| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: quaint phrase; and although the surveying and his post-office
supplied his daily needs, they left absolutely nothing toward
paying his "National Debt." Some of his creditors began to get
uneasy, and in the latter part of 1834 a man named Van Bergen,
who held one of the Lincoln-Berry notes, refusing to trust him
any longer, had his horse, saddle, and surveying instruments
seized by the sheriff and sold at public auction, thus sweeping
away the means by which, as he said, he "procured bread and kept
soul and body together." Even in this strait his known honesty
proved his salvation. Out of pure friendliness, James Short
bought in the property and gave it back to the young surveyor,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: fish; teach us, Lord, the meaning of the fishes. Let us see
ourselves for what we are, one out of the countless number of the
clans of thy handiwork. When we would despair, let us remember
that these also please and serve Thee.
BEFORE A TEMPORARY SEPARATION
TO-DAY we go forth separate, some of us to pleasure, some of us to
worship, some upon duty. Go with us, our guide and angel; hold
Thou before us in our divided paths the mark of our low calling,
still to be true to what small best we can attain to. Help us in
that, our maker, the dispenser of events - Thou, of the vast
designs, in which we blindly labour, suffer us to be so far
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Who writes in the Lord's name for his name's sake
And has not in his blood the fire of time
To warm eternity. Let such a man --
If once the light is in him and endures --
Content himself to be the general man,
Set free to sift the decencies and thereby
To learn, except he be one set aside
For sorrow, more of pleasure than of pain;
Though if his light be not the light indeed,
But a brief shine that never really was,
And fails, leaving him worse than where he was,
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