| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: a period of what is sometimes called Euhemerism
--the theory that the gods and goddesses had actually once
been men and women, historical characters round whom
a halo of romance and remoteness had gathered. Later
still, a school has arisen which thinks little of sungods,
and pays more attention to Earth and Nature spirits,
to gnomes and demons and vegetation-sprites, and to the
processes of Magic by which these (so it was supposed)
could be enlisted in man's service if friendly, or exorcised
if hostile.
[1] This extraordinary book, though carelessly composed and
Pagan and Christian Creeds |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: Pequod that the monkey and his holder were ever tied together. This
improvement upon the original usage was introduced by no less a man
than Stubb, in order to afford the imperilled harpooneer the strongest
possible guarantee for the faithfulness and vigilance of his
monkey-rope holder.
I have hinted that I would often jerk poor Queequeg from between the
whale and the ship--where he would occasionally fall, from the
incessant rolling and swaying of both. But this was not the only
jamming jeopardy he was exposed to. Unappalled by the massacre made
upon them during the night, the sharks now freshly and more keenly
allured by the before pent blood which began to flow from the
Moby Dick |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: and not to heal, to kill and not to make alive, to bring down to
hell and not to bring back, to humble and not to exalt. Therefore
the word of grace and of the promised remission of sin must also
be preached, in order to teach and set up faith, since without
that word contrition, penitence, and all other duties, are
performed and taught in vain.
There still remain, it is true, preachers of repentance and
grace, but they do not explain the law and the promises of God to
such an end, and in such a spirit, that men may learn whence
repentance and grace are to come. For repentance comes from the
law of God, but faith or grace from the promises of God, as it is
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