| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom by William and Ellen Craft: The Rev. Orville Dewey, D.D., of the Unitarian
connexion, maintained in his lectures that the
safety of the Union is not to be hazarded for the
sake of the African race. He declares that, for
his part, he would send his own brother or child
into slavery, if needed to preserve the Union
between the free and the slaveholding States; and,
counselling the slave to similar magnanimity, thus
exhorts him:--"YOUR RIGHT TO BE FREE IS NOT ABSOLUTE,
UNQUALIFIED, IRRESPECTIVE OF ALL CONSEQUENCES. If my
espousal of your claim is likely to involve your race
Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: neither himself nor the unfortunate woman whose only offence was that
she had reduced the great man to the common human denominator.
In seizing on these two points Mr Harris has made so sure a stroke,
and placed his evidence so featly that there is nothing left for me to
do but to plead that the second is sounder than the first, which is, I
think, marked by the prevalent mistake as to Shakespear's social
position, or, if you prefer it, the confusion between his actual
social position as a penniless tradesman's son taking to the theatre
for a livelihood, and his own conception of himself as a gentleman of
good family. I am prepared to contend that though Shakespear was
undoubtedly sentimental in his expressions of devotion to Mr W. H.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: from pre-christian writings, including the Psalms, Isaiah,
Ecclesiasticus, the Secrets of Enoch, the Shemonehesreh (a
book of Hebrew prayers), and others; and the fact that this
collection was really made AFTER the time of Jesus, and could
not have originated from him, is clear from the stress which
it lays on "persecutions" and "false prophets"--things which
were certainly not a source of trouble at the time
Jesus is supposed to be speaking, though they were at a
later time--as well as from the occurrence of the word
"Gentiles," which being here used apparently in contra-
distinction to "Christians" could not well be appropriate
Pagan and Christian Creeds |
