| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: wild . of the . . . . .
. of your finally being lodged in this mansion of misery, where
only I would seek, where only I can succor you."--"You, demon!"--
"Demon!--Harsh words!--Was it a demon or a human being placed you
here?--Listen to me, Stanton; nay, wrap not yourself in that
miserable blanket,--that cannot shut out my words. Believe me,
were you folded in thunder clouds, you must hear ME! Stanton,
think of your misery. These bare walls--what do they present to
the intellect or to the senses?--Whitewash, diversified with the
scrawls of charcoal or red chalk, that your happy predecessors have
left for you to trace over. You have a taste for drawing--I trust
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Augsburg Confession by Philip Melanchthon: the blood of Christ would become of little value, neither
would the preeminence of man's works be superseded by the
mercy of God, if justification, which is wrought through
grace, were due to the merits going before, so as to be, not
the free gift of a donor, but the reward due to the laborer.
But, although this doctrine is despised by the inexperienced,
nevertheless God-fearing and anxious consciences find by
experience that it brings the greatest consolation, because
consciences cannot be set at rest through any works, but only
by faith, when they take the sure ground that for Christ's
sake they have a reconciled God. As Paul teaches Rom. 5, 1:
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: French gentleman. If you entertain any doubts as to the financial side
of this undertaking, I can prove to you that at this moment we have
two thousand five hundred subscribers to this work, which is literary,
iconographical, statistical, and religious; its importance has been
generally appreciated; our subscribers belong to every nation in
Europe, we have but twelve hundred in France. Our book will cost about
three hundred francs, and the Comte de Nouvion will derive from it
from six to seven thousand francs a year, for his comfort was the real
motive of the undertaking. For my part, I aimed only at the
possibility of affording my children some pleasures. The hundred
thousand francs I have made, quite in spite of myself, will pay for
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