Authors, English -- 19th century -- Biography; Clergy -- England -- Biography; Smith, Sydney, 1771-1845
of honour, it is better to be pure in Christ, and to feel that you are
pure in Christ: and if ever the praises of mankind are sweet, if it be
ever allowable to a Christian to breathe the incense of popular
favour, and to say it is grateful and good, it is when the honest,
temperate, unyielding advocate, who has protected innocence from the
grasp of power, is followed from the hall of judgment by the prayers
and blessings of a grateful people."
And then comes an admonition about private duty.--
"Do not lose God in the fervour and business of the world; remember
that the churches of Christ are more solemn, and more sacred, than
your tribunals: bend not before the judges of the king, and forget the
Judge of Judges; search not other men's hearts without heeding that
your own hearts will be searched; be innocent in the midst of
subtility; do not carry the lawful arts of your profession beyond your
profession; but when the robe of the advocate is laid aside, so live
that no man shall dare to suppose your opinions venal, or that your
talents and energy may be bought for a price: do not heap scorn and
contempt upon your declining years by precipitate ardour for success
in your profession; but set out with a firm determination to be
unknown, rather than ill-known; and to rise honestly, if you rise at
all. Let the world see that you have risen, because the natural
probity of your heart leads you to truth; because the precision and
extent of your legal knowledge enables you to find the right way of
doing the right thing; because a thorough knowledge of legal art and
legal form is, in your hands, not an instrument of chicanery, but the
plainest, easiest and shortest way to the end of strife.... I hope you
will weigh these observations, and apply them to the business of the
ensuing week, and beyond that, in the common occupations of your
profession: always bearing in your minds the emphatic words of the
text, and often in the hurry of your busy, active lives, honestly,
humbly, heartily exclaiming to the Son of God, 'Master, what shall I
do to inherit eternal life?'"
[60] Edward Vernon, afterwards Harcourt (1757-1847).
[61] Charles James Blomfield (1786-1857), Bishop of London, was the first
bishop to discard the episcopal wig; and John Bird Sumner (1780-1862),
Archbishop of Canterbury, the last to wear it.
[62] In later life he said:--"If you shoot, the squire and the poacher both
consider you as their natural enemies, and I thought it more clerical
to be at peace with both."
[63] Sir Henry Halford, Bart., M.D. (1766-1844).
[64] His eldest son.
[65] Compare--"The Sixth Commandment in suspended, by one medical diploma,
from the North of England to the South."--Essay on "Persecuting
Bishops."
[66] Addressed to Mrs. Henry Howard.
[67] John Allen (1771-1843) was Warden of Dulwich College.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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