When, then, is the question to be asked, 'What shall | its safety; but yield up trifles to the altered state of

life?'

the world. Fear no change which lessens the enemies of that establishment, fear no change which increases the activity of that establishment, fear no change which draws down upon it the more abundant prayers and blessings of the human race.

I do to inherit eternal life?' what leisure for the altar, what time for God? I appeal to the experience of men engaged in this profession, whether religious feelings and religious practices are not, without any speculative disbelief, perpetually sacrificed to the business of the world. Are not the habits of devotion Justice is found, experimentally, to be most effectugradually displaced by other habits of solicitude, hur- ally promoted by the opposite efforts of practised and ry, and care, totally incompatible with habits of devo- ingenious men, presenting to the selection of an imtion? It not the taste for devotion lessened? Is not partial judge the best arguments for the establishment the time for devotion abridged? Are you not more and explanation of truth. It becomes, then, under and more conquered against your warnings and such an arrangement, the decided duty of an advocate against your will, not, perhaps, without pain and to use all the arguments in his power to defend the compunction, by the mammon of life? and what is the cause he has adopted, and to leave the effects of those cure for this great evil to which your profession expo- arguments to the judgment of others. However useses you? The cure is, to keep a sacred place in your ful this practice may be for the promotion of public heart, where Almighty God is enshrined, and where justice, it is not without danger to the individual nothing human can enter; to say to the world, Thus whose practice it becomes. It is apt to produce a far shalt thou go, and no farther;' to remember you profligate indifference to truth in higher occasions of are a lawyer, without forgetting you are a Christian; life, where truth cannot, for a moment, be trifled with, to wish for no more wealth than ought to be possess- much less callously trampled on, much less suddenly ed by an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven; to covet and totally yielded up to the basest of human motives. no more honour than is suitable to a child of God; It is astonishing what unworthy and inadequate noboldly and bravely to set yourself limits, and to show tions men are apt to form of the Christian faith. to others you have limits, and that no professional ea- Christianity does not insist upon duties to an individugerness and no professional activity shall ever induce al, and forget the duties which are owing to the great you to infringe upon the rules and practices of religion: mass of individuals, which we call our country; it remember the text: put the great question really, does not teach you how to benefit your neighbour, and which the tempter of Christ only pretended to put. leave you to inflict the most serious injuries upon all In the midst of your highest success, in the most per- whose interest is bound up with you in the same land: fect gratification of your vanity, in the most ample I need not say to this congregation that there is a increase of your wealth, fall down at the feet of Jesus, wrong and a right in public affairs. I need not prove and say, 'Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal that in any vote, in any line of conduct which affects the public interest, every Christian is bound, most soThe genuine and unaffected piety of a lawyer is, in lemnly and most religiously, to follow the dictates of one respect, of great advantage to the general inte- his conscience. Let it be for, let it be against, let it rests of religion; inasmuch as to the highest member please, let it displease, no matter with whom it sides, of that profession a great share of church patronage or what it thwarts, it is a solemn duty, on such occais entrusted, and to him we are accustomed to look up sions, to act from the pure dictates of conscience, and in the senate, for the defence of our venerable estab- to be as faithful to the interests of the great mass of lishment; and great and momentous would be the loss your fellow-creatures, as you would be to the interests to this nation, if any one, called to so high and hon-of any individual of that mass. Why, then, if there ourable an office, were found deficient in this an- is any truth in these obsbrvations, can that man be cient, pious, and useful zeal for the established church. pure and innocent before God, can he be quite harmIn talking to men of your active lives and habits, is it less and respectable before men, who, in mature age, not possible to anticipate the splendid and exalted sta- at a moment's notice, sacrifices to wealth and power tions for which any one of you may be destined. Fifty all the fixed and firm opinions of his life; who puts years ago, the person at the head of his profession, his moral principles to sale, and barters his dignity the greatest lawyer now in England, perhaps in the and his soul for the baubles of the world? If these world, stood in this church, on such occasions as the temptations come across you, then remember the mepresent, as obscure, as unknown, and as much doubt. morable words of the text, What shall I do to inherit ing of his future prospects, as the humblest individual eternal life?' not this-don't do this; it is no title to of the profession here present. If Providence reserve eternity to suffer deserved shame among men ; endure such honours for any one who may now chance to hear any thing rather than the loss of character, cling to me, let him remember that there is required at his character as your best possession, do not envy men hands a zeal for the established church, but a zeal who pass you in life, only because they are under less tempered by discretion, compatible with Christian moral and religious restraint than yourself. Your obcharity, and tolerant of Christian freedom. All hu- ject is not fame, but honourable fame; your object is man establishments are liable to err, and are capable not wealth, but wealth worthily obtained; your ob of improvement: to act as if you denied this, to per- ject is not power, but power gained fairly and exerpetuate any infringement upon the freedom of other cised virtuously. Long-suffering is a great and imporsects, however vexatious that infringement, and how- tant lesson in human life; in no part of human life is ever safe its removal, is not to defend an establish- it more necessary than in your arduous profession. The ment, but to expose it to unmerited obloquy and re- greatest men it has produced have been at some periproach. Never think it necessary to be weak and od of their professional lives ready to faint at the long childish in the highest concerns of life; the career of and apparently fruitless journey; and if you look at the law opens to you many great and glorious oppor- those lives, you will find they have been supported by tunities of promoting the Gospel of Christ, and of do- a confidence (under God) in the general effects of ing good to your fellow-creatures; there is no situation character and industry. They have withstood the alof that profession in which you can be more great and lurements of pleasure, which is the first and most more glorious than when, in the fulness of years, and common cause of failure; they have disdained the the fulness of honours, you are found defending that little arts and meannesses which carry base men a church which first taught you to distinguish between certain way, and no further; they have sternly rejectgood and evil, and breathed into you the elements of ed, also, the sudden means of growing basely rich and religious life; but when you defend that church, de- dishonourably great, with which every man is at one fend it with enlarged wisdom, and with the spirit of time or another sure to be assailed; and then they magnanimity; praise its great excellencies; do not have broken out into light and glory at the last, experpetuate its little defects; be its liberal defender, be hibiting to mankind the splendid spectacle of great its wise patron, be its real friend. If you can be great talents long exercised by difficulties, and high princiand bold in human affairs, do not think it necessary ples never tainted with guilt. to be narrow and timid in spiritual concerns; bind After all, remember that your profession is a lotteyourself up with the real and important interests of ry, in which you may lose as well as win; and you the church, and hold yourself accountable to God for must take it as a lottery, in which, after every effort

of your own, it is impossible to command success; for | guarded against in the profession of the law, and that this you are not accountable, but you are accountable is, misanthropy, an exaggerated opinion of the faults for your purity; you are accountable for the preserva- and follies of mankind. It is naturally the worst part tion of your character. It is not in every man's pow- of mankind who are seen in courts of justice, and with er to say, I will be a great and successful lawyer, but whom the professors of the law are most conversant it is in every man's power to say, that he will (with The perpetual recurrence of crime and guilt insensibly God's assistance) be a good Christian, and an honest connects itself with the recollections of the human man. Whatever is moral and religious is in your race: mankind are always painted in the attitude of own power. If fortune deserts you, do not desert suffering and inflicting. It seems as if men were yourself; do not undervalue inward consolation; con- bound together by the relations of fraud and crime;. nect God with your labour; remember you are Christ's but laws are not made for the quiet, the good, and the servant; be seeking always for the inheritance of im- just; you see and know little of them in your profesmortal life. sion, and, therefore, you forget them; you see the oppressor, and you let loose your eloquence against him; but you do not see the man of silent charity, who is always seeking out objects of compassion: the faithful guardian does not come into a court of justice, nor the good wife, nor the just servant, nor the dutiful son; you punish the robbers who ill treated the wayfaring man, but you know nothing of the good Samaritan who bound up his wounds. The lawyer who tempted his Master, had heard, perhaps, of the sins of the woman at the feast, without knowing that she had poured her store of precious ointment on the feet of Jesus.

I must urge you by another motive, and bind you by another obligation, against the sacrifice of public principle. A proud man, when he has obtained the reward, and accepted the wages of baseness, enters into a severe account with himself, and feels clearly that he has suffered degradation; he may hide it by increased zeal and violence, or varnish it over by simulated gaity; he may silence the world, but he cannot silence himself. If this is only a beginning, and you mean, henceforward, to trample all principle under foot, that is another thing; but a man of fine parts and nice feelings is trying a very dangerous experiment with his happiness, who means to preserve his general character, and indulge in one act of baseness. Such a man is not made to endure scorn and self-reproach; it is far from being certain that he will be satisfied with that unscriptural bargain in which he has gained the honours of the world, and lost the purity of his soul.

Upon those who are engaged in studying the laws of their country, devolve the honourable and Christian task of defending the accused; a sacred duty never to be yielded up, never to be influenced by any vehemence nor intensity of public opinion. In these times of profound peace, and unexampled prosperity, there is little danger in executing this duty, and little It is impossible in the profession of the law but that temptation to violate it; but human affairs change many opportunities must occur for the exertion of like the clouds of heaven; another year may find us, charity and benevolence. I do not mean the charity or may leave us, in all the perils and bitterness of inof money, but the charity of time, labour, and atten-ternal dissension, and upon one of you may devolve tion; the protection of those whose resources are fee- the defence of some accused person, the object of ble, and the information of those whose knowledge is men's hopes and fears, the single point on which the small. In the hands of bad men, the law is some-eyes of a whole people are bent. These are the occatimes an artifice to mislead, and sometimes an engine sions which try a man's inward heart, and separate to oppress. In your hands it may be, from time to time, a buckler to shield, and a sanctuary to save; you may lift up oppressed humility, listen patiently to the injuries of the wretched, vindicate their just claims, maintain their fair rights, and show, that in the hurry of business and the struggles of ambition, you have not forgotten the duties of a Christian, and the feelings of a man. It is in your power, above all other Christians, to combine the wisdom of the serpent with the innocence of the dove, and to fulfil, with greater acuteness and more perfect effect than other men can pretend to, the love, the lessons, and the law of Christ.

the dress of human nature from the gold of human nature. On these occasions, never mind being mixed up for a moment with the criminal and the crime; fling yourself back upon great principles, fling yourself back upon God; yield not one atom to violence, suffer not the slightest encroachments of injustice, retire not one step before the frowns of power, tremble not, for a single instant, at the dread of misrepresentation. The great interests of mankind are placed in your hands: it is not so much the individual you are defending; it is not so much a matter of consequence whether this or that is proved to be a crime, but on such occasions, you are often called upon to defend the occupation of I should caution the younger part of this profession a defender, to take care that the sacred rights belong(who are commonly selected for it on account of their ing to that character are not destroyed, that the best superior talents,) to cultivate a little more diffidence of privilege of your profession, which so much secures their own powers, and a little less contempt for re- our regard, and so much redounds to your credit, is ceived opinions, than is commonly exhibited at the never soothed by flattery, never corrupted by favour, beginning of their career; mistrust of this nature never chilled by fear. You may practise this wickedteaches moderation in the formation of opinions, and ness secretly, as you may any other wickedness; prevents the painful necessity of inconsistency and re- you may suppress a topic of defence, or soften an atcantation in future life. It is not possible that the tack upon opponents, or weaken your own argument, ablest young men, at the beginning of their intellectu- and sacrifice the man who has put his trust in you, al existence, can anticipate all those reasons, and dive rather than provoke the powerful by the triumphant into all those motives, which induce mankind to act establishment of unwelcome innocence; but if you do as they do act, and make the world such as we find it this, you are a guilty man before God. It is better to to be; and though there is, doubtless, much to alter, keep within the pale of honour, it is better to be pure and much to improve in human affairs, yet you will in Christ, and to feel that you are pure in Christ; and find mankind not quite so wrong as, in the first ardour if the praises of mankind are sweet, if it is ever allow. of youth, you supposed them to be; and you will find, able to a Christian to breathe the incense of popular as you advance in life, many new lights to open upon favour, and to say it is grateful and good, it is when you, which nothing but advancing in life could ever the honest, temperate, unyielding advocate, who has enable you to observe. I say this, not to check orig-protected innocence from the grasp of power, is folinality and vigour of mind, which are the best chat-lowed from the hall of judgment by the prayers and tels and possessions of the world, but to check that blessings of a grateful people. eagerness which arrives at conclusions without sufficient premises; to prevent that violence which is not uncommonly atoned for in after-life by the sacrifice of all principle and all opinions; to lessen that contempt which prevents a young man from improving his own understanding, by making a proper and prudent use of the understandings of his fellow creatures.

There is another unchristian fault which must be

These are the Christian excellencies which the members of the profession of the law have, above all, an opportunity of cultivating; this is your attribute to the happiness of your fellow-creatures, and these your preparations for eternal life. Do not lose God in the fervour and business of the world; remember that the churches of Christ are more solemn and more sacred than your tribunals; bend not before the judges of the

'SITTEST THOU HERE TO JUDGE ME AFTER THE LAW, AND and the tranquillity of the public disturbed. I am not

talking of the ostentatious display of such feelings; I am hardly talking of any gratification of which the WITH these bold words St. Paul repressed the unjust individual himself is conscious, but I am raising up a violence of that ruler who would have silenced his wise and useful jealousy of the encroachment of those arguments, and extinguished his zeal for the Christian feelings, which, when they do encroach, lessen the faith. Knowing well the misfortunes which awaited value of the most valuable, and lower the importance him, prepared for deep and various calamity, not igno- of the most important men in the country. I admit it norant of the violence of the Jewish multitude, not to be extremely difficult to live amidst the agitations, unused to suffer, not unwilling to die, he had not pre- contests and discussions of a free people, and to repared himself for the monstrous spectacle of perverted main in that state of cool, passionless Christian canjustice; but loosing that spirit to whose fire and firm-dour which society expect from their great magisness we owe the very existence of the Christian faith, he burst into that bold rebuke which brought back the extravagance of power under the control of law, and branded it with the feelings of shame: Sittest thou here to judge me after the law, and commandest thou me to be smitten, contrary to the law?'

The most obvious and important use of this perfect | the Gospel; it is the greatest attribute of God; it is justice is, that it makes nations safe: under common that centre round which human motives and passions circumstances, the institutions of justice seem to have turn: and justice sitting on high, sees genius and powlittle or no bearing upon the safety and security of aer, and wealth and birth, revolving round her throne; country, but in periods of real danger, when a nation, and teaches their paths, and marks out their orbits, surrounded by foreign enemies, contends not for the and warns all with a loud voice, and rules with a boundaries of empire, but for the very being and ex- strong arm, and carries order and discipline into a istence of empire, then it is that the advantages of world, which, but for her, would only be a wild waste just institutions are discovered. Every man feels that of passions. Look what we are, and what just laws he has a country, that he has something worth preserv- have done for us:-a land of piety and charity;-a ing, and worth contending for. Instances are remem- land of churches, hospitals, and altars;-a nation of bered where the weak prevailed over the strong; one good Samaritans; a people of universal compassion. man recalls to mind when a just and upright judge All lands, ail seas, have heard we are brave. We have protected him from unlawful violence, gave him back just sheathed that sword which defended the world; his vineyard, rebuked his oppressor, restored him to we have just laid down that buckler which covered the his rights, published, condemned, and rectified the nations of the earth. God blesses the soil with fertiliwrong. This is what is called country. Equal rights ty; English looms labour for every climate. All the to unequal possessions, equal justice to the rich and waters of the globe are covered with English ships. poor; this is what men come out to fight for, and to We are softened by fine arts, civilized by humane litdefend. Such a country has no legal injuries to re- erature, instructed by deep science; and every people, member, no legal murders to revenge, no legal robbery as they break their feudal chains, look to the founders to redress; it is strong in its justice; it is then that and fathers of freedom for examples which may anithe use and object of all this assemblage of gentlemen mate, and rules which may guide. If ever a nation and arrangement of juries, and the deserved veneration was happy-if ever a nation was visibly blessed by in which we hold the character of English judges, are God-if ever a nation was honoured abroad, and left at understood in all their bearings, and in their fullest ef- home under a governmenment (which we can now fects: men die for such things-they cannot be sub- conscientiously call a liberal government) to the full dued by foreign force where such just practices prevail. career of talent, industry, and vigour, we are at this The sword of ambition is shivered to pieces against moment that people-and this is our happy lot. First, such a bulwark. Nations fall where judges are unjust, the Gospel has done it, and then justice has done it; because there is nothing which the multitude think and he who thinks it his duty to labour that this hapworth defending; but nations do not fall which are py condition of existence may remain, must guard the treated as we are treated, but they rise as we have ri- piety of these times, and he must watch over the spisen. and they shine as we have shone, and die as we rit of justice which exists in these times. First, he have died, too much used to justice, and too much used must take care that the altars of God are not polluted, to freedom, to care for that life which is not just and that the Christian faith is retained in purity and in free. I call you all to witness if there is any exagge- perfection; and then turning to human affairs, let him rated picture in this; the sword is just sheathed, the strive for spotless, incorruptible justice; praising, flag is just furled, the last sound of the trumpet has honouring, and loving the just judge, and abhorring, as just died away. You all remember what a spectacle the worst enemy of mankind, him who is placed there this country exhibited: one heart, one voice-one wea- to judge after the law, and who smites contrary to pon, one purpose. And why? Because this country the law.'

is a country of the law; because the judge is a judge for the peasant as well as for the palace; because every man's happiness is guarded by fixed rules from tyranny and caprice. This town, this week, the business of the few next days, would explain to any enlightened European why other nations did fall in the storms of the world, and why we did not fall. The Christian patience you may witness, the impartiality of the judgment-seat, the disrespect of persons, the disregard of consequences. These attributes of justice do not end with arranging your conflicting rights, and mine; they give strength to the English name; they turn the animal courage of this people into moral and religious courage, and present to the lowest of mankind plain reasons and strong motives why they should resist aggression from without, and bend themselves a living rampart round the land of their birth.

A LETTER TO THE ELECTORS UPON THE
CATHOLIC QUESTION.

WHY is not a Catholic to be believed on his oath ? What says the law of the land to this extravagant piece of injustice? It is no challenge against a juryman to say he is a Catholic; he sits in judgment upon your life and your property. Did any man ever hear it said that such or such a person was put to death, or that be lost his property, because à Catholic was among the jurymen? Is the question ever put? Does it ever enter into the mind of the attorney or the counsellor to inquire into the faith of the jury? If a man sell a horse, or a house, or a field, does he ask if the There is another reason why every wise man is so purchaser is a Catholic? Appeal to your own experiscrupulously jealous of the charactor of English just-ence, and try by that fairest of all tests the justice of ice. It puts an end to civil dissension. What other this enormous charge. countries obtain by bloody wars, is here obtained by the decisions of our own tribunals; unchristian passions are laid to rest by these tribunals; brothers are brothers again; the Gospel resumes its empire, and because all confide in the presiding magistrate, and because a few plain men are allowed to decide upon their own conscientious impression of facts, civil discord, years of convulsion, endless crimes are spared; the storm is laid, and those who came in clamouring for revenge, go back together in peace from the hall of judgment to the loom and the plough, to the senate and the church.

The whole tone and tenour of public morals are affected by the state of supreme justice; it extinguishes revenge, it communicates a spirit of purity and uprightness to inferior magistrates; it makes the great good, by taking away impunity; 1. banishes fraud, obliquity, and solicitation, and teaches men that the law is their right. Truth is its handmaid, freedom its child, peace is its companion; safety walks in u. steps, victory follows in its train: it is the highest emacation of

We are in treaty with many of the powers of Europe, because we believe in the good faith of Catholics. Two thirds of Europe are, in fact, Catholics; are they all perjured? For the first fourteen centuries all the Christian world were Catholic; did they live in a constant state of perjury? I am sure these objections against the Catholics are often made by very serious and honest men, but I much doubt if Voltaire has advanced any thing against the Christian religion so horrible, as to say that two-thirds of those who profess it are unfit for all the purposes of civil life; for who is fit to live in society who does not respect oaths? if this imputation be true, what folly to agitate such questions as the civil emancipation of Catholics. If they are always ready to support falsehood by an appeal to God, why are they suffered to breathe the air of England, or drink the waters of England? Why are they not driven into the howling wilderness? But now they possess, and bequeath, and witness, and decide civil rights; and save life as physicians, and defend property as lawyers, and judge property as jury.

But