In accordance with these general views, the undersigned recommend the adoption of the following Resolutions :

Resolved, by the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies of this stated Triennial Convention, that assembling, as we have been called to do, at a period of great national peril and deplorable civil convulsion, it is meet and proper that we should call to mind, distinctly and publicly, that the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States hath ever held and taught, in the language of one of its articles of Religion, that "it is the duty of all men who are professors of the Gospel to pay respectful obedience to the Civil Authority, regularly and legitimately constituted;" and hath accordingly incorporated into its Liturgy "a Prayer for the President of the United States and all in Civil Authority," and "a Prayer for the Congress of the United States, to be used during their session;" and hath bound all orders of its Ministry to the faithful and constant observance, in letter and in spirit, of these and all other parts of its prescribed ritual.

Resolved, That we cannot be wholly blind to the course which has been pursued, in their ecclesiastical as well as in their civil relations, since this Convention last met in perfect harmony and love, by great numbers of the ministers and members of this Church, within certain States of our Union which have arrayed themselves in open and armed resistance to the regularly constituted Government of our Country; and that while, in a spirit of Christian forbearance, we refrain from employing towards them any terms of condemnation or reproach, and would rather bow in humiliation before our common Father in Heaven for the sins which have brought His judgments on our land, we yet feel bound to declare our solemn sense of the deep and grievous wrong which they will have inflicted on the great Christian Communion which this Convention represents, as well as on the country within which it has been so happily and harmoniously established, should they persevere in striving to rend asunder those civil and religious bonds which have so long held us together in peace, unity, and concord.

Resolved, That while, as individuals and as citizens, we acknowledge our whole duty in sustaining and defending our country in the great struggle in which it is engaged, we are only at liberty, as Deputies to this Council of a Church which hath ever renounced all political association and action, to pledge to the National Government -as we now do -the earnest and devout prayers of us all, that its efforts may be so guided by wisdom and replenished with strength, that they may be

crowned with speedy and complete success, to the glory of God and the restoration of our beloved Union.

Resolved, That if, in the judgment of the Bishops, any other forms of occasional prayer than those already set forth, shall seem desirable and appropriate, whether for our Convention, our Church, or our Country, for our Rulers or our Defenders, or for the sick and wounded and dying of our Army and Navy and Volunteers, - we shall gladly receive them and fervently use them.

Resolved, That a certified copy of the foregoing Report and Resolutions be transmitted to the House of Bishops, in evidence of the views and feelings of this body in reference to the afflicting condition of our Church and of our Country.

WM. COOPER MEAD.
ED. Y. HIGBEE.

W. D. WILSON.

ROBT. C. WINTHROP.
WASHINGTON HUNT.
JOHN N. CONYNGHAM.
CHARLES B. GODDARD.

NEW YORK, October 9, 1862.*

SILAS TOTTEN.
S. C. THRALL.

*There are no speeches which I would more gladly have included in this volume than those in which I advocated the adoption of the above Resolutions; but they were made without notes and never reported at length, and I have found it impossible to recall them. The Resolutions were adopted by the House of Delegates, and happily prepared the way for the complete re-union of the Church at the last Convention.

35

A FLAG TO THE FORTY-THIRD.

A SPEECH ON THE PRESENTATION OF A FLAG TO THE FORTY-THIRD REGIMENT OF MASSACHUSETTS VOLUNTEERS, ON BOSTON COMMON, NOVEMBER 5, 1862.

COLONEL CHARLES L. HOLBROOK,-You have been honored with the command of a regiment which has been enlisted under the auspices of the old "Boston Light Infantry," and which has recognized its filial relations to that corps by calling itself "The Tiger Regiment." The officers and members of the Boston Light Infantry, past and present, and of the Second Battalion, of which it has recently formed a part, have accordingly desired to manifest their regard for your command by some substantial and visible token, which may accompany you in your tour of patriotic service, and which may serve to remind you that there are those at home who will watch your movements with an eager interest and a jealous pride, and whose hearts will be with you in every hour of prosperous or adverse fortune which awaits you, whether of endurance or of struggle, of tribulation or of triumph.

Sir, I need hardly recall, in this presence, the history of that old corps, whose familiar designation you have adopted, and whose character may seem in some sort committed to your keeping. You yourself, certainly who have risen to the successive command of a regiment in peace, and now of a regiment in war, after so long and honorable a service in its ranks-must know its history by heart. You have not forgotten how it sprung into existence, just four and sixty years ago, in that memorable year 1798, when our infant Republic was menaced, and more than menaced, by the madness of revolutionary France; and when it seemed as if that gallant and generous nation, which had done so much to aid us in establishing our Independence, and whose arms

had so recently been united with our own in the crowning and consummate glories of Yorktown, were about to be made the instrument of a despotic Directory in subjecting our youthful energies to a cruel, and perhaps a fatal, test. Our own John Adams-John Yankee, he was sometimes called-was then seated in the executive chair; and the august and venerated Washington, having finished a career of military and civil service which has no parallel in the annals of mankind, had nobly consented to waive all considerations of previous rank or present dignity and ease, and to assume the subordinate position of Lieutenant-General of the Provisional Armies of the United States. The pulse of patriotism at that hour, as at this, beat high throughout the land, and every bosom was animated with the same desire to do something for the defence of the country, which is burning at this moment in every heart around me. It was then that the young men of Boston, having united in one of those patriotic addresses which were among the peculiar features of the period, a reply was received from the President containing those memorable words "To arms, to arms, my young friends." To that appeal, which was publicly read at Faneuil Hall by the first elected commissioned officer of the corps, Ensign Francis J. Oliver, the establishment of the Boston Light Infantry was the immediate, practical response.

You have not forgotten, sir, the solemn agreement which was forthwith adopted among the fundamental articles of its Constitution," that every man should pledge himself to support at all hazards his Country and the Government which protects him, and that, unless commanded, he never will quit his standard till forced from it by an Honorable Death," a pledge which was afterwards inscribed upon that standard itself in the simpler and more compact phraseology of "Death or an Honorable Life."

Sir, as I have looked, many a time and oft, on that old motto, emblazoned on the colors or accoutrements of our corps, in those piping times of peace when I had the honor of being one of its officers, I have thought to myself that the sentiment was perhaps rather superfluously stern and solemn; and that, so little probability was there that it would ever again become applicable to any circumstances which could arise in our free and happy land, that

it might better be changed for something less heroic and defiant. But I rejoice this day that it never was changed. I rejoice that no false confidence of our own, and no flippant ridicule of others, ever induced us to obliterate that time-honored legend from our banner or from our breasts. The day and the hour have at length arrived when we comprehend and appreciate its full significance. "Death or an Honorable Life:

you can go forth to the field of duty under no more appropriate or impressive motto, endeared to you, as it will be, by so many memories of the past, and breathing, as it does, the precise spirit which should animate the present. Adopted with a view to sustain the civil authority of John Adams, and the military lead of George Washington, it will ever be associated with their noble names and glorious examples, and cannot fail to inspire you with something of that devoted constancy and courage in the defence of our Union, which they so signally displayed in establishing it.

It was in the spirit of this pledge and this motto, that our old corps, at their dinner at Concert Hall, after their first public parade on the 18th of October, 1798, gave utterance to their earliest recorded toast: "The United States of America; as they have drawn the sword of justice with reason, may they never sheathe it with disgrace." Oh, sir, if at that festal board, at which our honored first commander, Daniel Sargent, presided, and around which were gathered more than one of those who bore the names and the blood of the patriot mechanic, Paul Revere, and the patriot statesman, James Otis, and the patriot martyr, Joseph Warren,- for each one of these illustrious men had a son or a nephew or a near relative on our original roll,-if in the midst of that festal scene, a vision of this day and this hour could have been unrolled before the eyes of those ardent and patriotic volunteers of '98, with what mingled grief and pride, with what contending emotions of agony and exultation, would they not have contemplated it! Grief and agony, that the grand triumphal arch of Constitutional Union, which it had cost so much toil and treasure and precious blood to construct and cement, was so soon to be assailed and threatened with overthrow by an unnatural and an unholy rebellion; pride and exultation, that when that dark day should arrive, these noble