that the sacred rights belonging to that character are not destroyed; that that best privilege of your profession, which so much secures our regard, and so much redounds to your credit, is never soothed by flattery, never corrupted by favour, never chilled by fear.  You may practise this wickedness secretly, as you may any other wickedness; you may suppress a topic of defence, or soften an attack upon opponents, or weaken your own argument and sacrifice the man who has put his trust in you, rather than provoke the powerful by the triumphant establishment of unwelcome innocence:  but if you do this, you are a guilty man before God.  It is better to keep within the pale of honour, it is better to be pure in Christ, and to feel that you are pure in Christ:  and if ever the praises of mankind are sweet, if it be ever allowable to a Christian to breathe the incense of popular favour, and to say it is grateful and good, it is when the honest, temperate, unyielding advocate, who has protected innocence from the grasp of power, is followed from the hall of judgment by the prayers and blessings of a grateful people.”

And then comes an admonition about private duty.—­

“Do not lose God in the fervour and business of the world; remember that the churches of Christ are more solemn, and more sacred, than your tribunals:  bend not before the judges of the king, and forget the Judge of Judges; search not other men’s hearts without heeding that your own hearts will be searched; be innocent in the midst of subtility; do not carry the lawful arts of your profession beyond your profession; but when the robe of the advocate is laid aside, so live that no man shall dare to suppose your opinions venal, or that your talents and energy may be bought for a price:  do not heap scorn and contempt upon your declining years by precipitate ardour for success in your profession; but set out with a firm determination to be unknown, rather than ill-known; and to rise honestly, if you rise at all.  Let the world see that you have risen, because the natural probity of your heart leads you to truth; because the precision and extent of your legal knowledge enables you to find the right way of doing the right thing; because a thorough knowledge of legal art and legal form is, in your hands, not an instrument of chicanery, but the plainest, easiest and shortest way to the end of strife....  I hope you will weigh these observations, and apply them to the business of the ensuing week, and beyond that, in the common occupations of your profession:  always bearing in your minds the emphatic words of the text, and often in the hurry of your busy, active lives, honestly, humbly, heartily exclaiming to the Son of God, ’Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’”

[60] Edward Vernon, afterwards Harcourt (1757-1847).

[61] Charles James Blomfield (1786-1857), Bishop of London, was the first
    bishop to discard the episcopal wig; and John Bird Sumner (1780-1862),
    Archbishop of Canterbury, the last to wear it.