| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: give us the power to do it. They were ordained, however, for the
purpose of showing man to himself, that through them he may learn
his own impotence for good and may despair of his own strength.
For this reason they are called the Old Testament, and are so.
For example, "Thou shalt not covet," is a precept by which we are
all convicted of sin, since no man can help coveting, whatever
efforts to the contrary he may make. In order therefore that he
may fulfil the precept, and not covet, he is constrained to
despair of himself and to seek elsewhere and through another the
help which he cannot find in himself; as it is said, "O Israel,
thou hast destroyed thyself; but in Me is thine help" (Hosea
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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 Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: see that Mrs. Todd's thoughts remained with the cough-drops. The
time of gathering herbs was nearly over, but the time of syrups and
cordials had begun.
The heat of the open fire made us a little drowsy, but
something in the way Mrs. Todd spoke of Shell-heap Island waked my
interest. I waited to see if she would say any more, and then took
a roundabout way back to the subject by saying what was first in my
mind: that I wished the Green Island family were there to spend the
evening with us,--Mrs. Todd's mother and her brother William.
Mrs. Todd smiled, and drummed on the arm of the rocking-chair.
"Might scare William to death," she warned me; and Mrs. Fosdick
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