FROM BAR TO PULPIT.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 772, 22 March 1910, Page 4

FROM BAR TO PULPIT.

LAWYER'S REALISATION OF A , ? "LIFE-LONG AMBITION." After thirty-four years' prosperous practice as a barrister, Mr. •R. W. liurnie, the . well-known criminal law-, yer, lias forsaken his- old profession for the Church.- Ho is to be ordained in May, after an unusually short preparation specially sanctioned by the Bishop of London. .' : '.'■',_ : ■ Though he-renounces it, Sir.' Burnie; still; respects',and loves the 'lawyer's calling.' "Tho law is one of the noblest professions," he said to a representative of the London "Daily Mail," -'but there is one higher—tho Church. People often assert that it is immoral for a barrister to defend a criminal whom ho knows to be guilty. The accusation, ■is altogether.'.unfounded.' '.-■'..' . "In"' the English courts we .have prosecution, not persecution.' •In order that we may obtain justice it is essential that both sides: of a case should be ■ presented -as strongly as possible, and if a barrister allowed himself to be actuated '. by any personal prejudice against his client we should . indeed have persecution. To the barrister a prisoner is riot a human being; he : is a bundle of documents handed ■to the pleader, by a solicitor.". •■; . . ' Mr. Burnio's action is not the out-' come of any sudden-"resolve." "All my; life," he said, "this longing to enter the Church has lurked somewhere within me, growing stronger and stronger as the years have gone by.; At last? see the way before me.". :