122 The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony. 



Of these flowers of Antimony the 

 world knows little or nothing, and it 

 will not be able to appreciate my pre- 

 scription. The students and friends of 

 this Spagyric Art, on the other hand, 

 will estimate it at its right value. 

 Nevertheless, I warn you, my disciples, 

 that if you desire to be true and earnest 

 Alchemists, you must take your cross 

 upon you, and follow me. You must 

 learn, as I have learned, to suffer, to 

 submit to persecution, to knock at the 



Alchemy was held in the time of Basilius, and how many 

 theological and political authorities were to be found in the 

 army of ignorance arrayed against it. Now, you should 

 understand that I do not blame these writers for visiting 

 with the most severe invective those mountel ank quacks 

 who practised their criminal intrigues under the cloak of 

 this Art. Such persons I consider as deserving not only 

 emphatic censure, but the most severe punishment. But 

 men of education and piety should not have been so blind 

 as to confound the innocent with the guilty, and to involve 

 honest Alchemists in one sweeping condemnation with these 

 charlatans. In our times the dense cloud of ignorance is 

 here and there shot with light ; physicians do not venture to 

 condemn Alchemy, and even prescribe Alchemistic remedies. 

 When will the darkness be utterly dispersed by the advent, 

 of the Artist Elias, which Paracelsus predicts in some of his 

 books, as, for instance, in the 8th chapter of his treatise De 

 Mtnerahbus : " The common things God permits us to 

 make known, but the more momentous secrets cannot 



