SPECIAL ASSEMBLY. OCTOBER 19, 1869. A SPECIAL Assembly of the GRAND ENCAMPMENT OF KNIGHTS TEMPLARS AND APPENDANT ORDERS OF MASSACHUSETTS AND RHODE ISLAND was held at the city of Fall River, Mass., on Tuesday, October 19, 1869. The Grand Officers were formed in due array, and the Grand Encampment was opened in Form at half-past seven o'clock, P. M. The M.E. Grand Master stated that this Assembly was called for the purpose of constituting Godfrey De Bouillon Encampment of Knights Templars and Appendant Orders, and Installing its Officers. The Grand Officers then proceeded to the Asylum of Godfrey De Bouillon Encampment, where it was constituted in due form into an Encampment of Knights Templars and the Appendant Orders, and proclamation made thereof by the E. Senior Grand Warden. The M.E. Grand Master installed Sir ROBERT HENRY Sir JAMES F. DAVENPORT Sir HENRY PADDOCK Eminent Commander. And the R.E. Benjamin Dean, Deputy Grand Master, installed the other Officers. The M.E. William Wilson Baker, Grand Master, then delivered the following ADDRESS. EMINENT COMMANDER AND SIR KNIGHTS, In the remarks I have to offer on this occasion, I propose to call attention to a few historical facts relative to Godfrey De Bouillon, whose name you have given to your Encampment, and which have come down to us through the ages, in connection with events unparalleled in previous or succeeding history, the theme alike of the poet and the historian. Your adoption of his name as the title of your Encampment is favorable to a consideration, however brief, of the important period in history in which he lived, and of the causes that led to the formation of the Order of Knights Templars. Little could that bold spirit have imagined, as he wandered nearly a thousand years ago among the wilds of Judea, that centuries afterward, in a country then undiscovered, and in a language then unknown, his name, his deeds, and his praises, would be common on the lips of a great people who, like him, kneel at the Cross, and ackowledge Christ as the great Captain of their salvation. Let us then consider, for a moment, the causes and events which gave prominence to Godfrey De Bouillon and others whose names have become historic, and are directly or indirectly identified with the origin and history of our Order. Crusades is the name given to the expeditions by which the Christian nations of Europe sought to recover Palestine from the Mohammedans in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. The whole number of Crusades attempted against the Saracenic nations was six, but in the first two only are we, as Knights Templars, particularly interested. As early as 637 of our Lord, we find the Holy Land, so called, in the possession of the Saracens. The sepulchre of Christ and the Church of the Resurrection were in the hands of the Christians; but for which permission or privilege a small tribute was exacted from the many pilgrims who journeyed thither, more perhaps as a recognition of dependence than a source of revenue. Hakim, a fanatical Mussulman prince, is one of the earliest mentioned who persecuted the Christians, interfered with the pilgrims, and defaced the holy places. Afterwards, when the Turks had conquered Palestine, they inflicted all manner of cruelties and atrocities on the Christians themselves, the intelligence of which created the most lively indignation throughout Western Europe. While the excitement that this caused in the Christian world was at its height, the Byzantine Emperor entreated assistance from Pope Gregory VII., or, as some writers declare, Urban II. That Pontiff, in answer to this entreaty, issued a powerful address to the rulers of Europe, appealing to their pride, their religious zeal, and hope of conquest in the contemplated conflict with the haughty Mohammedan nations of the East. The appeal was not in vain. Reared in the study of arms and inured to warfare and consequent hardship, this dazzling enterprise offered a fitting diversion for their hardy natures. Their ready response gave hope of important events and mighty deeds of arms, and undoubtedly in some form, however indistinct, foreshadowed to the far-sighted and descerning Roman pontiff the coming crusades. Then it was that that singular being, that pious fanatic, that all-powerful arbiter of the popular mind, Peter the Hermit, appeared on the scene, and by his example, his strong appeals to the passions of the masses, aided by the sentiment of awe and veneration which the bigoted and ignorant spirit of the age accorded him, was enabled to sway and influence the multitudes and, more than any other man, to master the events of the approaching drama. Visiting Palestine, he was eye-witness to the cruelties and barbarities inflicted on the Christians; and moved by the fanaticism of the times, imagined he was the chosen instrument of the Almighty to deliver the Holy Sepulchre. The Pope encouraged this religious delusion and despatched him on his mission to waken and arouse the Christian nations, or, in the more popular language of our day, "to fire the Southern heart." He was eminently successful. Every class and nation shared in the general enthusiasm, and a distinguished writer says: "A strange scene must that have been, that pilgrimage of the nations. From all parts of Christian Europe they came in troops. Multitudes arrived, no one knew whence, who spoke unintelligible dialects, but conveyed their meaning by placing their fingers in the form of a cross. From the powerful baron with his numer ous retainers, down to the subdued and humbled serf, all had a common tendency, and indulged in a common hope. Christ had thundered through the hearts of all, and the only fear was that of being the last on the road." And thus this great procession, this first quota of the First Crusade, under the leadership of Peter the Hermit, but little better than an undisciplined mob, turned their faces to the East, crossed the Bosphorus, and disappeared beyond the seas. Little but disaster attended this ill-starred expedition. Unmanageable and disorganized for want of suitable leaders, Peter in disgust left them. Detached into separate bands, they became in turn thieves and marauders, and fell an easy prey to the Turks. Out of two hundred and seventy thousand men but twenty-five thousand returned, without one important result accomplished or one glorious feat achieved. At a papal council held in 1095, the Pope suggested that those who entered on the holy enterprise should assume the Cross on the shoulder or breast, and every person so wearing it was known as Croise, or Crusader. In addition to other inducements to engage in the holy wars, such was the superstition of the age that it was not difficult to inculcate the belief that this assumption of the symbol of the Cross abrogated or consummated all penances. The spirit was shared in by all classes, and the number enlisting was almost incalculable, including in many cases outlaws and criminals. Many of the first attempts of the First Crusade, as we have seen, were made by unorganized and undisciplined soldiers, and were led by inefficient chiefs, until Godfrey of Bouillon, a noble of France and a descendant of Charlemagne (and who is often mentioned as the hero of the First Crusade), with other noble leaders, assumed the field and the command of those military enthusiasts who so strongly mingled religion with romance, and whose exploits, it has been said, form the connecting link between fact and fiction, history and the fairy tale. Their successes and disasters culminated in the capture of the Holy City of Jerusalem in 1099, after a massacre of almost unparalleled ferocity. Godfrey was chosen first head of the new Latin Kingdom, but with that innate modesty, which was the characteristic of his nature, refused to be crowned King where his Divine Master had been crowned with thorns, and assumed the less pretending title of "Defender of the Holy City." His death in the following year, at the early age of forty years, virtually closed the First Crusade. In 1118 the numerous Pilgrims who yet flocked to the Holy Land, being still liable to abuse from the Turks, a body of Nine Knights of France, in addition to the three Vows of Chastity, Poverty, and Obedience, took upor themselves a fourth, by which they bound themselves to defend the Sepulchre of Christ, and afford protection to Christian Pilgrims. Prominent among these Knights, were Hugo De Payen or Paganis, and Geoffrey St. Uldemar or St. Omer. They were known at first as "The Poor Fellow Soldiers of the Holy City," "The Poor Brothers of Jesus Christ," and by other titles; and employed themselves in exterminating the many bands of robbers which infested the mountains and defiles of Judea. The Order was small, and dragged wearily along for many years, until the Grand Master Hugo De Payen, in 1128 besought |