ity: Fire kindled in any material Thing is only Fire
breaking out of its created, compacted state; it is nothing else
but the awakening the Spiritual Properties of that Thing, which
being thus stirred up, strive to get rid of that material Creation
under which they are imprisoned ... and were not these spiritual
Properties imprisoned in Matter, no material Thing could be made to
burn.... Fire is not, cannot be a material Thing, it only makes
itself visible and sensible by the Destruction of Matter."[45] "If
you ask what Fire is in its first true and unbeginning State, not
yet entered into any Creature, It is the Power and Strength, the
Glory and Majesty of eternal Nature.... If you ask what Fire is in
its own spiritual Nature, it is merely a _Desire_, and has no other
Nature than that of a _working Desire_, which is continually its
_own Kindler_." [46]

All life is a kindled fire in a variety of states, and every dead,
insensitive thing is only dead because its fire is quenched or
compressed, as in the case of a flint, which is in a state of death
"because its fire is bound, compacted, shut up and imprisoned," but a
steel struck against it, shows that every particle of the flint consists
of this compacted fire.

But even as, throughout all nature, a state of death is an imprisoned
fire, so throughout all nature is there only one way of kindling life.
You might as well write the word "flame" on the outside of a flint and
expect it to emit sparks as to imagine that any speculations of your
reason will kindle divine life in your soul.

No; Would you have Fire from a Flint; its House of Death must be
shaken, and its Chains of Darkness broken off by the Strokes of a
Steel upon it. This must of all Necessity be done to your Soul, its
imprisoned Fire must be awakened by the sharp Strokes of Steel, or
no true Light of Life can arise in it.[2]

All life, whether physical or spiritual, means a death to some previous
condition, and must be generated in pain. 6 1: _An Appeal, Works_,
vol. vi. pp. 166. 2 _Ibid._, p, 82.

If this mystical view of Fire be clear, it will be easy enough to
follow what Law says about Light and Darkness, or Air, Water, and Earth,
interpreting them all in the same way as "eternal Things become gross,
finite, measurable, divisible, and transitory."[47]

_The Spirit of Prayer_ is of all Law's works the one most st