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THE GREEN BAG
Whatever is done in the interests of justice is permanent work, for the stability of society depends more upon it than upon anything else. By the reign of law and justice we maintain what is worth preserving in our civilization, and by its promise are we inspired by enterprise and progress. The masterful minds of the world have generally recognized this. Frederick the Great, in his strangely checkered but always heroic career, laid the foundation for a united Germany, but he fostered the spirit that has made that empire great, not alone by the varying fortunes of war, but by his reforms in the administration of justice and by the compilation of laws that did honour to his name. What a strange fascination there is about Frederick! Im petuous, lion-hearted, undaunted by the combination of nations, his little weaknesses contributing to the versatility of a character never quite bizarre, but to the last degree picturesque. A few months ago I wandered about Potsdam where he loved to retreat with Voltaire, and I sauntered through his palaces, but their gorgeous decoration seemed garish when compared with the simple majesty of his tomb in the little crypt of the Garrison Church. And at "Sans Souci" I read Frederick's last will and testament, written by himself in French, in a clear hand on a single sheet of paper. His intense face looked down from many a canvas on the walls, and one could fancy his re-incarnation, for from this sheet of paper the very soul of him seemed to speak:— "Si je meurs durant la guerre je veux que cet empire soit administre avec la justice, la sagesse et la force." "If I die during the war — I will that this Empire be administered with justice, with wisdom and with force." Last in order the force that has made his name reverberate throughout an astonished world; then wisdom, that with all his gettings he had sometimes missed; but
first, justice, that was often wanting in his ambitious diplomacy, but which in his heart he worshipped, and which in the remissions from his enterprise of arms he had found time to enthrone in his civil polity. Bonaparte said: " The grandest monu ment I shall ever have is the Code Napo leon." How true were his words! The booming of guns and the clash of steel at Austerlitz and Marengo, 'and Jena and Wagram are lost in the silence of a cen tury, and the dazzling frame of military genius will grow fainter as the world grows wiser, but the Code Napoleon remains to-day a mighty living force not only in Europe but in parts of the New World too, for the preservation of sound principle and the progress of mankind. It has taken the world a long time to learn the elements of justice. It seems to have progressed more easily in the direction of beauty than of righteousness, developing imagination before conscience. When clas sic art was at its very zenith, slave galleys ploughed the dancing waters of the blue ^Egean. Venetian art with its charms of Orientalism was- decorating palaces and temples with heavenly beauty while the Bridge of Sighs still echoed the groans of the victims of political persecution; and dear old Florence, with all its heritage of Etruscan art could banish a Dante to linger and die in Exile far from his native city that he loved so well. Justice and freedom have been a long time coming. If we could attain to justice in every relation of life, it would not be a very bad world. Some times rather har/1, rather inflexible, but there would be little room for complaint. But even when we have ascended to the plane of justice we shall not have reached perfect civilization. I need not blush to say it to lawyers, there is something higher than law — and that is love. That, that Pro fessor Drummond called "the greatest thing in the world," that good-will that was linked by the Divine Herald with peace on
