None the less, the office of Orderly Sergeant being thrust upon him, he managed in his humble way to get through with it passably well. When the State Government was organized in 1818, while shrinking from even the gaze of men, and spurning from the depths of his soul the arts of politicians, he managed in some way to be designated one of the judges of the Supreme Court of the new State. His admiration for the dispensing hand appears as follows: "Wisdom and integrity, with other noble qualities, gave Governor Bond a high standing with his contemporaries. Wisdom and integrity shed a beacon light around his path through life, showing him to be one of the noblest works of God." Four years prior to this appointment, he had been admitted to the bar, after "undergoing with much diffidence" his examination. This accomplished, he adds: "In the Winter of 1814, I established a very humble and obscure law-office in the French village of Cahokia, the county seat of St. Clair County." The bearing of the one whose meat was locusts and wild honey, and whose loins were girt about with a leathern girdle, was arrogance itself, when compared with the deportment of the later John in the wilderness at the period whereof we write. That he was orthodox upon what pertained to medical practice will now appear: "It was the universal practice to give the patient of the bilious disease, first, tartar emetic; next day, calomel and jalap; and the third day, Peruvian bark. This was generally sufficient." The latter statement will hardly be questioned. How his first visitation of the tender passion was mingled with a relish of philosophy is recorded for the benefit of posterity: "During all my previous life until within a short time before I married, I had not the least intention of that state of existence, and I expressed myself often to my friends to the same effect; but on the subject of matrimony, a passion influences the parties which generally succeeds. Judgment and prudence should be mixed in equal parts with love and affection in the transaction, to secure a lasting and happy union." With all his diffidence, however, the Old Ranger happened to turn up at the seat of Government in time "to be persuaded by my friends to be a candidate for a Judgeship. It broke in on me like a clap of thunder." The mite of philosophy with which he excused himself for giving way to the urgent demand of his friends is as follows: "Human nature is easier to persuade to mount upwards than to remain on the common level." His mind, as will appear, was essentially of the strictly practical cast. He no doubt believed with Macaulay that "one acre in Middlesex is worth a principality in Utopia." That the Republican simplicity of the new Judge followed him from his "very humble and obscure law-office" to the Bench, will now appear: