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.