existed. The plans were yet crude, vague, immature, and only the crime loomed up indistinctly, like a grim, black mountain through a wintry fog.

"The day grew older by twelve hours, but when the sunset came, ten years had fastened themselves upon the brows of both the Woman and the Man since last they had parted at rosy morn.

"Bad thoughts are famous for making men grow old before the weight of years has borne them earthward. They wrinkle the brow and bring on decrepitude, senility and grey hairs faster than Time himself can possibly whirl bodies graveward. The rolling hours and the circling years are less swift than evil thoughts of evil doing. Right doing, innocence, and well-wishing make us young; bad thoughts rob us of youth, vivacity, and manhood! Let us turn to Mr. and Mrs. Thomas W.:

"There was a star hung out in the sky, and she had already determined to watch their destinies; with what success, and in what manner, will be apparent before finishing my story, every word of which is true in one sense, if not precisely in another.

“The sun had set, and slowly the moon was uprising—blessed moon! God's Left Eye, wherewith He at night overlooketh the thoughts and deeds of solitary men and solitary women—for only such are capable of crime—those only who are, and live alone—and many such there be, even at their own firesides, surrounded by their own families, own flesh, own blood—fathers, mothers, wives (as times go), husbands (as they are conventionally called). Many there be who exist in dreadful solitudes in the very midst of human crowds—who live alone and pass through life, from the cradle to the grave, perfect strangers, perfect hermits, wholly unknowing, totally unknown, like interlopers on the globe, whose very right to be here all the world disputes. Friends, I have seen many such—have you? These lonely people, these exotics, these insulars in the busy haunts of men—the teeming hives of commerce—alone in earth's well-paced market-towns—in the very saturnalia of Trade's gala days; and they are to be pitied, because they all have human, yearning hearts, filled to the brim with great strangling sorrows; and they have high and holy aspirations, only that the world chokes them down—crushes out the pure, sweet life God gave them. These are the Unloved ones; yet ought not to be, for are they not somebody's sons and daughters? Yes! Then they have rights; and the first, greatest, highest right of all is the right of being loved—loved by the people of the land—our world-cousins, for what we do, are doing, or have done; and to be loved, for the sake of the dear soul within, by somebody else's son or daughter.

"So think we of the Rosicrucian Order; so, one day, will think the world."

At this point of the Rosicrucian's narrative, Captain Jones, one of his auditory, interrupted him with:

"Why, I thought the Rosicrucian system had been dead, buried, and forgotten two centuries ago."

He replied: "The false or pseudo-Rosicrucian system has ceased to be. Truth herself is deathless. I cannot now stop to explain what interests you concerning the revived system of Rosicrucianism. You will now please to allow me to proceed with my story," said he, and then resumed, saying:

"I repeat that only those who live alone, unloved, unloving, are they who, becoming morbid, having all their kindly feelings driven back upon themselves, daily, hourly eating up their own hearts—brooding over their wrongs, their social and other misfortunes—at length engender crime, if not against their fellow-men, then against themselves.

"Oh, for something to love, and be loved by, if but a little pet dog! The unloved ever are wrecked, the unloving ever wreck others. It is sweet to be loved by even a dumb brute! But, ah, how inexpressibly, how infinitely better to be endeared for yourself alone!—for your integral wealth of soul—by a Man, a full, true Man; by a Woman, a full, gushing-hearted Woman; or, sweeter, dearer still, a child—some glorious hero of a hobby-horse, some kitten-torturing Cora! Ah, what a chord to touch! I am very fond of children—dear little Godlings of the Ages. Those who reciprocate affection truly, are too full of God to keep a devil's lodging-house. It is a dear thing to feel the great truth—one of Rosicrucia's truths—that nothing is more certain than that somewhere, perhaps on earth, perhaps in some one of the innumerable aromal worlds—star-spangles on God's diadem—or from amidst the mournful monodies in material creation—some one loves us; and that there goeth up a prayer, sweet-toned as seraph-harps, to Him for you, my weary brother, for you, my sister of the dark locks turning prematurely grey; for all of us whose paths through life have been thickly strewn with thorns and rocks, sharp boulders and deep and frightful pit-falls—great threatening, yawning gulfs: