PREFACE.


MY DEAR LADS,

The order of the Knights of St. John, which for some centuries played
a very important part in the great struggle between Christianity
and Mahomedanism, was, at its origin, a semi-religious body,
its members being, like other monks, bound by vows of obedience,
chastity, and poverty, and pledged to minister to the wants of the
pilgrims who flocked to the Holy Places, to receive them at their
great Hospital -- or guest house -- at Jerusalem, dedicated to St.
John the Baptist, and to defend them on their passage to and from
the sea, against attack by Moslems. In a comparatively short
time the constitution of the order was changed, and the Knights
Hospitallers became, like the Templars, a great military Order
pledged to defend the Holy Sepulchre, and to war everywhere against
the Moslems. The Hospitallers bore a leading share in the struggle
which terminated in the triumph of the Moslems, and the capture
by them of Jerusalem. The Knights of St. John then established
themselves at Acre, but after a valiant defence of that fortress,
removed to Crete, and shortly afterwards to Rhodes. There they
fortified the town, and withstood two terrible sieges by the Turks.
At the end of the second they obtained honourable terms from Sultan
Solyman, and retiring to Malta established themselves there in an
even stronger fortress than that of Rhodes, and repulsed all the
efforts of the Turks to dispossess them. The Order was the great
bulwark of Christendom against the invasion of the Turks, and
the tale of their long struggle is one of absorbing interest, and
of the many eventful episodes none is more full of incident and