The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: spirit lives. Every pulse-beat of its [existence] is the
expression and realization of the life of God."[299]
[299] John Caird: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion
London and New York, 1880, pp. 243-250, and 291-299, much
abridged.
You will readily admit that no description of the phenomena of
the religious consciousness could be better than these words of
your lamented preacher and philosopher. They reproduce the very
rapture of those crises of conversion of which we have been
hearing; they utter what the mystic felt but was unable to
communicate; and the saint, in hearing them, recognizes his own
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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 Tanach: Exodus 2: 19 And they said: 'An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and moreover he drew water for us, and watered the flock.'
Exodus 2: 20 And he said unto his daughters: 'And where is he? Why is it that ye have left the man? call him, that he may eat bread.'
Exodus 2: 21 And Moses was content to dwell with the man; and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter.
Exodus 2: 22 And she bore a son, and he called his name Gershom; for he said: 'I have been a stranger in a strange land.'
Exodus 2: 23 And it came to pass in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died; and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage.
Exodus 2: 24 And God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
Exodus 2: 25 And God saw the children of Israel, and God took cognizance of them.
Exodus 3: 1 Now Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the farthest end of the wilderness, and came to the mountain of God, unto Horeb.
Exodus 3: 2 And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.
 The Tanach |