demur the policy of the Covenant, took exception to its terms in a
single particular. They pointed out that the obligation to be accepted
by the signatories would be, as the text then stood, of unlimited
duration. They objected to undertaking such a responsibility without the
possibility of modifying it to meet the changes which time and
circumstance might bring about; and they insisted that, before they
could advise their congregations to contract so solemn an engagement,
the text of the Covenant must be amended by the introduction of words
limiting its validity to the crisis which then confronted them.

This was accordingly done. Words were introduced which declared the
pledge to be binding "throughout this our time of threatened calamity,"
and its purpose to be the defeat of "the present conspiracy." The
language was as precise, and was as carefully chosen, as the language of
a legal deed; but in an unhappy crisis which arose in 1916, in
circumstances which no one in the world could have foreseen in 1912,
there were some in Ulster who were not only tempted to strain the
interpretation which the Covenant as a whole could legitimately bear,
but who failed to appreciate the significance of the amendments that had
been made in its text at the instance of the Presbyterian Church.[32]

When these amendments had been incorporated in the Covenant by the
Special Commission, a meeting of the Standing Committee was convened at
Craigavon on the 19th of September to adopt it for recommendation to the
Council. The Committee, standing in a group outside the door leading
from the arcade at Craigavon to the tennis-lawn, listened while Sir
Edward Carson read the Covenant aloud from a stone step which now bears
an inscription recording the event. Those present showed by their
demeanour that they realised the historic character of the transaction
in which they were taking part, and the weight of responsibility they