religion, and
founded upon it the sect of the Aurea-crucians. He was born at Goerlitz, in
Upper Lusatia, in 1575, and followed till his thirtieth year the
occupation of a shoemaker. In this obscurity he remained, with the
character of a visionary and a man of unsettled mind, until the
promulgation of the Rosicrucian philosophy in his part of Germany, toward
the year 1607 or 1608. From that time he began to neglect his leather, and
buried his brain under the rubbish of metaphysics. The works of Paracelsus
fell into his hands; and these, with the reveries of the Rosicrucians, so
completely engrossed his attention, that he abandoned his trade
altogether, sinking, at the same time, from a state of comparative
independence into poverty and destitution. But he was nothing daunted by
the miseries and privations of the flesh; his mind was fixed upon the
beings of another sphere, and in thought he was already the new apostle of
the human race. In the year 1612, after a meditation of four years, he
published his first work, entitled _Aurora, or the Rising of the Sun_;
embodying the ridiculous notions of Paracelsus, and worse confounding the
confusion of that writer. The philosopher's stone might, he contended, be
discovered by a diligent search of the Old and New Testaments, and more
especially of the Apocalypse, which alone contained all the secrets of
alchymy. He contended that the divine grace operated by the same rules,
and followed the same methods, that the divine providence observed in the
natural world; and that the minds of men were purged from their vices and
corruptions in the very same manner that metals were purified from their
dross, namely, by fire.

Besides the sylphs, gnomes, undines, and salamanders, he acknowledged
various ranks and orders of demons. He pretended to invisibility and
absolute chastity. He also said that, if it pleased him, he could abstain
for years from meat and drink, and all the necessities of the body. It is
needless, however, to pursue his follies any further. He was reprimanded
for writing this work by the magistrates of Goerlitz, and commanded to
leave the pen alone and stick to his wax, that his family might not become
chargeable to the parish. He neglected this good advice, and continued his
studies; burning minerals and purifying metals one day, and mystifying the
Word of God on the next. He afterwards wrote three other works, as
sublimely ridiculous as the first. The one was entitled _