pilgrims to missionaries, from being taught to teaching, from restorers of Palestine’s graves to restorers of European society. Of the “Teutonic Knights of Saint Mary,” a fine and representative order, an impartial historian writes: “They defended Christianity against the barbarians of Eastern Europe.” “After many bloody encounters introduced German manners, language and morals.” Of the Knighthood, as a whole, says another, “the institution that could breed such characters as these, obviously rendered an enduring service to humanity. Its spirit lives on, offering examples which the young still welcome in their joyous, dreamy days. The ideal still remains, purified by time, freed from its frailties, and aids in fashioning modern sentiment to the conception and admiration of the Christian gentleman.” CHAPTER III. ARMAGEDDON; THE KEY AND SICKLE. “From the moist regions of the western star, The wandering hermits wake the storm of war; Their limbs all iron, their souls all flame; A countless host the Red Cross warriors came.”—REGINALD HEBER. As a traveler climbs the mountain to see the sunrise, so he that would overlook the past or present must needs clamber to some lofty point of vision in a significant era or historic location. There are two plains in Syria; one lying along the Mediterranean, the other jutting out from the base of the former toward Jordan; the two together, in shape very like a sickle, have witnessed events wonderfully instructive and determinate to the student of the philosophy of time’s course. These two plains are known respectively as Esdrælon and Acre. The sea and the mountains give these plains their sickle shape, and the geographical outlines are constantly suggestively before the mind as one remembers these plateaus not only as the highways but the battle-fields of the ancient nations. For while, as one says, “the face of nature smiles”—“no spot on earth more fertile,” he also says “no field on earth was so fattened by the blood of the slain.” There the Philistines, the Ptolemys, Antiochus, the Maccabees, Herod, Baldwin, King of Jerusalem, Salah-ed-din, Cœur-de-Lion, Melek-Seruf and Napoleon, each in turn, put their ambitions and their beliefs to the stern arbitrament of swords. There the kingdom of the House of David struggled for life; there the splendid dream of the Crusaders ended as a nightmare.