"A Romance of Two Worlds "--"Like all flames, this electric (or
radiant) spark can either be fanned into a fire, or allowed to
escape in air,--IT CAN NEVER BE DESTROYED." And again, from the same
book: "All the wonders of Nature are the result of LIGHT AND HEAT
ALONE." Paracelsus, as early as about 1526, made guarded mention of
the same substance or quality, describing it thus:--"The more of the
humour of life it has, the more of the spirit of life abounds in
that life." Though truly this vital radio-active force lacks all
fitting name. To material science radium, or radium chloride, is a
minute salt crystal, so rare and costly to obtain that it may be
counted as about three thousand times the price of gold in the
market. But of the action of PURE radium, the knowledge of ordinary
scientific students is nil. They know that an infinitely small spark
of radium salt will emit heat and light continuously without any
combustion or change in its own structure. And I would here quote a
passage from a lecture delivered by one of our prominent scientists
in 1904. "Details concerning the behaviour of several radio-active
bodies were detected, as, for example, their activity was not
constant; it gradually grew in strength, BUT THE GROWN PORTION OF
THE ACTIVITY COULD BE BLOWN AWAY, AND THE BLOWN AWAY PART RETAINED
ITS ACTIVITY ONLY FOR A TIME. It decayed in a few days or weeks,--
WHEREAS THE RADIUM ROSE IN STRENGTH AGAIN AT THE SAME RATE THAT THE
OTHER DECAYED. And so on constantly. It was as if a NEW FORM of
matter was constantly being produced, and AS IF THE RADIO-ACTIVITY
WAS A CONCOMITANT OF THE CHANGE OF FORM. It was also found that
radium kept on producing heat de novo so as to keep itself always a
fraction of a degree ABOVE THE SURROUNDING TEMPERATURE; also that it
spontaneously PRODUCED ELECTRICITY."

Does this teach no lesson on the resurrection of the dead? Of the