And

THE bright and fair in the material world, bring gladness to the beholder, and around the holy and pure of the better land cling the sympathies of the heart; but the jubilee of Reason is in the investigation of Law. If taken in its most extended sense, comprehending modes of existence as well as modes of operation; without limiting the great I AM, it has a back eternity co-extensive with His. these modes of operation have an intrinsic value, apart from the fact of their being the media through which infinite power operates. These highways of the Eternal mind, when once chosen by Him who changes not, become Eternal as their author; and on each of them Omniscience has stamped its seal, that of all others," this is the way!" The laws of Nature are means worthy of Him who employs them, and of His great designs; and the eye that cannot gaze upon the dazzling Sun of Truth, may learn its beauty in these, its bright reflections. That human laws have a common origin and are members of the same family with these, their imperfection does not disprove. Though born on the one side of the mother Earth, they have on the other, like the heroes of old, a parentage divine; and the principles on which they are based, are discovered by that Reason, which is the same in God, in angels and in men. If man lived alone, or if Earth were one vast Eden undefiled by sin, the law of Paradise would perhaps be all sufficient. But he does live among his kind; and Paradise is behind and beyond life's wilderness; and it is to this social and imperfect state that human law is adapted. It throws its protecting arms round us in our infancy and respectfully obeys our wishes in the

last farewell to Earth. Gently, but firmly, it fastens that silken tie that binds two willing hearts,' and then, round the domestic altar and the marriage bed, stands a bulwark and a sentinel. It secures to us our rights; it redresses our wrongs; favoring us not in prosperity, it despises us not in adversity; and thus is indulgent to none, yet friendly to all.

To claim that the machinery of our legal system is perfectly adapted to its design and exactly correct in its working would be ascribing perfection to the work of man; but its approach towards perfection will be admired by every liberal mind, which can appreciate the difficuties in its progress. That common Law whose free spirit breathes alike in the relics of the times of the Plantagenets and the Revised Statutes of our own states; and whose gratitud: to the freemen who made it, is shown in the freemen it has made, is but composed of 'statutes worn out by time,'-statutes which, though dead to their legal force, yet speak with great moral power to every age; and those statutes, the work of successive generations of lawyers, are themselves the noblest vindication of the legal profession. If the English Barons laid the foundations of liberty and law in Magna Charta, and from age to age the English Commons have battled in their defence, yet to those great men, who have silently reared the superstructure, its strength and symmetry and value are chiefly due. If, in our own land, a willing army gathered round their chief, and through great disasters marched at length to victory; yet from the lawyers of the Revolution came the call to the great crusade; and Anarchy had taken the place whence Tyranny had just been driven, but for the successful efforts of the Constitutional Convention; the Joshua, that just as night was hurrying on, bade the sun of Freedom “stand on the mountains of Gibeon;" and it has stood ever since, and will stand, till the Tribes of Earth shall have fought the great battle, and with shouts of victory entered the long promised land.

To the usefulness and importance of the legal profession, their works testify; and in the mad whirlwinds of so-called Reform, the sneers of sarcasm and the chills of prejudice, these are an all-sufficient covert from the storm. We propose a brief notice of some of the common prejudices against the Profession.

That the great principles of Legal science are as simple, and as easy of comprehension as those of any other science, no man who is familiar with them, will deny. But in the application of them to the endless variety of circumstance, restrictions and exceptions become ne

cessary, and hence the complication, the contradiction and the obscurity which have been a butt for the shafts of satire, and burden of the lament of pseudo-philanthropists and overwise world-changers. We are pointed to the contrast in the noble simplicity of the great moral law, which in ten brief commands, provides for every emergency and is equally adapted to all circumstances. But does even this perfect

rule point out to every man, in every position, his duty? Has Reason no work to do, in order to determine what cases lie within its provisions? But the infinite advantage of this Law, speaking directly to the source of action over which it can assume no such authority, is at once apparent. As the latter does not command, simply, what is right in every man's eyes, but what shall or shall not be done by every man as a member of society, it must of course define the extent of its requirements and prohibitions; and must embrace the endless variety of circumstances, and provide for all the social relations of life. If we consider, also, that its officers are not omniscient, and must decide upon facts from the testimony of erring, and too often, deceitful men, we see from whence arises the necessity of a legal profession, and may learn the justness of that oft repeated sentiment, that its members are a necessary evil. The evil is in human nature, and the lawyer is a necessary evil just as the preacher is, whose business is with a heart corrupted, and as the physician is, who has to do with a diseased body, and no otherwise.

It would be strange, if, in the determination of nice questions, different minds should not come to different conclusions; aud thus one set of men sometimes undo the work of another. "To err is human;" and the Professors of this science claim no exemption from the universal law. But, perhaps in most, if not all the diverse decisions upon legal points, it will be found that the previous opinions of the bench or bar have been necessary to the ultimate discovery of the truth. But, however this may be, it is certain that the number of defeats and disappointments resulting from the unsettled state of some legal questions bears no proportion to the number of those occasioned by false or colored statements of facts, made by excited clients. And this much for the "glorious uncertainty" of the Law, and the discord and disagreement of the Profession.

It is impossible but that the Law, which comes home so directly to men's business and bosoms, should sometimes be made a channel for their angry passions and the bar become an arena, where hatred and revenge spur on the champions. But the business of the advocate is

to obtain justice for his client, and he is not to be charged with fomenting disputes, if the means to this end happen to be those which best serve the purposes of malignant passions. You point exultingly to some peaceful spot, whose harmony is undisturbed by the presence of any limb of the law; but, remember that this harmony is the result of mutual love. Where this is wanting, disputes need no nursing for their growth. We do not find, in communities where the sword and the battle mace are the only advocates, that these have any lack of employment in settling differences between man and man.

It often happens, that, in cases where great interests are at stake, fees, which seem to bear no proportion to the labor or time expended, are received by advocates. But the men employed in cases, are generally those, whose talents or acquisitions entitle them to such rewards, as much as an inheritance of lands or a hard earned fortune give right to their fruits, and for the same reasons. But in the every day work of a Profession which is open to all, there will ever be enough of competition to make the fees proportionate to the just due of the performer of the labor and not to any factitious value of that labor; and if the long years of preparation necessary to successful practice be taken into account, this proportion will be found no more than just.

It is plain, that the members of this Profession must ever be resorted to, when interests, too precious to be intrusted to unskilful hands, are at stake; and are, from the nature of the Profession, a complete monopoly. But the laws, so much berated, which exclude from the bar, the unlicensed crowd, have been made, not so much for the protection of the bar, as to save the time and patience of the bench from being completely exhausted, by the intermeddling of some bungler.

We have hardly time to notice that sweeping charge, that the heart of the Profession is steeled against pity, and has no sympathy with the unfortunate;--that, an honest lawyer, is a contradiction; and that the life-springs of his efforts are mercenary.

There is a set, to whom the charges apply most truly. They would wring from the widow the last remnant of an once ample possession; and coolly smile at the sorrows of one whom they have stripped of his patrimony, and turned upon a heartless world. But these are not lawyers; they are not men. These things in human shape are found in every profession. As quacks, they deal in human life, and grow rich by the sale of their slow poisons. Even in the pulpit, they are