| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Mayflower Compact: of the Ends aforesaid; And by Virtue hereof do enact,
constitute, and frame, such just and equall Laws, Ordinances,
Acts, Constitutions, and Offices, from time to time,
as shall be thought most meete and convenient for the
Generall Good of the Colonie; unto which we promise
all due Submission and Obedience.
In Witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names
at Cape Cod the eleventh of November, in the Raigne of our
Sovereigne Lord, King James of England, France, and Ireland,
the eighteenth, and of Scotland, the fiftie-fourth,
Anno. Domini, 1620.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: and just as those who were about to take her, were going to put
hands upon her, to drag her back, she leaped over the balustrades
of the bridge, and down she went to rise no more. She chose
death, rather than to go back into the hands of those christian
slaveholders from whom she had escaped.
Can it be possible that such things as these exist in the United
States? <323>Are not these the exceptions? Are any such scenes
as this general? Are not such deeds condemned by the law and
denounced by public opinion? Let me read to you a few of the
laws of the slaveholding states of America. I think no better
exposure of slavery can be made than is made by the laws of the
My Bondage and My Freedom |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Sir John Mandeville: mountains, that dureth nigh a four mile. And some men clepe it the
Vale Enchanted, some clepe it the Vale of Devils, and some clepe it
the Vale Perilous. In that vale hear men often-time great tempests
and thunders, and great murmurs and noises, all days and nights,
and great noise, as it were sound of tabors and of nakers and of
trumps, as though it were of a great feast. This vale is all full
of devils, and hath been always. And men say there, that it is one
of the entries of hell. In that vale is great plenty of gold and
silver. Wherefore many misbelieving men, and many Christian men
also, go in oftentime for to have of the treasure that there is;
but few come again, and namely of the misbelieving men, ne of the
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