Kingdom of matthias

Kingdom of Matthias is one of the literary works that gives focus to an important part of American history, the great age of democratic revivals in the country. The book is an attempt to find meaning and relevance in the Kingdom of Matthias. The authors of the book, Paul Johnson and Sean Wiletnz assert that the Kingdom of Matthias cannot simply be called an evangelical movement for a closer analysis of the movement will reveal that Matthias’ religious vision does not run in parallel with the new evangelicals of the time. Instead, his religious movement ran largely in contrast and in opposition to the evangelicals of the First and Second Great Awakenings. The book is the authors’ attempt to tell the tale of the national scandal that grew out of the Kingdom of Matthias. The authors weave a tale that integrates the three elements that made the Kingdom of Matthias prominent in American history. That is salvation, sex, and murder. The said literary piece is enjoyable to read despite its gruesome and eerie topic for the authors were able to turn the story into a novel. By using the lives of several characters, Johnson and Wilentz were able to reveal the facets of the evangelical movement through the lives of the said characters. This was vital to the story for it prevented the book from being a mere historical account of events by giving it a personal touch. Recounting the personal tales of each of the characters enabled the authors to tell the events in a story-telling manner. The book must also be commended for its ability to relate the events of the past to those of the present. This is vital especially since the book is often times used by students who want to see the relevance of what they are reading to their lives today. However, there are certain cases when the authors were seemingly exhausting the story too much. By doing so, they were clouding the story with tedium to certain extents. For instance, I do not see the need to discuss and expound on the Matthew’s brothers involvement in the anti-masonic hysteria in Rochester. Since the focal point of the book is a evangelical movement, it should be expected that much of the discussion will be centered on the intricacies of the religion and the beliefs it tries to promulgate. However, the authors were not able to give that much focus on the religious beliefs. Instead, the discussion was centered on how the Kingdom of Matthias was at the edge of religious respectability and how its teachings led to the scandal it saw itself in. Finally, the community played a very relevant role in the novel for the authors defined the lives of the main characters based on how the community reacted to them. In each of the stories that were recounted, the community’s role was largely explored. From the denial of certain evangelical movements of the membership of certain characters, to the reactions of the community to the practices of the Kingdom of Matthias, the authors continuously discussed the role and relevance of the community to the story. Kingdom of Matthias is a historical novel that explores the scandal of the evangelical movement of the same name. It tackles the relevance of how radical evangelism helped shaped the country into what it is today.

Inkwell Ltd Intro Essay

Introduction Inkwell Ltd like every other company will need to use accounting in their business. Inkwell are a printer cartridge company who recycle old ones, but then re-manufactures them to give them back to their customers. They are well known for high quality products, with a 100% guarantee product. Obviously they will need a good accounting system to be able to maximise profits, like every other company. With Inkwell working on a just in time system and being a company boasting in the quality of their products, it is essential that they have good relationships with their external stakeholders. Due to working a JIT system, Inkwell will need to maintain a good relationship with suppliers, because if one supplier is late or delays or has reduced quality goods, Inkwells production and be slowed or disrupted very easily. This stall in production can then have a knock on effect to the customers, because the quality of Inkwells cartridges may be reduced. Accounting systems will be affected by the organisational structure, because if a company has a complex structure, it may be very hard and time consuming to get things approved for accounting (investment etc.) which can cause the business to lose out. Also, again the JIT procedure/system can affect the accounting department, because Inkwell will need to make sure the suppliers are paid on time so no disruption to JIT will take place. Business transactions will need to all be done correctly and noted, so they can be placed into the purchase ledger etc. correctly. Accounting plays a vital and pivotal role in the success of every company. The purpose of accounting is to be able to make decisions on where to invest money into the company and which areas to focus on to make costs as low as possible, to be able to maximise profits for the company. This is done by using financial data within in the company to be able to create reports about the company to show the financial position and strength of a company. Also, these reports can show which areas of the company needs investment, improvement or focus. This will have effects on other parts of the company,  because the accounting department and decide where and what amount of money etc. can and will be allocated to different parts of the company. This will then have an effect on these parts of the company, because if the accounting side do not allocate enough resources to other parts of the company, then the company itself may not operate to its full potential. There are many external regulations that affect the accounting practice, such as HMRC regulations which can affect payroll/PAYE, VAT and customs. Also, there can be local authority regulations which can affect planning permission and health and safety, and H&S being more and more worldwide. There are also minimum wage laws and safe disposal regulations which can link into these. This can affect accounting systems and the users, because you will need to abide by these regulations/laws so you do not incur fines etc.. For example, if the VAT rates change, the sales people at the company will need to make sure that when they are preparing for the sale, they take into account the new VAT rate. Payroll will need to be monitored, due to PAYE regulations. Inkwell will need to ensure that they pay everyone for the correct amount of hours they work, as they pay employees per hour. Inkwell are not doing this as yet, as they do not have a clocking in and out system, and the hours are written dow n by the employee, which relies a lot on trusting the employee. Business will use Income statements, cash flows and statement of financial position for many reasons. Cash flows for example will be used so that a rough value of how much cash is available in the business, which can influence whether or not payments will be have to be delayed or debts chased up quicker. Income statements and financial positions can be used to work out various formulas to work out how well a business is operating, and where the business can improve. For example, some costs in parts of the business which are high compared to elsewhere/other businesses could be cut.

Outline and Evaluate Factors Influencing Eye Witness Testimony Essay

The term ‘eye witness testimony’ refers to an area of research into the accuracy of memory concerning significant events, it is legally considered to be a reliable account of events. However, research into eye witness testimony has found that it can be affected by many psychological factors such as, anxiety and stress, reconstructive memory, selective attention and leading questions. Anxiety and stress can be associated with many factors such as, violence and crime. Clifford and Scott (1978) found that participants who saw a film of a violent event remembered less of the information than a control group who saw a less stressful version. However, Yuile and Cutshall (1986) found that witnesses of a real event had accurate memories of what happened. The police interviewed witnesses and thirteen of them were interviewed five months later. Recall was found to be accurate, even after a long period of time. One weakness of this study was that the witnesses who experienced the highest levels of stress where actually present at the event, instead of watching second hand from a film, and this may have helped with the accuracy of their memory recall. Selective attention is when the witness is able to describe one detail, giving them less time to pay attention to other details. It can also be because the witness is more likely to focus on a detail with more emotional significance, such as a weapon. Loftus et al. (1987) showed participants a series of slides of a customer at a restaurant. In on version the customer was holding a gun, in the other the customer held a chequebook. Participants who had been shown the version with the gun present tended to focus on the gun itself and not much else. As a result they were less likely to identify the customer as appose to those who had seen the chequebook version. Bartlett (1932) showed that memory is not just a factual recording of what has occurred, but that we make â€Å"effort after meaning†. By this, Bartlett meant that we try to fit what we remember with what we really know and understand. As a result, we quite often change our memories so they become more sensible to us. He had participants play ‘Chinese Whispers’ and when asked to recall the detail of the story, each person seemed to tell it in their own individual way. With repeating telling, the passages became shorter, puzzling ideas were rationalised or forgotten altogether and details changed to become more familiar or conventional. For this research Bartlett concluded, â€Å"memory is not exact and is distorted by existing preconceptions. It seems, therefore, that each of us ‘reconstructs’ our memories to conform to our personal beliefs about the world. † This clearly indicates that our memories are anything but reliable records of events. They are individual recollections, which have been shaped and constructed according to our stereotypes, beliefs, expectations etc. Loftus and Palmer (1974) tested their hypothesis that the language used in eye witness testimony can alter and change memory. They aimed to show that leading questions could distort eye witness testimony accounts, as the account would become distorted by reminders provided in the question. To test this, they asked people to estimate the speed of motor vehicles using different forms of questions. Participants were shown slides of a car accident involving a number of cars and asked to describe what had happened as if they were eye witnesses. They were then asked specific questions, including the question â€Å"About how fast were the cars going when they (hit/smashed/collided/ bumped/contacted) each other? The estimated speed was affected by the verb used. The verb implied information about the speed, which affected the participants’ memory of the accident. Participants who were asked the â€Å"smashed† question thought the cars were going faster than those who were asked the â€Å"hit† question. When people were asked a week after viewing the film whether they saw any broken glass at the scene (there was none), people in the smashed group were more likely to say yes. Therefore, a leading question that encouraged them to remember the vehicles going faster also encouraged them to remember that they saw non-existent broken glass. This suggests that memory is easily distorted by questioning technique and information acquired after the event can merge with original memory causing inaccurate memory. The addition of false details to a memory of an event is referred to as confabulation. This has important implications for the questions used in police interviews of eye witnesses. In conclusion, eye witness testimony can be influenced by a number of factors, including, anxiety and stress, selective attention, reconstructive memory and leading questions. They all have a large effect on eye witness testimony and affected the results in many different ways.

Stereotypes Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Stereotypes - Essay Example The common stereotype for such students is that they are children who are either orphaned, adopted or have no biological parents for some reason, or generally that they come from abusive and broken homes. Family problems are therefore the first stereotype to be formed for such isolated students. Research shows that this type of stereotyping may be actually founded on facts. It shows that more than fifty percent of the students, especially teenagers, who exhibited the aforementioned signs, came from families with a history of abuse and divorce. Majority of these teenagers were comprised of families whose fathers had walked out on them (Dennis and Erdos, 2000). The effect of this therefore is that the student becomes distant, anti-social and depressed. This leads to poor performance in school and anti-social behavioral patterns (Teenage outcasts, 2011). The preceding argument is not entirely true as it is based on existing misconceptions about teenage outcasts. This is because not all teenage students who tend to exhibit behavioral isolation came from problematic families. In fact, in some instances such students came from good and well of families, and the isolation may have been caused by psychological factors such as shyness (Mosser, 2011). All that such students may be in need of is just some company so as to make them feel wanted and as part and parcel of the society. Stereotyping them thus only leads to long term negative impacts that would always place them at a disadvantage, one that they may wholly never recover from (U.S News Science, 2010). The second common stereotype revolves around the gay community. Majority of the people perceive gay people as having a tendency of exhibiting feminine traits. Any person who walks, talks, or engages in activities that are considered a preserve of the female gender are out rightly labeled as gay. It is not uncommon to hear of most people referring male fashion designers, stylists, or male hair dressers as gay. The st ereotype here is that all persons of the male gender who engage in professions that are considered feminine are gay. The stereotype here is even extended to ordinary male persons who exhibit feminine tendencies, or tend to lean more on female behavioral characteristics. This stereotype has been largely perpetuated by the media, which portrays all gay men as being extremely effeminate. So, are these stereotypes about gay men being effeminate true? Research suggests that gay men actually do prefer some professions like interior designing, fashion and hair coloring (Stossel and Binkley, 2006). In fact, professions like dancing and fashion require the creative touches of the gay people, and it is no wonder that such professions are flooded with gay men. Michael Bailey, a psychology professor, argues that these stereotypes of the gay men are actually true. He argues that gay men exhibited feminine tendencies during childhood and had a preference for feminine sex roles (Bailey, 2003). How ever, it is such stereotyping of the gay people that has led to homophobic attacks and discrimination among the gay community. This form of stereotyping has long-term negative impacts on the perception of the gay community in the society (Pre-existing notions, 2011). This form of stereotyping is not entirely true. This is because it is merely a generalization that lacks in elaborate research as to the accuracy of this hypothesis. The members of the gay commun

Assessing Culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Assessing Culture - Essay Example The four types of organizational culture developed are collaborate (clan), control (hierarchy), compete (market), and create (adhocracy). They have varying characteristics in terms of operation, which correlates with different qualities and features of the organization’s environment. Assessing the culture and subcultures of an organization provides the designers and planners of the workplace with a foundation on which they can structure an environment that supports its expression and function. The role of culture in the educational sector is to determine the effectiveness of institutions within the sector (Carroll, 2010). An appropriate, unique, and strong culture accomplishes several things for the institution. First, it reduces uncertainty of institutional performance through the creation of a common way of interpreting issues and events. Second, it creates a sense of order, where members awareness of expectations placed on them is high. Third, it creates a sense of continuity. Fourth, it provides a unity of commitment and a common identity. Finally, it provides vision for the future behind which, the company can rally. The first step in implementing meaningful change and making the best of organizational culture as an asset to be leveraged in support of the institution’s goals is in diagnosing its present cultural condition. This can be achieved through conducting analysis such as PESTLE and SWOT to gauge the current positioning of the institution. CNCS is a federal agency, which helps over five million Americans to improve the lives of fellow citizens through serving them. The corporation works hand-in-hand with local partners to tap into the can-do spirit and ingenuity of the American people in tackling pressing challenges that face the nation. This is done through investment in thousands of faith-based as well as nonprofit groups geared towards making a difference across the country. The aim of the

Evangelism Vision Paper Research Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Evangelism Vision - Research Paper Example These words were a direct command from Jesus to the then disciples and all those who would come into the Kingdom later, in order to mobilize His followers into all parts of the world in fulfillment of His promise when He called His first disciples to follow Him and He would make them fishers of men, Mark 1:17. Wherever I am, I have realized that it is a command from Christ who I have accepted as my Lord, to make Him known to the people around me, a duty that Jesus has delegated to all members of the church which is His body.2 As can be noted from the Bible, Jesus started His mission on earth with evangelism, Mark 1:38b where once He told disciples,’ that I may preach there also, for therefore came I forth’, and ended it with evangelism when He gave His followers the great commission. This shows the great importance that He attaches to the redemption of man, also saying in Luke 19:10 that He came to seek and to save that which was lost. I have also learnt that my changed life as a Christian is very crucial to the success of my evangelistic endeavor. Many Christians undertake the call to make disciples or evangelize just like passing on information, but a dying world will like to witness the change that has taken place in a Christian’s life after embracing the gospel.3 Jesus was confident enough to tell His followers to learn of Him, Mathew 11:29 and so was Paul the Apostle who said, â€Å"Be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an example.† A changed lifestyle will have much greater effect than a sermon of many words because the impact can be clearly seen. Paul talked about a time when people will have’ a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof’, when their lives, which will not have been changed by what they profess, 2Timothy 3:5. While it is very vital to share the correct message of the gospel which is in line with the word of God, it is very crucial that the information passed on is validated by my changed and consistent way of life. Evangelism has been taken by many Christians to be a Spiritual gift that has been given to a few select individuals, contrary to what the Bible teaches. While some people may be endowed with gifts that may help them to evangelize in a better way, the evangelistic call is for all members of the church. As Christians realize that evangelism is not just about sharing the good news, but about an aspect to be embraced as a lifestyle by every believer, there were be much more effective witnessing. It is not also an aspect that is to be done by a certain kind of personality, but is one that God has assigned to every member of the body of Christ, since as we share the message of redemption in the power of the Holy Ghost, the results are left to God according to John 6; 44, which states that no man can come to God unless drawn by God Himself. As we also study Ephesians 4 verse 11-12, the five fold ministry has been given by Christ to prepare the Church for the works of service. Christians are equipped by those endowed with these ministry

The Moral Issues Of The Animal Testing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The Moral Issues Of The Animal Testing - Essay Example The debates stemming from animal rights are one of the major issues being discussed in medical symposiums and environmentalists. In my opinion, animal testing is not justified. Animal testing is not only morally wrong, but also the results of the experiments are not hundred percent accurate. It has been estimated that over 50 to 100 million vertebrate animals are used in experiments and trials; the figure of animals used in testing is even greater. The animals that have not been weaned and invertebrates are not included in the aforementioned figure. A major fraction of the animals that have been tested upon is killed. Although many of the researchers are being conducted on the safety of animals, it is not justified to use animals for the purpose of human safety. It is not off beam to know more about animals and to study them in more detail like there is nothing wrong in furthering our research about planetary bodies. However, it needs to be noted that the researchers being done on an imals can be misleading. It is with experience and researches conducted in the past that have made us realize that some drugs may fail to elicit the same response as they did in animals. It is such failed researchers that attest to the fact that animals are different from humans. Using rats for cancer research was one such example where torturing animals were the sake of human good was pointless (Pakistan Politics Journal). Scientists had resorted to rats as test subjects until 1993 when it was reported that the genetic makeup of the rats renders them vulnerable to cancer, and so research on them ca never yield accurate results. Cohen adheres to the view that animals are not like humans and this is why he believes that they can be used for animal testing (94). Right is fundamentally a claim that one individual asserts over the other. A right encompasses the elements such as who holds the right and to whom it is against.