How Fine the Line – Sunday, October 21, 1956
Most of us at times make absent-minded or inattentive errors. We dial a wrong number or write a wrong date or put something in the wrong place or pass an intersection that we intended to turn on. Often the result is no more serious than a bit of embarrassment or a little loss of time.
But then sometimes we read of someone who has done essentially the same thing—only in a little different setting—perhaps pulled a wrong switch or touched a wrong wire, with tragic consequences. And it sobers us to think what could have happened to us if we had made one of our own errors under similar circumstances. Except for some very narrow escapes, perhaps any of us or all of us could be numbered with those whom we pity or with those whom we condemn. And we may never know how narrowly we may have missed the fate of someone who has had a terrible tragedy.
This thought is unforgettably expressed in the comment often quoted and commonly credited to John Bradford, Chaplain to Edward VI of sixteenth-century England. Seeing a condemned man marched off to his death, and knowing of the narrow margins by which men are often made and unmade, he exclaimed: “There, but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford.”1
Significantly, he himself later met a similar unfortunate fate. There is often only a very fine line between winning and losing. In a race the difference may be only the shaving of a second. In business, the difference may be only one wrong decision among a thousand right ones.
In a competitive event the difference may be only one point. In an accident, the difference may be only one small mechanical mishap or one small error of judgment. In so many things we do in life, there is an exceedingly fine line between safety and sorrow.
We ourselves may not see it at the moment. But often others see it and are frightened for us. And afterwards we are frightened for ourselves. This is one reason why parents are so often afraid for children, and why children are often not afraid for themselves.
Parents have the experience and perspective to see how fine the line can be between safety and sorrow, between success and failure. And the young should give respectful consideration to the precautions of parents and others of seasoned judgment—for the differences in cause may sometimes seem inconsequential, but the differences in result may be eternally great.
And we should have compassion for the man who has met misfortune, for the man who has made a mistake, for the man who narrowly missed being what he might have been—and should never forget that “there, but for the grace of God,” am 1. And the thought should help to keep us humble and prayerful and grateful and help to keep us holding hard and fast to the right side of every decision, and to the right side of every road. *
* Revised
1John Bradford, Works, Vol. 11,
October 21, 1956
Broadcast Number 1,418