The Sword Of The Knight Templar.

the inviolableness of those fraternal pledges which , like threefold cords , are not quickly broken . I was astonished to hear the discharged prisoner tell on his return home , of friends and benefactors in a hostile country , and could scarcely credit the

unvarnished narrative of the soldier's wife , who , within the enemies'lines , had been kept from starvation by unfamiliar hands . I wondered what ¦ that could be that worked such miracles of kindness in the midst of wrath , and wonder begat

desire to discover its secrets and share its benefits . Since then I have been initiated , my desire has been bountifully gratified , and like Sheba ' s queen ¦ —dazzled by the blaze of Solomon ' s court—lean without exaggeration declare " the half had not

been told me . " Think not that I am trying to magnify Masonry by the disparagement of Christianity . That were contrary to the spirit of both . Christianity has no rival ; she stands alone , above comparison , the

eldest daughter of God , the immaculate bride of Christ . But Masonry is her handmaiden ; deli ghts to wait upon her and do her reverence ,

asking no richer reward than her smile of approbation , and no higher promotion than a seat on her footstool . I have thus briefly referred to recent events in our national history , only to show that we are

constantly producing fresh guarantees to the reasonableness we have never doubted , because to us self-evident , but which is nevertheless nourished and invigorated by its own fruits . Surely a cause that is founded on the gospels ; that commemorates

the death , resurrection , and ascension of the Saviour ; that demands the practice of every cardinal virtue ; that announces as its first , last , and supreme law , the sublime epitome of all

lawslove ] , to God and man ; that has , wherever it has gone , left gladness in its wake ; that has arrested the uplifted arm of the murderer , subdued the ruthless ferocity of the invader ; metamorphised in an instant , and as by magic , the stranger into a

companion , the foe into a friend ; thrown over the « rring the mantle of charity , and between the defenceless and danger the broad shield of protection , and wreathed its brow with flowers of merit—plucked from hazardous heights of difficulty

none but itself has scaled ; surely such a cause needs no tumid encomiums , can find no louder trumpeters than its own good deeds , and like wisdom , is justified of its children ; and like loveliness , when unadorned , adorned the most . Let

no veil of gaudy words be thrown ovet' its exquisite features to obscure rather than acid to their loveliness . Let no meretricious jewel of rhetoric be hung upon her lithe limbs to cumber rather than grace their movements .

Clenching our swords then by this , its . proper hilt , " faith in the justice of our cause , " we are , secondly , taught to wield its blade of fortitude unrestingly in the championship of rectitude against iniquity . By fortitude here is meant a generic

virtue which includes patience to bear , courage to dare , and constancy to stand immovably at the post of duty , though beset with a thousand perils and in the very frown of death . He who engaged in the warfare for which our Order was inaugurated , bound himself by the holiest vows to be true to his trust under the

direst calamities imaginable ; ancl abstaining from enervating luxury and cankering idleness , spent his life in diligent quest of adventure . Encased in linked mail , mounted on steed whose martial prancings indicated its conscious sympathy with

its rider ' s aspirations , and equipped with lance that ne ' er would splinter in the onset , forth he went where likeliest to encounter a combatant , confiding in God , in the justice of his cause , and his own steady and stalwart arm for victory . If

stunned , he did not despond ; if wounded , he did not complain ; if unhorsed , he did not plead for pity ; if dying , he remembered his dignity , and met his fate with the air more of a conquerer than a captive . Fortitude was his

constitution , his principle , his education — the motto equally of his unsullied escutcheon and his intrepid heart . Never in the record of our race was this lofty trait more heroically exhibited than at the siege of Acre . Three hundred Knights

Templar , with the women who had taken refuge in the fort , were forced to shut themselves up in the last remaining tower . They saw their besiegers begin the work of undermining , and knew that defeat was inevitable . With that tenderness

towards the weaker sex , inseparable from the noblest bravery , they surrendered in order that their women might be spared the horrors of what they foresaw would be the result of continued resistance , on the stipulated condition that the

purity of those women should not be touched with a foul hand . The condition was disregarded . And when the vile Turks commenced their carnival of lust , the swords of the gallant Knights leaped , as by one impulse of indignation , from