Publisher's Synopsis
In this commercial age, when wealth is held before the eyes of men as the one object of desire, and the getting and displaying of it is the chief end of man, the lawyer, whose life is in the very midst of the strife, is apt to lapse into the mercenary spirit. They who resort to him are busy in getting or recovering or fortifying the possession of property. The struggles of his days and the studies of his nights are to serve them in their pursuit of money. The very atmosphere of his office is redolent of gold. In the midst of such influences and constraints, what is so natural as that he relax his hold upon any conception of the Law which is not mercenary; how shall he resist the solicitations to make merchandise of it and pursue it as men follow trade; how, when mixing every day in common affairs, and serving the interests of sordid clients, shall he keep unsoiled and hallowed his own sense of justice?
