VI. Closely connected with the secret of metallic trans-

mutation is " the supreme medicine of the world," the life-
elixir, which, according to Bernard-le-Trevisan (fifteenth
century), is the reduction of the Philosophical Stone into
mercurial water. It cures all diseases, and prolongs life
beyond the normal limits. Without claiming to be actually
in possession of this

" Wonderful Catholicon,
Of very subtle and magical powers,"

the Rosicrucians come before us as essentially, or at least pri-
marily, a healing 'fraternity. . " Their agreement was this
.... That none' of them should profess any other thing
than to cure the sick, and that gratis." 2 Professor Buhle,
in his notice of the Rosicrucians and Freemasons, says that
the evils of Germany at this period were immense, that the
land was overswept by a " great storm of wretchedness and
confusion." The science of medicine was still in its infancy,
the Lutheran Reformation, by spoliating monasteries, had

1 " Mysteries of Magic," p. 204. 2 "Fama Fraternitatis," p. 73.

ROSICRUCIANISM, ALCHEMY, AND MAGIC. 209

destroyed hospitals,1 and the diseases and miseries unavoid-
ably consequent on unsanitary principles and medical guess-
work, were undoubtedly very widely spread. The utter in-
competence of the ancient methods led many others besides
the Eosicrucians to disregard and denounce the traditional
authority, and in the wide field of experimental research
to lay the foundations of a new and rational hypothesis.
The germs of this revolution are found in Paracelsus, and
the practical theosophy — medicine itself being a branch of
mysticism from the standpoint of orthodox mystics — prac-
tised by Rosicrucian adepts is their strongest claim on our
favour, the one golden link which joins their dissonant
commonplace with the Orphean harmonies of true and
divine occultism.

It will be sufficient to enumerate only their belief in a
secret philosophy, perpetuated from primeval times, in ever-
burning lamps, in vision at a distance, and in the approach-
ing end of the world. I have shown indisputably that there
was no novelty in the Rosicrucian pretensions, and no ori-
ginality in their views. They appear before us as Lutheran
disciples of Paracelsus ; and, returning for a moment to the
problem discussed in the introduction, we find nothing in
either manifesto to connect them with the typology of a
remote period. It is, therefore, in modern, not ancient,
times that we must seek an explanation of the device of the
Rose-Cross. A passage contained in " The Chymical Mar-
riage of Christian Rosencreutz " will assist in the- solution
of this important point.

1 " The origin of our present hospitals must be looked for in
monastic arrangements for the care of the sick and indigent. Every
monastery had its infirmaria, managed by an infirmarius, in which
not only were sick and convalescents treated, but also the aged, the
blind, the weak, &c., were housed." — "Encyc. Brit.," 9th ed., s. v,
"Hospitals."

O