win or lose the game;
True as the dial to the sun,
Though it be not shone upon.'

"Hence, says Lord Clarendon, of a statesman of his time, 'He had no
veneration for the Court, but only such loyalty to the King as the law
required.' True loyalty is, therefore, fidelity to the Constitution,
laws, and institutions of the land, and, of course, to the sovereign
power representing them.

"Thus was it with our Loyalist forefathers. There was no class of
inhabitants of the old British-American Colonies more decided and
earnest than they in claiming the rights of British subjects when
invaded; yet when, instead of maintaining the rights of British
subjects, it was proposed to renounce the allegiance of British subjects
and destroy the unity of the empire, or 'the life of the nation' (as our
American neighbours expressed it, in their recent civil war to maintain
the unity of their republic), then were our forefathers true to their
loyalty, and adhered to the unity of the empire at the sacrifice of
property and home, and often of life itself. Of them might be said, what
Milton says of Abdiel, amid the revolting hosts:

"'Abdiel, faithful found;
Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified,
His loyalty he kept.'

"Our United Empire Loyalist forefathers 'kept their loyalty unshaken,
unseduced, unterrified,' during seven long years of conflicts and
sufferings; and that loyalty, with a courage and enterprise, and under
privations and toils unsurpassed in human history, sought a refuge and
a home in the wilderness of Canada, felled the forests of our country,
and laid the foundation of its institutions, freedom, and prosperity.
(Loud applause.)

"Canadian loyalty is the perpetuation of that British national life
which has constituted the strength and glory of Great Britain since the
morning of the Protestant Reformation, and placed her at the head of the
freedom and civilization of mankind. This loyalty maintains the
characteristic traditions of the nation--the mysterious links of
connection between grandfather and grandson--traditions of strength and
glory for a people, and the violations of which are a source of weakness
and disorganization. Canadian loyalty, therefore, is not a mere
sentiment, or mere affection for the representative or person of the
Sovereign; it is a reverence for, and attachment to, the laws, order,
institutions and freedom of the country. As Christianity is not a mere
attachment to a bishop, or ecclesiastic, or for