Marshall, in whose house they met, Jarvis of Middletown, who was
their secretary, and Fogg of Brooklyn, whose correspondence tells
us what we should not otherwise have known, were among them.
[Footnote: It is more than probable, I think, that Mansfield of
Derby, Hubbard of New Haven, Newton of Ripton, Scovill of
Waterbury, Clark of New Milford, Andrews of Wallingford, and Tyler
of Norwich were also present.] Beyond these we are left to
conjecture.

We may imagine, though we can never fully enter into, the deep
anxiety of the hour, with all its doubts and fears so far
surpassing its hopes and encouragements. We remember how they felt
themselves compelled to meet in the utmost secrecy, not, as has
been sometimes unworthily intimated, because they feared their own
people, but because they knew not what interference might befall
them from the powers that were should their purpose be made known.
We think of them as, on that Festival of the Incarnation, they
knelt down in an isolation and desolation of which we can have no
knowledge, to implore the guidance of the Heavenly Wisdom in their
counsels and efforts for that Divine Institution which, because of
the Incarnation, is the Body of the Lord Jesus Christ. We
recognize what a venture of faith they were about to make in
sending one forth to seek consecration to the Episcopate, that so
he might discharge the office of the Bishop in the Church of God
to a flock weak and despised, "scattered and peeled"; and what a
greater venture of faith he would make who should go forth on that
errand, so doubtful and uncertain. We picture to ourselves all the
conditions of difficulty and discouragement by which they were
surrounded. We remember that the story of succeeding years,
familiar as household words to us, was hidden from them in the