News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1897-06-30
ZENAS THE LAWYER.
REV. Or. TALMk6E PAYS A HIGH
TRIBUTE TO THE BAR.

He Treats the Profession of Law From q
Moral and Religious standpo:nt-Duties
of the Christian Lawyer-Many Tempta-
tions.
WARRINGTON, June 27.-Dr Talmage's
sermon today has special interest for
lawyers and all who expect TO be lawyers,
and all who are the friends of lawyers.
His text is Titus iii, 10, "Bring Zenas the
lawyer"
The profession of the law is here intro
duced, and within two days in the Capital
City 3O3 young men joined it, and at this
season in various parts of the land other
hundreds are taking their diplomas for
that illustrious profession, and is it not
appropriate that address such young men
from moral and religious standpoint, as
upon them are now rolling the RESPONSE
bilities of that calling represented in the
text by Zenas the lawyer?
We all admire the heroic and rigorous
side of Paul's nature as when he stands
eoolly deliberate on the deck of the corn
ship while the jack tars of the Medter-
Tanean are covering in the cyclone; as
when he stands undaunted amid the mar
bles of the palace before thick neCked Nero,
surrounded with his ~ cruel lictors; as
when we find him earning his livelihood
with his own needle, sewing hairCloth
and preaching the gospel in the interstices;
as when we find him able to take the 80
lashes, every stroke of which fetched the
blood yet continuing in his missionary
work. as when we find him, regardless of
the consequence to himself, delivering a
temperance lecture to Felix, the govern
Inent inebriate. But sometimes we catch a
glimpse of the mild and genial side of
Paul's nature. 1t seems that he had a
friend who was a barrister by profession.
His name was Zenas, and he wanted to see
him. Perhaps he had formed the acquaint-
ance of this lawyer in the courtroom. Per-
haps sometimes when he wanted to ask
some question in regard to Roman law he
went to this Zenas the lawyer. At any
rate he had warm attachment for the
man, and he provides for his comfortable
escort and entertainment as he writes to
Titus, Bring Zenas the lawyer"
This man of my text belonged to a pro-
fession in which are many ardent sup
porters of Christ and the gospel, among
them Blackstone, the great commentator
on English law, and Wilberforce, the
emancipation, and the late Benjamin F.
Butler, attorney general of New York,
and the late Charles Chauncey, the leader
of the Philadelphia bar, and Chief Justices
Marshall and Tenterden and Campbell
and Sir Thomas More, who died for the
truth on the scaffold, saying to his aghast
executioner: "Pluck up courage, man,
and do your duty. My neck is very short.
BE careful, therefore, and do not strike
awry."
A Mighty Plea.
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 Webster
stood in the supreme court at Washing
ton pleading in the famous Girard will
case, denouncing any attempt to educate
the people without giving them at the
same time moral sentiment as Glow, rib
aid and vulgar deism and infidelity;" as
when Samuel l.. Southland of New Jersey
the leader of the forum in his day, stood
on the platform at Princeton college COM
mencement advocating the literary excel
lency of the Scriptures; as when Edmund
Burke, in thu famous trial of Warren Hast
ings, not only in behalf of the English
government, bat in behalf of elevated
morals, closed his speech in the midst Of
the most august assemblage ever gathered
in Westminster hall hy saying: Il i'm
peach Warren Hastings in the name of the
house of comm ons, whose national char
acter he has dishonored; l impcach him
in the name of The people of India, whose
rights and liberties he has subyerted;
impeach him in the name of human ma
ture, which he has disgraced. In the name
of both sexes, and of every rank, and of
every station, and of every situation in the
world, impeuch Warren Hastings"
Yet, Notwithstanding all the pleas
which that profession has made in behalf
of God, and the church, and the gospel,
and the rights of man, there has come
down through the generations among
many people an absurd and wicked preju-
dice against it. So long ago as in the
time of Oliver Cromwell it was decided
that lawyers might not enter the parlia-
ment house as members, and they were
called "sons of Zeruiah.' The learned
DR.. johnson wrote au epitaph for one OF
them in these words:
God works wonders now and then.
Here lies a lawyer, an honest man!
Two hundred years ago treatise was
issued with the title, "Doomsday AID.
preaching With Thunder and Lightning
For Lawyers. A prominent 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 pur
pose that white is black and black il
white. For example, if my neighbor has
mind to my COW, he hires a lawyer tC
prove that he ought to have my COW from
me. must hire another lawyer to defend
any right, it being against all rules of law
that man should speak for himself. II
pleading they do not dwell upon the merits
of the cause, but upon circumstances for
eign thereto. For instance, they do moi
take the shortest method to know wha
title my adversary has to my cow bu
whether the COW be red or black her horn
long or short, or the like. After that they
adjourn the cause from time to time and il
20 years they come TO an issue. This so
ciety likewise has "a peculiar can't or iargol
tf their own, in which all their laws ar
written, and these they take especial car
TO multiply, whereby they have so con
founded truth and falsehood that it will
take IL years to decide whether the flelt
left to me by my ancestors for six genera
tions belongs to me or TO one 800 mile
off,
To-. 30, Io 4i,,A 1.