s was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of
God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be
light. And there was light.'

"These words apply SOLELY to the creation or production of OUR OWN
EARTH, and in them we read nothing but a simple manifestation of
electricity, consisting in a HEATING PASSAGE OF RAYS from the Central
Circle to the planet newly propelled forth from it, which caused that
planet to produce and multiply the wonders of the animal, vegetable,
and mineral kingdoms which we call Nature.

"Let us now turn again to the poet-prophets of Scripture: 'And God
said, Let us make man in our image.' The word 'OUR' here implies an
instinctive idea that God was never alone. This idea is correct. Love
cannot exist in a chaos; and God by the sheer necessity of His Being
has for ever been surrounded by radiant and immortal Spirits emanating
from His own creative glory--beings in whom all beauty and all purity
are found. In the IMAGES, therefore (only the IMAGES), of these
Children of Light and of Himself, He made Man--that is, He caused the
Earth to be inhabited and DOMINATED by beings composed of Earth's
component parts, animal, vegetable, and mineral, giving them their
superiority by placing within them His 'LIKENESS' in the form of an
ELECTRIC FLAME or GERM of spiritual existence combined with its
companion working-force of WILL-POWER.

"Like all flames, this electric spark can either be fanned into a fire
or it can be allowed to escape in air--IT CAN NEVER BE DESTROYED. It
can be fostered and educated till it becomes a living Spiritual Form of
absolute beauty--an immortal creature of thought, memory, emotion, and
working intelligence. If, on the contrary, he is neglected or
forgotten, and its companion Will is drawn by the weight of Earth to
work for earthly aims alone, then it escapes and seeks other chances of
development in OTHER FORMS on OTHER PLANETS, while the body it leaves,
SUPPORTED ONLY BY PHYSICAL SUSTENANCE DRAWN FROM THE EARTH ON WHICH IT
DWELLS, becomes a mere lump of clay ANIMATED BY MERE ANIMAL LIFE
SOLELY, full of inward ignorance and corruption and outward incapacity.
Of such material are the majority of men composed BY THEIR OWN
FREE-WILL AND CHOICE, because they habitually deaden the voice of
conscience and refuse to believe in the existence of a spiritual
element within and around them.

"To resume: the Earth is one of the smallest of planets; and not only
this, but,