In ancient times, there dwelt within these halls a follower of Jesus of Jerusalem,—an Archbishop in the Church of Christ. He gave himself up to dreams; to the illusions of fancy; to the vast desires of the human soul. He sought after the impossible. He sought after the Elixir of Life,—the Philosopher’s Stone. The wealth that should have fed the poor was melted in his crucibles. Within these walls the Eagle of the clouds sucked the blood of the Red Lion, and received the spiritual love of the Green Dragon; but, alas! was childless. In solitude and utter silence did the disciple of the Hermetic Philosophy toil from day to day, from night to night. From the place where thou standest, he gazed at evening upon hills, and vales, and waters spread beneath him; and saw how the setting sun had changed them all to gold, by an alchemy more cunning than his own. He saw the world beneath his feet; and said in his heart, that he alone was wise. Alas! he read more willingly in the book of Paracelsus than in the book of Nature; and, believing that ‘where reason hath experience, faith hath no mind,’ would fain have made unto himself a child, as the Philosopher taught,—a poor homunculus, in a glass bottle. And he died poor and childless!”
