The pomp of emperors becomes as nothing in comparison with the glory that surrounds the hierophant. The priest is a prophet full of deity. The subordinate powers of the upper world are at his bidding, for it is not a man, but a god who speaks the words of power. Such a man lives no longer the life common to other men. He has exchanged the human life for the divine. His nature is the instrument and vehicle of Deity, who fills and impels him (ὄργανον τοῖς ἐπιπνέουσι θεοῖς.) Men of this order do not employ, in the elevation they experience, the waking senses as do others (οὔτε κατ᾽ αἴσθησιν ἐνεργοῦσιν οὔτε ἐγρηγόρασι). They have no purpose of their own, no mastery over themselves. They speak wisdom they do not understand, and their faculties, absorbed in a divine power, become the utterance of a superior will. Often, at the moment of inspiration, or when the afflatus has subsided, a fiery Appearance is seen,—the entering or departing Power. Those who are skilled in this wisdom can tell by the character of this glory the rank of the divinity who has seized for the time the reins of the mystic’s soul, and guides it as he will. Sometimes the body of the man subject to this influence is violently agitated, sometimes it is rigid and motionless. In some instances sweet music is heard, in others, discordant and fearful sounds. The person of the subject has been known to dilate and tower to a superhuman height; in other cases, it has been lifted up into the air. Frequently, not merely the ordinary exercise of reason, but sensation and animal life would appear to have been suspended; and the subject of the afflatus has not felt the application of fire, has been pierced with spits, cut with knives, and been sensible of no pain. Yea, often, the more the body and the mind have been alike enfeebled by vigil and by fasts, the more ignorant or mentally imbecile a youth may be who is brought under this influence, the more freely and unmixedly will the divine power be made manifest. So clearly are these wonders the work, not of human skill or wisdom, but of supernatural agency! Characteristics such as these I have mentioned, are the marks of the true inspiration.