The Knights Templars.

that the great majority of the assembled Fathers were firm in their belief ininnocence of the Knights , he found it necessary to throw into the scale , to carry the day , his own authority . The presence of the King , and still more the shining arms of

the royal guard , intimidated the boldest , and carried weight . Several prelates had conformed to the views of the King , bribed by his gifts and promises .. The Pope read the Bull of suppression . A solemn silence ensued . No voice was heard to

champion the cause of the hapless Knights . The Bull was published on the 6 th of May , ancl the Order which for two hundred years had fought and bled in the cause of the Cross was extinguished by the hand of the Pope . Immediately after this , the innocent were set at

liberty and the guilty punished according to the decisions of the Provincial Councils of Sens and Rheims . The innocent were granted a pension , and many entered the Order of the Hospital , where they were willingly received—a strong proof of

their innocence . The relapsed were ordered to be punished with the utmost rigour , and the fugitives , ivho had not yet been arrestod , were cited to appear during the year before their episcopal diocesan to be interrogated and judged . If they

failed to do so , they were declared to be contumacious , excommunicated , to be treaetd as the vilest of heretics , glorying in the continuance of their crimes . The Fope reserved to himself the judging and passing sentence upon De Molai and the three principal officers of the Order .

By a Bull , the Pope reserved to himself the disposal of the goods of the Templars , although he had resolved to give them to the Hospitallers * . B y an extension of the Bull , he added a second , by Avhich he explained that he adjudged them to

these Knights , excepting always the wealth situated in Spain , and without prejudice to the rights which the kings , princes and nobility might have on the wealth of the Templars situated in other countries . It was said that this clause

was omitted in the first Bulll by the fault of those who had written it—an excuse of almost unexampled ridiculousness , for these acts could not have been published without the revision of the Popr himself .

The Bull is a curious production . It abolishes a famous Order , which is said to have been found guilty of crimes , although the Pope avowed that

The Knights Templars.

the proof had failed so as to carry a definite judgment . This ivas using an absolute authority , and confessing that , for secret motives , he wished to abolish an Order established solemnly and legally , and from which the Christian people had received

such great services . But the Pope evidently adopted the law known in Scotland as Jeddart justice , which first kills , and afterwards inquires into the proof of the crime . The Hospitallers had to pay such enormous

fines to the Pope and King , before they could enter on the possession of the Templars' lands , as almost ruined them . The King , if he did not succeed to the utmost of his anticipations , had little reaaon to complain of his share of the

plunder , for , besides appropriating to himself all the moveable property of the Order , he retained three hundred thousand Iivres , to repay tbe expenses of the prosecution . The treasure brought by De Molai from Cyprus , as well aa the rich

gold and silver utensils , and plate with which the chapel and place of the Temple at Paris were furnished , fell also into his hand . ( To be continued . )

Palestine Exploration Fund.

PALESTINE EXPLORATION FUND .

A most interesting exhibition is now open- to the public in the Dudley Gallery of the Egyptian Hall , Piccadilly . The articles constituting the display are for the most part the result of the excavations made by Bro . Lieut . Warren . They

have been . arranged in the Dudley Gallery for general inspection , along with a series of nearly three hundred and fifty photographic views , taken in all parts of the country . His subterranean labours have revealed what may be called

stratified Jewish history . He has gone down as much as ninety feet in one spot ; and , at the corner of the Haram especially , at the depth of eighty feet , he has disclosed the foundation-stones of the old temple , standing upon the living rock , besides

chambers , walls , aqueducts , cisterns , and arches ; which begin , after incredible toil , to range themselves into an intelligible plan , revealing to us the real Jerusalem of the past . Those excavations have carried back research , indeed , to the days

preceding Solomon , for in one spot a water course of masonry has been found passing under the temple wall itself ; and there are relics in this exhibition which come from that very place . Six or seven cases in the body of the room are filled with