| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: seen in the State of Kentucky. The general prevalence of
agricultural pursuits of a quiet and gradual nature, not requiring
those periodic seasons of hurry and pressure that are called for
in the business of more southern districts, makes the task of the
negro a more healthful and reasonable one; while the master, content
with a more gradual style of acquisition, has not those temptations
to hardheartedness which always overcome frail human nature when
the prospect of sudden and rapid gain is weighed in the balance,
with no heavier counterpoise than the interests of the helpless
and unprotected.
Whoever visits some estates there, and witnesses the
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Men of Iron by Howard Pyle: upon the front of the helmet. Crash! crash! And then, even as the
Earl toppled sidelong, crash! And the iron plates split and
crackled under the third blow. Myles had one flashing glimpse of
an awful face, and then the saddle was empty.
Then, as he held tight to the horse, panting, dizzy, sick to
death, he felt the hot blood gushing from his side, filling his
body armor, and staining the ground upon which he stood. Still he
held tightly to the saddle-bow of the fallen man's horse until,
through his glimmering sight, he saw the Marshal, the Lieutenant,
and the attendants gather around him. He heard the Marshal ask
him, in a voice that sounded faint and distant, if he was
Men of Iron |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: we pray that we may keep and have the Seven Commandments of the
Second Table, in which faith is exercised toward our neighbor;
just as in the first three it is exercised in works toward God
alone. And these are the petitions in which stands the word
"Thou, Thy, Thy, Thy," because they seek only what belongs to
God; all the others say "our, us, our," etc; for in them we pray
for our goods and blessedness.
Let this, then, suffice as a plain, hasty explanation of the
First Table of Moses, pointing out to simple folk what are the
highest of good works.
The Second Table follows.
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