ART. 13.-REASONS FOR LEAVING THE LAW.

Dear Sir,-In reply to your inquiry, why I leave my profession, I answer, Ist, because in a city it is too sedentary and adverse to firm health; 2d, because the drudgery of it is injurious to the intellect; 3d, because the devotion which it requires is greater than I am willing to give to any merely worldly concern, which either does not affect my higher powers or impairs them; and 4th, because the rules of morality by which lawyers are governed, do not, in many points, coincide with my own views, and I am not independent enough of my daily labor, to enable me to oppose the ways of the profession. Upon this last point alone shall I say any thing.

The common code among the lawyers with whom I have talked, is this, that they are not called on to refuse to conduct suits, the bringing or resisting of which is clearly wrong on the part of their client; and that their business is to see the law enforced, and not to attend to the equitable operation of that law in certain cases: for instance, one man rents a house of another for a month, when the month is up, the owner wishes to let it to some one else, and the tenant wishes to retain it though he has no shadow of right; this tenant goes to a lawyer. and states his wish, the lawyer sees that he has no claim, but he appears for him before the justice, the justice decides against the tenant, but his proceedings have, in some point, been informal, and the lawyer takes advantage of this want of form to remove the case to a higher court, where it may remain undecided for one or two years, during which time the tenant retains possession. In this case, the lawyer, instead of refusing to assist in gaining what he knows to be an unjust claim, uses the law, which was made to prevent injustice, to work injustice; he sees the claim to be wrong in the claimant, he knows that should he assist the claimant as a friend, he would be equally in the wrong, but as a lawyer he does right: now to my mind, no man can rightfully do as a lawyer, what is wrong in him as a man; he cannot by assuming a profession put off God's moral law: and as to his duty being to see the law fulfilled, it is not so if the law is meant to work injustice; nor if, from man's imperfection, it does work injustice in particular cases; his duty is to see the purpose of the law, and not its letter, fulfilled, and that is justice.

It is said, however, that the law must be literally carried out, or it becomes uncertain, and the consequent public injury more than outweighs the private good: this principle should

make the Judge always respect the law, no matter what evil results from its application, and it may even warrant the lawyer in taking advantage of technicalities in the progress of a just suit, because to neglect them may cause looseness of practice and evil, but it can never authorise him to commence an unjust suit, or bring up technicalities that they may be violated.

I have spoken of the creed above referred to as common among those lawyers that I have consulted; perhaps the expression is too broad; at any rate I do not know that most of the profession hold to it in its bare form; and I know some that abhor it; but most of those with whom I have talked, approved it, and among them were men of pure character and romantic notions of honor. To me the doctrine seems opposed to all sound morality, and I hope there are those coming forward in the West that will do it away. While men think the course right and Christian, I made no charge against them; we are all too self-deceiving to make that safe; for though their error (as I think it) may result from their interest and nonexamination, and so be criminal, it is equally certain that it may not be; but against the creed that a man may do as a lawyer, what would be wrong as a friend and fellow-man, I would enter my protest as strongly as against any criminal and immoral doctrine; nor do I believe the profession will ever exert the influence they should until they declare this doctrine rank heresy. Their duties, their powers, their privileges are in themselves noble and Christian, but they are as yet perverted and disgraced by too many, and that without reproof.

J. H. P.

ART. 14. THIS IS WHAT THEY CALL ELOQUENCE.

Are you going to hear Mr. B. preach to-night? asked a friend of mine a few days ago. He is perhaps the most distinguished preacher in his church, and is expected to make an extraordinary effort this evening, as it is an especial occasion. Every body will be there.

Being a stranger in the land, and of course eager to learn as much as possible of its famous preachers, I of course went to hear this famed Chrysostom of the modern church.

I found the chapel, the largest in the city, fast filling up, and soon so full, that there was hardly a place to be found in the aisle to stand upon. This might well be, for not to speak of

the preacher's notoriety, notice had been given in the papers and in hand-bills several days previous.

The preacher began by reading a chapter from the Bible. A brother clergyman offered a prayer very simple, fervent and coherent. After the singing a hymn in the usual way of this church-two lines read by the preacher, and then sung by the congregation, we sat in breathless silence waiting for the expected feast of eloquence. Mr. B. named his text, "Tell his disciples that he is risen," and pronounced his purpose to preach on the Resurrection of our Saviour. As he began to speak, I looked for the devout manner, and the unction to be naturally expected from a favorite of the Methodist church, and listening to his husky, hurried, and frequently breaking voice, I presumed he must be suffering under a cold. However, it is not of his voice that I wish to speak, but of the parent spirit of the man, and the style of his sermon.

ар

Never in all the range of my experience did I ever witness either in the pulpit, in the legislative hall-at the bar, or in the street, such an exhibition of overbearing arrogance, such inflation, and such bombast. He spoke without any apparent inspiration from his pulpit. His gestures were vague and unmeaning, 'as of one that beateth the air. He would stretch his arms high in air; first on this side, then on that, and dash his body from one side of the pulpit to the other, as if under the operation of some galvanic power, rather than inspired by thought or any of the soul's emotions. But stop. I must not say any thing more of his manner, for he said he was unwell. I will say a word of his sermon, which was evidently premeditated, as I understood that he had preached it before in a distant place, in precisely the same language, in so far as my informant, who had before heard it, could remember.

The sermon had certainly matter enough in it for any one's desire. It was. I think fully an hour and a half long. He spoke of the proofs of the Resurrection-met the argument against the alleged fact on the score of its declared impossibility tried to refute Hume's objection against all miraclesbrought up fully the positive proof of our Lord's Resurrection, and ended by shewing the effects of his resurrection--and the truths deduced from it, and finally gave a word-piling description of the horrors of hell and the joys of heaven. With his argument I will not quarrel here. Certainly some parts of it were very good and well stated. But it was all to no purpose, for since the great object of his sermon must have been to convince unbelievers, its purpose must have been entirely defeated by his arrogant and savage denunciations of all those,

who had the least doubt of the truth of what he was proving. But I will not insist further on this point.

Such a piece of pedantry I never heard. It was perhaps well enough for him to disembowel Paley's Evidences or West's Treatise on the Resurrection, of their names and dates. I will not blame him for quoting what he called "the melancholy dirge of old Moschus." But surely it is outrageous for any man, who undertakes to address a common sensible audience, to rob the dictionary of its largest words and terms, that three-quarters of the people would not understand. I confess that though I call myself an educated man, I was sometimes at a loss to understand him, I would quote some of the gorgeous, purple passages which the preacher seemed most to value, were I not afraid of doing him injustice by inserting here and there one of those common pithy Saxon words, which he seems to despise so much, when compared with his mongrel speech of mixed French, Latin, and English. Suffice it to say, that he was full of such words as exhumation, chef d'œuvre, &c..

On the whole, I was disgusted not only with the manner and the phraseology, but with the moral tenor of his speaking and writing. So seemed the people of acknowledged sense of those who heard him. And yet many people spoke of the eloquent sermon, the delightful manner and the beautiful language! This is what the world call eloquence, I suppose. "The world is still deceived by ornament"-a saying of Shakspeare's, which may be paraphrased-man is the dupe of humbuggery still.

As a learner in the school of the Apostles, I have been taught to call him an eloquent preacher who utters moral and spiritual truths as if he felt them. I can love and admire the humblest and least gifted preacher, who will speak as if he felt what he says. In such an one I can tolerate any peculiarities either of tameness or violence. But an affected, arrogant, screaming, thrashing, word-piling preacher, I do utterly abominate. If Mr. B's style is what they call eloquence, I say, Heaven deliver us from having such a gift.

After the sermon, Mr. W. who had made the opening prayer arose and addressed the meeting in behalf of the Methodist cause at New Orleans. He spoke with great energy, precision, clearness and suasion. He used words as the channels of thought, and not thoughts as the channels of words: he spoke as if he had something to say, and not as if he wanted to say something. In listening to him, I felt as if escaped from the gas-lights, daubed scenes, close air, and tinsel pageantry

of a theatre, into the fresh open atmosphere and into the free broad fields of nature. Yet this was not "what they call elo

quence."

Cincinnati.

OBITUARY.

DIED in New York city-May-CHARLES C. EMERSON, ESQ. of a rapid consumption-aged 26.

Many an eye, as it has read the above announcement of the death of this high-minded and gifted young man must have borne its tearful witness to his virtues, and to the loss his friends and the community have sustained.

The writer little thought, while a few months ago, he was listening to the lofty and spiritual eloquence from Mr. Emerson's lips, that those lips would be soon mute in the grave, and that eye so bright and full of flame, would soon be quenched in death. He was then delivering a lecture on Socrates to a large and enraptured audience. It was a performance worthy of any man's pen and heart. Many of those who heard. this lecture, will doubtless always remember him in connexion with it, and rejoice that they can have in their minds so vivid and spiritual a memorial. They will remember how he spoke of Socrates as having a foreshadowing of the coming of Christ, and what a striking view he gave of the demon of Socratesthat inward light which always shone upon his pathway, and guided him in life, and revealed to him the one God.

Mr. Emerson was without a superior in his collegiate course, if he had an equal. He was remarkable as a writer of pure and strong English. His classical attainments were equally remarkable. Besides attending to the arduous duties of his legal profession, he found much time to devote to poetry, natural sciences, and all the studies that refine and elevate.

He was a man of a remarkably spiritual mind. It is for this, more than all his other excellencies, that we prize him, and are glad to make mention of his character in these pages. He was a man who had faith in the spiritual world. Belonging to a profession which is apt to make even lofty minds the drudges of business and the slaves of petty interests, he was neither a drudge of earthly care, nor a slave to earth-born passion. He had time and attention to give to the culture of his higher nature, and to fitting it for the eternal world.