uncle spoke again. "Alex, don't you have to tell lies ? " 44 Alex did not have to tell lies. Hear what he says, reviewing his career in old age; "No advocate should ever assert as matter of fact in his client's case what he knows is not such; any code of morals justifying him in this does not deserve the name." 45 And again, more person- ally : "My rule from the time I was admitted to the bar was : first, to investigate a case submitted to me, to in- quire into the facts and the law applicable to it ; then, if I did not believe the party entided to success before the court, I told him so and declined to appear or prosecute the case." 46 Stephens believed that the object of law was justice and that the lawyer's high function was to reconcile differences and remedy evils. He detested prejudice of party, or locality, or class, or station. This feeling he carried so far that it sometimes itself became prejudice and led him into a singular tirade against what is surely a most worthy and respectable portion of the community. "If I am ever to be tried for anything, may Heaven deliver me from a jury of preachers ! . . . Their most striking defect is a want of that charity which they, above all men, should not only preach but practise." And he speaks further of "The usual bloodthirsty propensity" of "that calling." 47 Stephens's religion was different enough from Voltaire's. Yet here one would think Voltaire was speaking.
It was in politics, however, that Stephens's natural characteristics came to their fullest fruition. As a speaker
