Of their personal bravery, which was usually impeccable, of their affluence and intolerable effrontery, and of many of their traits and characteristics, one may form an excellent idea by reading _Ivanhoe_, where these seem to be quite faithfully depicted. It is, to me I confess, just a little amusing as well as saddening to see the men, who name their secret Masonic associations after the founders of the Order, displaying and imitating, at least in public where alone they can be judged by outsiders, only those features of Templar Knighthood which marked the period of their decadence or their downfall. As imitations they may be historically accurate, but as worthy of emulation, or even of imitation such displays are matters of questionable taste, at least, to those who read medieval history. The Templars in their days of splendor and later downfall, were neither pious, nor learned, nor good Christians. Many of their secret doctrines were of heretical origin, taken from the Waldenses or the Albigenses, and they cared far more for their own possessions than for the Holy Land. They promulgated the shameful excuse that God evidently willed that the Saracen should win; that the defects of the Crusaders were evidently according to His decision, and that therefore they were released from their vows, and could return to Europe, where indeed they rested--after their fashion,--from their labors, and passed their time in doing everything their founders had vowed not to do. But this is not intended to be an epitome of Templar history; rather a brief statement of the reasons why they went proudly and sometimes stoically to their final downfall, and why the Hospital Order, though not always keeping up to its earlier standards, nevertheless so far eclipsed them, as to become the recipients of very much of the Templars' enormous resources and wealth, being thought worthy to be thus entrusted. And so it happened that, in 1307, Philip of France had all the Templars in France arrested and their property sequestrated. This led to a tripartite dispute in which were involved the Templars, the Pope and the King. In 1310 fifty-four Templar Knights were burned alive in Paris. At last the Pope, to prevent their property from falling into secular hands, made over to the Hospitallers most of the Templar estates, excepting however those in Spain. The Grand Master Molay and another Templar were burned to death on an island in the Seine. So much then in brief, for purposes of contrast. Now to the avowed subject of this paper.