Connecticut western news., 1897-07-01

missionary, saying. Take that and wear it it will do you more good than it will me-" or, like Judge 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, deserves congratulation and en- comium
 O mep of the legal profession, let me beg of you to quit asking questions in regard to religion and begin believ- ing! The mighty men of your profes- sion, Story and Kent and Mansfield, be- came Christians, not through their heads, but through their hearts. "Ex- cept ye become as little child ye shall in no wise enter the kingdom of God" If you do not become Christian, O man of the legal profession, until you can reason this whole thing out in re- gard to God and Christ and the immor- tality of the soul, you will never be- come a Christian at all. Only believe. Bring Zenas the lawyer.
 Sunday Observance.
 Another mighty temptation for the legal profession is Sabbath breaking. The trial has been going on for 10 or l 5 days. The evidence is all in. It is Saturday night. The judges gavel falls on the desk, and he says, "Crier, ad- journ the court until 10 o'clock Mon- day morning." On Monday morning the counselor is to sum up the case. Thousands of dollars, yea, the reputa- tion and life of his client, may depend upon the success of his plea. How will he spend the intervening Sunday? There is not one lawyer out of hundred that can withstand the temptation to break the Lord s day under such circumstances. And yet if he does he hurts his own soul. What, my brother, you cannot do before 12 o'clock Saturday night or after 9 o'clock Sunday night God does not want you to do at all. Besides that you want the 24 hours of Sabbath rest to give you that electrical and magnetic force which will be worth more to you before the jury than all the elaboration of your case on the sacred day. My in- innate and lamented friend the late Judge Nelson, in his interesting remi- niscences of Rufus Choate, says that during the last case that gentleman tried in New York the court adjourned from Friday until Monday on account of the illness of MT. Choate, but the chronicler says that on the intervening Sabbath he saw MT. Choate in the old Brick church," listening to the Rev. Dr. Gardiner Spring.
 I do not know whether, on the fol- lowing day, Rufus Choate won his cause or lost it, but I do know that his Sabbatic rest did not do him any harm. Every lawyer is entitled to one days rest out of seven. If he surrenders that, he robs three-God, his own soul and his client. Lord Castlereagh and Sir Thomas Romilly were the leaders of the bar in their day. They both died sui cides. Wilberforce accounts for their alteration of intellect on the ground that they were unintermittent> in their work, and they never rested on Sunday. "Poor fellow!' said Wilberforce in re. gard to Castlereagh; "poor fellow, it was nonobservance of the Sabbath" Chief Justice Hale says, "When I do not properly keep the Lords day, all the rest of the week is unhappy and un- successful in my worldly employment. " cuote today from the highest statute book in the universe, Remember the Sabbath day to Keep it holy" The legal gentleman who breaks that statute may seem for awhile to be advantaged, but in the long run the men who observe this law of God will have larger re- tainers, vaster influence, greater profes- e, ,l.o break the statute. Observance of the law of God pays not only spiritually and eternally, but it pays in hard dol lars or bank bills.
 Another powerful temptation of the legal profession is to artificial stimulus. No one except those who have addressed audiences knows about the nervous ex- haustion that sometimes comes after ward. The temptation to strong drink approaches the legal profession at that very point. Then trial is coming on. Through the i'll ventilated courtroom the ba1rister's health has been depressed for days and for weeks. He wants to rally his energy. He is tempted to re- sort to artificial stimulus. It is either to get himself up or let himself down that this temptation comes upon him. The flower of the American bar, ruined in reputation and ruined in estate, said in his last moments: "This is the end. I am dying on borrowed bed, covered with borrowed sheet, in house built by public charity. Bury me under that tree in the middle of the field, that I may not be crowded; I always have been crowded
 The Great Future.
 Another powerful temptation of the legal profession is to allow the absorb ing duties of the profession to shut out thoughts of the great future. You know very well that you who have so often tried others will after awhile be put on trial yourselves Death will serve on you writ of ejeotment, and you will be put off these earthly premises. On that day all the affairs of your life will be presented in "bill of particulars " No certiorari from higher court, for this is the highest court. The day when Lord Exeter was tried for high treason; the day when the house of commons moved for the impeachment of Lord Lovat; the days when Charles I and Queen Caroline were put upon trial; the day when Robert Emmet was ar raigned as an insurgent; the day when Blennerhasset was brought into the courtroom because he had tried to over- throw the United States government, and all the other great trials of the world are nothing compared with the great trial in which you and I shall ap- near summoned befOra the Judpa If quick and dead. There will be no plead ing there ''the statute of Limitations" |" no turning states evidence," trying to get off ourselves while others suffer; no "moving for nonsuit." The case will come on inexorably, and we shall be tried. You, my brother, who have so