Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/163

Rh The wealth of the fraternity was now increasing with amasing rapidity, and although the lately-acquired estates of the Templars as yet produced but little to their new lords, the prospect of their shortly developing into a source of revenue was such as to warrant a somewhat free expansion in their expenditure. The usual consequences of such a state of things soon manifested themselves. Luxury in every form gradually usurped the place of that simple mode of life which had satisfied their predecessors. The renown which the capture of Rhodes reflected upon the knights had attracted into their ranks a large number of the younger members of the noblest houses in Europe—youths whose minds were filled with all the martial ardour incident to their age and station, but in whose hearts there was but little of that religious enthusiasm which, two centuries before, had recruited the ranks of the institution with a body of men as austere in their private life as they were chivalric in their warlike zeal. The age had indeed changed, and with it the thoughts and feelings of the world at large. The sentiment of piety which, though rude in its development, had formed the main incentive to the deeds of daring hitherto recorded, was now giving way to the more material and worldly aspiration for glory. It was thought by these young candidates for knightly fame that, provided the Hospitaller were ever prepared to meet his foe either on the deck of the galley or behind the ramparts of his stronghold—provided he were at all times ready to shed the last drop of his blood in the defence of his Order and of his faith, it mattered but little what his private conduct might be. Whilst he could point to the deeds of daring which had rendered his name famous among his brethren, he deemed it quite unnecessary to practise those austerities which the rules of his profession had enjoined.

Many, indeed, of the older knights beheld with dismay this rapid and complete demoralization which was undermining the first principles of their institution. They were loud and urgent in their remonstrances to the offenders, endeavouring to restrain some of the most notorious excesses, which they feared would bring them into public disrepute. They pointed to the fearful tragedy which had been so recently enacted against their brothers in arms, showing how the same weapons that had been em-