Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

210 FRANCIS BACON
against badd, homes to crosses." 1 "The ungodly," he next
reflects, "walk around on every side." "I was silent from
good words, and my grief was renewed, " but " I believed and
therefore have I spoken; " and he is resolute in trying to do what
he feels to be his duty, for " The memory of the just lives with
praise, but the name of the wicked shall rot. " Here we find
him registering his resolves to do good to others, regardless of
private advantage or profit. This, it will be seen, is one of the
cardinal rales of the Rosy Cross Brethren. They were " to cure
the sick gratis," to seek for no pecuniary profit or reward for the
works which they produced for the benefit of others. " Buy the
truth," say Bacon's notes, " and sell it not." " He who hastethto
be rich shall not be innocent," but " Give not that which
is holy unto dogs. " He foresaw, or had already experienced in
his own short life, the manner in which the " dogs " or cynics of
public opinion and of common ignorance would quarrel over
and tear to pieces every scrap of new knowledge which he presented
to them. "The devil," he says farther on, "hath cast
a bone to set strife." But this should not hinder him. "We
ought to obey God rather than man," " aud the fire shall try
every man's work, of what sort it is; " " for we can do nothing
against the truth, but much for the truth." And the.n he seems
to prepare his mind to suffer on account of the efforts which he
was making on mankind's behalf. He remembers that our
Blessed Lord Himself suffered in the same way, and writes a
memorandum from this verse "
: Many good works have I showed
you of my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? "
Whatever might be the judgment upon him and his works, he
would rest in the assurance of St. Paul: " I have fought a good
fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." We
Although
hardly think that he stopped here in the quotation.
he does not write down the other half of the passage, his ardent
soul treasured, and his works reflect in a thousand different ways
the inspiring and triumphant hope of recognition in that future
life to which he was always looking: " Henceforward there is
1 See in the chapter on Paper Marks the Symbols of Horns aud Crosses, to
which, perhaps, the entry alludes.