left but barbarism.

Two writers declare that the most ancient and valuable of the records of
the Alexandrian Library were kept in secret crypts known only to the
highest officials, and preserved still in secret crypts known only to the
Illuminati. In Baalbec and all through the East to-day these underground
temples are being explored, and even the fragments found excite wonder and
admiration. Ignorant Barbarians may be destructive on general principles,
but fanatical Ecclesiasticism has ever been destructive of all light,
knowledge and civilization, through insane hatred or pure "cussedness"! We
need only to regard intelligently what it has done, and is doing for
Southern Europe to-day.

Can you wonder that the real science of the Human Soul found little
recognition, or that it was denied as possible to man?

As already shown, the Science of to-day has neither recognized nor worked
up to it; and the Theology of to-day covers it with fable, mystery, and
miracle as of old.

In spite of both these the "Philalethean Society" exists, the "Seekers
after God" were never more numerous than now, and the _Magnum Opus_, the
Great Work, was never, in the whole history of man, more in evidence than
it is to-day.

"Truth crushed to Earth shall rise again,
The Eternal years of God are hers."

Can it be that there is no great truth back of all these struggles and
aspirations of the human soul? That there is no possible realization back
of these soulful endeavors?

Is Tantalus, after all, the creator and Father of Man? inspired only by
love of disappointment, defeat, and despair, in his children?

_For one, I do not believe it._

To plant these aspirations in the soul of man, and doom them to
everlasting disappointment and defeat, would brand the creator of man as
an Infinite Liar, instead of a Loving Father.

The earnest student must first learn to recognize, and to discriminate;
for the "blind leaders of the blind" are always legions.

This power of discrimination, to which I have referred, goes deeper, and
means far more, than most persons ever realize, and this is why so many
are continually deceived.

It is the light of understanding, of spiritual intelligence, within the
soul of man.

It may be likened to a traveler in a foreign country, and a strange land,
suddenly hearing one speaking fluently his own language, his native
tongue. It is impossible to deceive him. In this case, howev