The Knights Templars were far more militant than the Knights of St. John, but they also were actuated by the monastic spirit. Bernard tried to inspire this order with a strong Christian zeal so that, as he said, "War should become something of which God could approve." The success which attended its operations led as usual to its corruption and decline. Beginning with a few crusaders leagued together for service and living on the site of the ancient Temple at Jerusalem, it soon widened the scope of its services and became a powerful branch of the crusading army. It was charged by Philip IV. of France, in 1307, with the most fearful crimes, to sustain or to deny which accusations many volumes have been composed. Five years later the order was suppressed and its vast accumulations transferred to the Knights of St. John. "The horrible fate of the Templars," says Allen, "was taken by many as a beginning and omen of the destruction that would soon pass upon all the hated religious orders. And so this final burst of enthusiasm and splendor in the religious life was among the prognostics of a state of things in which monasticism must fade quite away." Wondrous changes have taken place in those dark and troubled years since Benedict began his labors at Monte Cassino, in 529. The monk has prayed alone in the mountains, and converted the barbarian in the forest. He has preached the crusades in magnificent cathedrals, and crossed stormy seas in his frail bark. He has made the schools famous by his literary achievements, and taught children the alphabet in the woodland cell. He has been good and bad, proud and humble, rich and poor, arrogant and gentle. He has met the shock of lances on his prancing steed, and trudged barefoot from town to town. He has copied manuscripts in the lonely Scottish isle, and bathed the fevered brow of the pilgrim in the hospital at Jerusalem. He has dug ditches, and governed the world as the pope of the Church. He has held the plow in the furrow, and thwarted the devices of the king. He has befriended the poor, and imposed penance upon princes. He has imitated the poverty and purity of Jesus, and aped the pomp and vice of kings. He has dwelt solitary on cold mountains, subsisting on bread, roots and water, and he has surrounded himself with menials ready to gratify every luxurious wish, amid the splendor of palatial cloisters. Still there are new types and phases of monasticism yet to appear. The monk has other tasks to undertake, for the world is not yet sufficiently wearied of his presence to destroy his cloister and banish him from the land. V _THE MENDICANT FRIARS_