written of a nation, that nation is rotten to the heart's core. When men fear work or fear righteous war, when women fear motherhood, they tremble on the brink of doom; and well it is that they should vanish from the earth, where they are fit subjects for the scorn of all men and women who are themselves strong and brave and high-minded.

As it is with the individual, so it is with the nation. It is a base untruth to say that happy is the nation that has no history. Thrice happy is the nation that has a glorious history. Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even tho checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. If in 1861 the men who loved the Union had believed that peace was the end of all things, and war and strife the worst of all things, and had acted up to their belief, we would have saved hundreds of lives, we would have saved hundreds of millions of dollars. Moreover, besides saving all the blood and treasure we then lavished, we would have prevented the heartbreak of many women, the dissolution of many homes, and we would have spared the country those months of gloom and shame when it seemed as if our armies marched only to defeat. We could have avoided all this suffering simply by shrinking from strife. And if we had thus avoided it, we would have shown that we were weaklings, and that we were unfit to stand among the great nations of the earth. Thank God for the iron in the blood of our fathers, the men who upheld the wisdom of Lincoln, and bore sword or rifle in the armies of Grant! Let us, the children of the men who proved themselves equal to the mighty days, let us, the children of the men who carried the great Civil War to a triumphant conclusion, praise the God of our fathers that the ignoble counsels of peace were rejected; that the suffering and loss, the blackness of sorrow and despair, were unflinchingly faced, and the years of strife endured; for in the end the slave was freed, the Union restored, and the mighty American republic placed once more as a helmeted queen among nations.

The army and navy are the sword and the shield which this nation must carry if she is to do her duty among the nations of the earth-if she is not to stand merely as the China of the western hemisphere.

Our proper conduct toward the tropic islands we have wrested from Spain is merely the form which our duty has taken at the moment. Of course, we are bound to handle the affairs of our own household well. We must see that there is civic good sense in our home administration of city, State, and nation. We must strive for honesty in office, for honesty toward the creditors of the nation and of the individual; for the widest freedom of individual initiative where possible, and for the wisest control of individual initiative where it is hostile to the welfare of the many. But because we set our own household in order we are not thereby excused from playing our part in the great affairs of the world. A man's first duty is to his own home, but he is not thereby excused from doing his duty to the State; for if he fails in this second duty, it is under the penalty of ceasing to be a freeman. In the same way, while a nation's first duty is within its own borders, it is not thereby absolved from facing its duties in the world as a whole; and if it refuses to do so, it merely forfeits its right to struggle for a place among the peoples that shape the destiny of mankind.

I preach to you, then, my countrymen, that our country calls not for the life of ease, but for the life of strenuous endeavor. The twentieth century looms before us big with the fate of many nations. If we stand idly by, if we seek merely swollen, slothful ease and ignoble peace, if we shrink from the hard contests where men must win at hazard of their lives and at the risk of all they hold dear, then the bolder and stronger peoples will pass us by, and will win for themselves the domination of the world. Let us, therefore, boldly face the life of strife, resolute to do our duty well and manfully; resolute to uphold righteous

? SLOTHFUL SLUGGISH, Lazy IGNOBLE - Low CHARACTer RESOLUTE- DeterMINED

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ness by deed and by word; resolute to be both honest and brave, to serve high ideals, yet to use practical methods. Above all, let us shrink from no strife, moral or physical, within or without the nation, provided we are certain that the strife is justified, for it is only through strife, through hard and dangerous endeavor, that we shall ultimately win the goal of true national greatness.

THE IDEAL LAWYER*

BY JOHN W. GRIGGS

GENTLEMEN OF THE GRADUATING CLASS OF THE YALE LAW SCHOOL-I commend to you the cultivation of a spirit that will enable you to take a healthy, sound, and cheerful view of the struggles and movements of society, of law, and of government, believing that their tendency is toward improvement, not deterioration. I would wish you to realize and appreciate the humane direction in which recent reforms of jurisprudence have been progressing, and to see to it that, so far as you can aid, the spirit of mercifulness shall not be suffered to decline. The further maintenance of the high authority and repute of our Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence as the foundation of our progress and prosperity and the safeguard of our liberties is entrusted to the bar. The world will judge of the system according to the manner in which its ministers administer it. Beyond his immediate duty to his client, the lawyer has a larger and wider sphere of duty to the State in illustrating, supporting, and maintaining the priceless value of that system of law and justice which is the heritage of the American people. As the character of the members of that profession is sound, patriotic, and pure, so will legislation, the administration of public office and general public senti*Reprinted by kind permission of the author.

ment continue upon lines of justice, safety, and conservatism.

So I urge you not to strive exclusively for the pecuniary rewards of your profession, but to look forward to a career of influence and usefulness that shall include your neighborhood, your State, your country, within its beneficent reach. For your example let me commend the ideal of the good lawyer-I do not say the great, but the good lawyer an ideal that has been realized in the life of every substantial city and court, especially in the older neighborhoods; a man of kindly and benignant disposition, friendly alike with his well-to-do and his poorer fellow townsmen, acquainted with their habits and individual history, and with a pretty accurate notion of their opinions and prejudices as well as of their ways and means; genial and sociable, yet dignified and self-contained; of staid and comfortable appearance; in manner alert; in conversation always moderate and respectful; shrewd in his observations; wise, but with perennial humor and love of pleasantry; as a citizen always concerned and active in the interests of his town, his State, and his country; not an agitator, nor a perpetual fault-finder, nor giving out the intimation that he is better or wiser than others; but ready to confer, to adjust, to agree, to get the best possible, if not the utmost that is desirable; to him the people turn in local emergencies for guidance and counsel on their public affairs, even partizanship fearing not to trust to his honor and wisdom; so free from all cause of offense that there is no tongue to lay a word against his pure integrity-too dignified and respectful to tempt familiarity; too genial and generous to provoke envy or jealousy; revered by his brethren of the bar; helpful and kindly to the young; in manners suave and polite, with a fine courtliness of the old flavor-what Clarendon described in John Hampden as "a flowing courtesy toward all men"; successful, of course, in his practise, but caring less for its profits than for the forensic and intellectual delight which the study and practise of the law bring to him; he knows much of the old "learning in the law"-can tell you of fines, of double

vouchers and recoveries, of the "Rule in Shelly's case". tho he keeps all these things in mind as collectors treasure their antiques and curios, more as objects of art and historical interest than of practical utility. His mind is grounded upon the broad and deep principles of jurisprudence rather than upon "wise saws and modern instances'; but over all is reflected the illumination of a strong common sense and a refined tactfulness. To his clients he is an object of confidence and real affection; the secure depository of family secrets, and the safe guide and counselor in trouble and difficulty; composing, not stirring up strife, but when in actual trial, strong, aggressive, confident; never quibbling or dissembling; respectful to witnesses, to jurors, and to judge, as well as to his adversary.

In the judgment and feeling of the community there is something of the venerable and illustrious attached to his name; not for his learning in the law, nor for his success as an advocate, nor for his usefulness to his fellow citizens as a counselor and guide, but for the benignant influence of his whole life and character; and when he dies to every mind there comes a suggestion of the epitaph that shall most fittingly preserve the estimate which the people have formed of him-"The just man and the counselor."

PEACE*

BY JOHN BRIGHT

[Delivered at Edinburgh, before the Conference of the Peace Society, October 13, 1853.]

It is a great advantage in this country, I think, that we have no want of ample criticism. Whatever we may have said yesterday and to-day will form the subject of criticism, not of the most friendly character, in very many

*From John Bright's Public Addresses. By kind permission of the publishers, Macmillan & Co., Ltd.