with
celestial revolutions. Nearly all are eager to struggle with the
intractable nature of metal, for while we find many principles in other
things, we find all metals like unto themselves in every particular.
Hence a common error as to our work. Behold these patient, indefatigable
athletes, ever vanquished, yet ever returning to the combat! Humanity,
sire, is behind us, as the huntsman is behind your hounds. She cries
to us: 'Make haste! neglect nothing! sacrifice all, even a man, ye who
sacrifice yourselves! Hasten! hasten! Beat down the arms of DEATH,
mine enemy!' Yes, sire, we are inspired by a hope which involves the
happiness of all coming generations. We have buried many men--and what
men!--dying of this Search. Setting foot in this career we cannot work
for ourselves; we may die without discovering the Secret; and our death
is that of those who do not believe in another life; it is this life
that we have sought, and failed to perpetuate. We are glorious martyrs;
we have the welfare of the race at heart; we have failed but we live
again in our successors. As we go through this existence we discover
secrets with which we endow the liberal and the mechanical arts. From
our furnaces gleam lights which illumine industrial enterprises, and
perfect them. Gunpowder issued from our alembics; nay, we have mastered
the lightning. In our persistent vigils lie political revolutions."

"Can this be true?" cried the king, springing once more from his chair.

"Why not?" said the grand-master of the new Templars. "_Tradidit mundum
disputationibus_! God has given us the earth. Hear this once more: man
is master here below; matter is his; all forces, all means are at his
disposal. Who created us? Motion. What power maintains life in us?
Motion. Why cannot science seize the secret of that motion? Nothing
is lost here below; nothing escapes from our planet to go
elsewhere,--otherwise the stars would stumble over each other; the
waters of the deluge are still with us in their principle, and not
a drop is lost. Around us, above us, beneath us, are to be found the
elements from which have come innumerable hosts of men who have crowded
the earth before and since the deluge. What is the secret of our
struggle? To discover the force that disunites, and then, _then_
we shall discover that which binds. We are the product of a visible
manufacture. When the waters covered the globe men issued from them who
found the elements of their life i