Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 225
their origin is " veiled " or " obscure " for us to feel tolerably
well assured that behind the veil is Francis Bacon.
In Rosicrucian books not included amongst the short pieces
in MS. published by Mr. Waite, it is shown that one
great work of the society was the publication and dissemination
of Bibles. There are, says Bacon, two books of God, the Book
of the Bible, expressing His mil, and the Book of Nature, setting
forth His ivorks. Neither can be fully understood or interpreted
without the other, and men should be made equally acquainted
with either. The revised Bibles of 1591, 1611, and 1613 bear witness
to his personal efforts in this direction. The commentary
published at Geneva, by "John Diodati," the Messenger
Given by God (or the Messenger of God's Gift, which Bacon
says was the gift of reason with speech), should be examined in
connection with this part of the subject.
It will surely transpire
that Francis Bacon played no minor part in promoting the
knowledge of God's first book, and that his faithful followers
have nobly fulfilled their vows and duty of carrying on his great
work.
For the Second Book of God, it is easier at once to make plain
the enormous services which he rendered. He founded the
Royal Society. In these words we sum up the fact that he
planned and set going the vast machinery which has produced
such wonderful results upon science, and upon almost every
department of human knowledge.
The history of the origin of the Royal Society, which, according
to its chief chroniclers, is, like so many other matters connected
with Bacon, " veiled in obscurity, " appears to be this
A few choice spirits met first in Bacon's private room, then at
various places in Oxford and Cambridge, until the friends formed
themselves into a small philosophical society, under Dr.
Wilkins, in Wadham College. Meetings were sometimes held in
taverns. When too large for these, they adjourned to the
parlour of Gresham College. Lord Arundel " offered the Royal
Society an asylum in his own palace when the most fierce and
merciless of the elements subverted her first abodes," all of
which is printed with many italics and very large type in the
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