Mysteries of the Rosie Cross

tices of the

Rosencreutz as the new regenerator of the human race." According to Mayer, a celebrated physician of the times, who published a report of the tenets and ordinances of the new fraternity at Cologne in the year 1615, they asserted in the first place that the meditations of their founders surpassed everything that had ever been imagined since the creation of the world, without even excepting the revelations of the Deity; that they were destined to accomplish the general peace and regeneration of man before the end of the world arrived; that they possessed all wisdom and piety in a supreme degree; that they possessed all the graces of nature, and could distribute them among the rest of mankind according to their pleasure; that they were subject to neither hunger, nor thirst, nor disease, nor old age, nor to any other inconvenience of nature; that they knew by inspiration, and at the first glance, every one who was worthy to be admitted into their society; that they had the same knowledge then which they would have possessed if they had lived from the beginning of the world, and had been always acquiring it;

he 3rd of March to find placarded on the walls a manifesto to this effect:-"We, the deputies of the principal college of the brethren of the Rosie Cross, have taken up our abode, visible and invisible, in this city, by the grace of the Most High, towa

earliest was called "A History of the Frightful Compacts entered into between the Devil and the Pretended Invisibles, with their Damnable Instructions, the Deplorable Ruin of their Disciples, and their Miserable End." This was followed by another of a far more ambitious character, pretending to abilit

bodily fear of this mysterious sect, whose members they had never seen. It was believed that the Rosicrucians could transport themselves from place to place with the rapidity almost of thought, and that they took delight in cheating and tormenting unhappy citi

me invisible, though still palpable when the alarm was raised. Such was the consternation in Paris, that every man who could not give a satisfactory account of himself was in danger of being pelted to death; and quiet citizens slept with loaded guns at their bedside, to take vengeance upon any Rosicrucian who might violate the sanctity of their chambers. No man or woman was considered safe; the female sex especially were supposed to be in danger, for it was implicitly believed that no bolts, locks or bars could keep out would be intr

th us. But if his will really induces him to inscribe his name in the register of our brotherhood, we, who can judge of the thoughts of all men, will convince him of the truth of our promises. For th

ublesome placards, and the Church took up the moral and theological aspect of the sensation, and issued pamphlets which professed to explain the whole as the production of some disciples of Luther, who were sent out to promulgate enmity and opposition to the Pope. The Abbé Gaultier, a Jesuit, distinguished himself in this direction, and informed the public that the very name of the disciples of the sect proved they were heretics; a cross surmounted by a rose being the heraldic device of the arch-heretic Luther. Another writ

Witchcraft and sorcery they also most warmly repudiated; the existence of incubi and succubi they said was a pure invention of their enemies, that man "was not surrounded by enemies like these, but by myriads of beautiful and beneficent beings, all anxious to do him service. The sylphs of the air, the undines of the water, the gnomes of the earth, and the salamanders of the fire were man's friends, and desired nothing so much as that men should purge themselves of all uncleanness, and thus be enabled to see and converse with them. They possessed great power, and were unrestrained by the barriers of space, or the obstructions of matter. But man was in one respect their superior. He had an immortal soul, and they had not. They might, however, become sharers in man's immortality if they could inspire one of that race with the passion of love towards them. Hence it was the constant endeavour of the female spirits to captivate the admiration of men, and of the male gnomes, sylphs, salamanders, and undines to be beloved by a woman. The object of this passion, in returning their love, imparted a portion of that celestial fire, the soul; and from that time forth the beloved became equal to the lover, and both, when their allotted course was run, entere