The effect of the long training, with its strictness on the one hand and its relaxations on the other, was to develop an _esprit de corps_ among them such as has rarely existed in any other army. Everything was done that could be done to cultivate this spirit. Every means was employed to make the Janissary live his life in and look only to the interests of his regiment. He was forbidden to exercise any trade or occupation whatever, lest he should possess an interest outside his regiment. In the time of Suliman the sultan ordered the aga of a regiment of Janissaries to be beheaded because one of his men was found mending his clothes. The officer was spared at the request of his comrades, but the private soldier was dismissed from the service. The regiment was to be everything to the Janissary; the outside world nothing. No man was allowed to accumulate wealth, although his regiment could do so. Each man followed the good or ill fortune of the powerful body of which he was a member. The result was that the regiment represented to the Janissary everything that he held dear. He became jealous of its honour, and the regiment in its turn became exclusive towards outsiders. The Janissary came before long to think of his position as privileged and to regard entrance into his corps as only to be allowed under severe restrictions. So careful indeed did he become of the rights of his regiment that before long no person born of Mahometan parents was admitted, even though his father had been one of themselves. As a consequence of this cultivation of regimental rights, the popularity of the New Troops became so great that many young Christians of adventurous spirit voluntarily sought to join their ranks. The Janissaries developed into a species of _imperium in imperio_. Perhaps the body in Western Europe to which they may most aptly be compared is the Order of Knights Templars. Each was a partly religious, partly military Order. Each was jealous of its own privileges and constituted a fraternity largely isolated from the rest of the community. But the isolation of the Janissary was more complete than that of the Templar at any time. The Moslem had been cut off from his own family and had forgotten all the Christians he had known as a child, and his regiment had taken the place of father and mother, wife and home. His individual rights had been merged in those of his regiment. The resemblance between the Janissaries and the Templars might be noted in one other respect--namely, that their religion sat lightly upon them. Though the former were bound by the precepts of Hadji Bektash, these precepts were, from the Mahometan point of view, extremely latitudinarian.[221]