RIGHT VERSUS EXPEDIENCY
During the unparalleled excitement caused by Wilkes’ outlawry in 1768, Lord Mansfield, on pronouncing the judgment of the King’s Bench reversing the outlawry, discoursed on the terrors held out against judges, and the attempts at intimidating them. He said: “I honor the king and respect the people, but many things acquired by the favor of either are in my account objects not worth ambition. I wish popularity; but it is that popularity which follows not that which is run after; it is that popularity which sooner or later never fails to do justice to the pursuit of noble ends by noble means. I will not do that which my conscience tells me is wrong upon this occasion to gain the huzzas of thousands, or the daily praise of all the papers which come from the press. I will not avoid doing what I think is right tho it should draw on me the whole artillery of libels—all that falsehood and malice can invent, or the credulity of a deluded populace can swallow.” (Text.)—Croake James, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”
(2785)
Righteousness—See [Convictions, Strong].
Rights Preferred to Privilege—See [Politeness].
RISK
It is better to go down on the great seas which human hearts were made to sail than to rot at the wharves in ignoble anchorage.—Hamilton W. Mabie.
(2786)
RISK SHIFTED
A young lady, in giving her reasons for preferring a particular church, remarked that she “liked it best because it allowed its members to dance.” She had been brought up to regard this as inconsistent for a professor of religion. She could not help feeling that it was running a risk to try to get to heaven and carry the world with her. But here was comfort. She had found a religious guide on which she could, as she fancied, shift off the responsibility. Instead of deciding for herself, in the light of Christ’s teachings, she chose to take a second-hand opinion of a mere man as a rule.