When I had emptied to the dregs the cup of human suffering, I was
led to consider the wretchedness of this world, and the fearful
consequences of our first parents' disobedience. Then I saw that
there was no hope of repentance for mankind, that they were getting
worse day by day, and that for their impenitence God's everlasting
punishment was hanging over them; and I made haste to withdraw
myself from the evil world, to bid farewell to it, and to devote
myself to the service of God. When I had spent some years at the
monastery, I found that after I had performed my work and my daily
devotions I still had some time on my hands. This I did not wish to
pass in idleness, lest my evil thoughts should lead me into new
sins; and so I determined to use it for the study and investigation
of those natural secrets by which God has shadowed out eternal
things. So I read a great many books in our monastery written in
olden times by philosophers who had pursued the same study, and was
thereby stimulated to a more ardent desire of knowing that which
they also knew. Though I did not make much progress at first, yet
at last God granted my earnest prayer, and opened my eyes that I
might see what others had seen before me. In the convent there was
a brother, who was afflicted with a severe disease of the kidneys,
and to whom none of the many physicians he had consulted had been
able to give even momentary relief. So he had committed himself to
the hand of God, and despaired of all human aid. As I loved him, I
gathered all manner of herbs, extracted their salts, and distilled
various medicines. But none of them seemed to do him the slightest
good, and after six years I found that I had tried every possible
vegetable substance, without any beneficial effect. At last I
determined to devote myself to the study of the powers and virtues
which God has laid into metals and minerals and the more I searched
the more I found. One discovery led to another, and, after God had
permitted unto me many experiments, I understood clearly the nature
and properties, and the secret potency, imparted by God to minerals
and metals. Among the mineral substances I found one which
exhibited many colours, and proved to be of the greatest efficacy
in art. The spiritual essence of this substance I extracted, and
therewith restored our sick brother, in a few days, to perfect
health. For the strength of this spirit was so great as to quicken
the prostrate spirit of my diseased brother, who, from that day to
the day of his death, remembered me in his hourly prayers. And his
prayers, together with my own diligence, so prevailed with God,
that there was revealed to me that great secret which God ever
conceals from those who are wise in their own conceits. Thus have I
been wishing to reveal to you in this treatise, as far as may be
lawful to me, the Stone of the Ancients, that you, too, might
possess the knowledge of this highest of earthly treasures for your
health and comfort in this valley of sorrow. I write about it, not
for my own good, but for that of posterity, and though my words be
few and simple, that which they import is of immeasurable
magnitude. Ponder them well, that you also may find the Rock which
is the foundation Stone of truth, the temporal blessing, and the
eternal reward.
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