of the swing where it first found itself:  it will be in no more stable position at the other end:  and it will somehow feel stranger-like there.  And you, my friend, though in your visits to Anglican territory you heartily conform to the Anglican Church, and enjoy as much as mortal san her noble cathedrals and her stately worship; still I know that after all, you cannot shake off the spell in which the old remembrances of your boyhood have bound you.  I know that your heart warms to the Burning Bush; [Footnote:  The scutcheon of the Church of Scotland.] and that it will, till death chills it.

A noteworthy fact in regard to the swing of the pendulum, is that the secondary tendency is sometimes found in the ruder state of society, and the less reflective man.  Naturalness comes last.  The pendulum started from naturalness:  it swung over into artificiality:  and with thoughtful people it has swung back to naturalness again.  Thus it is natural, when in danger, to be afraid.  It is natural, when you are possessed by any strong feeling, to show it.  You see all this in children:  this is the point which the pendulum starts from.  It swings over, and we find a reaction from this.  The reaction is, to maintain and exhibit perfect coolness and indifference in danger; to pretend to be incapable of fear.  This state of things we find in the Red Indian, a rude and uncivilized being.  But it is plain that with people who are able to think, there must be a reaction from this.  The pendulum cannot long stay in a position which flies so completely in the face of the law of gravitation.  It is pure nonsense to talk about being incapable of fear.  I remember reading somewhere about Queen Elizabeth, that ’her soul was incapable of fear.’  That statement is false and absurd.  You may regard fear as unmanly and unworthy:  you may repress the manifestations of it; but the state of mind which (in beings not properly monstrous or defective) follows the perception of being in danger, is fear.  As surely as the perception of light is sight, so surely is the perception of danger fear.  And for a man to say that his soul is incapable of fear, is just as absurd as to say that from a peculiarity of constitution, when dipped in water, he does not get wet.  You, human being, whoever you may be, when you are placed in danger, and know you are placed in danger, and reflect on the fact, you feel afraid.  Don’t vapour and say no; we know how the mental machine must work, unless it be diseased.  Now, the thoughtful man admits all this:  he admits that a bullet through his brain would be a very serious thing for himself, and like-wise for his wife and children:  he admits that he shrinks from such a prospect; he will take pains to protect himself from the risk; but he says that if duty requires him to run the risk he will run it.  This is the courage of the civilized man as opposed to the blind, bull-dog insensibility of the savage.  This is courage—­to know the existence of danger, but to face it nevertheless.