A system of laws like that of Chancery, so comprehensive and so equitable, defined and administered by a long succession of the most upright and enlightened men of the land, could not but have left a deep impression on the entire jurisprudence of the people who profited by its protection—an impression, indeed, that neither the mental obliquity of the fanatic nor the sophistry of the pedant has been able to obliterate. "So deep hath this canon law been rooted," says Lord Stairs, "that even where the Pope's authority is rejected, yet consideration must be had to these laws, not only as those by which the church benefices have been erected and ordered, but as likewise as containing many equitable and profitable provisions, which because of their weighty matter and their being once received may more fitly be retained than rejected."[76]
Had the prelates and priests of the Saxon and Norman periods done nothing for our law but what we find in the decisions of their equity courts, they would have conferred upon us an incalculable blessing, one equally calculated to liberalize the spirit of legislators, enlighten the understanding of jurists, and make government what it was designed to be, a shield for the weak and helpless, and a terror to the wicked and dishonest. But, as we have seen on the authority of writers conspicuous for their anti-Catholic bigotry, they did infinitely more. Statesmen as well as lawyers, they framed most of our best statutes as well as adjudicated upon them, and they originated or perfected every feature in our entire code which has stood the test of time, and enlarged civilization from trial by jury to the unqualified right of every man to dispose of his property as seems best to himself. They have thus placed us under obligations which we can only in part repay by transmitting their maxims unimpaired to our descendants, and by, at length, doing justice to their memories. And now, as we believe that the world is growing wiser as it is growing older, when time has healed many of the wounds inflicted during the great schismatic revolt of the sixteenth century, and, uninfluenced by passion or unawed by power, the scales of prejudice are falling from the eyes of those who through the fault of their fathers are aliens to the truth, it is not too much to hope that they will neither be ashamed nor afraid to acknowledge how much they are indebted to the church and her ministers for the generally admirable system of laws under which we live—laws which are at once our highest boast and best protection.
TO THE CRUCIFIED.[77]
See how fond science, with unwearied gaze,
Eyes on the sun's bright disk each fiery vent,
And from his flaming crown each ray up-sent
Searches, as miners, in their furnace-blaze—
Seek trace of gold. But who to thee doth raise
His eyes the while? Who, with true heart intent,
Scans thy sharp crown, thy bosom's yawning rent,
And peers into its depths with love's amaze?
Let me, at least, come near the abysmal side,
And reach out to the heart which throbs within.
I am oppressed with woe and shame and sin;
Oh! suffer me within that cleft to hide!
There glows the fire which purifies each stain;
There burns the love which bids me live again.