Shine on the whole race of man,
Believing and unbelieving;
Shine on us now through the night,
Shine on us now in Thy might,
The flame of our holy love
and the song of our worship receiving.

The fire rose with the chant, throbbing as if it were made of musical
flame, until it cast a bright illumination through the whole apartment,
revealing its simplicity and splendour.

The floor was laid with tiles of dark blue veined with white; pilasters
of twisted silver stood out against the blue walls; the clearstory of
round-arched windows above them was hung with azure silk; the vaulted
ceiling was a pavement of sapphires, like the body of heaven in its
clearness, sown with silver stars. From the four corners of the roof
hung four golden magic-wheels, called the tongues of the gods. At the
eastern end, behind the altar, there were two dark-red pillars of
porphyry; above them a lintel of the same stone, on which was carved the
figure of a winged archer, with his arrow set to the string and his bow
drawn.

The doorway between the pillars, which opened upon the terrace of the
roof, was covered with a heavy curtain of the colour of a ripe
pomegranate, embroidered with innumerable golden rays shooting upward
from the floor. In effect the room was like a quiet, starry night, all
azure and silver, flushed in the East with rosy promise of the dawn. It
was, as the house of a man should be, an expression of the character and
spirit of the master.