| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: devil and my own wicked heart, with the solicitations of my
associates, and my fondness for young company, were such strong
allurements, I would again give way, and thus I got to be very
wild and rude, at the same time kept up my rounds of secret
prayer and reading; but God, not willing I should destroy myself,
still followed me with his calls, and moved with such power upon
my conscience, that I could not satisfy myself with my
diversions, and in the midst of my mirth sometimes would have
such a sense of my lost and undone condition, that I would wish
myself from the company, and after it was over, when I went home,
would make many promises that I would attend no more on these
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lemorne Versus Huell by Elizabeth Drew Stoddard: the glen, when I heard the screaming of a flock of geese which were
waddling across the path in front of the horses. I started, for I
was asleep probably, and, looking forward, saw the Uxbridge
carriage, filled with ladies and children, coming toward me; and by
it rode a gentleman on horseback. His horse was rearing among the
hissing geese, but neither horse nor geese appeared to engage him;
his eyes were fixed upon me. The horse swerved so near that its
long mane almost brushed against me. By an irresistible impulse I
laid my ungloved hand upon it, but did not look at the rider.
Carriage and horseman passed on, and William resumed his pace. A
vague idea took possession of me that I had seen the horseman
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: was no leisure for the relishing pinch, or the hour-long gossip,
foot on spade. They were men wrapped up in their grim business;
they liked well to open long-closed family vaults, blowing in the
key and throwing wide the grating; and they carried in their minds
a calendar of names and dates. It would be "in fifty-twa" that
such a tomb was last opened for "Miss Jemimy." It was thus they
spoke of their past patients -familiarly but not without respect,
like old family servants. Here is indeed a servant, whom we forget
that we possess; who does not wait at the bright table, or run at
the bell's summons, but patiently smokes his pipe beside the
mortuary fire, and in his faithful memory notches the burials of
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