The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1897-08-05

Your boundary line is invaded, and the
| courts must re-establish it. Your pat
ent is infrnged upon, and you must
make the offending manufacturer pay
the penalty. Your treasures are taken
and the thief must be apprehended.
You want to make your WILL and you
do not want to follow the example of
| those who, for the sake of saving 500
from an attorney, imperil $780, and
| keep the generation following for 30
years quarreling about the estate, un.
til it is all exhausted. You are struck
by an assassin, and you must invoke
for him the penitentiary. All classes
of persons in course of time become
clients, and there they are all inter
ested in the morality and the Christian
integrity of the legal profession.
Bring Zenas the lawyer"
What scene is the office of a busy
attorney! In addition to the men who
come to you from right motives, bad
men will come to you. They will offer
you large fee for counsel in the
wrong direction. They want to know
from you how they can escape from
solemn marital obligation. They come
to you wanting to know how they can
fail advantageously for themselves.
They come to you wanting to know how
they can make the insurance company
pay for a destroyed house which they
burned down with their own hands.
Or they come to you on the simple err
rand of wanting to escape payment of
their honest debts. Now, it is no easy
thing to advise settlement, when by
urging litigation you could strike a
mine of remuneration. 1t is not very
easy thing to dampep the ardor of an
intiamed contestant, when you know
through a prolonged lawsuit you could
get from him whatever you asked.
1t is no easy thing to attempt to
discourage the suit for the breaking of
a will in the surrogate's court be-
cause you know the testator was of
sound mind and body when he signed
heroism to do as | once heard at attor-
ney do in an office in a western city.
overheard the conversation, when he
said: John, you can go on with this
lawsuit and | will see you through as
we'll as | can; but | want to tell YOU
before you start that a lawsuit is equal
to a fire." Under the tremendous
temptations that come upon the legal
profession, there are scores of men who
have gone down, and some of them
from being the pride of the highest
tribunal of the state, have become a
disgrace to the Tombs courtroom. Ev-
cry attorney, in addition to the innate
sense of right. wants the sustaining
power of the oldfashioned religion of
Jesus Christ. Bring Zenas the law
yer"
There are two Or three forms of temp
tation to which the legal profession is
especially subject, The first of all is
skepticism. Controversy is the lifetime
business of that occupation. Contro-
versy may be incidental or accidental
with us; but with you it is perpetual.
You get SO used to pushing the sharp
question "Why?" and making unaided
reason superior to the emotions, that
the religion of Jesus Christ, which is a
simple matter of faith, and above
human reason, although not contrary
to it, has cut little chance with some
of you. A brilliant orator wrote a
book on the first page of which he
announced this sentiment: IAN honest
God is the noblest work of man.
Skepticism is the mightiest temptation
of the legal profession, and that man
who can stand in that profession, re-
sisting all solicitations of intidelity,
and can be as brave as George Briggs,
OF Massachusetts, who stepped from
the gubernatOrlal chair to the mission
airy convention, to plead the cause of a
dying race; then on his way home from
the convention, on a cold day, took off
his warm cloak and threw it over the
shoulders of a thinly-clad missionary,
saying, Take that and wear it, it
} will do you more good than it will
me-" Or like Judge John Mclean, who
can step from the supreme court
room of the United States,
on to the anniversary platform
of the American Sunday-school
union, it's most powerful orator-de-
serves con graduation and encomum.
o. men of the legal profession, let me
beg of you to quit asking questions in
; regard to religion, and begin believing
The mighty men of your profession,
Story, and Kent, and Mansfield became
; Christians, not through their heads.
but through their hearts. Except We
! become as little child, we shall in no
wise enter the Kingdom of Cod" If
. you do not become Christian, o, man
: of the legal profession. until you can
reason this thing out in regard to God,
and Christ, and the immortality of the
} soul, you will never become Christian
: at all. Only believe. Bring Zenas
the lawyer.
Another mighty temptation for the
legal profession is Sabbath break
: ing. The trial has been going on for
ten or fifteen days, The evidence is
all in. 1t is Saturday night. The
judges gavel falls on the desk, and he
says: ''Crier, ad journ the court until
10 o'clock Monday morning." On Mon
day morning the counselor is to sum
up the case. Thousands of dollars,
yea, the reputa ton and life of his client
may depend upon the success of his plea.
! How, la