13th.—­I swear to be under the control of my council, or, if belonging to none, to that which is nearest to me, and never to demur to, or complain at, any decree concerning me, which my brethren, as a council, shall conceive me to deserve, and enforce on my head, to my hurt and dishonor.

14th.—­I swear to obey all summons sent from any council to me, or from any Most Illustrious Knight, whether Illustrious Counsellor for the time being, or by induction, and to be governed by the constitution, usages, and customs of the order without variation or change.

15th.—­I swear never to see nor permit more than two candidates, who, with the Senior Inductor, will make three, to be advanced, at the same time, in any council where I shall be; nor shall any candidate, by suffrage, be inducted without a unanimous vote of the illustrious brethren in council; nor shall any council advance any member, there not being three illustrious Knights, or one Most Illustrious and four Illustrious Knights of the Cross present, which latter may be substituted by Most Illustrious Induction; nor yet where there shall not be a full and proper mark of the order, such as usage has adopted to our altar, of metal, or other durable and worthy material, contained within the apartment of council, as also the Holy Bible; nor will I ever see a council opened for business, without the ceremony of testing the mark, exercised on the character of every brother, prayers, and the reading of the 35th Psalm of David; nor will I ever see, consent to, or countenance, more than two persons of the same business or calling in life, to belong to, or be inducted and advanced in any one council of which I am a member, at the same time; nothing therein going to exclude members from other parts of the country, or from foreign parts, from joining us, if they consent formally and truly to stand in deference and defence, first, of their special Bar-brethren in the council, nor to prevent advancements to fill vacancies, occasioned by death or removal.  To all this, and every part thereof, I do now, as before, by the honor and power of the mark, as by an honorable and awful oath, which confirmeth all things in the dread presence of the Most Holy and Almighty God, solemnly and in truth, bind and obligate my soul; and in the earthly penalties, to wit, that, for the violation of the least matter or particle of any of the here taken obligations, I become the silent and mute subject of the displeasure of the Illustrious Order, and have their power and wrath turned on my head, to my destruction and dishonor, which, like the nail of jael, may be the sure end of an unworthy wretch, by piercing my temples with a true sense of my ingratitude—­and for a breach of silence in case of such an unhappy event, that I shall die the infamous death of a traitor, by having a spear, or other sharp weapon, like as my Lord, thrust in my left side—­bearing testimony, even in death, of the power of the mark of the Holy and Illustrious Cross, before I. H. S., our thrice Illustrious Counsellor in Heaven, the Grand Council of the good.  To this I swear.

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