"'Plead my cause, O Lord, with them that fight against me.
'Take hold of shield and buckler, and stand up for my help.
'Draw out also the spear, and stop the way against them that persecute me: say unto my soul, I am thy salvation.'
"What a subject for contemplation does this picture present. The forty-four members of the first Congress, in their Hall, all bent before the mercy-seat, and asking Him that their enemies 'might be as chaff before the wind.' WASHINGTON was kneeling there; and Henry and Randolph, and Rutledge, and Lee, and Jay; and by their side there stood, bowed in reverence, the Puritan patriots of New England, who, at that moment, had reason to believe that an armed soldiery was wasting their humble households. It was believed that Boston had been bombarded and destroyed. They prayed fervently 'for America, for the Congress, for the province of Massachusetts Bay, and especially for the town of Boston;' and who can realize the emotion with which they turned imploringly to Heaven for divine interposition and aid? 'It was enough to melt a heart of stone. I saw the tears gush into the eyes of the old, grave Quakers of Philadelphia.'"
"Yes," said Wilson, when young Harmar had concluded, "that was a scene equal, at least, to the one on the eve of Brandywine: how finely old John Adams speaks about it!"
"That Dr. Duche forgot his connexion with the Church of England, and only thought of his country," remarked Morton. "He was a good man."
"Yes; and he prayed in the presence of as good a set of men as was ever assembled together," added Smith. "Them was men—those Congressmen. They didn't get eight dollars a day for making speeches."
"No," put in Higgins, "but they earned a great deal more. Some of 'em lost all the property they had, during the war."
"The spirit which animated our countrymen at that period was the noblest which could prompt the deeds of men," said young Harmar, growing quite eloquent. "From the men who emptied the tea into Boston harbor, to the statesman of the Continental Congress, all were filled with patriotism, and that's the most unselfish of human motives."