ithout them, the judges are helpless, the marshals
and sheriffs too. Ay, and what without them would be the state of our
real-estate interests? Abolish your constabulary force, and your
police force, and with these muniments of power, these dumb but
far-seeing agents of authority and intelligence, you could still
maintain peace and order. But burn you this Register's Office, and
before the last Lieber turn to ashes, ere the last flame of the
conflagration die out, you will have to call forth, not only your fire
squads, but your police force and even your soldiery, to extinguish
other fires different in nature, but more devouring--and as many of
them as there are boundary lines in the land."

And we now come to the gist of the matter.

"What wealth of moral truth," he continues, "do we find in these
greasy, musty pages. When one deeds a piece of property, he
deeds with it something more valuable, more enduring. He deeds
with it an undying human intelligence which goes down to
posterity, saying, Respect my will; believe in me; and convey
this respect and this belief to your offspring. Ay, the immortal
soul breathes in a deed as in a great book. And the implicit
trust we place in a musty parchment, is the mystic outcome of
the blind faith, or rather the far-seeing faith which our
ancestors had in the morality and intelligence of coming
generations. For what avails their deeds if they are not
respected?... We are indebted to our forbears, therefore, not
for the miserable piece of property they bequeath us, but for
the confidence and trust, the faith and hope they had in our
innate or immanent morality and intelligence. The will of the
dead is law for the living."

Are we then to look upon Khalid as having come out of that Office with
soiled fingers only? Or has the young philosopher abated in his
clerkship the intensity of his moral views? Has he not assisted his
employer in the legal game of quieting titles? Has he not acquired a
little of the delusive plausibilities of lawyers? Shakib throws no
light on these questions. We only know that the clerkship or rather
apprenticeship was only held for a season. Indeed, Khalid must have
recoiled from the practice. Or in his recklessness, not to say
obtrusion, he must have been outrageous enough to express in the
office of the honourable attorney, or in the neighbourhood thereof,
his views about pettifogging and such like, that the said honourabl