jority of the citizens,
whose property it was, thought it could be used for no better purpose
than to witness their signatures to a deed securing to them their
birthright in the British Empire.

At the entrance to the City Hall Sir Edward Carson was received by the
Lord Mayor and members of the Corporation wearing their robes of office,
and by the Harbour Commissioners, the Water Board, and the Poor Law
Guardians, by whom he was accompanied into the hall. The text of
Ulster's Solemn League and Covenant had been printed on sheets with
places for ten signatures on each; the first sheet lay on the table for
Edward Carson to sign.

No man but a dullard without a spark of imagination could have witnessed
the scene presented at that moment without experiencing a thrill which
he would have found it difficult to describe. The sunshine, sending a
beam through the stained glass of the great window on the stairway,
threw warm tints of colour on the marbles of the columns and the
tesselated floor of the hall, sparkled on the Lord Mayor's chain, lent a
rich glow to the scarlet gowns of the City Fathers, and lit up the red
and the blue and the white of the Imperial flag which draped the table
and which was the symbol of so much that they revered to those who stood
looking on. They were grouped in a semicircle behind the leader as he
stepped forward to sign his name--men of substance, leaders in the
commercial life of a great industrial city, elderly men many of them,
lovers of peace and order; men of mark who had served the Crown, like
Londonderry and Campbell and Beresford; Doctors of Divinity, guides and
teachers of religion, like the Bishop and the Moderator of the General
Assembly; Privy Councillors; members of the Imperial Parliament;
barristers and solicitors, shopkeepers and merchants,--there they all
stood, silent witnesses of what all felt to be one of the deeds that
make history, assembled to set their hands, each in his turn, to an
Instrument which, for good or evil, would influence the destiny of their
race; while behind them through the open door could be seen a vast
forest of human heads, endless as far as eye could reach, every one of
whom was in eager accord with the work in hand, and whose blended
voices, while they waited to perform their own part in the great
transaction, were carried to the ears of those in the hall like the
inarticulate noise of moving waters.

When Carson had signed the Covenant he handed the