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208 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. The nature of our laws, and the spirit of freedom, which often tends to make us litigious, must necessarily throw the greatest part of the property of the colonies into the hands of these gentlemen. In another century the law will possess in the North what now the Chutch possesses in Peru and Mexico." ^ The control and direction of public affairs have, however, re- mained largely with the members of the bar, and though the present assault on the Nation's life and honor may find its leader in a lawyer, he will not count among his followers those who have trained their minds truly and sternly in the great principles of ethics that find expression in the controlling doctrines of equity and the common law. Rather will the bar cling to the memory of that young graduate of Harvard, who, dying under forty, an honored member of our profession, had been Mayor of his native city of Cambridge, and Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and at whose funeral were quoted his own words: "Truth never lay in com- promise, nor success in evasion of responsibility. Let us find the truth, bravely assert it, and trust the cause to conscience and patriotism." To aid in an effort to elevate the bar and thus increase its in- fluence and power for good is, indeed, to promote the general welfare. If it be true that every one owes a debt to his profession, here is one way of discharging honorably the obhgation. Atisten G, FoXy Member of the New York State Board of Law Examiners. 1 Letters of James Russell Lowell, Vol. II. pp. 30, 31.