May 1--The Subject in General

The Bible abounds

SCRIPTURE LESSON: in passages that enjoin by precept or example the duty of justice to the poor. The poor are the especial care of Jehovah (Ps. 35: 10; 49: 2; 69:33; 72:4; 109: 31; 140: 12; Prov. 14: 31); and the Mosaic codes emphasize this duty (Deut. chap. 15), specifically referring to doing justice (Ex. 23: 6, 11). Oppression of the poor is denounced in psalm and prophecy (Ps. 10: 2, 9; 12:5; 14: 6; Amos 5: 11, 12, etc.). Consciousness of right action toward the poor is one of Job's justifications to his accusers (Job. 5:15; 29: 16; 30: 25; 31: 19). The Servant of Isaiah was to bring to the poor good tidings (Isa. 61: 1; ef. Luke 4: 18; Matt. 11:5) in which justice is included.

The teaching of Jesus abounds in stimulation as to the duty of justice to this class (Matt. 5:3; 19: 21; Mark 10: 21; Luke 14:21, etc.). James seeks justice for them in the house of God (chap. 2: 2, 3, 5, 6). Indeed, the ideal of justice is a foundation principle in Scripture-cf. Amos 5: 24; Ps. 89: 14, among many other passages.

The aim of the Christian is the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth. The ideal of this kingdom on the side which governs the relation of man to man is righteousness or justice. But human justice as exprest in governmental institutions, such as laws and legislation, courts and lawyers, while intended as an interpretation of this aim, falls far short of attainment.

Charity is a word derived from the Latin, which in its earlier use, as for instance, when employed by the authors of the King James version of the Holy Scriptures in 1 Cor. chap. 13, was equivalent to the word love," but in the process of time it has come in popular usage to be almost, if not quite, equivalent to the word "alms," with which in that chapter it is contrasted.

The old definition of law given by Black

stone is "A rule of conduct prescribed by a superior which the inferior is bound to obey," and in modern usage charity is, too often, a boon bestowed by a social superior which the inferior is compelled to accept. Perhaps, therefore, it is not strange that in the minds of many people, especially among the poor, there is some confusion between the two ideas of justice and charity, and a tendency, at least, to regard justice, embodied in law and lawyers, with something of the dislike with which charity is regarded.

The picture which Dickens gives in Our Mutual Friend of old Betty Higden fleeing from charity until on the roadside the arms of Lizzie Hexam "lifted her as high as heaven" is strangely like that he gives us in Bleak House of poor Jo's ending in death his long tramp to escape the uniformed emissary of the law who kept him "moving on." In both pictures imagination inspired by love and touched with the hand of genius has held up to our gaze a true delineation of the vision which common men and women have of justice and charity as set forth by civilization.

To say that this view, either of justice or of charity, is just would be as incorrect as to deny that it exists. It does exist, but it is prejudiced and has grown to what it is, as most prejudices do, first, because of confused thinking, and secondly, because of the mass of clogging tradition which grows around all human institutions.

Laws, the realm which judges are set to administer, are of two kinds, substantive and statutory, and both kinds being of human devising are necessarily fallible and transitory; they do not completely and unerringly cover the subjects with which they deal, and with the changing conditions of time they become outworn. In this respect they but fulfil the great dictum of Blaiso Pascal: "That which has been brought to perfection by progress progress will de

stroy." Most of us, it is to be feared, overlook this inevitable fact, and when we are brought face to face with palpable injustice, wrought in the name and under the form of law, exclaim against the whole framework of which it is but a part. But the increment which grows up about laws and law courts is an even greater source of misconception. Laws, substantive and statutory, are very much like clothing, some made to order, some ready made. Now even a suit made to order will not always fit, for the wearer changes in girth; and as to ready-made clothing standard models do not suit all men, and fashions change when garments do not. Similarly in law, precedent, while an excellent measuring rule for the legal tailor, does not furnish sufficient scope to the modiste. The "codeless myriad of precedent," which Tennyson bewailed, has been succeeded in modern practise by code on code and digest upon digest, until even the doctors are compelled to specialize, while the layman is more opprest and bewildered than enlightened by a modern law library, and is apt to conceive of law as a cult and lawyers as practitioners of the black arts. Hence, a friend of mine, himself a lawyer, once told me that the three elements of success in law were complete ignorance of the subject, unlimited assurance, and no conscience-a dictum worthy to stand by Aaron Burr's definition of the law as "Whatever is boldly asserted and plausibly maintained."

What, then, is the poor man to do-the man poor in purse as well as in education in legal lore-who finds himself enmeshed in law? We are all thus enmeshed; we live in a world of law, guarded by law, restrained by law, ignorant of the law, yet told that ignorance of the law is no excuse. Enfranchised by law and taxed by law, what can we do?

First, then, let us remember what in these days many seem to forget, that law is a rule of conduct prescribed by a superior which the inferior is bound to obey. Obedience, the first letter in the alphabet of righteousness, is the supreme lesson of human law. Mistakes there may be, hardships also; but obedience is the primary element in the disciplined life, which is the life of right

eousness.

Next, perhaps, in viewing the subject we should put the great sentence of our Lord: "It must needs be that offenses come, but

woe to that man by whom they come." That word is the corner stone of criminal law, and furnishes the reason for the remedies of the civil law. The Christian seeking true righteousness will not only obey law, but will also avoid occasions of offense; in other words, will shun litigation.

But when all this has been said, it is still true that the Christian citizen is not only a subject of law but also a participant in it, for the exercise of the franchise is a judicial act, and to an extent determines the current of law-making, while the citizen who is a juror is directly involved in the processes of the courts. It may be well, therefore, to consider briefly Courts and Judges, Attorneys and Advocates, Legal Aid Societies, and Arbitration and Courts of Conciliation.

May 8-Courts and Judges

The moment that society emerges from the tribal stage, the necessity for courts and judges arises. Even in the most rudimentary tribe the chief exercises a judicial as well as a kingly function, and in the history of any nation it will be seen that, as it develops, its courts develop with it. Here, however, one can see clearly how custom becomes tradition, and how the unessential form hardens, with that unelastic inflexibility which gives permanence to law, into what may, and often does, become an obstacle to justice. The history of English and American law is filled with instances of this inescapable tendency, and just as the righteous King Hezekiah was constrained to break in pieces the brazen serpent which had once been the inspiration to life, so the wise legislator has, again and again, been compelled to break the shackles, more enduring than brass, which custom imposes on life. Young as our country is, the legal history of New York State furnishes two notable illustrations of this fact-the Revised Statutes replacing the older practise inherited from England, and the Codes which a few decades later again recrystalized procedure.

But there are certain tendencies which endure, no matter what changes come to forms and procedure. These are tendencies which are inherent in humanity.

In the learned notes which the late Frederick W. Maitland appended to certain early English legal documents, published by the Selden Society, he attributes to a certain

Brother John of Oxford, a monk in the Priory of Luffield, writing probably toward the close of the thirteenth century, a document in Latin which contains the following passage (the translation being Maitland's). Speaking of the duty of the judge the writer says:

"He should know that to the best of his

"power he ought to determine all suits justly "and speedily and cause all defaults to be "amended, which are within his power, and "patiently hear the plaints of all plaintiffs, "and maintain the poor, nor for price, nor "gift, nor for hope of gain should he do "wrong to any or judge amiss, but he "should be true in word, just in judgment, "wise in council, faithful in trust, strenuous "in deed, eminent in kindness, and excellent "in all honorableness of life, for thus he may "render to Cæsar the things that be Cæsar's "and to God the things that be God's, and "his judgment shall endure forever, and his "name shall be in praise, and so from his "little bailiwick he shall be transferred to "a kingdom by him who taketh the needy "from the dust and lifteth up the poor out "of the mire, and so he may sit with princes "and hold a throne of glory.""

As we read these words coming down to us across the lapse of more than six centuries we scarcely know whether to be more imprest by their strength and beauty or by their modernity. The writer, pacing the cloisters of his priory shortly after the first English parliament was held and when Magna Carta was as yet recent, looked out on a very different world from this; but the problems of judges and peoples were very similar, and the temptations to the misuse of judicial power against which he warns are as real and dangerous to-day as then; the law's delays are still a cause of complaint, its burden of expense still a heavy load to the poor. But tho these evils still exist, there has been improvement, and the very fact that the main lines of righteous judging remain the same throughout the centuries with their changed conditions affords not only hope but assurance that the right will prevail.

Courts must and will exist, and while their immobility often provokes, and sometimes injures the individual suitor, that very immobility is an assurance of stedfastness which in the long run preserves the liberty of the people. Justice, however, is a stern

mistress, and her servants are held to a more rigid standard than that of a gradual improvement; it requires, and justly, an even-handed administration of the law as between the rich and the poor, and thissad to say is not always to be found in our American courts. Ex-president Taft, himself an eminent judge and a man of singularly dispassionate temper and balanced judgment, said in an address made before the Virginia Bar Association a few years ago:

"Of all the questions which are before the American people I regard no one as more important than the improvement of the administration of justice. We must make it so that the poor man will have as nearly as possible an equal opportunity in litigating as the rich man, and under present conditions, ashamed as we may be of it, this is not the fact."

The conditions to which Mr. Taft refers are, as the present writer believes, only in a minor degree chargeable to the judges of our courts. These judges are for the most part honorable, painstaking, and hard-working men, usually above the average of our public servants in intelligence, probity, and zeal, and perhaps less affected than other candidates for office by partizan politics where, as in too many cases, their terms of office are elective.

Yet, with every wish to be fair to the judges and admitting, as later will be shown, that the greater responsibility for the delays and expense which make litigation so heavy a burden to the poor rests upon the members of the bar rather than upon the judges, it is to be feared that most American judges, partly from inertia, partly from an almost timid deference toward the members of the bar practising before them, have resigned a right they might wisely and worthily exercise, namely, that of interfering in the trial of causes before them to prevent unnecessary delay and to bring out by occasional questions from the bench material facts which a young and awkward attorney may fail to elicit, or which an unscrupulous attorney may strive to conceal. This is a right which English judges are far more apt to exercise than are their American brothers, and this, if carefully tho sparingly used, does much to expedite the administration of justice and to establish truth.