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THE CASE OF JOHANN VALENTIN ANDREAS. 245
the earnest entreaties of the flower of theosophical literati
for admission into the ranks of the Fraternity remained
unanswered, is no proof that the Society itself did not exist,
for the statement is vicious in the extreme. We have
absolutely no means of ascertaining with whom it may have
come into communication, or what letters and applications
were answered, because inviolable secrecy would cover the
whole of the proceedings, and those who might have the
best reason to know that the Society existed would be most
obliged to hold their peace.
Thus "the meritorious Order
of the R. C." still remains shrouded in mystery, but this
mystery
avowed opinions of the Fraternity for ever prevent us from
is destitute of romance and almost of interest. The
supposing that they were in possession of any secrets which
would be worth disentombing. To have accomplished the
magnum opus of the veritable adept,
Absolute and the heir of Eternity, is to be above all pre-
is to be master of the
judices, all fears, and all sectarian bitterness. By the aid
of an ultra-Horatian philosophy we may conceive that such
men have been, and still are, but they have passed above
" material forms " and the clouded atmosphere of terrestrial
ideas; they inhabit the ideal "city of intelligence and love."
They have left the brawling gutter of religious squabbling,
the identification of Antichrist, the destruction of the Pope
by means of nails, and the number of the beast, to Baxter
and Guinness, Gumming and Brothers the prophet, who
may share its squalors
crucian Fraternity.
and wretchedness with the Eosi