There were no

Cotton and tea were unknown. printed books, no newspapers, no telegraphs, no letter-post. The larger number of people could neither read nor write. There was but one religion all over England, and all over Europe. Constantinople was a Christian city; the Turks had not yet begun their conquests. America, Australia, and the West Indies had not yet been discovered.

If we can grasp the idea of European and English life and thought that all this implies, we shall see how much of present feeling and prejudice we must put away before we can be in a position to judge fairly of the age and the circumstances which gave rise to the Military Religious Orders, and to contemplate fairly the history of the Orders themselves.

The idea itself was certainly noble and grand. In those times the military and the religious life alone offered a promising field for great and energetic minds. But there would be men whose religious instincts drew them to the cloister, while their vigorous frames and fiery energy disposed them also to the soldier's life. It was a happy thought, therefore, that devised a method to combine these two vocations, and put a sword into the monk's hand who had little taste for the spade or the library.

The Christian calling is that of a soldier, and the exigencies of the times made it honourable to fight not only against spiritual but against human foes.

But in reality this idea, like all other great ideas, was one of gradual growth and development. It

did not spring, Minerva-like, fully equipped from the head of any.

The hardships that pilgrims to the Holy Places endured led to the formation of societies of men who devoted themselves to their relief and maintenance, while they remained at Jerusalem.

And thus the terrors and dangers of the road became known, and the cruel sufferings and indignities that pilgrims were made to undergo before they could set foot in the Holy City, till those who sheltered and succoured the pilgrim when he arrived at his destination saw that if their work was to be complete and thorough, they must protect him also on his way.

And so the nursing brother and the hospitable monk became an armed and fighting soldier.

Then as the Mahometan conquest advanced, and the birthplace of Christ, and the very tomb in which He had been laid, fell into the hands of the anti-Christian host, Christian men's blood boiled, and the cry went up from all Europe that this should not be. And so men bound themselves into bands and Orders for mutual support and to gain strength, and vowed to devote life and all to this great work, and to succeed, or to perish in the attempt.

So the work began, originating in the highest Christian instincts, and carried out with self-sacrifice and enthusiasm. It attracted many devoted men, and so grew and spread and flourished.

And then, when success had crowned the new scheme, men of all kinds favoured it and men fit

and unfit enrolled themselves in the ranks of the soldier-monks. Then, too, those who did not join themselves desired to be sharers in the good work, and aided those who could by money and lands and privileges. And so there came worldly greatness and power and wealth, and with them, alas, their inseparable evils. Worldly men pressed in to the Order from worldly motives, and with unworthy aims. And so scandals arose. And then envy and covetousness eyed the wealth and power, and uncharity spread tales, and those who desired Naboth's vineyard found no difficulty in persuading men that he was not fit to live. And then dispensation from hard and irksome rules was sought and obtained, and work was done by deputy, and the grand and holy aims of the Order were lost sight of and forgotten, and other and lower objects were desired and laboured for, and the blessing of God was withdrawn.

All things human pass away. As man has his birth, youth, full manhood, and then decay and decrepitude, so is it with his works and his ideas. We may lament this, and yet let us be sure it is not all loss and waste. Men and institutions do their work and pass away, to make room for others; just as the leaf buds and develops and flutters its little lifetime in the breeze, and then withers and drops, because another and a new leaf is pushing on behind it.

To one who could have seen the vast forests of a past geological period growing, spreading, and dying;

the weak stifled half-grown by the strong, not one seed in ten thousand ever becoming a full grown tree; there would have seemed waste. But now we know that all was designed, and that there was no waste; and the coal fields of to-day attest the wisdom and the purpose which a larger Mind could design and carry out.

"Oh, yet we trust that somehow good

Will be the final goal of ill.”

We read the past, we regard the present, we await the future with this conviction, and gain peace and rest and hope.

THE

MILITARY RELIGIOUS ORDERS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.

INTRODUCTION.

The origin of Chivalry-Primitive laws of rank-The use of the horse in war-The term Chevalier-The growth of the mediaval system of knighthood-Charlemagne-The suppression of brigandage-King Arthur-The feudal lord and the bishopCeremonial for the creation of a Knight-The value of Chivalry as an aid to civilization-Knight-errantry--Improvement of Woman's social position-The Pagan and the Christian warrior compared―The duties of a true Knight.

"A glorious company, the flower of men,
To serve as model for the mighty world,

I made them lay their hands in mine, and swear
To break the heathen and uphold the Christ,
To ride abroad, redressing human wrongs,
To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it,
To lead sweet lives in purest chastity."

TENNYSON.

IN a rude and primitive condition of mankind might constitutes right, and strength and daring give rank.

The aristocracy, therefore, will consist of the warriors, while the weak, the young, the old, and the women will occupy an inferior position. An un