Err on the safe side. - Glenn Conjurske

Err on the safe side.

This, if not a proverb as such, is at any rate a proverbial expression, and there is no proverb so calculated to teach us our own ignorance as this one. In the first place, the very fact that we must contemplate the necessity of erring at all teaches us how little wisdom we have. And yet the fact that this expression is so widely used—-and certainly not by fools, but by wise men—-indicates how little of wisdom the wisest of us actually have. The expression is applied to those many situations in which we are called to act, but cannot tell exactly what we ought to do. We do not see our way clearly. We are not omniscient. We cannot see all the factors. We cannot tell what all the consequences will be. We feel the fact that if we act at all we are likely to err, yet act we must.

Here stands a man upon trial for some crime. We must judge whether he is innocent or guilty, but we are not omniscient. It is quite possible we may err in our verdict. If so, let us err on the safe side. And here it is plain which is the safe side. It is better to let a hundred guilty men go free than to punish one who is innocent. We are well aware that to leave the guilty unpunished in general will encourage crime, but the failure of justice in a few cases here and there will have little effect in that direction. Many of the guilty go free anyway, simply because they are never caught. If we fail to convict a guilty man, men may be encouraged to continue in crime, but he will likely be caught and convicted another time. He is probably already guilty of many crimes for which he has never been caught. To let him off once more, for lack of evidence, will not seriously alter his state. On the other hand, to punish the innocent is such a moral outrage that it is to be avoided at all cost. If we therefore stand in doubt, the safe side is to let the man go free. We do little damage by letting one more offender off for one more crime, whereas to punish one innocent man does great damage, not only to the man himself, and to his family and friends, but to the whole judicial system. The law (in this land, at any rate) therefore holds a man innocent until he is proven guilty. This is to err on the safe side. This is sometimes unavoidable, and when we must err, it is our wisdom to err on the safe side. In all our dealings, it is better to err on the side of love and mercy. I have often done so, and though my more mature judgement convicts me that I have erred, yet my conscience acquits me of any ill intent, for it was the safe side on which I erred. It is more honorable to be harmless as doves, than to be wise as serpents.

But sometimes we lack the wisdom even to tell which side is the safe one. Two men approach the same difficulty, both determined to err on the safe side, and yet they choose courses directly the reverse of each other. Is the safe side to go a little too far, or not quite far enough? Is the safe side to be too strict with our children, or not strict enough? Is it safer to spank the child too much, or too little? Is it safer to praise him too much, and risk puffing him up, or too little, and perhaps discourage him? There may be a middle path of truth, but we are not always competent to find it.

We may lack the skill always to cut between the fat and the meat. We determine therefore to err on the safe side. But which is the safe side? Shall we throw away a little meat, rather than eat a little fat, or eat a little fat rather than throw away a little meat?

Where conscience calls on one side, and only advantage on the other, it is easy to say which side is the safe one. But sometimes conscience calls on both sides. Many a poor preacher has been obliged to choose between continuing in the ministry, or working to support his family. Conscience calls on both sides, and how is he to say which side is the safe one? Very necessity, we suppose, must determine the matter. True, he may do both, but one or both must necessarily be curtailed, and it is hard to say how far he may safely curtail either one.

What poor, weak, failing creatures all of us are. How little do the best of us know. And yet the church is full of men who count themselves passing wise because they know a little theology—-and that more often than not mistaken. Let them learn how to live and act and do good and succeed and prosper, and we shall count them wise. Meanwhile, let them deeply contemplate the proverb before us, and learn how little they know.

Glenn Conjurske

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