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IN THE LIBRARY.

The Rosicrucian Theory.

HE most fascinating of all occupations is the secret elaboration of a great purpose, the solitary study of its detail, the patient consideration of the difficulties to be overcome, and the thrilling contemplation of the results to be attained. To our innate love for such meditations is largely due the attraction which the mysterious prestige of the Rosicrucians has so long exercised. We rightly suspect this stealthy brotherhood of having pondered some project far in advance of the comprehension of their time, and we long to measure our aims with theirs. The books which profess to lay bare their craft, and of which we have a shelf full, tell us nothing, and are for the most part dull reading. We learn chiefly from their perusal that this singular fraternity contrived to keep its secrets so well that little can now be known concerning it. Moreover, the subject has been so veneered with unintelligible symbolism, so mixed with modern occult science and astrology and phallicism, as to discourage all but the most earnest students.

The company of the Rosy Cross appears to have existed during about a hundred years. It was necessarily shrouded in mystery, because its little body of members deliberately applied themselves to the study of phenomena which even to name was sin, and which popular ignorance ascribed directly to Satan. It must be remembered that to meddle with things not included within the narrow comprehension of the medieval Church was the most heinous offence of which a human being could be guilty. Converse with Evil Spirits, or with Science, in the days of the power of the Church, was punished with torture and death. It was the Church that put Galileo upon the rack, and burnt Giordano Bruno at the stake. Under priestly influence human intelligence sank to a level of pitiable brutishness. Learning

came from the cloister, and took the form of superstition. Belief in witchcraft and in possession by unclean spirits was universal, and it was gravely argued that an animal might be guilty of heresy. People in all countries tormented themselves with interminable and unintelligible doctrinal discussions, and it was accounted meritorious to throw stones at a cock on Sunday, because since Peter's denial the cock was "the devil's bird."

In spite of the mental obscurity of the age, men here and there, the pioneers of an intellectual renaissance, pursued their studies in secrecy, or at rare intervals consulted stealthily with one another. The discovery of America, the invention of printing, and the Reformation, were three events that thrilled many keen and solitary reasoners, as well as startled the dwarfed and stunted intelligence of the multitude. It is no wonder that, in an age of such wonderful awakening, the minds of the wisest should have been haunted by fallacies and visions. After the discovery of a new world there seemed nothing impossible in Elixirs of life and Philosopher's stones. Hence the few individuals who in each of half a dozen countries were commencing to interrogate Nature, to study medicine, to glean the principles of mechanics, to apply mathematics to astronomy, to reason from facts towards a theory-only by degrees shook off the vagaries with which the most rudimentary learning had been clouded. One of the first, and surely one of the most valuable discoveries, was that man is not in conflict with himself, nor with Nature, and that the Christian theory of the vileness of the body is but an evidence of the self-degradation to which asceticism can lead. Hence, in place of the doctrine of filth commended by monkish austerity, revived the Greek perception of the sublime triumph of self-mastery, of the clean and healthy and perfect body dominated by a temperate and reasoning mind.

It is at this psychological point, chronologically about the year 1600, that the first indication of the Rosicrucians is found, and it is one hundred years later that the last trace of them disappears. They seem to have addressed themselves to the solution of philosophical problems of the most tremendous import, and to have relieved these labours by searches for a touchstone that would convert base metals into gold. Around everything within their intellectual domain they wrapped the mantle of a jargon that must have added not a little to the obscurity of their task. We enter upon this realm of spiritual alchemy with the obvious certainty that in the laborious grinding together of the principles of Nature with those of magic the latter will gradually be demolished, until the former alone survive. By degrees the fundamental evidences of Natural Law became established, and the cabala of the Rosicrucians, with all its curious gibberish, fell to pieces, only to be recalled now in such fragmentary and incoherent writings that, did not we remember the times in which these men lived and the sanguinary persecutions to which they were exposed, we should be tempted to attribute their "Confessions of Faith" to the madhouse. It seems probable, however, that this society served a useful purpose while it lived. The lives of its members were dedicated to groping about the first distinguishable evidences of scientific truth. The mystical treasures whereof they fancied they were to enjoy a monopoly shrivelled into dust beneath their touch. But in the process of arduous studies and experiments, required to demonstrate the fallacy of their favourite theories, they arrived at a perception of far grander and more valuable principles than those whereof they were in search. In the labyrinth within which the human intelligence then wandered a labyrinth of blind alleys that led to unexpected openings, and of alluring paths that ended in disappointment-even to learn the negative wisdom that certain roads led astray, was of itself a vast advance. The philosopher's stone passed from the reach of possibility, but in its place rose a hundred truths of incomparable import, upon whose force and relation one to another the attention of students became

fixed. Probably the most graceful relic attributed to the Rosicrucians is the principle of the subordination of our appetites and desires to the nobler aspirations with which a fraction of mankind is endowed. There is something grand and inspiring in the theory that life is lengthened in proportion as our baser nature is subdued, and it might have been well for the destiny of the race had all our speculations and purposes been cast in so pure a mould. One cannot but see a sublime, yet infinitely pathetic, meaning in these tentative graspings after knowledge, each one of which is a fossil that tells of years of painful endeavour by dark and narrow paths of thought. And for this motive, if for no other, the memory of the followers of the Rosy Cross is worth preserving, in that, during an age of great intellectual darkness, their aims were high, their lives clean, and the tortuous course they pursued serves as an index of the strength and weakness of the human mind.

ROM the "American Notes" of Charles Dickens to Bryce's "American Common

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wealth" is a long intellectual stride. The first was composed under the influence of a personal grievance resulting from the piracies of trans-Atlantic publishers it was a caricature rather than an exaggeration, and its author had. the good sense, thirty years after, to retract its offensiveness as unworthy of his pen. The second is a comprehensive, just and able study of the American republic. It is written with absolute impartiality, and praises or censures with great accuracy. The spirit of animosity that, at the period of the American civil war, characterised the writings of most Englishmen, is wholly absent. Similarly, on the American side there has been a salutary enlightenment during the last twenty years. The 4th of July vapourings of a generation nurtured under the influence of the war of 1812 would now be listened to with the forbearance accorded to undergraduate eloquence. Spreadeagle talk is a thing of the past among educated people, and it long ago dawned upon. the mind of a community where slavery prevailed, and which presents the extremes of affluence and destitution, that the opening words of the Declaration of Independence, that "all men are born free and equal," is a grotesque and cruel sarcasm.

A broader study of one another, conducted under the mellowing influence of historic and literary affinities, has brought the two nations into such kindlier relations, that some tender-hearted souls are beginning to deplore their severance, and to speculate whether, amid the many improbable events that come to pass, some unlookedfor turn of Fortune's wheel might not reunite them. A curious phase of this discussion is the query as to the length of time the colonists might have continued in a state

of dependence, had not the collision upon taxation without representation been precipitated in 1775. One writer advances the opinion, with some appearance of plausibility, that by a policy of liberal concession the dominion of the colonies might have been retained for half a century longer. In considering this statement, the reader will bear in mind how vastly their development would have been retarded by the swaddling clothes of home tutelage. Emigration to America would have been at a far smaller ratio, and such decisive events as the opening of the Erie Canal, which gave ascendency to New York and established a water-route to the West, would have been greatly delayed. By a slow and gradual expansion the thirteen colonies would have added to their number, their population, their resources, until manifest destiny had carried them insensibly beyond the limit of control, and the new nation would have entered upon its independent life as naturally as the young bird one day flies beyond the parental horizon.

It has recently been argued by so notable a reformer as Mr. Andrew Carnegie, writing in the North American Review, that even at this late hour the hands of Time can be set back, and that Great Britain and the United States may once more be joined together. To facilitate this consummation, he cuts loose India, Australia, and the Cape, and converts England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and Canada, into states of the American Union. The Church of England and the House of Lords vanish, and the British Isles send "Senators and Representatives" to Washington. A large undertaking this, even for a man of such commanding personality as Mr. Carnegie. We are glad to share the views put forward by him and by other writers upon this grandiose project, so far as to affirm our conviction that a renewed strife between the two countries would be the greatest misfortune that could befall humanity. Moreover, it is obvious that much may be done to improve the better feeling already existing, and that the adoption of a commercial treaty, to the advantage of both nations, would do more to produce this result than any amount of friendly protestation. But this appears to be the limit that common sense prescribes. The form of government of both countries is a fixed fact, and its subversion in either case would mean dismemberment and ruin,-a conclusion before which all but the most hare-brained Radical will pause. centuries to come! the United States.

God grant that Great Britain may remain a monarchy for many The United States will continue a republic so long as it remains Within these limitations, we will vie with the most aspiring in our wish to see a federation that will include the Anglo-Saxon race the wide world over. It would be an auspicious day for mankind should such an event be attained, and its accomplishment would be a subject for a nobler and surely a more inspiring monument than that which on Bunker Hill commemorates the beginning of a strife between men of the same faith, the same race, the same blood.