“Master, if I could only think so,——if I could only revive within me that higher life,——but I fear it is hard.” “It is hard, my son; for it is a struggle of matter against spirit. O, didst thou but know the joys that are opened unto us who mortify the body for the sake of the soul; the glorious and beautiful world that is revealed to us,——a life within life, a double existence, our mortal eyes being strengthened to behold the Invisible,——our mortal frames endowed with the powers of angels!” “It is glorious——glorious!” murmured the student as he gazed on his master, whose whole countenance gleamed with enthusiasm. “It is indeed glorious,” continued Michael Meyer. “To be as a god to mankind; to bear in this human body the gift of healing; to know that the riches for which men toil, and pine, and slay one another, are at our will in such abundance that they seem to us like dust. And more than all, to have the power of holding communion with those good spirits which God created as he created man, more beautiful and yet less perfect, for they must remain as first made, while man may rise through various stages of existence, higher and higher, until he reach the footstool of divinity itself.” “Hast thou ever seen those glorious beings?” asked Basil, glancing doubtfully round, his voice sinking into a low whisper. “I have!” answered Michael Meyer. “But no more of this. To attain this state of perfection, thou must needs deaden thyself to all human pleasures; thou must forsake the grossness of an appetite pampered with the flesh of beasts and the fruit of the poison-vine. As thou readest in my book, the soul must retire within itself,——must shut out all human feelings, all human love.” A dark shadow came over the young student’s face. “Must one attain all this, O father, to be a follower of Christian Rosencreutz?”[2] “All this, and more. Does thy heart fail thee?” said Michael, sternly. Basil cast down his eyes. “No, my noble master, no! but human will is feeble, and the steep is hard to climb.” “Then lie down, and perish at its foot, Basil Wolgemuth,” said the Rosicrucian; and then added, with a regretful tone, “After thou hadst journeyed half-way, I had not thought thy heart would have failed thee, my son.” “It has not failed me,” cried the student, earnestly. “I have followed implicitly all thy precepts. No food, save what nature rigorously requires, has passed these lips; I have kept myself pure as a little child, yet still I seem further than ever from that blessed state when the soul is free from all mortal longings, and the eyes are purged to behold the Invisible.” “Wait, my son; wait and faint not! the time will surely come at last; and when it does, oh, what joy for thee! Thou wilt count as nothing the pleasures of taste, when thou mayst banquet on celestial food; thou wilt scorn all earthly loveliness, to bask in the smile of immortal beauty. This, indeed, is an aim worthy of man’s aspiring.”