Commencement of the Order—The object of its institution—Its achievements in the Holy Land—Its settlement in Acre after the fall of Jerusalem—Description of Acre—The great Hospital and its traditions—Successes of the Saracens—Siege of Acre under Melec Seraf sultan of Egypt—The last assault—Massacre—The survivors of the Order take refuge in Cyprus. The order of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John[2] dates its origin from that heroic period of Christian chivalry when Jerusalem opened her gates to the arms of Godfrey de Bouillon. Whether or no its mixed military and religious character were coeval with its first establishment, or whether its singular constitution came to be gradually developed, as it was added to by successive masters, is a point of little consequence for us to decide. It is certain that at a very early period after its foundation it is to be found with both these characters united; and whilst the Hospital of St. John exercised that admirable charity which was the first condition of the order’s existence, the knights were winning on every field of Palestine the title bestowed on them by their Moslem enemies of the “heroes of the Christian armies.” It is not our present purpose to set before the reader any account of those achievements of the order in the Holy Land, which properly belong to the wars of the Crusades, and cannot be separated from the history of that period: but, before taking up the narrative from the day when, driven from the walls of Acre, the shattered remnant of its heroic legions was tossing in a single bark on the waters of the Levant, as yet without a home in Europe,—a few remarks seem necessary, both to explain its constitution as a religious body, and its position at the moment when our story of its fortunes begins. At the period when the military orders first sprang into existence, the road to the Holy Land was, as every one knows, the highway of Europe; and year by year crowds of pilgrims of all ranks came flocking to the Holy City, encountering innumerable perils on the way, and often arriving at their journey’s end in a state of extreme suffering and destitution. Now the object of the Order of St. John may very briefly be described if we say, that its members took on themselves the office of administering the hospitality of Christ: “Servants of the poor of Christ” was the title that they assumed; and this name of Christ’s poor was applied indiscriminately to all pilgrims and crusaders.