| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Little Britain by Washington Irving: holiday games and customs of yore. The inhabitants most
religiously eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, hot-cross-buns on
Good Friday, and roast goose at Michaelmas; they send love-
letters on Valentine's Day, burn the pope on the fifth of
November, and kiss all the girls under the mistletoe at
Christmas. Roast beef and plum pudding are also held in
superstitious veneration, and port and sherry maintain their
grounds as the only true English wines; all others being
considered vile, outlandish beverages.
Little Britain has its long catalogue of city wonders, which its
inhabitants consider the wonders of the world: such as the
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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: Almighty Disposer of the hearts of men, were continually offered
for its early triumph. "Who or what," thought I, "can withstand
a cause so good, so holy, so indescribably glorious. The God of
Israel is with us. The might of the Eternal is on our side. Now
let but the truth be spoken, and a nation will start forth at the
sound!" In this enthusiastic spirit, I dropped into the ranks of
freedom's friends, and went forth to the battle. For a time I
was made to forget that my skin was dark and my hair crisped.
For a time I regretted that I could not have shared the hardships
and dangers endured by the earlier workers for the slave's
release. I soon, however, found that my enthusiasm had been
My Bondage and My Freedom |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from War and the Future by H. G. Wells: witnesses. They leave to me but little doubt of the regrettable
superficiality of the bishop's utterances.
We have a multitude of people chastened by losses, ennobled by a
common effort, needing support in that effort, perplexed by the
reality of evil and cruelty, questioning and seeking after God.
What does the National Mission offer? On Tower Hill the bishop
seems to have been chiefly busy with a wrangling demonstration
that ten thousand a year is none too big a salary for a man
subject to such demands and expenses as his see involves. So far
from making anything out of his see he was, he declared, two
thousand a year to the bad. Some day, when the church has
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