During six of the seven Crusades (1096-1272), during which the Christians of Europe endeavoured, with tremendous yet fitful energy, to wrest the birthplace of Christianity from the equally fanatic Moslems, the Knights Templars fought bravely among the foremost. Whether by the side of Godfrey of Bouillon, Louis VII., Philip V., Richard Coeur de Lion, Louis IX., or Prince Edward, the stern, sunburnt men in the white mantles were ever foremost in the shock of spears. Under many a clump of palm trees, in many a scorched desert track, by many a hill fortress, smitten with sabre or pierced with arrow, the holy brotherhood dug the graves of their slain companions. A few of the deeds, which must have been so often talked of upon the Temple terrace and in the Temple cloister, must be narrated, to show that, however mistaken was the ideal of the Crusaders, these monkish warriors fought their best to turn it into a reality. In 1146 the whole brotherhood joined the second Crusade, and protected the rear of the Christian army in its toilsome march through Asia Minor. In 1151, the Order saved Jerusalem, and drove back the Infidels with terrible slaughter. Two years later the Master of the Temple was slain, with many of the white mantles, in fiercely essaying to storm the walls of Ascalon. Three years after this 300 Templars were slain in a Moslem ambuscade, near Tiberias, and 87 were taken prisoners. We next find the Templars repelling the redoubtable Saladin from Gaza; and in a great battle near Ascalon, in 1177, the Master of the Temple and ten knights broke through the Mameluke Guards, and all but captured Saladin in his tent. The Templars certainly had their share of Infidel blows, for, in 1178, the whole Order was nearly slain in a battle with Saladin; and in another fierce conflict, only the Grand Master and two knights escaped; while again at Tiberias, in 1187, they received a cruel repulse, and were all but totally destroyed.