The Presbyterians were strong in London; Presbyterians occupied the city pulpits--Presbyterians ruled in the corporation. The Westminster Assembly, which began to sit in 1642, and continued their sessions through a period of six years, numbered a large majority of that denomination, and in the measures for the establishment of their own views of religion throughout the country, met with the sympathy and encouragement of a considerable portion of London citizens. In the church of St. Margaret's, Westminster, under the shadow of the venerable abbey, the members of this assembly, with the Scots' commissioners, and representatives from both houses of parliament, met on the 25th of September, 1643, to take the Solemn League and Covenant, the chosen symbol and standard of the Presbyterian party. It was certainly one of the most remarkable scenes in the ecclesiastical history of our country; and whatever opinion may be formed of the ecclesiastical principles which moved that memorable convocation, no person of unprejudiced mind can fail to admire the piety, the earnestness, zeal, and courage, which many of them evinced in the performance of their task. Solemn prayers were offered, addresses were delivered in justification of the step they were taking, and then, as the articles of the Covenant were read out from the pulpit, distinctly one by one, each person standing uncovered, with his hand lifted bare to heaven, swore to maintain them. On the Lord's-day following, the Covenant was tendered to all persons within the bills of mortality of the city of London, and was welcomed by a number of ministers and a great multitude of people. Of the excitement which prevailed, some idea may be gathered from the narrative of a royalist historian. We are informed by Clarendon, that the church of St. Antony, in Size-lane, Watling-street, being in the neighborhood of the residence of the Scotch commissioners, was appropriated to their use during their stay, and that Alexander Henderson, a celebrated preacher, and one of their chaplains, was accustomed to conduct service there. "To hear these sermons," he says, "there was so great a conflux and resort by the citizens out of humor and faction, by others of all qualities out of curiosity, by some that they might the better justify the contempt they had of them, that from the first appearance of day in the morning of every Sunday to the shutting in of the light the church was never empty; they, especially the women, who had the happiness to get into the church in the morning, (those who could not hang upon or about the windows without, to be auditors or spectators,) keeping the places till the afternoon exercises were finished."