| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: conceive life at all. To him what is dumb is dead. But to Christ
it was not so. With a width and wonder of imagination that fills
one almost with awe, he took the entire world of the inarticulate,
the voiceless world of pain, as his kingdom, and made of himself
its eternal mouthpiece. Those of whom I have spoken, who are dumb
under oppression, and 'whose silence is heard only of God,' he
chose as his brothers. He sought to become eyes to the blind, ears
to the deaf, and a cry in the lips of those whose tongues had been
tied. His desire was to be to the myriads who had found no
utterance a very trumpet through which they might call to heaven.
And feeling, with the artistic nature of one to whom suffering and
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Disputation of the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences by Dr. Martin Luther: were to stake his soul upon it.
53. They are enemies of Christ and of the pope, who bid the
Word of God be altogether silent in some Churches, in order
that pardons may be preached in others.
54. Injury is done the Word of God when, in the same sermon,
an equal or a longer time is spent on pardons than on this
Word.
55. It must be the intention of the pope that if pardons,
which are a very small thing, are celebrated with one bell,
with single processions and ceremonies, then the Gospel, which
is the very greatest thing, should be preached with a hundred
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