The Lord be with us. And with thy spirit. Let us pray. Almighty God and Father, who manifestedst thy virtue to Elias by certain senseless creatures, who orderedst Moses, Thy servant, that, among the sacerdotal vestments, he should adorn the Rational of Judgment with twelve precious stones, and showedst to John, the evangelist, the famous city of Jerusalem, essentially constituted by the same stones, and who hadst the power to raise up sons to Abraham from stones, we humbly beseech Thy majesty since Thou hast elected one of the stones to be a dwelling-place for the majesty of Thy heart, that Thou wilt deign to bless and sanctify these stones by the sanctification and incarnation of Thy name, so that they may be sanctified, blessed, and consecrated, and may receive from Thee the effect of the virtues Thou hast granted to them, according to their kinds, and which the experience of the learned has shown to have been given by Thee; so that whoever may wear them on him may feel the presence of Thy power and may be worthy to receive the gift of Thy grace and the protection of Thy power. Through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, in whom dwells all sanctification, benediction, and consecration; who lives with Thee and reigns as God for all eternity, Amen. Thanks be to God. Konrad of Megenburg also gives this benediction in his “Buch der Natur.” Luther tells the following humorous tale of a Jew who was a vender of amulets: There is sorcery among the Jews and their sorcerers think: “If we succeed, it is well for us; if we fail, a Christian is the sufferer; what care we for that?” ... But Duke Albert of Saxony acted shrewdly. When a Jew offered him a button, inscribed with curious characters and signs, and asserted that this button gave protection from cuts, thrusts, and shots, the Duke answered: “I will test that upon thyself, O Jew.” Hereupon he led the man to the gate, hung the button at his neck, drew his own sword, and thrust the fellow through the body. “The same fate would have happened to me,” said the Duke, “as has happened to thee.”[34] Ruskin, with his keen poetic insight into the working of natural laws, saw in the formation of crystals the action of both “force of heart” and “steadiness of purpose.” He thus found himself, consciously or unconsciously, in agreement with the old fancies which attributed a species of personality to precious stones. Just as the Hindu regarded an imperfectly shaped crystal as a bringer of ill luck to the owner, so Ruskin sees in such a crystal the signs of an innate “immorality,” if we may use this expression. Of a crystal aggregation of this type he writes as follows:[35]