was working to be able to enjoy the
picture. An inherited aptitude will have been diligently
improved in either case; only the one man has made for himself
a fortune, and the other has made for himself a living spirit.
It is a fair occasion for self-complacency, I repeat, when the
event shows a man to have chosen the better part, and laid out
his life more wisely, in the long run, than those who have
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Poems of William Blake by William Blake: A land of sorrows & of tears where never smile was seen.
She wandered in the land of clouds thro' valleys dark, listning
Dolors & lamentations: waiting oft beside the dewy grave
She stood in silence, listning to the voices of the ground,
Till to her own grave plot she came, & there she sat down.
And heard this voice of sorrow breathed from the hollow pit.
Why cannot the Ear be closed to its own destruction?
Or the glistening Eye to the poison of a smile!
Why are Eyelids stord with arrows ready drawn,
Where a thousand fighting men in ambush lie!
Or an Eye of gifts & graces showring fruits & coined gold!
Poems of William Blake |
