| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: earth you can pray for me, not only in one, but in many
necessities. But for this reason I am not obliged to adore and
invoke you, and celebrate festivals, fast, make oblations,
hold masses for your honor [and worship], and put my faith in
you for my salvation. I can in other ways indeed honor, love,
and thank you in Christ. If now such idolatrous honor were
withdrawn from angels and departed saints, the remaining honor
would be without harm and would quickly be forgotten. For when
advantage and assistance, both bodily and spiritual, are no
more to be expected, the saints will not be troubled [the
worship of the saints will soon vanish], neither in their
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley: what we shall be, we know not, yet we are here but as the crawling
caterpillar, and shall be hereafter as the perfect fly. The old
Greeks, heathens as they were, saw as much as that two thousand
years ago; and I care very little for Cousin Cramchild, if he sees
even less than they. And so forth, and so forth, till he is quite
cross. And then tell him that if there are no water-babies, at
least there ought to be; and that, at least, he cannot answer.
And meanwhile, my dear little man, till you know a great deal more
about nature than Professor Owen and Professor Huxley put together,
don't tell me about what cannot be, or fancy that anything is too
wonderful to be true. "We are fearfully and wonderfully made,"
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: there as inhabitants, or at least to set on work there upon my
account while I stayed, and either to leave them there or carry
them forward, as they should appear willing; particularly, I
carried two carpenters, a smith, and a very handy, ingenious
fellow, who was a cooper by trade, and was also a general mechanic;
for he was dexterous at making wheels and hand-mills to grind corn,
was a good turner and a good pot-maker; he also made anything that
was proper to make of earth or of wood: in a word, we called him
our Jack-of-all-trades. With these I carried a tailor, who had
offered himself to go a passenger to the East Indies with my
nephew, but afterwards consented to stay on our new plantation, and
Robinson Crusoe |
