| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: drink-offering to all the dead, first with mead and
thereafter with sweet wine, and for the third time with
water. And I sprinkled white meal thereon, and entreated
with many prayers the strengthless heads of the dead, and
promised that on my return to Ithaca I would offer in my
halls a barren heifer, the best I had, and fill the pyre
with treasure, and apart unto Teiresias alone sacrifice a
black ram without spot, the fairest of my flock. But when I
had besought the tribes of the dead with vows and prayers,
I took the sheep and cut their throats over the trench, and
the dark blood flowed forth, and lo, the spirits of the
The Odyssey |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: that only in the slightest way do they realise the nature of the
statements to which they subscribe. They will speak and think of
both Christ and God in ways flatly incompatible with the doctrine of
the Triune deity upon which, theoretically, the entire fabric of all
the churches rests. They will show themselves as frankly Arians as
though that damnable heresy had not been washed out of the world
forever after centuries of persecution in torrents of blood. But
whatever the present state of Christendom in these matters may be,
there can be no doubt of the enormous pains taken in the past to
give Christian beliefs the exactest, least ambiguous statement
possible. Christianity knew itself clearly for what it was in its
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: ... How could I save him?---could not save myself. It was a bad
case,--at seventy years! ... There! Qui ca?" ...
He saw Laroussel again,--reaching out a hand to him through a
whirl of red smoke. He tried to grasp it, and could not ...
"N'importe, mon ami," said Laroussel,---"tu vas la voir bientot."
Who was he to see soon?---"qui done, Laroussel?" But Laroussel
did not answer. Through the red mist he seemed to smile;---then
passed.
For some hours Carmen had trusted she could save her
patient,---desperate as the case appeared to be. His was one of
those rapid and violent attacks, such as often despatch their
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