signification, if literally understood, we must deviate a little from the received sense of them.

5. The last and most universal and effectual way of discovering the true meaning of a law, when the words are dubious, is by considering the "reason and spirit" of it; or the cause which moved the legislator to enact it. For when this reason ceases, the law itself ought likewise to cease with it. From this method

of interpreting laws, by the reason of them, arises what we call equity, which is thus defined by Grotius: "The corrections of that wherein the law by reason of its universality is deficient." Intro. Bl. Com., pp. 59-61.

Sec. 50. LAW AND POPULAR INFLUENCE. -In the United States the people constitute the sovereign power. Delegates of the people make, construe and execute the laws. Popular influence thus decides largely both what the laws shall be, and how well they shall be observed. A law may be enacted and spread at large on the pages of the statute book, but if it does not appeal to the sense of right and justice of the people it soon becomes a dead letter, and its enforcement is not even attempted. But, on the other hand, if there is any wrong which the people see, and which appeals to their natural sense of justice a law is soon demanded to cover and redress it. Thus the real binding law in America, as has been remarked by Professor Mechem, is armed and organized public sentiment. "It is the formal and manifest expression of the public sense of justice. Not the aroused and abnormal impulses of the people in their moments of agitated fervor; not the

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sense of justice of the few seers upon the mountain tops, to whom it is given to look with undimmed vision far over the distant boundaries into the promised land, but the moral sentiment, and the sense of justice of the great average masses of mankind at their normal periods. The truth is, law is written not alone upon tables of stone, or upon the printed pages of the statute book, but it has been inscribed in indelible characters by the finger of Almighty God upon the imperishable tablets of the human heart." From a lecture by Prof. Mechem to the graduating class at University of Michigan, 1896.

INFLUENCE OF THE AMERICAN LAWYER. The potent and beneficial influence of the American lawyer is well expressed by these words of Prof. Mechem in the lecture above cited: "Who drafted our Declarations of Independence? Who framed our Constitutions? Who interpreted, defended and applied those Constitutions? Who has drawn our treaties? Who has led our nation in times of public peril? Who has issued our Proclamations of Emancipation? Who, in short, has been most prominent and most potent in securing and protecting our cherished institutions? I answer: More than any other class, it has been the lawyers of our country. Whether it was a Patrick Henry, rousing by his eloquence and patriotism his countrymen to resist oppression; or a Thomas Jefferson, drafting a Declaration of Independence; or a Madison, a Wilson, a Sherman and a score of others framing a Constitution; or a Hamilton, applying the

new Constitution to the pressing needs of the young republic; or a Marshall, laying broad and deep the principles of its interpretation; or a Webster, defending it against the attacks of its enemies; or a Lincoln, laying down his life that the government established by that Constitution should not perish from the earth—there never has been wanting some brave, high-minded, patriotic lawyer to fight and win the people's battles for their public liberties."

Political liberties have been secured by the aid of law; there is a growing desire and demand for industrial liberty. Shall not the lawyer be the means and instrument by which this new ideal, the hope and prayer of the people, shall be realized and crystallized into laws? We believe that he will prove as true and as potent in fulfilling this latter duty as he has been in the past. To the coming Henrys, Jeffersons, Lincolns, we bid a Godspeed and a welcome. We say, in the words of Adams, "At the bar is the scene of independence. Integrity and skill at the bar are better supporters of independence than any fortune, talents or eloquence elsewhere. * Presidents, governors,

senators, judges, have not so much honest liberty; but it ought always to be regulated by prudence, and never abused." John Adams' Works, X., 21.

HELPS TO STUDENTS.

The Cyclopedia of Law is devoted entirely to the subject of law, but in these helps we desire to mention several subjects germane to law or necessary to its successful practice.

"It scarcely seems necessary," says Judge Cooley, "to remark that the student of American law ought to be well-grounded in English history, and to have studied the development of constitutional principles in the struggles and revolutions of the English people. It is idle to come to an examination of American constitutions without some familiarity with that from which they have sprung, and impossible to understand the full force and meaning of the maxims of personal liberty, which are so important a part of our law, without first learning how and why it was that they became incorporated in the legal system."

To those students who have not already had this grounding in English history we suggest that as a preliminary preparation to the study of the next number of this series-Constitutional Law-that some comprehensive English history be read carefully and notes made thereon. Nearly all libraries contain several standard English histories, any one of which will serve the student's purpose.

Again, the lawyer must, of necessity, use his voice, and this like his intellect to be of the most service and