CHAP. III.]

ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

21

language . 1 When it was regularly enacted thatthe statutes regarding hospitality should be writtenout on parchment, and hung up where the knightscould not avoid seeing it every day, to have thatfundamental duty well impressed on their minds;likewise, that two officers of the infirmary shallhave the same authority as notaries public, re-garding the wills of persons who die in it; thatwhat the dying has told them shall be inscribedbefore witnesses in a book kept on purpose, and itscontents be law, to which the heirs may refer as toa legal depository . 2 If in births death lurks, likepoison, so do Languages in the order; yet noblame to Gerard or his next, for he died twocenturies before Languages began ! Nor was thismeeting without the usual disputes ; yet nearis what unites every one . 3 And a commandersaid: “Not without deep sorrow and apprehension,do I see dissensions, attributable chiefly to thedivision of the order into Languages, flagitiosa dis-sidentia ! It will be our destruction; mind what Itell you. Would I were a false prophet! But itbodes nothing save evil!” Yet were his exhor-tations in vain. The four Languages, Italian,.

1 Seb. Paoli: Serie. ii., 469.

2 Statut: Pe Hospitalitate, Tit. iv. 7, 8, 18.

3 Bosio : par ii., lib. vii., anno 1459.