‘Moscow, November 17.—I have only just come from seeing my benefactor, and I hasten to note down all I have been feeling. Osip Alexyevitch lives in poverty, and has been for three years past suffering from a painful disease of the bladder. No one has ever heard from him a groan or a word of complaint. From morning till late at night, except at the times when he partakes of the very plainest food, he is working at science. He received me graciously, and made me sit down on the bed on which he was lying. I made him the sign of the Knights of the East and of Jerusalem; he responded with the same, and asked me with a gentle smile what I had learned and gained in the Prussian and Scottish lodges. I told him everything as best I could, repeating to him the principles of action I had proposed in our Petersburg lodge, and telling him of the unfavourable reception given me, and the rupture between me and the brothers. Osip Alexyevitch, after some silent thought, laid all his own view of the subject before me, which immediately threw light on all the past and all the course that lies before me. He surprised me by asking whether I remembered the threefold aim of the order—(1) the preservation and study of the holy mystery; (2) the purification and reformation of self for its reception; and (3) the improvement of the human race through striving for such purification. Which, he asked, was the first and greatest of those three aims? Undoubtedly self-reformation and self- purification. It is only towards that aim that we can always strive independently of all circumstances. But at the same time it is just that aim which requires of us the greatest effort, and therefore, led astray by pride, we let that aim drop, and either strive to penetrate to the mystery which we are unworthy in our impurity to receive, or seek after the reformation of the human race, while we are ourselves setting an example of vice and abomination. “Uluminism” is not a pure doctrine precisely because it is seduced by worldly activity and puffed up with pride. On this ground Osip Alexyevitch censured my speech and all I am doing. At the bottom of my heart I agreed with him. Talking of my domestic affairs, he said to me: “The first duty of a mason, as I have told you, is the perfection of himself. But often we imagine that by removing all the difficulties of our life, we may better attain this aim. It is quite the con- i trary, sir,” he said to me: “it is only in the midst of the cares of the world that we can reach the three great aims—(1) self-knowledge, for a man can know himself only by comparison; (2) greater perfection, which can only be obtained by conflict; and (3) the attainment of the . chief virtue—love of death. Only the corruptions of life can show us all its vanity, and strengthen our innate love for death, or rather regenera-
tion into new life.” These words were the more remarkable as Osip Alexyevitch, in spite of his grievous physical sufferings, is never weary of life, though he loves death, for which he does not, in spite of all the purity and loftiness of his inner man, yet feel himself prepared. Then my benefactor explained to me fully the significance of the great square of creation, and pointed out that the third and the seventh number are the basis of everything. He counselled me not to withdraw from co-operation with the Petersburg brothers, and while undertaking duties only of the second order in the lodge, to endeavour to draw the brothers away from the seductions of pride, and to turn them into the true path of self- knowledge and self-perfection. Moreover, for myself personally, he advised me first of all to keep a watch over myself, and with that aim he gave me a manuscript-book, the one in which I am writing now, and am to note down all my actions in the future.’
