| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson: Of roses white and red, and brambles mixt
And overgrowing them, went on, and found,
Here too, all hushed below the mellow moon,
Save that one rivulet from a tiny cave
Came lightening downward, and so spilt itself
Among the roses, and was lost again.
Then was he ware of three pavilions reared
Above the bushes, gilden-peakt: in one,
Red after revel, droned her lurdane knights
Slumbering, and their three squires across their feet:
In one, their malice on the placid lip
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: with the ritual observances of pagan nations, allowing each
feeble brother to perform such works as might tickle his fancy,
but bidding all take heed that salvation was not to be obtained
after any such mechanical method, but only by devoting the whole
soul to righteousness, after the example of Jesus.
This was the negative part of Paul's work. This was the knocking
down of the barriers which had kept men, and would always have
kept them, from entering into the kingdom of heaven. But the
positive part of Paul's work is contained in his theory of the
salvation of men from death through the second Adam, whom Jehovah
rescued from Sheol for his sinlessness. The resurrection of Jesus
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: and not without parallel in modern times, that the leaders of the democracy
have been themselves of aristocratic origin. The people are expecting to
be governed by representatives of their own, but the true man of the people
either never appears, or is quickly altered by circumstances. Their real
wishes hardly make themselves felt, although their lower interests and
prejudices may sometimes be flattered and yielded to for the sake of
ulterior objects by those who have political power. They will often learn
by experience that the democracy has become a plutocracy. The influence of
wealth, though not the enjoyment of it, has become diffused among the poor
as well as among the rich; and society, instead of being safer, is more at
the mercy of the tyrant, who, when things are at the worst, obtains a
Statesman |
