often turned
into the excuse for the airing of a man's individual fads, and is naught
but a cloak for pretentious ignorance. [Applause.] And for the Bar, I
wonder if I might venture to quote the definition of legal practice
which was given me the other night, apropos of this toast, by a
distinguished representative of the New York Bar Association, that it
was "a clever device for frustrating justice, and getting money into the
lawyer's pocket." [Laughter.] But if it be true that we have a mission,
it is equally true that we must join hands if we are going to accomplish
that mission. I am tired of hearing about the Pulpit as the voice of the
public conscience. I do not know why the Bar should not be the voice of
the public conscience quite as much as the Pulpit. If there are laws on
the statute book that are not obeyed, I don't know why the clergy should
make public protest rather than the lawyers, who are representatives of
the law. [Applause.] And if principles of our Constitution are being
subtly invaded to-day under the mask, for instance, of State subsidies
or national subsidies to sectarian institutions either of learning or of
charity, I don't know why the first voice of warning should come from
the Pulpit rather than from the Bar. Indeed, when the clergy initiate
reforming movements it always seems to me as though there is need of
rather more ballast in the boat, need of one of those great wheels which
act as a check on the machinery in an engine; and the best fly-wheel is
the layman. The tendency, you know, of the Pulpit is toward an
unpractical sort of idealism. Its theories are all very good, but my
professor in physics used to tell me that the best mathematical theory
is put out of gear by friction when you come to illustrate it in
practical physics, and so with even the best kind of theoretical
philanthropy. The theoretical solution of the problems, social and
economic, which confront us is put "out of gear" by facts, about which,
alas, the clergy are not as careful as they are about their theory; and,
therefore, I plead for a lay enthusiasm. But surely there is no better
lay element than the legal to act as ballast for the clergy in pleading
the cause of philanthropy and piety and righteousness.

Then I would suggest first of all, that the Pulpit needs to leave the A,
B, C's of morality, about which it has been pottering so long, and begin
to spell words and sometimes have a reading lesson in morals. That i