the rash, for the sensual,--for him who
desires our secrets but to pollute them to gross enjoyments and selfish
vice. How have the imposters and sorcerers of the earlier times perished
by their very attempt to penetrate the mysteries that should purify, and
not deprave! They have boasted of the Philosopher's Stone, and died in
rags; of the immortal elixir, and sunk to their grave, grey before their
time. Legends tell you that the fiend rent them into fragments. Yes;
the fiend of their own unholy desires and criminal designs! What they
coveted, thou covetest; and if thou hadst the wings of a seraph thou
couldst soar not from the slough of thy mortality. Thy desire for
knowledge, but petulant presumption; thy thirst for happiness, but
the diseased longing for the unclean and muddied waters of corporeal
pleasure; thy very love, which usually elevates even the mean, a passion
that calculates treason amidst the first glow of lust. THOU one of us;
thou a brother of the August Order; thou an Aspirant to the Stars that
shine in the Shemaia of the Chaldean lore! The eagle can raise but the
eaglet to the sun. I abandon thee to thy twilight!

"But, alas for thee, disobedient and profane! thou hast inhaled the
elixir; thou hast attracted to thy presence a ghastly and remorseless
foe. Thou thyself must exorcise the phantom thou hast raised. Thou must
return to the world; but not without punishment and strong effort canst
thou regain the calm and the joy of the life thou hast left behind.
This, for thy comfort, will I tell thee: he who has drawn into his frame
even so little of the volatile and vital energy of the aerial juices as
thyself, has awakened faculties that cannot sleep,--faculties that may
yet, with patient humility, with sound faith, and the courage that
is not of the body like thine, but of the resolute and virtuous mind,
attain, if not to the knowledge that reigns above, to high achievement
in the career of men. Thou wilt find the restless influence in all that
thou wouldst undertake. Thy heart, amidst vulgar joys will aspire to
something holier; thy ambition, amidst coarse excitement, to something
beyond thy reach. But deem not that this of itself will suffice for
glory. Equally may the craving lead thee to shame and guilt. It is but
an imperfect and new-born energy which will not suffer thee to repose.
As thou directest it, must thou believe it to be the emanation of thine
evil genius or thy good.

"But woe to thee!