implacability towards their enemies.--Their valour became so noted, that, like that of the famous tenth legion,[542] it was a support to itself; and, according to James of Vitry, any Templar, on hearing the cry to arms, would have been ashamed to have asked the number of the enemy. The only question was, "Where are they?" On entering the order, the grand master cautioned the aspirant that he was, in a manner, called upon to resign his individuality. Not only his property and his body, but his very thoughts, belonged, from the moment of his admission, to the institution of which he became a part. He was bound in every thing to obey the commands of his superior, and poverty of course formed a part of his vow. His inclinations, his feelings, his passions, were all to be rendered subservient to the cause he embraced; and he was exhorted to remember, before he engaged himself to the performance of so severe an undertaking, that he would often be obliged to watch when he desired to sleep, to suffer toil when his limbs required rest, and to undergo the pangs of thirst and the cravings of hunger when food would be most delightful. After these and similar warnings of the painful and self-denying nature of the task which he was about to impose upon himself, he was asked three times if he still desired to enter into the order, and on giving an answer in the affirmative, he was invested with the robe, and admitted to the vows, after previous proof that he was qualified in other respects, according to the rules of the institution. No possible means has ever been devised of keeping any body of men poor; and the Templars, whose first device was two knights riding on one horse, to signify their poverty and humility, were soon one of the richest, and beyond comparison the proudest, of the European orders. Their preceptories were to be found in every country, and as their vows did not embrace[543] the charitable avocations which, with the knights of St. John, filled up the hours unemployed in military duties, the Templars soon added to their pride all that host of vices which so readily step in to occupy the void of idleness. While the knights of St. John, spreading benefit and comfort around them, notwithstanding many occasional faults and errors, remained esteemed and beloved, on the whole, both by sovereigns and people; the knights of the Temple were only suffered for some centuries, feared, hated, avoided; and at last were crushed, at a moment when it is probable that a reform was about to work itself in their order.[544] CHAPTER X.