Q. What followed? A. The Most Excellent Prelate then read a lesson to me with respect to the bitter cup. Q. What followed? A. The Grand Commander took the skull in his hand, and pronounced the following soliloquy: "How striking is this emblem of mortality, once animated, like us, but now it ceases to act or think; its vital energies are extinct, and all the powers of life have ceased their operations; and such, my brethren, is the state to which we are all hastening; let us, therefore, gratefully improve the remaining space of life, that when our weak and frail bodies, like this memento, shall become cold and inanimate and mouldering in sepulchral dust and ruins, our disembodied spirits may soar aloft to the blessed regions, where dwell light and life eternal." Q. What followed? A. The Most Excellent Prelate then read a lesson relative to the crucifixion. (See Templar's Chart.) Q. What was the fourth libation? A. To the memory of Simon of Cyrene, the early friend and disciple of our Saviour, who was compelled to bear his cross, and fell a martyr to his fate. Q. What followed? A. The Grand Commander then addressed me: "Pilgrim, before you can be permitted to participate in the fifth libation, we must enjoin on you one year's penance as a trial of your faith and humility, which you will perform under the direction of the Junior and Senior Wardens, with the skull in one hand, and a lighted taper in the other; which is to teach you that with faith and humility you should cause your light so to shine before men, that they, seeing your good works, may glorify our Father, which is in heaven." Q. What followed? A. I then commenced my tour of penance, and passed in an humble posture through the sepulchre, where the fifth lesson was read by the Senior Warden relative to the resurrection. (Here the ascension of the Saviour is represented on canvas, which the candidate is directed to look at: at the same time the Sir Knights sing a hymn.) After the hymn, the Prelate speaks as follows: