Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 231
which cause a marvelous being shall come after me, who as yet
lives not, and ivho shall reveal many things.''
" These passages 1 have been claimed as referring to the
founder of the Rosicrucian order; and as prophecies of this
character are usually the outcome of a general desire rather
than of an individual inspiration, they are interesting evidence
that then, as now, many thoughtful people were looking for
another saviour of society. At the beginning of the seventeenth
century 'a great and general ieformation,' says Buhle,
'a reformation more radical and more directed to the moral
improvement of mankind than that accomplished by Luther —
was believed to be impending over the human race, as a necessary
forerunner to the day of judgment.' The comet of 1572
was declared by Paracelsus to be ' the sign and harbinger of the
coming revolution, and 1 it will readily be believed that his
innumerable disciples would welcome a secret society whose vast
claims were founded on the philosophy of the Master whom
they also venerated as a supreme factor in the approaching
reformation. Paracelsus, however, had recorded a still more
precise prediction, namely, that 'soon after the decease of the
Emperor Rudolph, there would be found three treasures that had
never been revealed before that time.'' "
The author then claims that these are the
three great Rosicrucian
documents which were issued at the time appointed,
and which he has recently published for the first time in English,
under the titles of " The Universal Reformation of the Whole
Wide World," " Fama Fraternitatis ; or, a Discovery of the Fraternity
of the Most Laudable Order of the Rosy Cross, " and
" The Confession of the Rosicrucian Fraternity, addressed to
the Learned of Europe.
It is easy to picture to ourselves the effect of these prognostications
of Paracelsus, joined to the fact that the wonderful star
did appear at the very time when the youthful rmilosopher was
himself sent forth to shine as a prodigy and portent— it is easy
to imagine the impression produced upon a highly-strung, sensitive
boy by such a combination of circumstances, to which,
doubtless, his admiring friends and tutors were not slow in
drawing his attention. Years afterward we find him making
l The Real History of the Rosicrucians, A. E. Waite, pp. 34-5.
Eedway.
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