The Rosicrucian stood like forged menace beyond his door. He knew this to be true despite the absence of sight ordained by his closed lids, drawn cowl and not least the intervening portal of iron-banded oak, for the same reason he knew so many things, that his clockwork mind divined—because he did. A child’s mind couldn’t put more to it than that. As he girded himself to brave sleep once again, waiting beyond the dark, its maw agape, he reflected that a clockwork boy who barely scaled a bushel of turnips was better served by menace at his door than sleeping beneath the bed shared by his father the boor and his sister oh so vicious…

…Sleep came without the pretense of mercy or the comfort of rest.

“Someone might rightly ask: who gives such a disembodied spirit such a right to operate in our world? For as we know, in both the natural world and in the Church all is subject to rulers. Thus we may conclude that there must also be rulers in those regions whither have wandered so many thousand spirits who rebelled against the will of the eternal God in order to tame such rebels; but in the manner of the world of darkness. And furthermore, we may assume that such rule was instituted with the harshest severity so that the captives are totally robbed of all the freedom they had enjoyed and abused here below. Therefore the Great Mediator of the New Covenant could not have achieved such splendid victory had he not earned obedience by the things he suffered and suffers still. Hebrews 5: 8 For by virtue of this obedience He descended amidst all and thus stripped naked the powers of darkness that has robbed our grandfather Adam of his clothes.

It appears, however, that the ghost had to perform a special task for its absolution…”

…The cold-forged sentinel outside the door was wiping something like silver on something like night to tidy up the aftermath of an intrusion that had intended to make this the dreamer’s last flight.

“But her appeal to the Church Militant here teaches that we hold much in our hand with respect to the deceased woman and it is simply not wrong to pray for her. For although the dissolved church of God has this privilege the cross-bearing one, with the high priest himself going over to its nighted side, one privilege must still be conceded to this one over that one. This privilege means that any suffering still prevailing must be fulfilled on the Body of Christ and that the prayers of this church, mightily penetrate into God for the perfection of We Saints. Since this temporal world is the soil into which this splendid plant was set and where it is brought to its maturity by the struggle of the Trinity, nothing but gain will derive from the ordeals of the people of God here below. Even though a cleansing may take place in the other world, there is no more greening because the plant is no longer in the earth and it lacks the added ingredient of the free will. When the last of We Saints has achieved perfection in this soil, this outward Trinity will enter again lint the mysterium and another world will set forth.

“That the ghost was more incensed by the conduct of the stranger indicates how the turba was violently astir within her—and it is not a fable that His name enabled the first Christians to do so many miracles whenever the magic of the faith led them on, for his name is an ointment poured forth. When his ongoing sacrifice began on the Cross of Gog and Magog the whole Kingdom of Darkness suffered such fright that nowadays the mere invocation of His name kindles new memory of the loss then suffered among the spirits of evil.

“I witness humbly here, One who Possess Nothing on this Earth”

…Beyond the door which loomed beyond his body which hulked beyond his dream, returned the Rosicrucian in the manner of a mucker returning from the filth trench with an empty bucket—yet a bucket which somehow managed to shine…

…And drear Sleep, cruelly calling, came again.