“More than this.  The etheric, invisible bar is the source and cause of all phenomena connected with the bar.  It is the real bar, and the one we see is merely the shadow in physical matter of a real bar.  In shape, strength, color, in short, in everything, it depends on the invisible one.  The invisible dominates, governs, disposes.  The visible is merely its attendant shadow, changing as the invisible, etheric bar changes, and recording for our senses these invisible changes.

“The invisible change always comes first; the invisible phenomena invariably precede the visible.

“In all this physical world—­in all this universe—­there is nothing, not even a grain of sand or an atom of hydrogen, that is not as this bar of iron is—­the shadow cast on a visible world by the unknown and mysterious work of an invisible world.

“Land or water, mountain or lake, man or beast, bird or reptile, cold or heat, light or darkness, all are the reflection in physical matter of the true and real thing in the invisible and intangible world about us.  “If we have a visible body we have an invisible one also,” said Saint Paul.  Modern science has proven he was right, and that it is the invisible body which is the real body.

“If this earth and all that it is composed of—­land or ocean or air; man or beast; pyramid or pavement—­could be resolved into the physical atoms composing everything in it or on it created by God or man, each atom of this dust would be identical physically.  There would not be one kind of atom for iron and another for oxygen.

“The differentiation between what are called elementary substances is first made apparent in the molecule or first combination of the atoms.  It is not in the atom itself, unless it be in the size, as may not be improbable.  The atoms combine in different numbers to make differently shaped molecules, and it is from this difference in the shape of the molecule that we get the difference between gold and silver, copper and tin, or oxygen and hydrogen.

“In all chemical compounds, such as water and alcohol, the molecules at the base of the two or more substances break up into their original atoms and form a new molecule composed of all the atoms in the two or more things combined.  To make this chemical combination we must change the rate of vibration of one or the other or both until they strike a common chord.  As we saw last term, oxygen and hydrogen have different specific heats, and no two other elements have the same specific heat, while heat raises the rate of vibration.  Any given amount of heat raises the vibration of one more than another.  Apply heat, and the rate of one will rise faster than that of the other until they reach a common chord.  Then they fall apart and recombine.

“If we pass a current of electricity through this sealed jar containing oxygen and hydrogen in mechanical union, the spark that leaps across the points furnishes the heat, and a drop of water appears and falls to the bottom.  A large portion of the gases has disappeared.  It has been converted into water.  What is left of the gases will expand and fill the bottle.