efore, 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:

"I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; he that
believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he be made alive;
and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die. Pilgrim,
the scene before you represents the splendid conclusion of the
hallowed sacrifice offered by the Redeemer of the world, to
propitiate the anger of an offended Deity. This sacred volume
informs us that our Saviour, after having suffered the pains of
death, descended into the place of departed spirits, and that on
the third day he burst the bands of death, triumphed over the
grave, and, in due time, ascended with transcendent majesty to
heaven, where he now sits on the right hand of our Heavenly
Father, a mediator and intercessor for all those who have faith in
Him. I now invest you with an emblem of that faith (at the same
time suspends from his neck a black cross): it is also an emblem
of our Or