government. It is of the nature of evil to make its presence much
more keenly felt than the presence of good. So while keenly alive
to the drawbacks of presbytery, you are hardly conscious of its
advantages. You swing over, let us suppose, to the other end: you
swing over from Scotland into England, from presbytery to episcopacy.
For awhile you are quite delighted to find yourself free from the
little evils of which you had been wont to complain. But by and
bye the drawbacks of episcopacy begin to push themselves upon your
notice. You have escaped one set of disadvantages: you find that
you have got into the middle of another. Scylla no longer bellows
in your hearing; but Charybdis whirls you round. You begin to feel
that the country and the system yet remain to be sought, in which
some form of evil, of inconvenience, of worry, shall not press you.
Am I wrong in fancying, dear friends more than one or two, that
but for very shame the pendulum would swing back again to the point
from which it started: and you, kindly Scots, would find yourselves
more at home in kindly and homely Scotland, with her simple forms
and faith? So far as my experience has gone, I think that in all
matters not of vital moment, it is best that the pendulum should
stay at the end 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.