The Society Of The Rose Croix.

ancl learnt there a portion of his teaching . Thence he passed into Palestine and was taken ill at Damascus . ' Having heard of the sages of Arabia he went to consult them at Damcar * The philosophers who inhabited this city lived in a manner altogether extraordinary . Although they had never seen . Rosenkreutz , they saluted him by his namethey received him with great proofs of friendshiand told him many

, p , things which happened in his German monastery during the sojourn of twelve years which he had made there . In addition , they assured him that he had for a long time been awaited by them as the allotted author of a general reformation of the world . To place him in a condition to fulfil- the great mission to which he was predestined , they communicated to him a portion of their secrets . Rosenkreutz onlquitted these courteous philosophers to go to

y Barbary , to hold a communication with the Cabalists who were to be found in great numbers in the city of Fez . Having extracted from these last all he desired , he passed into Spain ; but he was not long there before he was expelled for having endeavoured to establish in that country of overshadowing Roman Catholicism the first foundations of his work of renovation . At last he returned to his native countrywhich is not determined by any particular

, indication on the vast map of Germany . He had left it an humanitarian , he re-entered as an " illumine . " After his return Rosenkreutz disclosed to a very small number of friends , others say only to his own three sons , the secret of his new philosophy . Subsequently he shut himself up in a grotto , where he lived as a solitary until the age of six hundred years , always healthy in spirit and in body , exempt from maladies ancl infirmities . It was in the year 1484

that God withdrew his spirit to Himself , his body being left in the grotto , which then became his tomb . This tomb was to remain unknown to all until the proper time had arrived . This time did arrive in 1604 , the very year of the death of the Alchemist Sethos—strange coincidence ! In this year au accident led to the discovery of the grotto . A sun which shone brilliantly at the bottom , receiving its light from the sun of the world , was only destined to lihten up the tomb of Rosenkreutz . Its clearness permitted

themneverg , theless , to recognise many curious objects enclosed in that hiding-place . There was , in addition , a plate of copper placed on an altar , and which bore this inscription engraved upon it— "A . C . R . C . Living I am reserved for the tomb of this light of abridged duration . " - ) - These few figures are accompanied each with an epigraph . The first of these epigraphs was thus couched , — Never empty ; the secondThe yoke of the law ; the thirdThe liberty of the

, , Gospel ; the fourth , The entire Glory of God . There were also some burning lamps , clocks , ancl mirrors , books of different kinds , among others the Dictionary of the words of Paracelsus , and the little world mikrokosmos . But of all the rarities which composed this inventory , the most remarkable was this inscription , traced on the wall— " After six times twenty years I shall be discovered . " If in effect we count from 1484 , the year of the death

of Rosenkreutz , then one hundred and twenty years lead us correctly to the year 1604 , and if the authority of the legend which we relate is insufficient to make us admit that this year 1604 was marked by the discovery of the mysterious sepulchre , it cannot at the least be contested , that such was trul y the epoch when a new society , the fraternity of the Rose Croix , began to be talked about , and as one may say now literally to arise from beneath the earth .