THE light of the Sun, imprisoned and buried in the earth as coal, is the same substance whether manifesting as light or coal, one unlimited the other limited; only through the fires of purification can the imprisoned light reach again the source of its being, and be absorbed into The One Light, from which it is separated throughout its life of limitation. As coal it retains a separate individuality; but after being freed by the liberating fire, the symbol of purity (meaning pure from all that divides or separates) it loses for ever that burden of separateness, and becomes one with, or identified with, the light which is its very self.

If one could think of coal as a living entity, able to feel and to suffer, what agony must it endure when shut into outer darkness, with no power of movement, dumb, blind, and restricted on every side, at the mercy of forces beyond its control, buried in the denseness of the earth ; and if any memories of its real self were retained, and the realization of its heritage of Light, would it not long with a longing unspeakable, at whatever cost - even of that consuming fire in which its coal individuality is reduced to ashes – for freedom for that self, which through the ages has been dumbly pleading to return to That from which it tame forth.

It is only when the imprisoned light has been freed from its bondage that it can realize the reason for the long, long pilgrimage. Having returned to its original condition and knowing itself as light and not as coal, it can look back and see the necessity for the sacrifice of its freedom, the surrender of itself as light to the blackness of coal. The Sun, as light, could not help the dwellers upon earth to evolve into the civilised races that inhabit it to-day; so the supreme sacrifice of burial and imprisonment for thousands of years to the extreme limit of blackness was made; and what to the rapid vibrations of light is far worse, to inertia. It can now understand that when as coal it was through fire purified of black and became again white it was not for its own salvation (although by this means it gained its own freedom), but for the helping forward of humanity in its efforts to gain the mastery of the elements; and by this sacrifice of its coal individuality, man had been enabled to obtain everything needed for the evolution of a great civilisation; beat, light, food and clothing, dwelling places and means of transit, everything necessary to sustain life, to link nation to nation and race to race. By the quiet sacrifice of its life as coal through the fires of purification (which is so ordinary an occurrence that no man even considers it) mankind is helped to conquer the earth, sea and air, and even control fire itself. It now realizes that the sacrifice of itself as coal, was not sacrifice but freedom, the passing from darkness to light: and that all the time its real self was not coal but light; that coal was its false self, the form that bound it to the denseness of earth; only by the power of the imprisoned light becoming active through sacrifice could humanity be helped; only by losing its life of limitation mild the unlimited life be known. It knows now that all the time it was not coal that had helped man but light, for the real sacrifice was made by light which voluntarily limited itself for the sake of humanity.

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