This tendency of mind carried him forward to an acquaintance with general literature, and especially with that which contends for men's rights and enjoins the performance of the correlated duties in all walks of life; and the judiciously selected books, upon these and kindred subjects, in the Akron Public Library bear witness to his -efforts in this behalf while he was a member of its Board of Control, and form an educating power among us to-day not inferior in healthrful influence to any. Judge Green appreciated wit, and was not averse to perpetrating a joke upon others. This resulted not from a spirit of levity or love of mischief for its own sake; it was, rather, the natural and healthy effervescence of boyhood projected into mature life; in it the ingredient of malice was wholly wanting, and it left no sting behind. And so it was that he could serenely rest in the belief that "the laughter of man is the contentment of God." Judge Green was singularly placable in disposition; he neither -sought occasion for strife himself, nor encouraged quarrelsomeness in litigants with whom he had to deal; if he ever had what John Randolph called "a talent for turbulence," he must have early lost it by nonuser. His innate love for children, and the intuitive trust with which children went to him, are sure evidence of his goodness of heart. The affection for his native hills and streams and the grudging soil of his native state, which was broken only with his life, was something akin to the pathetic. The summer respite from labor of bar or bench was to him the yearly occasion for turning to Vermont, much ..as a homesick boy turns to his mother. He, too, seemed to say: "Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, My heart, untraveled, fondly turns to thee." No man felt more keenly his own limitations, by which, in his estimation, he had been shorn of opportunity for usefulness in the world. Circumstances over which he had no control prevented his <intimate acquaintance with the language and literature of the ancients. And it was matter of profound regret to him that his soul had never been illumined by the great lights of classical learning. He always thought, and no doubt rightly, that to this defect of education he owed a certain lack of smoothness of diction and some infirmities of style. To his youthful vision Dartmouth College was a veritable garden of the Hesperides, but with untoward fortune forever standing as the dragon to guard its golden fruit. How much and how bravely he did without it, we know. And he insisted, upon occasion, that the scholastic standard of admission to any field of intellectual endeavor, over which he had any control, should be high and not low, advanced and not reduced. He wished that advantages which to his youth were denied should be accorded to other youth without price other than a self-respecting effort, and that they might reap in strength that which he had sown in weakness. In him the imaginative faculty was not highly developed, and he felt that here, too, he was hampered in applying himself to a jury, and perhaps in influencing his fellow men. His compensating reflection was that lack of leisure alone had stood in the way of its cultivation; that he had been too busy a man, that he had been obliged to concern himself too closely with the nearer duties of life, to soar in the higher realms of fancy. It is sometimes charged that upon such an occasion as this we are wont to indulge in unseemly panegyric, and to apply it indiscriminately to the memory of the dead, to whom, while alive, we denied the common excellencies of mankind. The truth, rather, seems to be, that in life we assume virtues to exist quite as a matter of course, while the infirmities of human vanity are such as to cause us to draw attention away from ourselves by magnifying the frailties and faultsof others. But in death's presence the voice of self-love is hushed, and justice, rectifying the distorted vision with which we have measured the conduct of our fellows, brings to the front and emphasizes by a pardonable and wholesome spirit of generosity the many admirable qualities which most men really possess. There may be no impropriety in saying that the domestic relations of Judge Green, the ties which bound him to his family and his family to him, were inexpressibly precious and tender. More than this ought not to be said in this presence, on this public occasion, and where words are to pass into the common property of public record. Those of us whose hearthstones death has invaded know how poor and paltry are the choice flowers of language to cheer a stricken household. To such there is a profound truth wrapped up in the saying that "Death is a private tutor; " that in his school "we have no fellow-scholars and must lay our lessons to heart alone." Judge Green sprang from a long-lived ancestry, his frame was massive, his habits of life abstemious and his physical constitution rugged. He felt that nature had built him to last until he should have reached and passed the Psalmist's utmost span. And he would have preferred to live, if life could have added commensurate scope for usefulness, "Till, like ripe fruit, he dropped Into his mother's lap; or was with ease Gathered, not harshly plucked, for death mature.” But, as he always bore life's burden heartily, so, when his day of work on earth was over, he laid it down restfully. We who are left are now to take up the work so well done by him and carry it forward as well as we may. We enter into his labors and can discharge our trust the better because of them. Of such lives we may say in every truth: "The seeds of good they sow are sacred seeds, [V] GEORGE SPENCE. IN MEMORIAM. BY OSCAR T. MARTIN. Since the last meeting of this association, one of its prominent organizers, and at one time, one of its most efficient members, has answered the last call. George Spence, one of the oldest members of the Springfield Bar was born in Clark County, Ohio, May 22nd, 1828. His education was self acquired. Without the advantage of collegiate training, his natural talents were developed by such education as he could obtain in the common and high schools of his county and soon prepared him for prominence in the profession of his choice. In 1848 he began his course of legal studies in the office of Judge William Rodgers and Judge William White, and was admitted to the bar April 19th, 1850. He continued actively in his profession, until September 24th, 1887, when he was stricken with paralysis and lingered in feeble health until his death, which occurred in Springfield, Ohio, February 6th, 1895, at 5 P. M. As a lawyer Mr. Spence could be judged by no ordinary standard of comparison. Lacking that training by which the mental faculties become harmoniously adjusted and act in unison, yet the force of his uncultured powers, the very unsystematic and unexpected methods which he adopted, made him a valuable ally and a dangerous competitor. He substituted for the thorough preparation and the comprehensive brief, a quick perception of the strength or weakness of a case. To close analytical reasoning he preferred the indiscriminate yet effective attack. He was not an orator and he lacked the faculty of consecutive logical statement, but it was long well known that however disconnected and seemingly illogical his argument, when he had concluded his speech he had presented with great force all the elements of his case. He was tireless in his zeal for his clients, and at all times faithful to the trust imposed in him. As a citizen he was enterprising and influential, prominent in municipal matters, and for many years officially identified with the City Government. A politician of the ultra-Democratic School, he stood high in the councils of his party, was a member of the State Executive Committee, a delegate to the National Conventions of 1860 and 1864, and a candidate for Treasurer of the State in 1865. As a man he was impulsive, outspoken and quick to resent an injury, but ready to forgive, for he had the kindliest heart in human breast. To those who knew him not, he was apparently rough, violent and oftimes abrupt in his manner, but those who knew him best, found him a generous, sympathetic and unwavering friend. Mr. Spence was one of the charter members of the State Bar Association, active in its organization, earnest in extending its membership, and when in health, always foremost in its behalf, and it is but proper that this slight tribute to his memory should be placed on its records. F |