Page:The Book of Orders of Knighthood and Decorations of Honour of All Nations.djvu/487

216 ocieties can only arrive at the full and perfect extent of the operations of which they are capable, by being closely united round a guiding and animating central point, we have resolved to revive and re-model, according to the requirements of the age, the oldest Order of our House, 'The Society of the Order of the Swan,' which was founded exactly four hundred years back, by one of our glorious ancestors, the Arch-Chamberlain and Elector Frederick II., but was never formally abrogated. Even the sense in which the statutes of the Order were composed, in 1443, is no other than the 'Acknowledgment of Christian truth by action.' We have given orders for the construction of new statutes, and the formation of a managing Board of the Order, divided into various sections. Our first care to promote the practical activity of the Society of the Order of the Swan, will be the establishment of an evangelical head institution at Berlin, for the attending on, and nursing of the sick in the large hospitals.

"We have wrought such modifications in the original insignia of the Order, as we deemed more in harmony with present circumstances. The members who are immediately engaged in the labours of the Order, such as: the male and female attendants on sufferers, fallen penitents, punished criminals, &c., as also the spiritual members of the Order, who are entrusted with the immediate conduct and management of the establishments of the Society, and the salvation and care of the souls of their inmates, are not to wear the decoration.

"With the exception of the golden chain, which is presented as a mark of honour only to crowned heads, the insignia of the Order of the Swan are not intended to be like those of other Orders, an ornament of merit, a mark of distinction, but a mere sign of recognition, a mark of connection with the society, the