"Providential" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... under no obligation to fight for the deliverance of other nations. They feared, too, that, if the war should go on, his "Muscovite hoof" would be too strong for the Fatherland to bear it; and they saw in his death a Providential incident, which encouraged them to move against the French. It is altogether probable, that, if he had lived but three months longer, events would have taken quite a different turn. Baron von Mueffling tells us that Kutusoff "would not hear a word of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... cause was just against Pompey, but not against his country, whose constitution ought to have been sacred to him, and never to have been violated on the account of any private wrong. But he prevailed, and Heaven declaring for him, he became a providential monarch under the title of Perpetual Dictator. He being murdered by his own son (whom I neither dare commend nor can justly blame, though Dante in his "Inferno" has put him and Cassius, and Judas Iscariot betwixt them, into the great ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... famous foundations have never sent forth a man better fitted to render services to his country. In a small sphere, as curate of Windsor, he had already, by his energy, patience, and practical sagacity, achieved remarkable results; and it was providential that, in the strength of early manhood, he was selected for a responsible post which afforded scope for the exercise of his powers. In the old country he might have been hampered by routine and tradition; in a ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... approach of our spiritual enemy, and which is sufficiently congenial and level with our nature to maintain as firm a hold upon us as the inducements of sensual gratification. It will be our wisdom to employ nature against itself. Thus sorrow, sickness, and care are providential antagonists to our inward disorders; they come upon us as years pass on, and generally produce their natural effects on us, in proportion as we are subjected to their influence. These, however, are God's instruments, ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... that, in the material and unconscious world, He works by its materiality and unconsciousness, not against them; in the animal world, by its animality and partial consciousness, not against them. So in the providential government of the world, He acts by regular and universal laws, and constant modes of operation; and so takes care of human things without violating their constitution, acting always according to the human nature of man, not against if, working in the human world by means of man's consciousness ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... rather a providential thing to have happened, I think. The telephone was ringing as I opened the door, and Mrs. Parker Bowman, to whose house I was invited, was asking for my sister to fill the place of an absent guest. My sister is away, and I tried to ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... carrying on alone its noble work, an institution of which Boston, Massachusetts and America may well be proud. From the first its invitation has been without limitation. It began with a firm belief that "what it is in the nature of a man or woman to become, is a Providential indication of what God wants it to become, by improvement and development," and it offered to men and women alike the same advantages, the same labor, and the same honor. It is working out for itself the problem of co-education, and it has never had occasion to take one backward step in the ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 • Various
... different sort were called into play in negotiating the purchase of machine-guns from Messrs. Vickers & Co., at Woolwich. Here a strong American accent, combined with the providential circumstance that Mexico happened to be in the grip of revolutionary civil war, overcame all difficulties, and Mr. John Washington Graham, U.S.A. (otherwise Fred H. Crawford of Belfast) played his part so effectively that he did not fail to finish ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... has offered to give evidence that, in his opinion, Penreath is not responsible for his actions. The Penreath family is under a debt of gratitude to Sir Henry. I consider it little short of providential that Sir Henry was staying here at the time." Like most lawyers, Mr. Oakham had a firm belief in the interposition of Providence—particularly in the affairs of the families of the great. "And that is the reason for my coming over here to see you this morning, Mr. Colwyn. You were present at ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... preaching, remonstrating? Had he discovered in himself a capacity and a taste for that sort of thing? Or was he perhaps, in an intense dislike for the job, beating about the bush and only puzzling Captain Anthony, the providential man, who, if he expected the girl to appear at any moment, must have been on tenterhooks all the time, and beside himself with impatience to see the back of his brother-in-law. How was it that he had not got rid of Fyne long ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... semisuicide was unconscious of any pain)—thereafter his neck was quickly strapped with diaculum plaister,—and to this day a slight scar may be found on the left side of a silvery beard! Was not this a providential escape? Again—a lively little urchin in his holiday recklessness ran his head pell-mell blindly against a certain cannon post in Swallow Passage, leading from Princes Street, Hanover Square, to Oxford Street, and was so damaged as to have been carried home insensible to Burlington Street: a little ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... "It was really providential," Molly told her mother one day at lunch, after having seen for the second time the parents of Dagmar Brodix, "for the family had to leave Pennsylvania, and it would have been very hard for them ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... who has spent his primal strength in journeying in one direction has not much spirit left for reversing his course. Troy had, since yesterday, faintly reversed his; but the merest opposition had disheartened him. To turn about would have been hard enough under the greatest providential encouragement; but to find that Providence, far from helping him into a new course, or showing any wish that he might adopt one, actually jeered his first trembling and critical attempt in that kind, was more than nature ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... learnt that my providential fall had brought me exactly to the extremity of an almost perpendicular shaft; and as I had landed in the midst of an accompanying torrent of stones, the least of which would have been enough to crush me, the ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... It seemed providential then that on dropping into the basement eating place at which he had begun to take his breakfasts he should fall in with Gorry Larrabin. They were not friends, or rather they were better than friends; they were ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... attending his conversion; and indeed there was something so peculiar in them, that I do not wonder he was always cautious in speaking of them, and especially that he was at first much on the reserve. We may also naturally reflect that there seems to have been something very providential in this letter, considering the debate in which our illustrious convert was so soon engaged; for it was written but about three weeks before his conference with the lady above mentioned in the defence of ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... which seem most repulsive. The worship of force, which is so apparent in many of his writings, is a striking example. He was often accused of teaching that might is right. He always answered that he had not done so—that what he taught was that right is might; that by the providential constitution of the Universe truth in the long run is sure to be stronger than falsehood; that good will prevail over evil, and that right and might, though they differ widely in short periods of time, ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... her poor little imagination is dazzled. It is providential that she has four years to wait! Unless, indeed, there is a reaction, and she marries either a broken-down ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... what a narrow and providential escape! And now to discover whether the pirates had seen them. Jake climbed up to his former coign of vantage, and as soon as he clapped his eye to the peep-hole he held up his hand in warning. Roger shuddered. "After all," thought he, "after ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... overthrown by a wild boar. Dante is among their number. "He," said he, "who was seen near the Seine falsifying the coin of the realm shall die by the tusk of a boar." But Guillaume de Nangis makes the royal counterfeiter die of a death quite otherwise providential. ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... in recognizing in the neighbors whom she menaces, in the subjects whom she oppresses, these providential devils whose mischief will stimulate her ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... having, within their respective territories, sole charge of the particular relations and interests of the American people; but I do not accept his concession that this division is of conventional origin, and maintain that it enters into the original Providential constitution of the American state, as I have done in my Review for October, 1863, and ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... will find out what I cannot—how far he is a man for whom one ought to care. I do not think Norman liked him, but then Norman has so keen a sense of the world-touched. I suppose I am that! If any other life did but seem appointed for me, but one cannot tell what is thwarting providential leading, and if this be as good a man as— What would Ethel say? If I could but talk to Dr. May! But Flora I will catch, before I see him again, that I may ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... boy, just as the poor little screaming urchin's coat was set on fire by a log. Esmond, rushing forward, tore the dress off, so that his own hands were burned more than the little boy's, who was frightened rather than hurt by the accident. As my lord was sleeping heavily, it certainly was providential that a resolute person should have come in at that instant, or the child would have been ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... colloquy was renewed. The delay, which had at first been a source of annoyance to the ministers, was now recognized by them as a providential interference in their behalf. What they had only surmised, they now learned with certainty from trustworthy friends. Their hesitation to sign the Augsburg Confession was to be used as a convenient handle for breaking up the conference; their refusal, for involving ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... our Saviour asserted. At any rate, we shall never understand Borrow if we exclude from our notion of religion the idea of the miraculous, meaning by that word not the contravention of natural law, but the providential guidance ...
— George Borrow - A Sermon Preached in Norwich Cathedral on July 6, 1913 • Henry Charles Beeching
... we loitered in the alley, and arrived a moment later at the central house of Kendrick Row, there is no doubt that they would have been there to await my arrival, nor could Mr. Burress have saved me from their clutches—the whole thing seemed especially providential; but, as the efficient medium of such mercy, Napoleon B. Burress did, indeed, seem to all present crowned with a perfect nimbus of glory. Dr. Pemberton led him back to my presence with his arm encircling his shoulder; Captain Wentworth shook his hand mutely but long, with his eyes dimmed with tears, ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... friendly shadow, toward the other side of the citadel, and arrived just as the guard approached to relieve the sentinels of the northern postern. He laid himself close to the ground, and happily overheard the word of the night, as it was given to the new watch. This providential circumstances saved ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... Now with your help I think we can do something, Professor. Good. This is providential. We shall be able to embarrass them now! ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... India, who have striven to do their duty by the people of this country, and done it to the satisfaction of the people and of their Gracious Sovereign. The interests of India and England are identical, and the Hindus of the Punjab regard British Rule as a Providential gift to this country—an agency sent to raise the people in the scale of civilization. Anything that is done to guarantee the continuance of the present profoundly peaceful condition of the country is highly appreciated by us, and we are, therefore, all the more grateful to ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... They fell to work to cut it up; yet exerted a remarkable self-denial for men in their starving condition, for they contented themselves for the present with a soup made from the bones, reserving the flesh for future repasts. This providential relief gave them strength to pursue their journey, but they were frequently reduced to almost equal straits, and it was only the smallness of their party, requiring a small supply of provisions, that enabled them to get through this desolate ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... Ujiji. Dangerous journey through forest. The Manyuema understand Livingstone's kindness. Zanzibar slaves. Kasongo's. Stalactite caves. Consequences of eating parrots. Ill. Attacked in the forest. Providential deliverance. Another extraordinary escape. Taken for Mohamad Bogharib. Running the gauntlet for five hours. Loss of property. Reaches place of safety. Ill. Mamohela. To the Luamo. Severe disappointment. Recovers. Severe ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... way, just beyond the line of floe-ice against which they were alternately thumping and grinding, lay a group of bergs. There was no possibility of avoiding them, and the only question was, whether they were to be dashed to pieces on their hard blue sides, or, perchance, in some providential nook to find a refuge from ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... save the American's reputation. Often have I seen incredulity steal over the faces of a well-bred company in England at some statement from an American of a fact in itself commonplace enough, when no such providential corroboration was forthcoming. ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... dramatic purposes, far inferior to Shakspere's; but it was a great matter for Shakspere that Marlowe preceded him, and helped to prepare to his hand the tools and fashions he needed. The provision of blank verse for Shakspere's use seems to us worthy of being called providential, even in a system in which we cannot believe that there is any chance. For as the stage itself is elevated a few feet above the ordinary level, because it is the scene of a representation, just so the speech of the drama, dealing not with unreal but with ideal persons, ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... the statement that he could not have believed that "such a state of things was possible." The Dundalk marchers to freedom (to the number of twenty) were not precisely the pick of the local respectability, and my escape must be regarded as providential. As to their outpourings of abuse, my philosophy resembles that of the old whipper-in of the Meynell-Ingram Hounds:—"I bain't a cruel chap, I bain't. But when I puts the lash among the hounds I dew like to hear 'em yowl; I dew like to see 'em skip, and writhe, ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... applied to himself. He told me that, as I had come after the hour of the second meal, the frere cuisinier was not in the kitchen, but at salve; consequently there was no possibility of getting even an omelet made for me. After looking, however, into all the corners of the kitchen, my providential man had discovered some cold macaroni, which he presented to me in a small tin plate. I do not know how it had been cooked, but its very dark colour made me suspicious of it. Although I knew it was quite wholesome, I thought it safer to leave it untouched, ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... glad you like each other, Mrs. Searle! Do you know, that whole affair has always seemed providential to me? I was a passive instrument in wiser hands." "As we all are, more often than we think—-well, good- by, and when you long for a sight of the old home, and the sea, you will always ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... installed himself in the only vacant room in the Murphy house, having read the black and white card in the parlor window, which proclaimed "Furnished Rooms and Table Board," and regarding it as a providential opportunity for him to ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... and refreshment in the tumbling waves. This noon, in the height of a tremendous thunder storm, I bumped against his burly figure in the roaring crest, and, after the first shock had passed, determined to utilize the providential coincidence. The water was warm, our clothes were in the bathing houses, and comfort was more certain where we were than anywhere else. The Colonel is an expert swimmer and as a floater he cannot be beaten. He was ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... regeneration of the race, in its ultimate perfectibility, the synthesis of humanity, the providential idea, and the path of the future; he therefore puts on a shovel hat, cries out against lust, and ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... branches, which, I believe, is the death of a third of the women in America. What is there ever read of in books, or described in foreign travel, as attained by people in possession of every means and appliance, which our women will not undertake, single-handed, in spite of every providential indication to the contrary? Who is not cognizant of dinner parties invited, in which the lady of the house has figured successively as confectioner, cook, dining-room girl, and, lastly, rushed up stairs to bathe her glowing cheeks, smooth her hair, draw on satin ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... McClernand sending to me for artillery, I detached to him the three guns of Wood's battery, with which he speedily drove them back, and, seeing some others to the rear, I sent one of my staff to bring them forward, when, by almost providential decree, they proved to be two twenty-four pound howitzers belonging to McAlister's battery, and served as well as ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... took with him the leather bag, which contained his money and valuable papers; but I had thought nothing of the circumstance at the time, for it seemed to me quite natural that he should be very careful of an article of so much value. If that providential puff of air had not enabled me to throw the Marian alongside his yacht, I am satisfied, in the light of subsequent events, that he would have made an attempt to elude me. He could have gone on shore in the tender, lived in the woods, or at ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... This success was providential. They next invited English exiles abroad to join them at Frankfort, saying nothing about their mutilations of the service book. If these brethren came in, when they were all restored to England, if ever they were restored, their example, that of sufferers, ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... In a moment she had brought water in her cupped hands from that providential spring, had found his pocket-knife, ripped up his trousers-leg, and bandaged the wound as coolly as Jemima herself might have done it, though the sight of the blood nauseated her. She bathed his face with a wet handkerchief, but his eyelids merely fluttered once and were still again. In a panic ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... dangled this 'Scientific Fox' brush, 'Nucleated Protoplasm, the structural unit!' But how or whence sprang the laws of 'Protein'? Hatred of certain phrases is more bitter than of the principles they express, and because theologians cling to the words God,' Creative Acts, Divine Wisdom, Providential Adaptation, scientists declare them the dicta of ignorance, superstition, and tradition, and demand that we shall bow before their superior wisdom, and substitute such terms as 'Biogenesis,' 'Abiogenesis,' and 'Xenogenesis.' But where is the economy of credulity? The problems are only crowded ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... water-power is inexhaustible, its means of communication must ever be among the worst), and seems to have been created mainly as a barrier against that guilty ambition which impels rulers and chieftains to covet and invade territories which reject and resist their sway. Alas that the Providential design, though so palpable, should be so often disregarded! Doubtless, the lives lost from age to age by mere hardship, privation and exposure, during the passage of invading armies through Savoy, would outnumber the whole ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... letter of 24th gives me some relief in my rather distressed condition. I try my best to carry, without much complaining and in a practical way, for my poor soul's sanctification, the long-foreseen miseries of the disease, which, after all, is a providential agent to detach the heart from all earthly affection, and prompts much the desire of a Christian soul to be united—the sooner the better—with Him who is her ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... the advocate, "is, therefore, to manage in a way to escape them; and this is how I understand the role of this really providential witness, if it is possible to make her undertake it. Since it has occurred to you—you who wish the acquittal of this poor boy—that the testimony of Madame Dammauville may be vitiated by the simple fact that it comes from a sick woman, it is incontestable, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... lately betrothed in a parlor-car, and the dialogue that ensues ends in reconciliation and renewal of vows. They are alone, except when the porter enters from time to time, and a providential detention on the road prolongs the interview.—W. D. Howells, The Parlor ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... mine by bellam through the multitudinous creeks of Basra a remarkable thing happened. Under the circumstances it was a providential happening. ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... excited hearers, he told the remarkable tale, from the killing of El Feroz and the death of the old miner to their own startling arrest for murder in the streets of Sacramento City and narrow rescue from the hangman's rope by the providential coming of Hammer Jones and ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... be learned ere long by the discipline of more than one stern lesson. Hitherto a marvellous—call it a Providential—good fortune had attended the first aerial travellers; and even when mishaps presently came to be reckoned with, it may fairly be questioned whether so many lives were sacrificed among those who sought to voyage through the sky as were ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... I was favourably inclined to his proposal, so I need not repeat all that. As regards your means, although they would have been quite insufficient to avert the ruin which threatened us, still you have, I believe, a competence, and owing to your wonderful and most providential discovery the fear of ruin seems to have passed away. It is owing to you that this discovery, which by the way I want to hear all about, has been made; had it not been for you it never would have been made at all, and therefore I certainly have no right ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... for the neglect of his education. These symptoms, and the tractable disposition accompanying them, caused Mary and Roughgrove to rejoice over the return of the long-lost youth, and to bow in humble thankfulness to the Disposer of events for the singular and providential circumstances attending ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... "Which is providential," said the children's mother thankfully. "It's an alibi. They can't get any till tomorrow, no matter how much we want ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... by the exigencies of the duties; she may be compelled to leave Annapolis at almost any time, and if she is, your friend Polly will be obliged to leave also. Why, little one, it seems to me quite providential that you should have met your aunt in New London and that she will visit you here," and good Dr. Llewellyn stroked with gentle touch the pretty brown hair resting against his shoulder, and looked smilingly down upon ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... have made a more gallant defense against Masinissa, and concentrated all her energies for a last stand upon her own territories. But why should we thus speculate? The doom of Carthage had been pronounced by the decrees of fate. The fall has all the mystery and solemnity of a providential event, like the fall of all empires, like the defeat of Darius by Alexander, like the ruin of Jerusalem, like the melting away of North American Indians, like the final overthrow of the ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... receding town, so disturbed by the governor's order. Michael had as yet said nothing to the girl, he had not even questioned her. He waited until she should speak to him, when that was necessary. She had been anxious to leave that town, in which, but for the providential intervention of this unexpected protector, she would have remained imprisoned. She said nothing, but her looks ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... daughter; how in spite of this distance between them, and of her infidelity, her daughter had continued to love the girl—to Mrs. Churton it was plain that she loved her—and to hunger for her love in return. It was all providential and ordered ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... Glenarvan, "there is something so providential in the whole affair, that we have every reason to hope. We are not going, we are led; we are not searching, we are guided. And then see all the brave men that have enlisted in the service of the good cause. We shall not only succeed in our enterprise, ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... an answer. "The Prince says I've got to look after you. Naturally he can't see you now, but he thinks your coming's providential. Last grace of ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... accident, this delay, might it not be providential? Must he always be striving against fate? against every circumstance that would tend to relieve him? against every obstacle thrown into his path to prevent him from bringing calamity on his own head? Must he?—but the query went no further. The angel with the flaming sword came back ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... not been many hours in town before a position was offered to H. which seemed providential. The chief of a certain department was in ill health and wanted a deputy. It secures him from conscription, requires no oath, and pays a good salary. A mountain seemed lifted off ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... laid ten eggs, and hatched chickens from them; from this little brood we raised a stock, and soon supplied all our neighbours with fowls. We prize the breed, not only on account of its fine size, but from the singular, and, as we thought, providential, manner in which we ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... of this harbour of refuge is one of God's many providential dealings with this Mission. It is defended from the storms and heavy rolling swell of the Pacific Ocean by large and lofty islands, forming a breakwater across its entrance, extending as far out to sea ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock
... than to the emperor. Peace was hateful to Aurelian; and he sought for war, where it could seldom be sought in vain, upon the Persian frontier. But he was not destined to reach the Euphrates; and it is worthy of notice, as a providential ordinance, that his own unmerciful nature was the ultimate cause of his fate. Anticipating the emperor's severity in punishing some errors of his own, Mucassor, a general officer in whom Aurelian placed especial confidence, ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... him and begin to grunt and dream of the chase—all that is an utter mystery, utterly unconsidered. Such experience has variety, scenery, and a certain vital rhythm; its story might be told in dithyrambic verse. It moves wholly by inspiration; every event is providential, every act unpremeditated. Absolute freedom and absolute helplessness have met together: you depend wholly on divine favour, yet that unfathomable agency is not distinguishable from your own life. ...[But] the figures ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... course of the wind. Indeed, even those acts of men that are the results of deliberation and well-directed policy, and that are consistent with considerations of propriety, are baffled by the dispensations of Providence. Then, again, Providential dispensations, such as heat and cold and rain and hunger and thirst, that are not the consequences of human acts, may be baffled by human exertion. Then again, besides those acts which a person is pre-ordained (as the result of the act of past lives) to go through, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... of his tender and sorrowful nature. It was the death of his son Willie, a bright and promising boy, to whom his father was devotedly attached. "This," says Dr. J.G. Holland, "was a new burden; and the visitation which, in his firm faith in Providence, he regarded as providential, was also inexplicable. Why should he, with so many burdens upon him, and with such necessity for solace in his home and his affections, be brought into so tender a trial? It was to him a trial of faith, indeed. A Christian lady of Massachusetts, who was officiating as nurse in one of the hospitals, ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... practises what is so like idolatry, and the English Church makes much of what is so very like schism, that without deciding what is the duty of a Roman Catholic towards the Church of England in her present state, we do seriously think that members of the English Church have a providential direction given them, how to comport themselves towards the Church of Rome, while she ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... army. He was further aware that Agesilaus had commenced his advance and was already at Pellene. (4) Accordingly he passed the word of command (5) to his troops to take their evening meal, put himself at their head and advanced straight upon Sparta. Had it not been for the arrival (by some providential chance) of a Cretan, who brought the news to Agesilaus of the enemy's advance, he would have captured the city of Sparta like a nest of young birds absolutely bereft of its natural defenders. As it was, Agesilaus, being forewarned, had time to return to the city before the Thebans came, ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... is quite providential, as I have long been wishing for an interview. Please be seated, for I have certain things to say which relate to your spiritual and temporal well-being, although the latter is ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... been so magnificently vindicated as during the last forty years of our national career. During that period the free portion of this Union has grown to an overwhelming superiority over the slave portion, and compelled the slaveholders to draw the sword to save themselves from material and providential destruction. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... in August. He promptly organized a force of Royal {36} Engineers and marines and set out for the scene of the disorders. Royal Engineers to the number of a hundred and fifty-six and their families had come out from England for the boundary survey; and their presence must have seemed providential to Douglas, now that the miners were forming vigilance committees of their own and the Indians were on the war-path. He went up the river in a small cruiser and reached Hope on the 1st of September. Salutes were fired as ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut
... French party. I wish very much to know what effect this series of good news will have at home. I congratulate you as well as all other good people on the providential events which have lately happened; they must produce great changes with us; I hope it ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... It was providential for him that he had this faithful and devoted nurse by his side. Only her earnest and incessant care saved him to join the war again. Day and night she was beside him, and when erysipelas attacked his wounded arm and ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... inspiration comes a higher one. The man is taught to say, I must not punish my enemy if I can avoid it. God must punish him, either by the law of the land or by his providential judgments. To this height David rises. In a seemingly lawless age and country, under the most extreme temptation, he learns to say, 'Blessed be God who hath kept me from avenging ...
— David • Charles Kingsley
... but we do not so readily comprehend how such persons as Napoleon and Talleyrand should have embraced a delusion which was utterly irreconcilable with their skeptical natures, and which necessarily presupposed an immaterial state of existence, and the providential superintendence of human affairs by a benevolent order of beings, whose powers must have been deputed to them by a superior and over-ruling Intelligence. It was the part of an ancient Roman, like Augustus, to believe in portents and omens, however insignificant; it might even require some philosophy ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... no; cost nothin'! Why, it's actually what you might call providential the way things turns out. You can go down, slick as a log through a chute, in the Nancy Bell, of Bangor, which is fitting out in that port this blessed minit. She's bound to Pensacola in ballast, ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... home the poor little creature could never be but a question; and since he has this craze for salt water—curious he should resemble his uncle in this rather than his father—one may almost call it providential. . . . At the same time, my dear, I wish you could have shown ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... look back upon the providential series of events which prepared this continent for the experiment of Democracy,—when we think of those forefathers for whom our mother England shed down from her august breasts the nutriment of ordered liberty, not unmixed with her best blood in the day of her trial,—when we remember the first ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... has all been so sudden that I had no opportunity," said Julia gently. "But it did not seem likely that you would object, for you suggested yourself that I rent the house, and you said you did not want me to stay here alone. This seemed quite providential." ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... regard to his dealings with the firm, by the assertion that he had only two months previous closed out his account owing to the conviction that prudent investors were getting under cover. This assurance gave the episode a still more providential aspect in Selma's eyes. In the first flush of her gratitude that Flossy had been superbly rebuked for her frivolous existence, she had forgotten that they were her husband's brokers. Moreover the lack of perturbation in his manner was not calculated to inspire alarm. But the news that ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... fingers as though he fancied his emotions made them unstable. "I should of course," he said, "tell you things about myself. I know it is rather unusual my speaking to you like this. Only our meeting has been so accidental—or providential—and I am snatching at things. I came to Rome expecting a lonely tour ... and I have been so very happy, so very happy. Quite recently I have found myself in a position—I ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... your friend Anthony with an 'H,'" Cleopatra broke in. "He seemed providential. And he speaks English. The only objection is, he's not as good-looking as Monny and I wanted our dragoman to be. We did hope to get one who would be becoming to us, you see, and give the right sort of Eastern background. But I suppose one can't have everything! And it was I who said ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... and Hanne Wortabet were placed by their parents in our family school. We afterwards added to the number Melita Carabet, and the two orphan girls Sada and Rufka Gregory. These two were brought to us in a very providential way. They were the children of Yakob Gregory, a respectable Armenian well ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... has failed to notice several small coincidences in their lives, of what might almost be called a providential kind. ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... West in close contact with each other; and the Pony Express was the fulfillment of such a plan, for it made a close cooperation between the California loyalists and the Federal Government possible until after the crisis did pass. Yet, strange as it may seem, this providential enterprise was not brought into existence nor even materially aided by the Government. It was organized and operated by a private corporation after having been encouraged in its inception by a United States Senator who later ...
— The Story of the Pony Express • Glenn D. Bradley
... That providential stone or tree-root, or whatever it may have been, proved a genuine blessing in disguise to Ste. Marie. It gave him a splitting headache for a few hours, but it saved him a good deal of discomfort the while ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... morning that the consul revealed the proposal which for several days he had guarded in his thoughts, afraid to express it. Why not love each other? Why not be sweethearts? There was something providential about the way the two had met; they should not fail to take advantage of the fate which had brought them together. To have become acquainted! To have met, despite the difference of countries and ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the first time, that my providential fall had brought me to the bottom of an almost perpendicular gallery. As I came down, amidst a perfect shower of stones, the least of which falling on me would have crushed me to death, they came to the conclusion that I had carried with me an entire dislocated rock. Riding as it were on ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... Mrs. Vertrees was perplexed by this informal appearance, but she reflected that it might be providential. "Won't you come in?" ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... I've been ready to go anywhere for six months. The fact is, Henry, that I'm about tired of trying to force myself into things, and am quite willing to try floating with the stream for a while, and see where I will land. This seems like a providential call; ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... ignorance toward the light of righteousness and love, until his kingdom come, until his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. To believe in God and in this divine education, and to make co-operation with his providential guidance of the race a life-aim is to have an ideal which is not only the highest, but which also blends all other true ideals into harmony. And the lovers of culture should be the first to perceive that intellectual good is empty, ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... had an excellent effect upon every body here. I must beg you to read that psalm. If there is any faith in the sortes Virgilianae, or sortes Homericae, or especially the sortes Biblicae, it would be thought providential.' ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... grown up to be a care to one who had trusted that his calling would be a shield from worldly concerns; but he accepted it as providential, and as a trust imposed on him as certainly as Felix had felt the ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a word escaped their lips; but they pondered that new revelation of the providential mercy of the Lord, until it made upon their minds an impression ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... cosmogony, and that their task is the difficult, no doubt, but much simpler and less ambitious one, of bringing back the confused material which lies ready to their hand, always with a divinely implanted instinct of order in it, to as near an agreement with the providential intention as their best wisdom can discern. The aggregate opinion of a nation moves slowly. Like those old migrations of entire tribes, it is encumbered with much household stuff; a thousand unforeseen things may divert or impede it; a hostile ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... scriptures, where I saw that 'there is no new thing under the sun,' Eccles. i. 9; and what was appointed for me I must submit to. Thus I continued to travel in much heaviness, and frequently murmured against the Almighty, particularly in his providential dealings; and, awful to think! I began to blaspheme, and wished often to be any thing but a human being. In these severe conflicts the Lord answered me by awful 'visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... Athenians only paid him in his own coin. The immoralities imputed to the gods were doubtless strongly calculated to draw the attention of reflecting men, but the essential nature of the pursuit in which the Ionian and Italian schools were engaged bore directly on the doctrine of a providential government of the world. It not only turned into a fiction the time-honoured dogma of the omnipresence of the Olympian divinities—it even struck at their very existence, by leaving them nothing to do. For those personifications ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... decided it in favor of the English? By what providential circumstance did the Americans escape? What were the prison ships? Who were the Hessians? Tell the story of ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... That was to him the great thing—the wonderful discovery which was to clear Sisily and put everything right. He believed that the plan which had brought him to Cornwall was working splendidly. The chance encounter with the detective was really providential—a speeding up, ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... get back safely to our mission compound. Miss Stanton's chair coolies had assured her that I was following behind, and she thought everything was secure. The church members were at prayer meeting and did not notice my non-arrival. The delay I think must have been providential, for had the members rushed there and found a crowd, I fear more ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton
... impressed Bunyan so deeply, it is inconceivable that he should have made no more allusion to his military service than in this brief passage. He refers to the siege and all connected with it merely as another occasion of his own providential escapes from death. ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... poor Isabella, sustained only by the moral support of her courageous mother, was beginning to quake and tremble, as she knew not what might happen, and the prospect for her future happiness was far from good. A providential illness overcame the dreaded bridegroom when he was less than forty leagues from Madrid, as it turned out, and Isabella was able to ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... mind," or "rather than estrange his parents who are such good supporters, you know," trusting, meanwhile, to Providence for a happy issue out of all their troubles? In the case of a local preacher the providential issue may be the man's own discovery, sooner or later, of his own unfitness. In the case of a candidate for the ministry some Connexional Committee sitting in some distant town "may take a stand we cannot take who ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... praying work to do, as I hinted in my Saturday's note when my heart was pretty heavy within me. I need not tell you what to ask for the dear child; but for me do pray that I may have no will of my own. All these trials and disappointments are so purely Providential that it frightens me to think I may have much secret discontent about them, or may like to plan for myself in ways different from God's plans. Yet in the midst of so much care and fatigue I hardly know how I do feel; I am like a feather blown ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... to England, where he was received with marks of disfavour on all sides, and forced soon afterwards to retire to South Carolina. While New England was sadly disappointed by this second failure to take Quebec, the French of Canada considered it a providential interposition in their behalf, and the church, which had been first named after the defeat of Phipps, was now dedicated to Notre Dame ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... of God, of his providential care, of his unmixed goodness, of his eternal beauty and holiness—are well-nigh up to the New Testament standard. So is also his doctrine of the immortality of the soul. The fatal deficiency is that he does not know. He has received no divine revelation. ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... appearance further back kept us a short time in suspense, but a nearer approach showed it to be the beach of a well-sheltered cove, under which we anchored for the rest of the night." They called the place of refuge Providential Cove. The native name was Watta-Mowlee ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... prevented them from feeling the burden of enforced vigils. That idea was the dramatic renown of the illustrious Delobelle. After he had left the provincial theatres to pursue his profession in Paris, Delobelle waited for an intelligent manager, the ideal and providential manager who discovers geniuses, to seek him out and offer him a role suited to his talents. He might, perhaps, especially at the beginning, have obtained a passably good engagement at a theatre of the third order, but Delobelle did not choose ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... Since Frances's providential escape, the king had suspected the right persons of her rescue. At least he suspected Hamilton, and was seeking him more diligently than ever before. His Majesty had not shown me any mark of disfavor, but I feared he suspected me, and was sure he was not convinced ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... saved by Capt. Hilton, he took out of a net purse, two doubloons, and presented them to the master fisherman in presence of all hands. This, we at first supposed to be intended as some compensation for the injury done, by firing at us. The account of our shipwreck, sufferings, and providential escape to the Island, was now related to him, by Manuel, which he noticed, by a slight shrug of the shoulders, without changing a single muscle of his face. He had a savage jeer in his look during the recital of our misfortunes, that would have robbed ...
— Narrative of the shipwreck of the brig Betsey, of Wiscasset, Maine, and murder of five of her crew, by pirates, • Daniel Collins
... subject, for Mrs. Dickett's power of tongue is well known in and beyond local circles; and since Eleanor married young Farwell, who stands in line for cashier of the bank forty or fifty years from now, if all goes well and a series of providential deaths occurs—indeed, ever since Kathryn became assistant-principal at the high-school (because, as her mother points out, a mere teacher's position, even in a high-school, may not be much, but an assistant-principal ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... ten miles below the dam at South Fork, on account of a washout farther up the valley. The second section of the express and another passenger train soon overtook the first and half an hour before the dam broke all these trains stood abreast on the four-track road. The positions now occupied seems providential. If the railroad men had foreseen the disaster they could not have shown greater prudence, for the engine of the first section of the express, on the track nearest the mountain side, stood about a car's length ahead of the second. The engine of the third train came to a stop a car's length behind ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... making explanations in regard to her private affairs. I have inferred, I confess, that she had in some unfortunate manner terminated her union with her husband; and I have always hoped that her coming here might prove a providential, happy thing,—that somehow she might find her way out of trouble, and resume, what has evidently been broken off, a peaceful and happy life. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... short, the whole policy of the Government was determined by the resolution to inspire the people with a healthful, unconstrained, enthusiastic devotion to the national weal, and, as a means to this end, with zeal for the king. These efforts were fully successful. When the providential time arrived, and the king issued, February 3, 1813, a call for volunteers, and, March 17, his famous Aufruf an mein Volk, all Prussia sprang to arms. In alliance with Russia, finally also assisted by Austria and Sweden, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... want to run all these recollections and memories together, all the different essociations and emotions, that must cluster round each of them rings. The idee of runnin' 'em all together with the livin' one! It wuz ectin' like a fool and it seemed fairly providential that their names run ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... distinct line can be drawn in an unphilosophic age between wonders and miracles, or between what piety, from their unexpected and extraordinary nature, the marvellous concurrence of secondary causes to some remarkable end, may consider providential interpositions, and miracles strictly so called, in which the laws of nature are suspended or violated. It is impossible to assign, on one side, limits to human credulity, on the other, to the influence of the imagination on the bodily frame; ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... atheism, in whose false dry light I walked a parasang or two, did not only betray itself to me as a sham, but also turned my mind and soul to the sham I had shouldered for years. From the peddling-box, therefore, I turned even as I did from atheism. Praised be Allah, who, in his providential care, seemed to kick me away from the door of its temple. The sham, although effulgent and alluring, was as brief ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... 50 cents, and occasionally a still larger sum to some particular case. As I have started this subject, I take opportunity to ventilate the financial question. My supplies, altogether voluntary, mostly confidential, often seeming quite Providential, were numerous and varied. For instance, there were two distant and wealthy ladies, sisters, who sent regularly, for two years, quite heavy sums, enjoining that their names should be kept secret. The same delicacy ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... it into long strips which she knotted together. This done, she bound Juan Cateras's hand and foot, and, with some difficulty, turned him over on his face after first thrusting into his half-open mouth a gag, which she had fashioned from stray ends of the providential petticoat. ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... what is usually called a religious man, meaning thereby a strict adherent to the Church, and a regular observer of its ordinances. For all this he was a firm believer in the existence of a providential ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... only part of the premises which had severely suffered; the walls were standing, but the roof was burnt. On the side of the stream where the house stood, the rails and many portions were actually charred, and had it not been for the providential change of the wind and the falling of the rain, must in a few minutes have been destroyed. The prairie was covered with cinders, and the grass was burnt ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... ceremony with the captain himself, not at all changed in appearance, who blessed his heart for seeing me, cried out that a beard and mustachios made a foreign face of a young Englishman, and was full of the 'providential' circumstance of his having confided his case to Temple ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Oliver went, and told to Ganymede and Aliena how Orlando had saved his life; and when he had finished the story of Orlando's bravery and his own providential escape he owned to them that he was Orlando's brother who had so cruelly used him; and then be ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... already intoxicated with the spirit of freedom swept in on the first fresh breezes of the Revolution. Yet it is not to be doubted that the Transylvania Company, through the courage and moral influence of its leaders, made a permanent contribution to the colonization of the West, which, in providential timeliness and effective execution, is without parallel ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... to the ancient and honourable family of the Swiss Robinsons, who performed a series of unassuming miracles on their island. There was no practical dispensation of providential favours on our behalf. Trees that had the reputation of providing splendid splitting timber defiantly slandered themselves, and others that should have almost flayed themselves at the first tap of the tomahawk had not the slightest regard ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... that night of the supply I was to receive by the providential driving of the ship nearer the land, by the storms and tides, by which I have since been so long nourished and supported; so these three poor desolate men knew nothing how certain of deliverance and supply ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... taken out. Pulling then towards the reef during the intervals of the heaviest seas, in three minutes we were in smooth water—a nearer approach showed us the beach of a well-sheltered cove in which we anchored for the rest of the night. We thought Providential Cove a well-adapted ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... has left no room to doubt that the definition of liberty, which he says is in conformity "with the common notion of mankind," is his own. He always uses this definition when he undertakes to repel objections against his scheme of necessity. "It is evident," he says, "that such a providential disposing and determining of men's moral actions, though it infers a moral necessity of those actions, yet it does not in the least infringe the real liberty of mankind, the only liberty that common ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... seek her, and seek her resolutely. And here let us have the courage to make a cruel observation, in days when religion is nothing more than a useful means to some, and a poesy to others. Devotion causes a moral ophthalmia. By some providential grace, it takes from souls on the road to eternity the sight of many little earthly things. In a word, pious persons, devotes, are stupid on various points. This stupidity proves with what force they ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... is called Riverside; but, save in the rainy season, one looks in vain for the stream from which it takes its name. The river has retired, as so many western rivers do, to wander in obscurity six feet below the sand. "A providential thing," said a wag to me, "for, in such heat as this, if the water rose to the surface it would all evaporate." The sun was, indeed, ardent as we walked through the town, and we were impressed by the fact that the dwellings ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... indulgence in venturing now to ask you how far your own are of a nature to confirm my happy presentiment. To be accepted by you as your husband and the earthly guardian of your welfare, I should regard as the highest of providential gifts. In return I can at least offer you an affection hitherto unwasted, and the faithful consecration of a life which, however short in the sequel, has no backward pages whereon, if you choose to turn them, you will find records such as might justly cause you either bitterness ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... moment, it is so astonishing—so astonishing and providential! He also spoke to me about my father; it ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... are made in heaven," what they mean is that, in the most fundamental of all social operations, the building up of the family, the issues involved in the nuptial contract, lie beyond the best exercise of human thought, and the unseen forces of providential government make good the defect in our imperfect capacity. Even so would it seem to have been in that curious marriage of competing influences and powers, which brings about the composite harmony of the British Constitution. More, it must ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... temporal is inadequate to meet and satisfy the demands of his nature. In like manner, it cannot be doubted that the clear exhibition of duties in opposition to all the claims of inclination, gives rise to the consciousness of freedom, and that the glorious order, beauty, and providential care, everywhere displayed in nature, give rise to the belief in a wise and great Author of the Universe. Such is the genesis of these general convictions of mankind, so far as they depend on rational grounds; and this ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... the leaden missiles flew uncomfortably near his head, Jack was unharmed, and as he was borne on by the iron horse around the next curve in the track, leaving his enemies out of sight, he offered a prayer of thankfulness for his providential escape. ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... A providential visitation suddenly fell upon them. The small-pox broke out and killed upwards of 800 bloodthirsty cannibals who had been devouring ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... significance in the family history deserves notice, especially as suggesting a peculiar feature in her early training and supplying a link in the chain of providential events. In work among the young her father was an enthusiast. With a heart bigger than her own family circle, her mother took in two orphans to foster and rear. Thus in the work of caring for the outcast and ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe
... say it," observed Pensee, "but this death seems providential. If she marries Orange, she will give up the stage. Poor child! At last it really looks as though she might ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... It is a providential arrangement that children inherit the tendencies of both father and mother, and that the good qualities of one parent are known to offset the bad qualities of the other; probably for this very important physiological reason marriage between near relatives, where both parents would be ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... in particular. Then came the sullen rumble of the parish engine, followed by violent assaults on the bell and knocker, then another huzza! welcoming the extraction of the fire-plug, and the sparkling fountain of "New River," which followed as a providential consequence. Collumpsion again descended, as John had at last discovered the right chimney, and having inundated the stewpans and the kitchen, had succeeded in extinguishing the sooty cause of all these disasters. The mob had, by this time, increased to an alarming extent. Policemen ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... at the moment lay his hand on a copy of the Apocrypha, and had to fall back on Josephus! A more consoling comment is given by Lieut.-Col. Mundy: "Who shall say that this neglect of man's ordinances and observance of God's in the time of their trouble, did not bring with them a providential and merciful result? It led, doubtless, to their almost instantaneous defeat; but it saved them and the English from the tenfold carnage which a more vigilant and disciplined resistance, from within their walls, would ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... little appreciated that the Mormons have been first in agricultural colonization of nearly all the intermountain States of today. This may have been providential, though the western movement of the Church happened in a time of the greatest shifting of population ever known on the continent. It preceded by about a year the discovery of gold in California, and gold, of course, ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... we'd know each other, some day—I felt it!" Carita went on in her eager way. "And I believe Knight's meeting you that day was providential!" ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs |
