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It is in an endeavour to recapture something of the lives of these great ones, and the principles upon which they built their success, that I have struggled through forbidding masses of decaying biography in hopes to catch a faint whisper here and there of the triumphant works and days of my professional forbears.

For a race of moderns, that, maybe, care for none of these things, I have lighted again the old lamps which burned so brightly in the days that are gone, which I myself have seen lighting the darkness of our courts, and guiding the footsteps of the judges in the paths of justice and truth. For without a free and honourable race of advocates the world will hear little of the message of justice. Advocacy is the outward and visible appeal for the spiritual gift of justice. The advocate is the priest in the temple of justice, trained in the mysteries of the creed, active in its exercises. For this reason Wyclif in his translation of I John ii. 1 sanctifies the word in the text: “We haue auoket anentis the fadir, Jhesu Crist just.” Modern versions retain “advocate,” but unhappily substitute “righteous” for “just”. Advocacy connotes justice. Upon the altars of justice the advocate must keep his seven lamps clean and burning brightly. In the centre of these must ever be the lamp of honesty.