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60 to the fact that the fire has lost its power to burn. It has parted with its spirit. Materially considered, the fire is still there, but spiritually speaking it is extinct. This is why, when it has been once exorcised, the veriest tyro may cross it without a blister. The spirit of water has descended to it from the moon and driven the spirit of fire out of the coals. Any skeptic might soon prove this to his own satisfaction by just walking over the coals himself, were true piety compatible with doubt.

"The object of the rite," so the high-priest expounded it to me, "is that the populace may see that the god when duly besought can take away the burning spirit of fire while permitting the body of it to remain. For so can he do with the hearts of men; the bad spirit may be driven out and the good put in its place while still the man continues to exist."

To the coldly critical eye of science two things conduce to the performance of this feat. One is the toughness of the far eastern sole. The far Oriental inherits a much less sensitive nervous organization than is the birthright of a European, and his cuticle