Alchymist

THE ALCHYMISTS


  ASTROLOGY perhaps Secret Heresy.—The mystic astronomy of ancient nations produced judicial astrology which, considered from this point of view, will appear less absurd. It was the principal study of the middle ages; and Rome was so violently opposed to it because, perhaps, it was not only heresy, but a wide-spread reaction against the Church of Rome. It was chiefly cultivated by the Jews, and protected by princes opposed to the papal supremacy. The Church was not satisfied with burning the books, but burned the writers; and the poor astrologers, who spent their lives in the contemplation of the heavens, mostly perished at the stake.

  Process hy which Astrology degenerated.— As it often happens that the latest disciples attach tEemselves to the letter, understanding literally what in the first instance was only a fiction, taking the mask for a real face, so we may suppose astrology to have degenerated and become false and puerile. Hermes, the legislator of Egypt, who was revealed in the Samothracian mysteries, and often represented with a ram by his side—a constellation initiating the new course of the equinoctial sun, the conqueror of darkness —was revived in astrological practice ; and a great number of astrological works, the writings of Christian Gnostics and Neo-Platonists, were attributed to him, and he was considered the father of the art from him called hermetic, and embracing astrology and alchymy, the rudimentary efibrts of two sciences, which at first overawed ignorance by imposture, but, after labouring for centuries in the dark, conquered for themselves glorious thrones in human knowledge.

  Scientific Value of Alchymy.—Though alchymy is no longer believed in as a true science, in spite of the prophecy of Dr. Girtanner, of Gottingen, that in the nineteenth century the transmutation of metals will be generally known and practised, it wiE never lose its power of awakening curiosity and seducing the imagination. The aspect of the marvellous which its doctrines assume, the strange renown attaching to the memory of the adepts, and the mixture of reality and Illusion, of truths and chimeras which it presents, will always exercise a powerful fascination upon many minds. And we ought also to remember that every delusion that has had a wide and enduring influence must have been founded not on falsehood, but on misapprehended truth. This aphorism is especially applicable to Alchymy, which, in its origin, and even in its name, is identical with chemistry, the syllable al being merely the definite article of the Arabs. The researches of the Alchymists for the discovery of the means by which transmutation might be effected were naturally suggested by the simplest experiments in metallurgy and the amalgamation of metals ; it is very probable that the first man who inade brass thought that he had produced imperfect gold.

  The Tincture.—The transmutation of the ' base metal was to be effected by means of the transmuting tincture, which, however, was never found. But it- exists for all that ; it is the power that turns a green stalk into a golden ear of corn, that fills the " sour unripe apple with sweetness and aroma, that has turned the lump of charcoal into a diamond. All these are natural processes, which, being allowed to go on, produce the above results. Now, all base metals may be said to be imperfect metals, whose progress towards perfection has been arrested, the active power of the tincture being shut up in them in the first property of nature (11) . If a man could take hold of the tincture universally diffused in nature, and by its help assist the imprisoned tincture in the metal to stir and become active, then the transmutation into gold, or rather the manifestation (11) of the hidden Hfe, could be effected. But this power or tincture is so subtle that it cannot possibly be apprehended ; yet the Alchymists did not seek the non-existing, but only the unattainable.

   Aims of Alchymy.—The three great ends pursued by Alchymy were the transmutation of base metals into gold by means of the philosopher's stone ; the discovery of the panacea, or universal medicine, the elisir of HfeJ and the universal solvent, which, being applied to any seed, should increase its fecundity. All these three objects are attainable by means of the tincture— a vital force, whose body is electricity, by which the two latter aims have to some extent been reached, for electricity will both cure disease and promote the growth of plants. Alchymy was then in the beginning the search after means to raise matter up to its first state, whence it was supposed to have fallen. Gold was considered, as to matter, what the ether of the eighth heaven was as to souls ; and the seven metals, each called by the name of one of the seven planets, the knowledge of the seven properties really implied being lost—the Sun, gold, Moon, silver ; Saturn, lead ; Venus, tin ; Mercury, iron ; Mars, mixed metal; Jupiter, copper/—formed the ascending scale of purification, corresponding with the trials of the seven caverns or steps. Alchymy was thus either a bodily initiation, or an initiation into the mysteries, a spiritual Alchymy; the one formed a veil of the other, wherefore it often happened that in workshops where the vulgar thought the adepts occupied with handicraft operations, and nothing sought but the metals of the golden age, in reality, no other philosopher's stone was searched for than the cubical stone of the temple of philosophy; in fine, nothing was purified but the passions, men, and not metals, being passed through the crucible. Bohme, the greatest of mystics, has written largely on the perfect analogy between the philosophical work and spiritual regeneration.

   History of Alchymy.—Alchymy flourished in Egypt at a very early age, and Solomon was said to have practised it. Its golden age began with the conquests of the Arabs in Asia and Africa, about the time of the destruction of the Alexandrian Library. The Saracens, credulous, and intimate with the fables of talismans and celestial influences, eagerly admitted the wonders of Alchymy. In the splendid courts of Almansor and Haroun al Raschid, • New arrangement : Venus, copper ; Mercury, mixed metal ; Mars, iron ; Jupiter, tin.

  the professors of the hermetic art found patronage, disciples, and emolument. Nevertheless, from the above period until the eleventh century the only alchymist of note is the Arabian Geber, whose proper name was Abu Mussah Djafar al Sofi. His attempts to transmute the base metals into gold led him to several discoveries in chymistry and medicine. He was also a famous astronomer, but — sic transit gloria mundi-—he has descended to our times as the founder of that jargon known by the name of gibberish ! The Crusaders brought the art to Europe, and about the thirteenth century Albertus Magnus, Eoger Bacon, and Raymond Lully appeared as its revivers. Henry VI. of England engaged lords, nobles, doctors, professors, and priests to pursue the search after the philosopher's stone ; especially the priests, who, says the king— (ironically ?) —having the power to convert bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, may well convert an impure into a perfect metal. The next man of note that pretended to the possession of the lapis philosophorum was Paracelsus, whose proper name was Philip Aureolus Theophrastus Paracelsus Bombagtus, of Hohenheim, and whom his followers called " Prince of Physicians, Philosopher of Kre, the Trismegistus of Switzerland, Reformer of Alchymistical Philosophy, Nature's faithful Secretary, Master of the Elixir of Life and Philosopher's Stone, Great Monarch of Chymical Secrets." He introduced the term aleahest (probably a corruption of the German words "all geist," "all spirit "), to express tlie universal solvent. The Rosicucians (184), of whom Dr. Dee was the herald, next laid claim to alchymistical secrets, and were, in fact, the descendants ' of the Alchymists ; and it is for this reason chiefly that these latter have been introduced into this work, though they cannot strictly be said to have formed a secret society. The last of the English Alchymists seems to have been a gentleman of the name of Kellerman, who as lately as 1828 was living at Lilley, a village between Luton and Hitchin. There are, no doubt, at the present moment men engaged in the search after the philosopher's stone ; we patiently wait for their discoveries.

   Specimen of Alchymistic Language.—After Paracelsus the Alchymists divided into two classes : those that pursued useful studies, and those that took up the visionary fantastical side of Alchymy, writing books of mystical trash which they fathered on Hermes, Aristotle, Albertus Magnus, and others. Their language is now unintelligible. One brief specimen may suffice. The power of transmutation, called the Green Lion, was to be obtained in the ' following manner :— " In the Green Lion's bed the sun and moon are bom, they are married and beget a king ; the king feeds on the lion's blood, which is the king's father and mother, who are at the same time his brother and sister. I fear I betray the secret, which I promised my master to conceal in dark speech from every one who does not know how to rule the philosopher's fire." Our ancestors must have had a great talent for finding out enigmas if they were able to elicit a meaning from these mysterious directions; still the language was understood by the adepts, and was only intended for them. Many statements of mathematical formulae must always appear pure gibberish to the uninitiated into the higher science of numbers; still, these statements enunciate truths well understood by the mathematician. Thus, to give but one instance, when Hermes Trismegistus, in one of the treatises attributed to him, directs the adept to catch the flying bird and to drown it, so that it fly no more, the fixation of quicksilver by a combination with gold is meant.

   Personal Fate of the Alchymists.—The Alchymists, though chemistry is greatly indebted to them, and in their researches they stumbled on many a valuable discovery, as a rule led but sad and chequered Lives, and most of them died in the utmost poverty, if no worse fate befell them. Thus one of the most famous Alchymists, Bragadino, who lived in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, who obtained large sums of money for his pretended secret from the Emperor of Germany, the Doge of Venice, and other potentates, who boasted that Satan was his slave —two ferocious black dogs that always accompanied him being demons—was at last hanged at Munich the cheat with which he performed the pretended transmutation having been discovered. The two dogs were shot under the gallows. But even the honest Alchymists were doomed—

To lose good days that might be better spent
To waste long nights in pensive discontent;
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow,
To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow;
To fret their souls with crosses and with cares.
To eat their hearts through comfortless despairs.
Unhappy wights, born to disastrous end,
That do their lives in tedious tendance spend !



ROSICRUCIANS


  MERITS of the Rosicrucians.—A halo of poetic splendour surrounds the Order of the Rosicrucians ; the magic lights of fancy play around their graceful daydreams, while the mystery in which they shrouded themselves lends an additional charm to their history. But their brilliancy was that of a meteor. It just flashed across the realms of imagination and intellect, and Tanished for ever ; not, however, without leaving behind some permanent and lovely traces of its hasty passage, just as the momentary ray of the sun, caught on the artist's lens, leaves a lasting image on the sensitive paper. Poetry and romance are deeply indebted to the Rosicrucians for many a fascinating creation. The literature of every European country contains hundreds of pleasing fictions, whose machinery has been borrowed from their system, of philosophy, though that itself has passed away; and it must be admitted that many of their ideas are highly ingenious, and attain to such heights of intellectual speculation as we find to have been reached by the sophists of India. Before their time, alchymy had sunk down, as a rule, to a grovelling delusion, seeking but temporal advantages and occupying itself with earthly dross only ; the Rosicrucians spiritualized and refined it by giving the chimerical search after the philosopher's stone a nobler aim than the attainment of wealth, namely, the opening of the spiritual eyes, whereby man should.be able to see the supernal world, and be filled with an inward light to illumine his mind with true knowledge.

   Origin of Society doubtful.—The society is of very uncertain origin. It is affirmed by some writers that from the fourteenth century there existed a society of physicists and alchymists who laboured in the search after the philosopher's stone ; and a certain Nicolo Bamaud undertook journeys through Germany and France for the purpose of establishing a hermetic society. From the preface of the work, " Echo of the Society of the Rosy Cross," it moreover follows that in 1597 meetings were held to institute a secret society for the promotion of alchymy. Another indication of the actual existence of such a society is found in 1610, when the notary Haselmeyer pretended to have read in a MS. the Fama Fraternitatis, comprising all the laws of the Order. Four years afterwards appeared a small work, entitled " General Reformation of the World “ which in fact contains the Fama Fratermtatis, where it is related that a German, Christian Rosenkreuz, founded such a society in the fourteenth century, after, having learnt the sublime science in the East. Of him it is related, that when, in 1378, he was travelling in Arabia, he was called by name and greeted by some philosophers, who had never before seen him; from them he learned many secrets, among others that of prolonging life. On his return he made many disciples, and died at the age of 150 years, not because his strength failed him, but because he was tired of life. In 1604 one of his disciples had his tomb opened, and there found strange inscriptions and a MS. In letters of gold. The grotto in which this tomb was found, by the description given of it, strongly reminds us of the Mithraic Cave. Another work, the "Confessio Fraternitatis Rosae Crucis," contains an account of the object and spirit of the Order. It is a mixture of absurdity and fanaticism, and the most plausible solution is that the work is a satire on the philosophical foUies of the time. It was written by Valentine Andrea of Herrenberg. But as the armorial bearings of the Andrea family were a St. Andrew's cross and four roses, he may also have meant to intimate that the Order of the Rosy Cross was an Order founded by himself.

  Origin of Name.—The name is generally derived from the supposed founder of the Order, Rosenkreuz, Rose Cross,  but according to others it is the compound of ros, dew, and erux, the cross. Crux is supposed mystically to represent LUX, or light, because the figure X exhibits the three letters LVX . and light, in the opinion of the Rosicrucians, is that which produces gold, whilst dew (ros) with the alchymists was the most powerful solvent of gold. Others say that the Order took its name from the rose, and the epopt was called Rosa, whilst their ritual affirmed that the rose is the emblem of the Son of God, who by the Evangelist is compared to that flower. But we have already seen in the account of the eleusinian Mysteries what importance was attached to the rose, and that Apuleius makes Lucius to be restored to his primitive form by eating roses; and the 'Romance of the Rose'^ was considered by the Rosicrucians as one of the most perfect specimens of Provencal literature, and as the allegorical chef Slaemmre of their sect. It is undeniable that this was coeval with chivalry, and had from thenceforth a literature rich in works, ia whose titles the word Rosa is incorporated; as the Rosa Philosophorum, of which no less than ten occur in the Artis Aurifera quam Chemiam voeant (Basilea, 1610). The connection of the Rosicrucians with chivalry, the Troubadours, and the Albigenses, cannot be denied. Like these, they swore the same hatred to Rome, like these they called Catholicism the religion of hate. They solemnly declared that the Pope was Antichrist, and rejected pontifical and Mahomedan dogmas, styling them the beasts of the East and West.

  Statements concerning themselves. — They pretended to feel neither hunger nor thirst, nor to be subject to age or disease ; to possess the power of commanding spirits and attracting pearls and precious stones, and of rendering themselves invisible. They stated the aim of their society to be the restoration of all the sciences and especially of medicine; and by occult artifices to procure treasures and riches sufficient to supply the rulers and kings with the necessary means for promoting the great reforms of society then needed. They were bound to conform to five fundamental laws: 1. Gratuitously to heal the sick. 2. To dress in the costume of the country ia which they lived. 3. To attend every year the meeting of the Order. 4. When  dying to choose a successor. 5. To preserve the secret one hundred years.

  Poetical Fictions of Rosicrucians.—These are best known from the work of Joseph Francis Borri, a native of Milan. Having preached against the abuses of the Papacy, and promulgated opiaions which were deemed heretical, he was seized by order of the Inquisition and condemned to perpetual imprisonment. He died in the Castle of St Angelo in 1695. The work referred to is entitled " The Key of the Cabinet of Signer Borri" and is in substance nothing but the cabalistic romance entitled " The Count de Gabalis “ published in 1670 by the Abbe de Villars. What we gather from this work is, that the Rosicrucians discarded for ever all the old tales of sorcery and witchcraft and communion with the devil. They denied the existence of incubi and succubi, and of all the grotesque imps monkish brains had hatched and superstitious nations believed in. Man, they said, was surrounded by myriads of beautiful and beneficent beings, all anxious to do him service. These beings were the elemental spirits ; the air was peopled with sylphs, the water with undines or naiads, the earth with gnomes, and the fire with salamanders. These the Rosicrucian could bind to his service and imprison in a ring, a mirror, or a stone, and compel to appear when called, and render answers to such questions as he chose to put. All these beings possessed great powers, and were unrestrained by the barriers of space or matter. But man was in one respect their superior : he had an immortal soul, they had not. They could, however, become sharers in man's immortality, if they could inspire one of that race with the passion of love towards them. On this notion is founded the charming story of "Undine;" Shakespeare's Ariel is a sylph ; the " Rape of the Lock," the Masque of " Comus “ the poem of " Salamandrine “ all owe their machinery to the poetic fancies of the Rosicrucians. Among other things they taught concerning the elemental spirits, they asserted that they were composed of the purest particles of the element they inhabited, and that in consequence of having within them no antagonistic qualities, being made of but one element (11) they could live for thousands of years. The Eosicrucians further held the doctrine of the signatura rerum, by which they meant that everything in this visible world has outwardly impressed on it its inward spiritual character. Moreover they said that by the practice of virtue man could even on earth obtain a glimpse of the spiritual world, and above all things discover the philosopher's stone, which however could not be found except by the regenerate, for " it is in close communion with the heavenly essence.'' According to them the letters INRI, the sacred word of the Order of Eose Croix, signified Igne Natura Begenerando Integrat.

   Progress and Extinction of Rosicrucians.— After having excited much attention throughout Germany, the Rosicrucians endeavoured to spread their doctrines in France, but with little success. In order to attract attention they secretly posted certain notices in the streets of Paris, to this effect : " We, the deputies of the College of the Rosy Cross, visibly and invisibly dwell in the city. We teach without books or signs every language that can draw men from mortal error," &c. &c. A work by Gabriel Rainde gave them the final blow. Peter Mormio, not having succeeded in reviving the society in Holland, where it existed in 1622, published at Leyden, in 1630, a work entitled Arcana Natures Secretissima, wherein he reduced the secrets of the brethren to three, viz. perpetual motion, the transmutation of metals, and the universal medicine. The German Rosicrucians always called themselves the depositories and preservers of the Masonic dogma, which they asserted to have been confided to them by the BngUsh in the time of King Arthur. Faithful to the Johannite tradition they called their grand masters John I., John 11., and so on. At first they had only three degrees besides the three symbolic degrees of freemasonry. The sect was also known in Sweden and Scotland, where it had its own traditions, claiming to be descended from the Alexandrian priesthood of Ormuzd, that embraced Christianity in consequence of the preaching of St. Mark, founding the society of Ormuzd, or of the " Sages of Light." This tradition is founded on the Manichseism preserved among the Coptic priests, and explains the seal impressed on the ancient parchments of the Order, representing a lion placing his paw on a paper, on which is written the famous sentence, " Pax tibi, Marce Evangelista meus ;" from which we might infer that Venice had some connection with, tlie spreading of that tradition. In fact, Nicolai tells us that at Venice and Mantua there were Rosicrucians, connected with those of Erfurd, Leipsic and Amsterdam. And we also know that at Venice congresses of alchymists were held ; and the connection between these latter and the Rosicrucians has already heen pointed out. Nevertheless the Scotch and Swedish Rosicrucians called themselves the most ancient, and asserted Edward, the son of Henry III., to have been initiated into the Order in 1196, by Eaymond Lully, the alchymist. The Fraternity of the Rosy Cross is still flourishing in England, the members being selected from the Masonic body ; it has a governing Senate in London, with a Metropolitan College, while Provincial Colleges are established at Bristol, Manchester, Cambridge, Oxford, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

  Transition to Freemasons.—Prom the Templars and Rosicrucians the transition to the Freemasons is easy. With these latter alchymy receives a wholly symbolical explanation ; the philosopher's stone is a figure of human perfectibility. In the Masonic degree called the " Key of Masonry," or " Knight of the Sun," and the work " The Blazing Star," by Tschudi, we discover the parallel aims of the two societies. From the " Blazing Star " I extract the following portion of the ritual : " When the hermetic philosophers speak of gold and silver, do they mean common gold and silver ? " — , " No, because common gold and silver are dead, whilst the gold and silver of the philosophers are full of life." — " What is the object of Masonic inquiries ? " — " The art of knowing how to render perfect what nature has left imperfect in man “— " What is the object of philosophic inquiry ? " — " The art of knowing how to render perfect what nature has left imperfect in minerals, and to increase the power of the philosopher's stone." — " Is it the same stone whose symbol distinguishes our first degrees ? "— " Yes, it is the same stone which the Freemasons seek to polish." So also the Phoenix is common to hermetic and Masonic initiation, and the emblem of the new birth of the neophyte. Now we have already seen the meaning of this figure, and its connection with the sun. We might multiply comparisons to strengthen the parallelism between hidden arts and secret societies, and trace back the hermetic art to the mysteries of Mithras, where man is said to ascend to heaven through seven steps or gates of lead, brass, copper, iron, bronze, silver, and gold.




THE LEGEND OF THE TEMPLE



  ANCESTRY of Hiram Abiff.— Solomon, having determined on the erection of the Temple, collected artificers, divided them into companies, and put them under the command of Adoniram or Hiram Abiff, the architect sent to him by his friend and ally Hiram, King of Tyre. According to mythical tradition, the ancestry of the binlders of the mystical temple was as follows : One of the Elohim, or primitive genii, married Eve and had a son called Cain ; whilst Jehovah or Adonai, another of the Elohim, created Adam and united him with Eve to bring forth the fanaily of Abel, to whom were subjected the sons of Cain, as a punishment for the transgression of Eve, Cain, though industriously cultivating the soil, yet derived little produce from it, whilst Abel leisurely tended his flocks. Adonai rejected ' the gifts and sacrifices of Cain, and stirred up strife between the sons of the Elohim, generated out of fire, and the sons formed out of the earth only. Cain killed Abel, and Adonai pursuing his sons, subjected to the sons of Abel the noble family that invented the arts and dififiised science. Enoch, a son of Cain, taught men to hew stones, construct edifices, and form civil societies. Irad and Mehujael, his son and grandson, set boundaries to the waters and fashioned cedars into beams. Methusael, another of his descendants, invented the sacred characters, the books of Tau and the symbolic T, by which the workers descended from the genii of fire recognized each other. Lamech, whose prophecies are inexplicable to the profane, was the father of Jabal, who first taught men how to dress camels' skins ; of Jubal, who discovered the harp; of Naamah, who discovered the arts of spinning and weaving; of Tubal- Cain, who first constructed a furnace, worked in metals, and dug subterranean caves in the mountains to save his race during the deluge; but it perished nevertheless, and only Tubal- Cain and his son, the sole survivors of the glorious and gigantic family, came out alive. The wife of Ham, second son of Noah, thought the son of Tubal-Cain handsomer than the sons of men, and he became progenitor of Nimrod, who taught his brethren the art of hunting, and founded Babylon. Adoniram, the descendant of Tubal-Cain, seemed called by God to lead the militia of the free men, connectiag the sons of fire with the sons of thought, progress, and truth.

  Hiram, Solomon, and the Queen of Sheba. —By Hiram was erected a marvellous building, the Temple of Solomon. He raised the golden throne of Solomon, most beautifully wrought, and built many other glorious edifices. But, melancholy amidst all his greatness, he lived alone, understood and loved by few, hated by many, and among others by Solomon, envious of his genius and glory. Now the fame of the wisdom of Solomon spread to the remotest ends of the earth ; and Balkis, the Queen of Sheba, came to Jerusalem, to greet- the great king and behold the marvels of his reign. She found Solomon seated on a throne of gilt cedar wood, arrayed in cloth of gold, so that at first she seemed to behold a statue of gold with hands of ivory. Solomon received her with every kind of festive preparation, and led her to behold his palace and then the grand works of the temple ; and the queen was lost in admiration. The king was captivated by her beauty, and in a short time ofiered her his hand, which the queen, pleased at having conquered this proud heart, accepted. But on again visiting the temple, she repeatedly desired to see the architect who had wrought such wondrous things. Solomon delayed as long as possible presenting Hiram Abiff to the queen, but at last he was obliged to do so. The mysterious artificer was brought before hev, and cast on the queen a look that penetrated her very heart. Having recovered her composure, she questioned and defended him against the illwill and rising, ealousy of the king . When she wished to see the countless host of workmen that wrought at the temple, Solomon protested the impossibility of assembling them all at once; but Hiram, leaping on a stone to be better seen, with his right hand described in the air the symbolical Tau, and immediately the men hastened from all parts of the works into the presence of their master; at this the queen wondered greatly, and secretly repented of the promise she had given the king, for she felt herself in love with the mighty architect. Solomon set himself to destroy this affection, and to prepare his rival's humiliation and ruin. For this purpose, he employed three fellow- crafts, envious of Hiram, because he had refused to raise them to the degree of masters, on account of their want of knowledge and their idleness. They were Fanor, a Syrian and a mason ; Amru, a Phoenician and a carpenter ; and Metusael, a Hebrew and a miner. The black envy of these three projected that the casting of the brazen sea, which was to raise the glory of Hiram to its utmost height, should turn out a failure. A young workman, Benoni, discovered the plot and revealed it to Solomon, thinking that sufficient. The day for the casting arrived, and Balkis was present. The doors that restrained the molten metal were opened, and torrents of Kqind fire poured into the vast mould wherein the brazen sea was to assume its form. But the burning mass ran over the edges of the mould, and flowed like lava over the adjacent places. The terrified crowd fled from the advancing stream of fire. Hiram, calm, like a god, endeavoured to arrest its advance with ponderous columns of water, but without success. The water and the fire mixed, and the struggle was terrible ; the water rose ia dense steam and fell down in the shape of fiery rain, spreading terror and death. The dishonoured artificer needed the sympathy of a faithful heart ; he sought Benoni, but ia vain; the proud youth perished in endeavouring to prevent the horrible catastrophe when he found that Solomon had done nothing to hinder it.

  Hiram could not withdraw himself from the scene. of his discomfiture. Oppressed with grief, he heeded not the danger, he remembered not that this ocean of fire might speedily engulph him ; he thought of the Queen of Sheba, who came to admire and congratulate him on a great triumph, and who saw nothing but a terrible disaster. Suddenly he heard a strange voice coming from above, and crying, " Hiram, Hiram, Hiram ! " He raised his eyes and beheld a gigantic human figure. The, apparition continued : " Come, my son, be without fear, I have rendered thee incombustible ; cast thyself into the flames." Hiram threw himself into the furnace. and where others would have found death, he tasted ineffable delights ; nor could he, drawn by an irresistible force, leave it, and asked him that drew him into the abyss : " Whither do you take me ? " " Into the centre of the earth, into the soul of the world, into the kingdom of great Cain, where liberty reigns with him. There the tyrannous envy of Adonai ceases ; there can we, despising his anger, taste the fruit of the tree of knowledge ; there is the home of thy fathers." " Who then am I, and who art thou ? " " I am the father of thy fathers, I am the son of Lamech, I am Tubal- Cain."

  Tubal- Cain introduced Hiram into the sanctuary of fire, where he expounded to him the weakness of Adonai and the base passions of that god, the enemy of his own creature whom he condemned to the inexorable law of death, to avenge the benefits the genii of fire, had bestowed on him. Hiram was led into the presence of the author of his race, Cain. The angel of light that begat Cain was reflected in the beauty of this son of love, whose noble and generous mind roused the envy of Adonai. Cain related to Hiram his experiences, sufferings, and misfortunes, brought upon him by the implacable Adonai. Presently he heard the voice of him who was the offspring of Tubal- Cain and his sister Naamah : "A son shall be born unto thee whom thou shalt indeed not see, but whose numerous descendants shall perpetuate thy race, which, superior to that of Adam, shall acquire the empire of the world ; for many centuries they shall consecrate their courage and genius to the service of the ever ungratefulrace of Adam, but at last the best shall become the strongest, and restore on the earth the worship of fire. Thy sons, invincible in thy name, shall destroy the power of kings, the ministers of the Adonai's tyranny. Go, my son, the genii of fire are with thee ! " Hiram was restored to the earth. Tubal- Cain before quitting him gave him the hammer with which he himself had wrought great things, and said to him : " Thanks to this hammer and the help of the genii of fire, thou shaltspeedily accomplish the work left unfinished through man's stupidity and malignity.'' Hiram did not hesitate to test the wonderful efficacy of the precious instrument, and the dawn saw the great mass of bronze cast. The artist felt the most lively joy, the queen exulted. The people came running up, astounded at this secret power which in one night had repaired everything.

  One day the queen, accompanied by her maids,went beyond Jerusalem, and there encountered Hiram, alone and thoughtful. The encounter was decisive, they mutually confessed their love. HadHad, the bird who filled with the queen the office of messenger of the genii of fire, seeing Hiram in the air make the sign of the mystic T, flew around his head and settled on his wrist. At this Sarahil, the nurse of the queen, exclaimed : " The oracle is fulfilled. Had-Had recognizes the husband which the genii of fire destined for Balkis, whose love alone she dare accept ! " They hesitated no longer, but mutually pledged their vows, and deliberated how Balkis could retract the promise given to the king. Hiram was to be the first to quit Jerusalem; the queen, impatient to rejoin him in Arabia, was to elude the vigilance of the king, which she accomplished by withdrawing from his finger, while he was overcome with wine, the ring wherewith she had plighted her troth to him. Solomon hinted to the fellow- crafts that the removal of his rival, who refused to give them the master's word, would be acceptable unto himself; so when the architect came into the temple he was assailed and slain by them. Before his death, however, he had time to throw the golden triangle which he wore round his neck, and on which was engraven the master's word, into a deep well. They wrapped up his body, carried it to a solitary hill and buried it, planting over the grave a sprig of acacia.

  Hiram not having made his appearance for seven days, Solomon, against his incUnation, but to satisfy the clamour of the people, was forced to have him searched for. The body was found by three masters, and they, suspecting that he had been slain by the three fellow-crafts for refusing them the master's word, determined nevertheless for greater security to change the word, and that the first word accidentally uttered on raising the body should thence forth, be the word. In the act of raising it, the skin came off the body, so that one of the masters exclaimed " Macbenach ! " (the flesh is off the bones !) “ and this word became the sacred word of the master's degree. The three fellow-crafts were traced, but rather than fall into the hands of their pursuers, they committed suicide and their heads were brought to Solomon. The triangle not having been found on the body of Hiram it was sought for and at last discovered in the well into whicb the architect had cast it. The king caused it to be placed on a triangular altar erected in a secret vault, built under the most retired part of the temple. The triangle was further concealed by a cubical stone, on which had been inscribed the sacred law. The vault, the existence of which was only known to the twenty- seven elect, was then walled up.