| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians by Martin Luther: Galatia. They pretended that they had been on intimate terms with the
apostles, while Paul had never seen Christ in person or had much contact
with the rest of the apostles. Because of this they delivered him, rejected
his doctrine, and boosted their own. In this way they troubled the
Galatians and caused quarrels among them until they provoked and
envied each other; which goes to show that neither the false apostles nor
the Galatians walked after the Spirit, but after the flesh.
The Gospel is not there for us to aggrandize ourselves. The Gospel is to
aggrandize Christ and the mercy of God. It holds out to men eternal gifts
that are not gifts of our own manufacture. What right have we to receive
praise and glory for gifts that are not of our own making?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: mules, dragging masses of pig-iron through the narrow street,
have a foul vapor hanging to their reeking sides. Here, inside,
is a little broken figure of an angel pointing upward from the
mantel-shelf; but even its wings are covered with smoke, clotted
and black. Smoke everywhere! A dirty canary chirps desolately
in a cage beside me. Its dream of green fields and sunshine is
a very old dream,--almost worn out, I think.
From the back-window I can see a narrow brick-yard sloping down
to the river-side, strewed with rain-butts and tubs. The river,
dull and tawny-colored, (la belle riviere!) drags itself
sluggishly along, tired of the heavy weight of boats and coal-
Life in the Iron-Mills |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from On Revenues by Xenophon: Zurborg suggests {peri ton agonizomenon}.
But it is not the income[63] derived from the slaves alone to which we
look to help the state towards the effective maintenance of her
citizens, but with the growth and concentration of a thick population
in the mining district various sources of revenue will accrue, whether
from the market at Sunium, or from the various state buildings in
connection with the silver mines, from furnaces and all the rest.
Since we must expect a thickly populated city to spring up here, if
organised in the way proposed, and plots of land will become as
valuable to owners out there as they are to those who possess them in
the neighbourhood of the capital.
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