Book 4 (Part II)

i66 is a plate pierced with holes. This Censer is of silver or gold, because these were called the perfect metals; it is upon perfection that the im- perfect is burned. Upon this plate burns a great fire of charcoal, im- pregnated with nitre. This charcoal is (as chemists now begin to surmise) the ultimate protean element: absolutely black, because it absorbs all light; infusible by the apphcation of any known heat; the lightest of those elements w^hich occur in the solid state in nature; the essential constituent of all known forms of life. It has been treated wnth nitre, whose potassium has the violet flame of Jupiter, the father of all, whose nitrogen is that inert element which by proper combination becomes a constituent of all the most explosive bodies known; and oxygen, the food of fire. This fire is blown upon by the Magician ; this blaze of destruction has been kindled by his word and by his will. Into this Fire he casts the Incense, symbolical of prayer, the gross vehicle or image of his aspiration. Owing to the imperfection of this image, we obtain mere smoke instead of perfect combustion. But we cannot use explosives instead of incense, because it would not be true. Our prayer is the expression of the lower aspiring to the higher; it is without the clear vision of the higher, it does not under- stand what the higher wants. And, however sweet may be its smell, it is always cloudy.