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The Green Bag
at the moment when he was the most eagerly listened to preacher in the Island, "The Law is decidedly the best profes sion for a young man if he has anything in him," —even though " in the law he must have a stout heart and an iron digestion, and must be as regular as the town clock." Sydney Smith had all these merits in a high degree —-we might, if space allowed, stop and illustrate them in de tail — and he never ceased to show a keen and intelligent interest in legal mat ters. In 1824, as Chaplain to the High Sheriff, he preached two appropriate sermons in the York Cathedral at the spring and summer Assizes. The text of the first one was Acts xxiii, 3, and the subject was announced as "The judge that smites contrary to the law." Here, as many times again, he insists that in the present state of English civilization the judges have the prosperity and the morality of their country in their hands; if England thrives and conducts her affairs uprightly, "First the Gospel has done it, and then Justice has done it." The judge needs more than human aid to discharge his delicate responsibility aright; " he must remember that he beareth not the sword in vain," but he must keep in mind also the strength of temptation, the weakness of man's nature, and especially the helplessness of the poor and ignorant: "All magis trates feel these things in the early exercise of their judicial power; but the Christian judge always feels them, is always youthful, always tender, when he is going to shed human blood; retires from the businessof men, communes with his own heart, ponders on the work of death, and prays to that Saviour who redeemed him that he may not shed the blood of man in vain." The second sermon was preached from Luke x, 25, and was called " The lawyer
that tempted Christ." This sermon contains what is perhaps the clearest statement in literature of the peculiar character of the lawyer's activity : ' 'Jus tice is found, experimentally, to be most effectually promoted by the opposite efforts of practised and ingenious men, presenting to the selection of an impart ial judge the best arguments for the establishment and explanation of truth. It becomes, then, under such an arrange ment, the decided duty of an advocate to use all the arguments in his power to defend the cause he has adopted, and to leave the effects of those arguments to the judgment of others. However useful this practice may be for the pro motion of public justice, it is not with out danger to the individual whose practice it becomes. It is apt to produce a profligate indifference to truth in high er occasions of life, where truth cannot for a moment be trifled with, much less callously trampled on, much less sud denly and totally yielded up to the baseest of human motives." The injunction the lawyer most needs is, as it is put else where in the sermon: " do not carry the lawful arts of your profession beyond your profession." The second main theme of this appeal to the bar is " the honorable and Chris tian task of defending the accused; a sacred duty never to be yielded up, never to be influenced by any vehemence nor intensity of public opinion ... if you do this, you are a guilty man before God." In one of these same Assize sermons, the speaker paints a glowing picture of the noble part England has been playing in European affairs. " And why? Be cause this country is a country of the law; because the Judge is a judge for the peasant as well as for the palace; because every man's happiness is guard ed by fixed rules from tyranny and caprice.
