“And now let us talk,” said Michael Meyer; “for it is long since I have seen thee. What hast thou learned meanwhile?”

“Much, O master! I have been studying thy book.” And he pointed to the open page.

A gleam of pleasure illuminated Michael’s sallow features. “And dost thou ever regret that thou hast become one of us, one of the brethren of the Rosie Cross?”

“Never, honored master mine,” cried the student; “but I have yet so much to learn, before I am worthy even to kiss the hem of thy garment; and I am so young.”

“It may be that a young heart is purer than one which has longer mingled with the world. Thou hast not yet travelled out of sight of the home which thy spirit left at birth; the memory of that pristine existence dimly remains with thee still. Therefore it is well with thee, Basil.”

“Master, if I could only think so,——if I could only revive within me that higher life,——but I fear it is hard.”

“It is hard, my son; for it is a struggle of matter against spirit. O, didst thou but know the joys that are opened unto us who mortify the body for the sake of the soul; the glorious and beautiful world that is revealed to us,——a life within life, a double existence, our mortal eyes being strengthened to behold the Invisible,——our mortal frames endowed with the powers of angels!”

“It is glorious——glorious!” murmured the student as he gazed on his master, whose whole countenance gleamed with enthusiasm.

“It is indeed glorious,” continued Michael Meyer. “To be as a god to mankind; to bear in this human body the gift of healing; to know that the riches for which men toil, and pine, and slay one another, are at our will in such abundance that they seem to us like dust. And more than all, to have the power of holding communion with those good spirits which God created as he created man, more beautiful and yet less perfect, for they must remain as first made, while man may rise through various stages of existence, higher and higher, until he reach the footstool of divinity itself.”

“Hast thou ever seen those glorious beings?” asked Basil, glancing doubtfully round, his voice sinking into a low whisper.

“I have!” answered Michael Meyer. “But no more of this. To attain this state of perfection, thou must needs deaden thyself to all human pleasures; thou must forsake the grossness of an appetite pampered 

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