They call what
they have done an error of judgment, and rest content in the belief that
their intentions were good, and therefore they are not to blame. This
may be true, for "to err is human," and none but the All-wise can be
sure of always judging rightly. Still, when we know that we have done
wrong through an error of judgment, we should carefully examine and see
if we might not have avoided this mistake had we been more careful
in our investigation of facts,--more conscientious in our process of
adopting our opinions. If we thus catechized our past errors, we should
probably find, that, in a large proportion of cases, our error sprang
from some cause we might have prevented,--from carelessness, from
blindness caused by the desire to gratify our own wishes, or from
indolence; in fact, that what we fancied sprang from an error of
judgment only, had a much deeper root, and drew its nourishment from
undisciplined Affections.
In training the faculty of discrimination, the work we must set before
ourselves is to learn the relative value of principles, of persons, and
of things; and in order to do this, we must look upon them in their
relations with time and with eternity. We must learn to value and to
judge from laws of absolute right, and not from the expediencies of the
hour.
Protestants quote with horror the Romish maxim, that, "for a just
cause, it is lawful to confirm equivocation with an oath," yet the
same principle lurks within their own bosoms, inciting many a
well-intentioned soul to "do evil that good may come of it.
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