The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1907-07-19
TRIBUTE>TO A JURlSr
Martin County Bsr Association Adopts
Appropriate Resolutions.
[ no;yy

From Mondays Daily.
A meeting of the Martin county Bar
association adopted the following resolu-
tons on the death of Judge Nj. j. Sew
erence, which were adopted.
Whereas. Judge Martin j. Severance
of Mankato, Minnesota, has been sum-
moned from our earthly courts to the
bar of the Great Court above whose
Chancellor cannot fail to recognize in
him the noble qualities of mind and
heart which won for him universal re-
spect and affection among men through
out life of unusual length and useful
ness, and whose Perfect Justice cannot
fail to Judge him with the just judgment
with which he judged his fellow men;
and,
Whereas, our beloved associate the
pride and patriarch of profession was by
the unanimous verdict of the bar of this
county and of the seventeenth judicial
district without a peer therein as a law
yer. and jurist; therefore, be it @
Resolved, that his memory will abide
with us through life as an embodiment
of the best ideals of our honorable pro-
.fession, that over his open grave we pay
this poor tribute to his worth and pledge
ourselves to endeavor, in the discharge
of all the duties of our profession to en-
ulate his virtues; that these resolutions
be entered in our journal and that at
the opening of the next term of the
district court of this county the same
be presented to the court with a motion
that they be spread upon the minutes
;of that court over whose proceedings for
score of years with distinguished JUS
tice and ability.
B. j. Reynolds, the well-known at
torney of Winnebago, writes of the late
Judge Severance as follows:
In the demise of the late Judge Sew
GRANGE of Mankato, more than average
life passed over. As a judge of the old
sixth judicial district, such was his ca
.pacity that he performed well the duties
that now devolve on three judges.
TO the lawyers of this district, espec-
tally the younger portion, he was more
of father than the judge. If he chided,
which was seldom, it was from stern
sense of duty, to correct glaring fault,
the wound of which was soon healed, by
gracious favor or commentator.
He was walking encyclopedias of law.
One could 60 into case unprepared, and
with a few discreet objections to the add
mission of evidence, obtain thorough
knowledge of the law involved in the
case from the court, offhand, and from
such lessons many a lawyer has become
proficient and obtained more than a To-
cal distinction. Such was his great love
of country, that he trudged through the
civil war with a musket on his Shout
der.
He was my friend and benefactOr, as
he was of all the attorneys who asked or
even needed assistance. A great lawyer,
his was mind of profound grasp and
varied embellishments. Had he taken to
oratory, he would have stood in the
front ranks of the great orators of our
country; if philosophy or education had
attracted him, the whole world would
have wondered at his breadth of
thought.
Had he adorned the supreme bench of
our state, his opinions would have been
clothed in classic thought, with cogent
sentences and language that would have
graced romance. He believed so much
in the higher, nobler brotherhood OF
man, such was his breadth, that he
would not bow down before any man
made ordinances and beliefs, but in mas
tering all religious, he grasped the pure
and good of all their tenets, yet lden-
titled himself with none. Still, he was
not irreligious; his great heart was
brimful of natural religion. He rever-
emily stood with bowed head in the
presence of the Supreme Being; felt in.
the shadow of the Handicapped noun
tain, that seems the pathway leading
from earth to heaven, that Jehovah
who rides on the storm. He venerated
the gentle life of the Man of Galilee.
Such life deserves more than a pass
ing thought, more than a mere mention
|of dates of birth, occupation and death.
Eyes will grow dim at his remembrance,
and the influence of his life, like the
perfume of roses, will ever breathe forth
from his resting place, like benedic-
tion, inspiring better, purer and holer
lives, Peace to his shade,