| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Chinese Boy and Girl by Isaac Taylor Headland: emperor, goes by the name of Humpbacked Liu. Another may be
Cross-eyed Wang, another Club-footed Chang, another Bald-headed
Li. Any physical deformity or mental peculiarity may give him his
nickname. Even foreigners suffer in reputation from this national
bad habit.
A man whose face is covered with pockmarks is ridiculed by
children in the following rhyme, which is only a sample of what
might be produced on a score of other subjects:
Old pockmarked Ma,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: all them that have loved his appearing."
Ioasaph said unto the elder, "Well then, as the strictness of
these doctrines demandeth such chaste conversation, if, after
baptism, I chance to fail in one or two of these commandments,
shall I therefore utterly miss the goal, and shall all my hope be
vain?"
Barlaam answered, "Deem not so. God, the Word, made man for the
salvation of our race, aware of the exceeding frailty and misery
of our nature, hath not even here suffered our sickness to be
without remedy. But, like a skilful leech, he hath mixed for our
unsteady and sin-loving heart the potion of repentance,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: The party stopped to let the Frenchman see the pilgrims who, in
accord with a popular Russian superstition, tramped about from
place to place instead of working.
They spoke French, thinking that the others would not understand
them.
'Demandez-leur,' said the Frenchman, 's'ils sont bien sur de ce
que leur pelerinage est agreable a Dieu.'
The question was asked, and one old woman replied:
'As God takes it. Our feet have reached the holy places, but our
hearts may not have done so.'
They asked the soldier. He said that he was alone in the world
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