if there be any truth in these observa- take it as a lottery, in which, after tions, can that man be pure and inno- every effort of your own, it is imposcent before God, can he be quite harm-sible to command success: for this you less and respectable before men, who, are not accountable; but you are in mature age, at a moment's notice, accountable for your purity; you are sacrifices to wealth and power all the accountable for the preservation of fixed and firm opinions of his life; your character. It is not in every who puts his moral principles to sale, man's power to say, I will be a great and barters his dignity and his soul and successful lawyer; but it is in for the baubles of the world? If these every man's power to say, that he will temptations come across you, then re- (with God's assistance) be a good member the memorable words of the Christian and an honest man. Whattext, "What shall I do to inherit eter-ever is moral and religious is in your nal life?" not this- don't do this: it own power. If fortune deserts you, is no title to eternity to suffer deserved | do not desert yourself; do not undershame among men endure anything value inward consolation; connect rather than the loss of character; cling God with your labour; remember you to character as your best possession; are Christ's servant; be seeking always do not envy men who pass you in life, for the inheritance of immortal life. only because they are under less moral I must urge you by another motive, and religious restraint than yourself. and bind you by another obligation, Your object is not fame, but honour- against the sacrifice of public princiable fame your object is not wealth, ple. A proud man when he has obbut wealth worthily obtained: your tained the reward, and accepted the object is not power, but power gained wages of baseness, enters into a severe fairly, and exercised virtuously. Long-account with himself, and feels clearly suffering is a great and important lesson in human life; in no part of human life is it more necessary than in your arduous profession. The greatest men it has produced have been at some period of their professional lives ready to faint at the long, and apparently fruitless journey; and if you look at those lives, you will find they have been supported by a confidence (under God) in the general effects of character and industry. They have withstood the allurement of pleasure, which is the first and most common cause of failure; they have disdained the little arts and meannesses which carry base men a certain way, and no further; they have sternly rejected also the sudden means of growing basely rich, and dishonourably great, with which every man is at one time or another sure to be assailed; and then they have broken out into light and glory at the last, exhibiting to mankind the splendid spectacle of great talents long exercised by difficulties, and high principles never tainted with guilt. After all, remember that your profession is a lottery in which you may lose as well as win; and you must VOL. II. that he has suffered degradation : he may hide it by increased zeal and violence, or varnish it over by simulated gaiety; he may silence the world, but he cannot always silence himself. If this is only a beginning, and you mean, henceforward, to trample all principle under foot, that is another thing; but a man of fine parts and nice feelings is trying a very dangerous experiment with his happiness, who means to preserve his general character, and indulge in one act of baseness. Such a man is not made to endure scorn and selfreproach it is far from being certain that he will be satisfied with that unscriptural bargain in which he has gained the honours of the world, and lost the purity of his soul. : It is impossible in the profession of the law but that many opportunities must occur for the exertions of charity and benevolence: I do not mean the charity of money, but the charity of time, labour, and attention; the protection of those whose resources are feeble, and the information of those whose knowledge is small. In the hands of bad men, the law is sometimes an artifice to mislead, and sometimes Ο improving his own understanding, by making a proper and prudent use of the understandings of his fellow-creatures. an engine to oppress. In your hands it may be, from time to time, a buckler to shield, and a sanctuary to save: you may lift up oppressed humility, listen patiently to the injuries of the wretched, There is another unchristian fault vindicate their just claims, maintain which must be guarded against in the their fair rights, and show, that in the profession of the law, and that is, hurry of business, and the struggles of misanthropy - an exaggerated opinion ambition, you have not forgotten the of the faults and follies of mankind. duties of a Christian-and the feelings It is naturally the worst part of manof a man. It is in your power, above kind who are seen in courts of justice, all other Christians, to combine the and with whom the professors of the wisdom of the serpent with the inno-law are most conversant. The percence of the dove, and to fulfil with greater energy and greater acuteness, and more perfect effect, than other men can pretend to, the love, the lessons, and the law of Christ. I should caution the younger part of this profession (who are commonly selected for it on account of their superior talents,) to cultivate a little more diffidence of their own powers, and a little less contempt for received opinions, than is commonly exhibited at the beginning of their career: mistrust of this nature teaches moderation in the formation of opinions, and prevents the painful necessity of inconsistency and recantation in future life. It is not possible that the ablest young men at the beginning of their intellectual existence can anticipate all those reasons, and dive into all those motives, which induce mankind to act as they do act, and make the world such as we find it to be; and though there is doubtless much to alter, and much to improve in human affairs, yet you will find mankind not quite so wrong as, in the first ardour of youth, you supposed them to be; and you will find, as you advance in life, many new lights to open upon you, which nothing but advancing in life could ever enable you to observe. I say this, not to check originality and vigour of mind, which are the best chattels and possessions of the world; but to check that eagerness which arrives at conclusions without sufficient premises; to prevent that violence which is not uncommonly atoned for in after life, by the sacrifice of all principle and all opinions ; to lessen that contempt which prevents a young man from petual recurrence of crime and guilt insensibly connects itself with the recollections of the human race: mankind are always painted in the attitude of suffering and inflicting. It seems as if men were bound together by the relations of fraud and crime; but laws are not made for the quiet, the good, and the just you see and know little of them in your profession, and, therefore, you forget them you see the oppressor, and you let loose your eloquence against him; but you do not see the man of silent charity, who is always seeking out objects of compassion: the faithful guardian does not come into a court of justice, nor the good wife, nor the just servant, nor the dutiful son; you punish the robbers who ill-treated the wayfaring man, but you know nothing of the good Samaritan who bound up his wounds. The lawyer who tempted his Master had heard, perhaps, of the sins of the woman at the feast, without knowing that she had poured her store of precious ointment on the feet of Jesus. Upon those who are engaged in studying the laws of their country devolves the honourable and Christian task of defending the accused; a sacred duty never to be yielded up, never to be influenced by any vehemence, nor intensity of public opinion. In these times of profound peace and unexampled prosperity, there is little danger in executing this duty, and little temptation to violate it but human affairs change like the clouds of heaven; another year may find us. or may leave us, in all the perils and bitterness of internal dissension; and upon one of you may devolve the defence | the prayers and blessings of a grateful of some accused person, the object of people. men's hopes and fears, the single point These are the Christian excellences on which the eyes of a whole people which the members of the profession are bent. These are the occasions of the law have, above all, an opporwhich try a man's inward heart, and tunity of cultivating: this is your separate the dross of human nature tribute to the happiness of your from the gold of human nature. On fellow-creatures, and these your prethese occasions, never mind being parations for eternal life. Do not lose mixed up for a moment with the God in the fervour and business of the criminal, and the crime; fling your-world; remember that the churches of self back upon great principles, fling Christ are more solemn, and more yourself back upon God; yield not sacred, than your tribunals; bend not one atom to violence; suffer not the before the judges of the king, and slightest encroachments of injustice; forget the Judge of judges; search retire not one step before the frowns of not other men's hearts without heedpower; tremble not, for a single in- ing that your own hearts will be stant, at the dread of misrepresenta- searched; be innocent in the midst of tion. The great interests of mankind subtilty; do not carry the lawful arts are placed in your hands; it is not so of your profession beyond your promuch the individual you are defend- fession; but when the robe of the ing; it is not so much a matter of advocate is laid aside, so live that no consequence whether this, or that, is man shall dare to suppose your proved to be a crime; but on such opinions venal, or that your talents occasion, you are often called upon to and energy may be bought for a defend the occupation of a defender, price: do not heap scorn and conto take care that the sacred rights tempt upon your declining years, by belonging to that character are not precipitate ardour for success in your destroyed; that that best privilege of profession; but set out with a firm your profession, which SO much determination to be unknown, rather secures our regard, and so much re-than ill known; and to rise honestly, dounds to your credit, is never if you rise at all. Let the world see soothed by flattery, never corrupted by that you have risen, because the natu favour, never chilled by fear. You ral probity of your heart leads you to may practise this wickedness secretly, truth; because the precision and extent as you may any other wickedness; of your legal knowledge enables you you may suppress a topic of defence, to find the right way of doing the right or soften an attack upon opponents, thing; because the thorough knowledge or weaken your own argument, and of legal art and legal form is, in your sacrifice the man who has put his hands,, not an instrument of chicanery, trust in you, rather than provoke the but the plainest, easiest, and shortest powerful by the triumphant establish- way to the end of strife. Impress ment of unwelcome innocence: but if upon yourself the importance of your you do this, you are a guilty man profession; consider that some of the before God. It is better to keep within greatest and most important interests the pale of honour, it is better to be of the world are committed to your pure in Christ, and to feel that you care- that you are our protectors are pure in Christ: and if ever the against the encroachments of powerpraises of mankind are sweet, if it be that you are the preservers of freedom, ever allowable to a Christian to the défenders of weakness, the unrabreathe the incense of popular favour, vellers of cunning, the investigators of and to say it is grateful and good, it is artifice, the humblers of pride, and the when the honest, temperate, unyield- scourges of oppression: when you ing advocate, who has protected inno- are silent, the sword leaps from its cence from the grasp of power, is scabbard, and nations are given up to followed from the hall of judgment by the madness of internal strife. In all the civil difficulties of life, men de- your profession, those talents will pend upon your exercised faculties, never be used to the public injury, and your spotless integrity; and they which were intended and nurtured for require of you an elevation above all the public good. I hope you will that is mean, and a spirit which will weigh these observations, and apply never yield when it ought not to yield. them to the business of the ensuing As long as your profession retains its week, and beyond that, in the common character for learning, the rights of occupations of your profession : always mankind will be well arranged; as bearing in your minds the emphatic long as it retains its character for words of the text, and often in the virtuous boldness, those rights will be hurry of your busy, active lives, well defended; as long as it pre- honestly, humbly, heartily exclaiming serves itself pure and incorruptible on to the Son of God, "Master, what other occasions not connected with shall I do to inherit eternal life?" SPEECHES. MEETING OF THE CLERGY March, 1825. them again, but take the blame to yourselves for advancing them! The first dictum of the enemies of the Catholics is, that they are not to be believed upon their oath; but upon what condition did the parliament of 1793 grant to the Catholics immunity and relief? Upon the condition that they should sign certain oaths; and why was this made a condition, if the oath of a Catholic is not credible? Or is a small subdivision of the clergy of the North Riding of Yorkshire to consider that test as futile, and those securities [From the Yorkshire Herald.] MR. ARCHDEACON,-I am extremely sorry that the clergy of the North Riding of Yorkshire have abandoned that distinction and pre-eminence, which they have held over the clergy of the other two Ridings, in their abstinence from political discussion and from public meetings, on the subject of the Catholics. I sincerely wish that as frail, which the united wisdom of nothing had been done, and no meeting of any description called. As it has been called, it is my duty to attend it, and certainly I will not attend in silence. Do not let my learned brethren, however, be alarmed; I am not going to inflict upon them a speech. I never attended a public political meeting before in my life; nor have I ever made a speech; and therefore my want of skill is a pretty good security to you for my want of length. There are two difficulties in speaking upon the subject ;- one, that the topics are very numerous, the other, that they are trite;-the last I cannot cure, nor can you cure it; and we must all agree to suffer patiently under each other. I shall obviate the first by confining myself to those commonplaces in which the strength of the enemy seems principally to consist: if they have been an hundred times refuted before, do not blame me for refuting the British Parliament has deemed sufficient for the most sacred acts, and the most solemn laws? I am almost ashamed to ask you (for it has been regularly asked in this discussion for thirty years past), by what are the Catholics excluded from the offices for which they petition, unless by their respect for oaths? If they do not respect oaths they cannot be excluded; if they do respect oaths, why do you exclude them when you have such means of safety and security in your own hands? If Catholics are so careless of their oaths, show me some suspected Catholic who has crept into place by perjury; who has enjoyed those advantages by his own impiety, which are denied to him by the justice of the law: I not only do not know an instance of this kind, but I never heard of such an instance :— - if you have heard such an instance, produce it; if not, give up your gratuitous and |