| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther: long for help, should regard and use it only as a precious antidote
against the poison which they have in them. For here in the Sacrament
you are to receive from the lips of Christ forgiveness of sin which
contains and brings with it the grace of God and the Spirit with all
His gifts, protection, shelter, and power against death and the devil
and all misfortune.
Thus you have, on the part of God, both the command and the promise of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Besides this, on your part, your own distress
which is about your neck, and because of which this command, invitation
and promise are given, ought to impel you. For He Himself says: They
that be whole need not a physician, but they that be sick; that is,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from On Revenues by Xenophon: in requital of kindly treatment. And to-day, owing to the chaos[15]
which reigns in Hellas, if I mistake not, an opportunity has fallen to
this city of winning back our fellow-Hellenes without pain or peril or
expense of any sort. It is given to us to try and harmonise states
which are at war with one another: it is given to us to reconcile the
differences of rival factions within those states themselves, wherever
existing.
[9] Lit. "her hegemony for the city," B.C. 476.
[10] "And first of all."
[11] See Thuc. i. 96.
[12] B.C. 378. Second confederacy of Delos. See Grote, "H. G." x. 152.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln: can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place
for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live.
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate. . .we cannot consecrate. . .
we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead,
who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power
to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember,
what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished
work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
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