You know, of course, how the pendulum of public opinion swings backwards and forwards.  The truth lies somewhere about the middle of the arc it describes, in most cases.  You know how the popularity of political men oscillates, from A, the point of greatest popularity, to B, the point of no popularity at all.  Think of Lord Brougham.  Once the pendulum swung far to the right:  he was the most popular man in Britain.  Then, for many years, the pendulum swung far to the left, into the cold regions of unpopularity, loss of influence, and opposition benches.  And now, in his last days, the pendulum has come over to the right again.  So with lesser men.  When the new clergyman comes to a country parish, how high his estimation!  Never was there preacher so impressive, pastor so diligent, man so frank and agreeable.  By and bye his sermons are middling, his diligence middling; his manners rather stiff or rather too easy.  In a year or two the pendulum rests at its proper point:  and from that time onward the parson gets, in most cases, very nearly the credit he deserves.  The like oscillation of public opinion and feeling exists in the case of unfavourable as of favourable judgments.  A man commits a great crime.  His guilt is thought awful.  There is a general outcry for his condign punishment.  He is sentenced to be hanged.  In a few days the tide begins to turn.  His crime was not so great.  He had met great provocation.  His education had been neglected.  He deserves pity rather than reprobation.  Petitions are got up that he should be let off; and largely signed by the self-same folk who were loudest in the outcry against him.  And instead of this fact, that those folk were the keenest against the criminal, being received (as it ought) as proof that their opinion is worth nothing at all, many will receive it as proof that their opinion is entitled to special consideration.  The principle of the pendulum in the matter of criminals is well understood by the Old Bailey practitioners of New York and their worthy clients.  When a New Yorker is sentenced to be hanged, he remains as a cool as cucumber; for the New York law is, that a year must pass between the sentence and the execution.  And long before the year passes, the public sympathy has turned in the criminal’s favour.  Endless petitions go up for his pardon.  Of course he gets off.  And indeed it is not improbable that he may receive a public testimonial.  It cannot be denied that the natural transition in the popular feeling is from applauding a man to hanging him, and from hanging a man to applauding him.

Even so does the pendulum swing, and the world run away!

CHAPTER IV.

Concerning churchyards.