| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Augsburg Confession by Philip Melanchthon: they are able to judge, are persuaded, and sometimes even
compelled, to take the vow. Wherefore it is not fair to insist
so rigorously on the obligation, since it is granted by all
that it is against the nature of a vow to take it without
spontaneous and deliberate action.
Most canonical laws rescind vows made before the age of
fifteen; for before that age there does not seem sufficient
judgment in a person to decide concerning a perpetual life.
Another Canon, granting more to the weakness of man, adds a
few years; for it forbids a vow to be made before the age of
eighteen. But which of these two Canons shall we follow? The
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Jew, Gentile, or barbarian in the dark
Of wildernesses that are not so much
As names yet in a book. And there are many,
Finding at last that words are not the Word,
And finding only that, will flourish aloft,
Like heads of captured Pharisees on pikes,
Our contradictions and discrepancies;
And there are many more will hang themselves
Upon the letter, seeing not in the Word
The friend of all who fail, and in their faith
A sword of excellence to cut them down.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber: can't quit in the middle of his song to stop you. He'll know I
put you wise, and he'll prob'ly half kill me for it. But it's
worth it. You get."
And Terry--dazed, shaking, but grateful--fled. Down the noisy
aisle, up the stairs, to the street. Back to her rooming house.
Out again, with her suitcase, and into the right railroad station
somehow, at last. Not another Wetona train until midnight. She
shrank into a remote corner of the waiting room and there she
huddled until midnight, watching the entrances like a child who
is fearful of ghosts in the night.
The hands of the station clock seemed fixed and immovable. The
One Basket |
