“We enter into the Solemn Covenant appended hereto, and, knowing the greatness of the issues depending on our faithfulness, we promise each to the others that, to the uttermost of the strength and means given us, and not regarding any selfish or private interest, our substance or our lives, we will make good the said Covenant; and we now bind ourselves in the steadfast determination that, whatever may befall, no such domination shall be thrust upon us, and in the hope that by the blessing of God our Union with Great Britain, upon which are fixed our affections and trust, may yet be maintained, and that for ourselves and for our children, for this Province and for the whole of Ireland, peace, prosperity, and civil and religious liberty may be secured under the Parliament of the United Kingdom and of the King whose faithful subjects we are and will continue all our days.”

It had been known for some weeks that it was the intention of the Ulster Loyalists to dedicate the 28th of September as “Ulster Day,” by holding special religious services, after which they were to “pledge themselves to a solemn Covenant,” the terms of which were not yet published or, indeed, finally settled.  This announcement, which appeared in the Press on the 17th of August, was hailed in England as an effective reply to the recent “turgid homily” of Mr. Churchill, but there was really no connection between them in the intentions of Ulstermen, who had been too much occupied with their own affairs to pay much attention to the attack upon them in the Dundee letters.  The Ulster Day celebration was to be preceded by a series of demonstrations in many of the chief centres of Ulster, at which the purpose of the Covenant was to be explained to the people by the leader and his colleagues, and a number of English Peers and Members of Parliament arranged to show their sympathy with the policy embodied in the Covenant by taking part in the meetings.

It would not be true to say that the enthusiasm displayed at this great series of meetings in September eclipsed all that had gone before, for it would not be possible for human beings greatly to exceed in that emotion what had been seen at Craigavon and Balmoral; but they exhibited an equally grave sense of responsibility, and they proved that the same exaltation of mind, the same determined spirit, that had been displayed by Loyalists collected in the populous capital of their province, equally animated the country towns and rural districts.