| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: since the word of God, which teaches liberty in all other things,
ought not to be bound. Saving these two things, there is nothing
which I am not able, and most heartily willing, to do or to
suffer. I hate contention; I will challenge no one; in return I
wish not to be challenged; but, being challenged, I will not be
dumb in the cause of Christ my Master. For your Blessedness will
be able by one short and easy word to call these controversies
before you and suppress them, and to impose silence and peace on
both sides--a word which I have ever longed to hear.
Therefore, Leo, my Father, beware of listening to those sirens
who make you out to be not simply a man, but partly a god, so
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The People That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: gratitude; nor am I ashamed to say that that is precisely what
I did after I had been freed from my bonds and heard the story
of her trials. Brave little Ajor! Wonder-girl out of the dim,
unthinkable past! Never before had she been kissed; but she
seemed to sense something of the meaning of the new caress,
for she leaned forward in the dark and pressed her own lips
to my forehead. A sudden urge surged through me to seize her
and strain her to my bosom and cover her hot young lips with
the kisses of a real love, but I did not do so, for I knew that
I did not love her; and to have kissed her thus, with passion,
would have been to inflict a great wrong upon her who had
The People That Time Forgot |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: understanding? also to be soothed, and gently and reverently entreated when
angry, even more than a father, and either to be persuaded, or if not
persuaded, to be obeyed? And when we are punished by her, whether with
imprisonment or stripes, the punishment is to be endured in silence; and if
she lead us to wounds or death in battle, thither we follow as is right;
neither may any one yield or retreat or leave his rank, but whether in
battle or in a court of law, or in any other place, he must do what his
city and his country order him; or he must change their view of what is
just: and if he may do no violence to his father or mother, much less may
he do violence to his country.' What answer shall we make to this, Crito?
Do the laws speak truly, or do they not?
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