| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians by Martin Luther: The Apostle is so worked up over this matter that he is not content with a
mere admonition. He utters the threatening words, "God is not mocked."
Our countrymen think it good sport to despise the ministry. They like to
treat the ministers like servants and slaves. "Be not deceived," warns the
Apostle, "God is not mocked." God will not be mocked in His ministers.
Christ said: "He that despiseth you, despiseth me." (Luke 10:16.) To Samuel
God said: "They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me." (I Sam.
8:7.) Be careful, you scoffers. God may postpone His punishment for a time,
but He will find you out in time, and punish you for despising His
servants. You cannot laugh at God. Maybe the people are little impressed by
the threats of God, but in the hour of their death they shall know whom
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: use the same words about them; they do not use some one word and some
another.
ALCIBIADES: They do not.
SOCRATES: Then they may be expected to be good teachers of these things?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And if we want to instruct any one in them, we shall be right in
sending him to be taught by our friends the many?
ALCIBIADES: Very true.
SOCRATES: But if we wanted further to know not only which are men and
which are horses, but which men or horses have powers of running, would the
many still be able to inform us?
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: The poet and the prophet, or preacher, in primitive antiquity are one and
the same; but in later ages they seem to fall apart. The great art of
novel writing, that peculiar creation of our own and the last century,
which, together with the sister art of review writing, threatens to absorb
all literature, has even less of seriousness in her composition. Do we not
often hear the novel writer censured for attempting to convey a lesson to
the minds of his readers?
Yet the true office of a poet or writer of fiction is not merely to give
amusement, or to be the expression of the feelings of mankind, good or bad,
or even to increase our knowledge of human nature. There have been poets
in modern times, such as Goethe or Wordsworth, who have not forgotten their
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