| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: and smirk and smile, and what the one says the other echoes with
sickliest intonation. When, at last, by means of the play within
the play, and the puppets in their dalliance, Hamlet 'catches the
conscience' of the King, and drives the wretched man in terror from
his throne, Guildenstern and Rosencrantz see no more in his conduct
than a rather painful breach of Court etiquette. That is as far as
they can attain to in 'the contemplation of the spectacle of life
with appropriate emotions.' They are close to his very secret and
know nothing of it. Nor would there be any use in telling them.
They are the little cups that can hold so much and no more.
Towards the close it is suggested that, caught in a cunning spring
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Princess by Alfred Tennyson: A trumpet in the distance pealing news
Of better, and Hope, a poising eagle, burns
Above the unrisen morrow:' then to me;
'Know you no song of your own land,' she said,
'Not such as moans about the retrospect,
But deals with the other distance and the hues
Of promise; not a death's-head at the wine.'
Then I remembered one myself had made,
What time I watched the swallow winging south
From mine own land, part made long since, and part
Now while I sang, and maidenlike as far
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians by Martin Luther: dreams about man's merit or worthiness.
With Paul we absolutely deny the possibility of self merit. God never yet
gave to any person grace and everlasting life as a reward for merit. The
opinions of the papists are the intellectual pipe-dreams of idle pates, that
serve no other purpose but to draw men away from the true worship of God.
The papacy is founded upon hallucinations.
The true way of salvation is this. First, a person must realize that he is a
sinner, the kind of a sinner who is congenitally unable to do any good thing.
"Whatsoever is not of faith, is sin." Those who seek to earn the grace of God
by their own efforts are trying to please God with sins. They mock God, and
provoke His anger. The first step on the way to salvation is to repent.
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