First, with respect to the outward habiliment, the dress of the order. Nothing, as appears to us, can be weaker than to lay any stress on so casual a circumstance as similarity of forms or colours, more especially when a true and distinct cause for the assumption of them on either side can be assigned. The colour of the khalifs of the house of Ommiyah was _white_; hence the house of Abbas, in their contest with them, adopted _black_, as their distinguishing hue; and hence, when the Abbassides were in possession of the supreme power, all those who, under pretence of supporting the rights of the family of Ali, or on any other pretext, raised the standard of revolt against them, naturally selected _white_, as the sign of their opposition. Hassan Sabah, therefore, only retained the use of the colour which he found already established. When he formed the institution of the Fedavee, or the _Devoted to Death_, what more suitable mark of distinction could he assign them than a _red_ girdle or cap, which indicated their readiness to spill their own blood or that of others? With respect to the Templars, the society of the Hospitallers was already existing when Hugh de Payens and his companions resolved to form themselves into a new association. The mantle worn by the members of the Hospital was _black_: what colour then was so natural for them to adopt as its opposite, _white_? and when, nearly thirty years after their institution, the pope appointed them or gave them permission to wear a cross on their mantle, like the rival order, no colour could present itself so well suited to those who daily and hourly exposed themselves to martyrdom, as that of blood, in which there was so much of what was symbolical.