Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1888-04-27
THE LAWYERS.

~ - -NA ~ AANSs
Roscoe Conkling'S Illness and
| Death Furnish a Theme for
Talmage.
BLooKLYN, April 20.-The Friday
night talk of the Rev. T. Dewitt Tai
mage. ID. D., at the Tabernacle. was
on Roscoe Conkling and What 1
Know About Lawyers" He said:
About Roscoe Conkling as q poll
tician have nothing to say. There
is no need that l open that field of
enrsged controversy. About Roscoe
Conkling as a lawyer there is only
one opinion. Armed at every point.
brilliant, severely logical when he
chose, and uproarious with mirth il
he thought thut the most effective,
oil tho armoriss of invective and sa-
tire at his command, the only man
who could afford to turn his back
upon the. Chief Justiceship of the
United States, and nothing could stop
him except blizzard that stopped
everything, and the reason he did not
get that "set aside" or "overruled," !"
or dismissed" or "non-su;ted," was
because it was already decided by q
Court from which there was no ap-
peal.
What beautiful and sublime thing
to be set down TO the credit of human
nature, that all political animosities
have been silenced by the story of his
sickbed, and that though neither Mr..
Blaine nor Mr. Conkling could hardly
be President while they both lived,
people of all parties hoped for MIR.
Conkling's recovery.
Behold nation standing anxious
at great lawyers bedside! Are you
sufficiently acquainted with the former
unjust prejudice against that profess
sion to realize the way it was once
and the way it is now? So long ago
as in the time of Oliver Cromwell it
was decided that lawyers might not
enter the Parliament House as mem.
bers. The learned DR.. johnson
wrote an epitaph for one of them in
these words:
''God works wonders now and then,
Here lies u lawyer, an honest mani"
Two hundred years ago treatise
was issued with the title: "Dooms-
day Approaching with Thunder and
Lightning for Lawyers" A promin-
ent clergyman of the last century
wrote in regard to that profession.
these words: There is society of
men among Us bred up from their
youth in the art of proving, according
as they are paid, by words multiplied
for the purpose. that white ia black
and black is white. For example: if
my neigbbor has mind to my COW,
he hires lawyer to prove that be
ought to have my cow from me. l
must hire another lawyer to defend
my right, it being against all rules of
law that a man should speak for him.
self. In pleading they do not dwell
upon the merits of the cause, but upon
circumstances foreign thereto. For
instance, they do not take the short
eat method to know what title my ad-
versary has to my COW, but whether
the COW be red or black, her horns
long or short, or the like. After that
they adjourn the cause from time to
time, and in 30 years they come to an
issue. This society likewise has
peculiar cant or jargon of their own,
in which all their laws are written,
and these they take especial care to
multiply, whereby they haye so con-
founded truth and falsehood that it
will take II years to decide whether
the field left to me by my ancestors
for six generations belongs to me, or
to one 800 miles of
So there was an outrageous preju.
dice going on down against that pro-
fession from generation to generation.
account for it on the single fact that
they compel men to pay debts that
they don't want to pay. and that they
arraign criminals who want to escape
the consequence of their crime; and
as long as that is SO, and it always
will be 80, just 80 long there will be
classes of men who will affect, at any
rate, to despise the legal profession.
| know not how it is in other coun-
tries, but l have had long and wide
acquaintance with men of that pro.
fession-I have found them in all my
parishes-I tarried in one of their
Offices for three years, where there
came real estate lawyers, insurance
lawyers, criminal lawyers, marine
lawyers. and l have yet to find class
OF men more genial or more straight
forward There are in that occupa-
ton, as in all other occupations, men
utterly obnoxious to God and man;
and 80 it is in all our professions; but
if were on trial for my integrity or
my life, and l wanted even handed
Justice administered 70 me, l would
rather have my case submitted to q
jury Of l2 lawyers than to jury of
IL clergymen.
/ cannot forget the mighty service
which the legal profession has render
ed the cause of religion. Among the
mightiest pleas that ever have been
made by tongue of barrister, have
been pleas in behalf of the Bible and
Christianity-as when Daniel Web
ster stood in the Supreme Court at
Washington, pleading in the famous
Girard will case, denouncing any at
tempt to educate the people without
giving them ut the same time moral
sentiment, as low, ribald and vulgar
deism and infdelity;" "a when Sam
uel l.. Southland, of New Jersey, the
leader of the forum In his day, stood
on the platform at Princeton College
commencement, advocating the liter
ary excellency of the Scriptures; as
when Edmund Burke, in the famous
trial Of Warren Hastings. not only in
behalf of the English Government,
but in behalf of elevated morals,
closed his speech in the midst of the
most august assemblage ever gather
ed in Westminster Hall, by saying:
81 impeach Warren Hastings in the
name of the House of Commons, whose
national character he has dishonored; !;
impeach him in the name of the.
people Of India, whose rights and ill.,