The charges of evil connections brought against the Rosicrucians were repudiated by those people with energy and determination; they affirmed in the most positive manner that they had nothing to do with magic, and that they held no intercourse whatever with the devil. They declared, on the contrary, that they were faithful followers of the true God, that they had already lived more than a hundred years, and expected to live many hundred more, and that God conferred upon them perfect happiness, and as a reward for their piety and service gave them the wonderful knowledge they were possessed of. They declared that they did not get their name from a cross of roses, but from Christian Rosencreutz, their founder. When charged with drunkenness, they said that they did not know what thirst was, and that they were altogether proof against the temptations of the most attractive food. They professed the greatest indignation perhaps at the charge of interfering with the honour of virtuous women, and maintained most positively that the very first vow they took was one of chastity, and that any of them violating that oath, would be deprived at once of all the advantages he possessed, and be subject to hunger, thirst, sorrow, disease and death like other men. 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, entered together into the mansions of felicity. These spirits, they said, watched constantly over mankind by night and day. Dreams, omens, and presentiments were all their work, and the means by which they gave warning of the approach of danger. But though so well inclined to befriend man for their own sake, the want of a soul rendered them at times capricious and revengeful; they took offence at slight causes, and heaped injuries