put into my hands a branch of a fig tree bearing upon it ripe fruit,
and said, "If you would be perfect, and able to know and to do all
things, quit the heresy of Prometheus. Let fire warm and comfort
you externally: it is heaven's gift. But do not wrest it from its
rightful purpose, as did that betrayer of your race, to fill the
veins of humanity with its contagion, and to consume your interior
being with its breath. All of you are men of clay, as was the image
which Prometheus made. Ye are nourished with stolen fire, and it
consumes you. Of all the evil uses of heaven's good gifts, none
is so evil as the internal use of fire. For your hot foods and
drinks have consumed and dried up the magnetic power of your nerves,
sealed your senses, and cut short your lives. Now, you neither
see nor hear; for the fire in your organs consumes your senses.
Ye are all blind and deaf, creatures of clay. We have sent you a
book to read. Practise its precepts, and your senses shall be opened."

Then, not yet recognising him, I said, "Tell me your name, Lord."
At this he laughed and answered, "I have been about you from the
beginning. I am the white cloud on the noonday sky." "Do you, then,"
I asked, "desire the whole world to abandon the use of fire in
preparing food and drink?"

Instead of answering my question, he said, "We show you the excellent
way. Two places only are vacant at our table. We have told you
all that can be shown you on the level on which you stand. But
our perfect gifts, the fruits of the Tree of Life, are beyond your
reach now. We cannot give them to you until you are purified and
have come up higher. The conditions are God's; the will is with you."

These last words seemed to be repeated from the sky overhead, and