hiladelphia, the place of meeting. Arrived
here, Washington found assembled the first talent, wisdom, and virtue
of the land. It was to him a sublime spectacle indeed,--that of the
people of many widely separated provinces thus met together to give
voice and expression to what they felt to be their sacred rights as
freemen and free Englishmen. To add still greater solemnity to their
proceedings, and give their cause the stamp of the just and righteous
cause they felt it to be, it was resolved to open the business of each
day with prayer. Next morning, there came a report that Boston had
been cannonaded by the king's troops, who had been stationed there for
many weeks past. Although this afterwards turned out to be false, yet,
at the time, it had a most beneficial effect, in drawing still nearer
together those who but the day before had met as strangers, by
impressing their minds with a still deeper sense of the sacredness of
the trust imposed on them by their country, and by bringing more
directly home to them their common danger, and dependence one upon
another. The minister, before offering up his prayer, took up the
Bible to read a passage therefrom, and, as if providentially, opened
at the thirty-fifth Psalm, which seemed to have been written expressly
for this great occasion, and began thus: "Plead my cause, O Lord, with
them that strive with me; fight against them that fight against me."
What wonder, then, that, under circumstances like these, they should
feel their hearts joined together in stronger, holier bonds of union,
as they knelt side by side on that memorable morning, commending their
just cause to the Ruler of nations? For several minutes after they had
resumed their seats, a profound and solemn silence reigned throughout
the house; each looking the other in the face, as if uncertain how to
set about the great work that had brought them together, and no one
willing to open the Assembly. The silence was becoming painful and
embarrassing; when Patrick Henry at length arose, and began addressing
the House, at first in a faltering voice and hesitating manner, which
soon, however, as he warmed with his subject, gave place to a bolder,
higher strain, till, long before he had ended, the hearts of his
hearers were thrilled with a flow of eloquence, the like of which none
present had ever heard before; and, when it ceased, each felt that he
had just been listening to the greatest orator, not of Virginia only,
but