The speeches delivered by their leader and others were merely a vent for that emotion. There was nothing that could be said about their cause that they did not know already; but all felt that the heart of the matter was touched--the whole situation, so far as they were concerned, summed up in a single sentence of Carson's speech: "We will take deliberately a step forward, not in defiance but in defence; and the Covenant which we will most willingly sign to-morrow will be a great step forward, in no spirit of aggression, in no spirit of ascendancy, but with a full knowledge that, if necessary, you and I--you trusting me, and I trusting you--will follow out everything that this Covenant means to the very end, whatever the consequences." Every man and woman who heard these words was filled with an exalted sense of the solemnity of the occasion. The mental atmosphere was not that of a political meeting, but of a religious service--and, in fact, the proceedings had been opened by prayer, as had become the invariable custom on such occasions in Ulster. It was felt to be a time of individual preparation for the _Sacramentum_ of the following day, which Protestant Ulster had set apart as a day of self-dedication to a cause for which they were willing to make any sacrifice. FOOTNOTES: [28] _The Scotsman_, November 2nd, 1911. [29] See Sir B. Carson's speech in _Belfast Newsletter_, September 24th, 1912. [30] See _ante_, p. 53. [31] See p. 106. [32] See p. 248. [33] _The Times_, September 23rd, 1912. [34] _The Daily Telegraph_, September 25th, 1912. [35] _Belfast Newsletter_, September 24th, 1912. [36] The article which appeared on the following Sunday in _The Observer_, showed how profoundly a distinguished London editor and writer had been moved by what he saw in Belfast. CHAPTER X THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT