A year had passed over the head of the student of Cologne. It had been a
year full of changes. Death had entered the house and taken the tender
mother; the strong-hearted but gentle matron, who had filled the place of
both parents toward Basil and Margareta in their fatherless youth. The
student had now only his sister to cheer his desolate home; and little
joy was there in the young girl’s heart, or brightness on her face, for
she was still in the shadow of past sorrow, her first grief, too; and
heavily it weighed upon sweet Margareta.
Have we forgotten Isilda, the beautiful, the beloved? No change had
taken place in her. She was now the betrothed of Basil Wolgemuth, loving
him with a depth and steadfastness far beyond the first fresh love of
girlhood and romance. And Basil himself, was he still the same? Let us
see.
The student was sitting, as we first beheld him, in the room more
peculiarly his own; it looked the same as in former days; and the
fire, the brilliant and beautiful fire, which Basil loved to have as
a companion for his solitary hours, burned brightly as ever. He kept
continually feeding it with new brands, and often looked up from his book
to gaze at it. If the blaze grew dim for a moment, it seemed as if his
powers of intellect and comprehension grew dim with it. Basil was dull
and cheerless without his beloved fire; he needed its genial warmth, its
inspiring brightness; even in the summer-time he could not study without
it; and so it had been from his childhood.
There was a change in the young man, more than the one short year added
to his age could have effected. He looked like a man who had thought
much, suffered much. An expression of pain constantly hovered over his
features, and the lines of his beautiful mouth were contracted. He
read intently; but at intervals laid down the book, and fixed his eyes
vacantly on the fire, absorbed in thought.
A light knock at the door broke in upon the student’s meditations,
and a stranger entered. He was a man of middle age, tall, spare, and
meagre. His face was calm, and his bearing dignified; while on his noble
forehead, which bore not a single wrinkle, unmistakable intellect sat
enthroned; but at times there was a wildness in his eyes, and a sudden
kindling of his features, which almost belied his serene deportment.
He advanced towards the young man, who arose and greeted him with deep
respect.
“Michael Meyer need not stay to ask admittance of Basil Wolgemuth, I
trust?” said the stranger, in tones of mingled gentleness and conscious
dignity.
“My master,” answered Basil, meekly, “thou art ever most welcome; all
that is mine is thine also.”
“I thank thee, gentle scholar,” returned the other, simply, with a slight
inclination of the head, as he suffered the young man to take from him
his outer garment, and sat down on the chair which Basil offered. The
student himself continued standing until his guest pointed to a low
stool, where Basil placed himself at a little distance from his master.
“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 with
the flesh of beasts and the fruit of the poison-vine. As thou readest in
my book, the soul must retire within itself,——must shut out all human
feelings, all human love.”
A dark shadow came over the young student’s face.
“Must one attain all this, O father, to be a follower of Christian
Rosencreutz?”[2]
“All this, and more. Does thy heart fail thee?” said Michael, sternly.
Basil cast down his eyes.
“No, my noble master, no! but human will is feeble, and the steep is hard
to climb.”
“Then lie down, and perish at its foot, Basil Wolgemuth,” said the
Rosicrucian; and then added, with a regretful tone, “After thou hadst
journeyed half-way, I had not thought thy heart would have failed thee,
my son.”
“It has not failed me,” cried the student, earnestly. “I have followed
implicitly all thy precepts. No food, save what nature rigorously
requires, has passed these lips; I have kept myself pure as a little
child, yet still I seem further than ever from that blessed state when
the soul is free from all mortal longings, and the eyes are purged to
behold the Invisible.”
“Wait, my son; wait and faint not! the time will surely come at last;
and when it does, oh, what joy for thee! Thou wilt count as nothing the
pleasures of taste, when thou mayst banquet on celestial food; thou wilt
scorn all earthly loveliness, to bask in the smile of immortal beauty.
This, indeed, is an aim worthy of man’s aspiring.”
“It is——it is! O master, I follow thee!——teach me, guide me as thou
wilt.” And he knelt at the feet of the Rosicrucian, kissing his hands and
his garments with deep emotion.
“Thou art worthy to become one of us, my son,——nay, my brother,——for
thou wilt erelong equal the wisest of us,” answered Michael Meyer, as he
raised Basil from the earth. “Go on in that noble path; thou hast little
need of me, for thine own soul is thy best teacher. Now farewell, for
this night I leave Cologne; my work is accomplished, and I have added one
more to the brethren of the Rosie Cross.”
“And hast thou no word, no parting admonition, for me, O my father?”
“None, save this: Strive ever after the highest; content thyself with
nothing below perfection; be humble in thine own eyes; and more than all,
keep thy heart and hand from evil: sin clouds the soul’s aspirations; and
the highest life is a life of perfect holiness. With thy noble intellect
and ardent mind, keep an unspotted heart!——and so fare thee well, my son.”
Thus Michael Meyer the Rosicrucian parted from Basil Wolgemuth.