| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: X. Of Ordination and the Call.
If the bishops would be true bishops [would rightly discharge
their office], and would devote themselves to the Church and
the Gospel, it might be granted to them for the sake of love
and unity, but not from necessity, to ordain and confirm us
and our preachers; omitting, however, all comedies and
spectacular display [deceptions, absurdities, and appearances]
of unchristian [heathenish] parade and pomp. But because they
neither are, nor wish to be, true bishops, but worldly lords
and princes, who will neither preach, nor teach, nor baptize,
nor administer the Lord's Supper, nor perform any work or
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from The Last War: A World Set Free by H. G. Wells: rather of hue than of nature. That comes with a deepening
philosophy and a sounder education. For the first joyous
exercises of fancy we perceive now the deliberation of a more
constructive imagination. There is a natural order in these
things, and art comes before science as the satisfaction of more
elemental needs must come before art, and as play and pleasure
come in a human life before the development of a settled
purpose....
For thousands of years this gathering impulse to creative work
must have struggled in man against the limitations imposed upon
him by his social ineptitude. It was a long smouldering fire
The Last War: A World Set Free |
