greater danger, which the learned might call "flaccidity" and the
simple--"flabbiness."

The great Liddon, always excellent in the aptness of his scriptural
allusions, once said with regard to a leader who had announced
that he would "set his face" against a certain policy and then
gave way, "Yes, the deer 'set his face,' but he did not 'set it
as a flint'--rather _as a pudding_."

To set one's face as a pudding is the characteristic action of all
weak Governments. Lord Randolph Churchill once attracted notice
by enouncing the homely truth that "the business of an Opposition
is to oppose." A truth even more primary is that the duty of a
Government is to govern; to set its face, not as a pudding, but as
a flint, against lawlessness and outrage; to protect the innocent
and to punish the wrong-doer.

This is a duty from which all weak Governments shrink. If a Minister
is not very sure of his position; if he is backed, not by a united
party, but by a haphazard coalition; if he is unduly anxious about
his own official future; if his eye is nervously fixed on the next
move of the jumping cat, he always fails to govern. He neither
protects the law-abiding citizen nor chastises the criminal and
the rebel. In this particular, there is no distinction of party.
Tories can show no better record than Whigs, nor Liberals than
Conservatives. It is a question of the governing temper, which is
as absolutely requisite to the character of the ruler as courage
to the soldier or incorruptibility to the Judge.

It used to be held, and perhaps still is held, by what may be styled