h our bodies are subjected; and what else does the physician, when
he tasks his art, and uses subtle compounds and cunning distillations,
to revive our languishing powers, and avert the stroke of death for a
season?

"In seeking to multiply the precious metals, also, we seek but to
germinate and multiply, by natural means, a particular species of
nature's productions; and what else does the husbandman, who consults
times and seasons, and, by what might be deemed a natural magic, from
the mere scattering of his hand, covers a whole plain with golden
vegetation? The mysteries of our art, it is true, are deeply and
darkly hidden; but it requires so much the more innocence and purity
of thought, to penetrate unto them. No, father! the true alchymist
must be pure in mind and body; he must be temperate, patient, chaste,
watchful, meek, humble, devout. 'My son,' says Hermes Trismegestes,
the great master of our art, 'my son, I recommend you above all things
to fear God.' And indeed it is only by devout castigation of the
senses, and purification of the soul that the alchymist is enabled to
enter into the sacred chambers of truth. 'Labour, pray, and read,' is
the motto of our science. As De Nuysment well observes, 'These high
and singular favours are granted unto none, save only unto the sons of
God, (that is to say, the virtuous and devout,) who, under his
paternal benediction, have obtained the opening of the same, by the
helping hand of the queen of arts, divine Philosophy.' Indeed, so
sacred has the nature of this knowledge been considered, that we are
told it has four times been expressly communicated by God to man,
having made a part of that cabalistical wisdom which was revealed to
Adam to console him for the loss of Paradise; and to Moses in the
bush, and to Solomon in a dream, and to Esdras by the angel.

"So far from demons and malign spirits being the friends and abettors
of the alchymist, they are the continual foes with which he has to
contend. It is their constant endeavour to shut up the avenues to
those truths which would enable him to rise above the abject state
into which he has fallen, and return to that excellence which was his
original birthright. For what would be the effect of this length of
days, and this abundant wealth, but to enable the possessor to go on
from art to art, from science to science, with energies unimpaired by
sickness, uninterrupted by death? For this have sages and philosophers
shut