"Providential" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Greeks acknowledge their sway. Everywhere Roman laws, language, and institutions spread. A vast empire arises, larger than the Assyrian and the Macedonian combined,—a universal empire,—a great wonder and mystery, having all the grandeur of a providential event. It becomes too great to be governed by an oligarchy of nobles. Civil wars create an imperator, who, uniting in himself all the great offices of state, and sustained by the conquering legions, rules from East to West and from North to South, with ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... on any other subject at present. There is not in the world a railroad journey of thirty hours so filled with grand and beautiful views. I should perhaps qualify this statement by deducting the hours of darkness; yet this is really a fortunate enhancement of the traveler's enjoyment; it seems providential that there is one part of the way just long enough and uninteresting enough to permit one to go to sleep without the fear of missing anything sublime. Leaving Salt Lake City at noon, we sped through the fertile and populous Jordan Valley, past the fresh and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... Hood's reply under his breath. 'It was providential. What did I do, but go and lose my hat out of the window of the train—had it knocked off by a drunken fellow, in fact. But for this money I should have gone about Hebsworth bareheaded, and come home ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... vice to enfeeble the constitution of her son, that she might retain the power which belonged to him. This proud and dissolute woman looked with great solicitude upon the enterprising and energetic spirits of the young Prince of Navarre. There were many providential indications that ere long Henry would be a prominent candidate for the throne ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... praise that the spur which his Book eventually gave to geographical studies, and the beacons which it hung out at the Eastern extremities of the Earth helped to guide the aims, though scarcely to kindle the fire, of the greater son of the rival Republic. His work was at least a link in the Providential chain which at last dragged the New ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... ready at hand to fight a Colenso and a Spion Kop. When the burgher army along the Tugela was hard pressed by the enemy and both its old-time leaders, Joubert and Meyer, lay ill at the same time, it seemed little less than providential that a Botha should step out of the ranks and lead the men with as much discretion and valour as could have been expected from the experienced generals whose work he undertook to accomplish. It was a modern representation of the ploughman deserting his ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... with the Artillery Company at Merchant-Tailors'-Hall, on 21 April, 1682; an opposition dinner was impudently projected by the Shaftesbury party, to be held at Haberdashers' Hall, and tickets were forthwith issued at one guinea each; for the purpose, as it was declared, of commemorating the providential escape of the nation from the hellish designs of the papists, etc. The King, however, issued a salutary order forbidding the meeting as an illegal one. This supplied the loyal party with new matter for ridicule and satire against the Whigs, who were ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... wedding, the stranger, after a little, adroitly turned the conversation upon the wound of Reynolds; asked a number of questions, and appeared deeply interested in the whole narration concerning it—the attack upon him by the Indians and his providential escape through the assistance of Boone—all of which was detailed by Isaac in his own peculiar way. From this case in particular, the conversation gradually changed to other cases that had happened in the vicinity; and also to the state of the country, with regard ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... I had my 'new' dress, and all the other things Aunt Mary sent by express last week. And father's new suit case his men presented him with when he left the factory—wasn't that providential?" asked Tavia. ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose
... particular or State governments 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 January ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... most alarming circumstance, and what, without the providential interposition of very improbable events, had rendered all their schemes abortive, remains yet to be related. The general idea of the fabric and equipment of the vessel was settled in a few days, and when this was done, it was not difficult to make some estimation of the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... hands of the Brothers the treatment they deserved. If the lessons were severe, they were in every case of the native's own seeking, and were administered in fair and open combat, in which few of the white party were without having narrow escapes to record; but a providential good fortune seemed to attend them, for every member got through the journey without accident. An account has been furnished to the newspapers in the form of a journal by Mr. Richardson, the Surveyor appointed to accompany ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... 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 ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... in the 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, ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... of 1861 came, the service performed by the Walk-in-the-Water and her successors was seen in its true light. The Great Lakes as avenues of migration had played a providential part in filling a northern empire with a proud and loyal race; from farm and factory regiment on regiment marched forth to fight for unity; from fields without number produce to sustain a nation on trial poured forth in abundance; enormous ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... conquered unbelief. He had a rich history of the providential dealings of God with him, and his confidence was now unclouded and serene. He had known the Lord's power when he faced the bear and the ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... now that this was a providential encounter. Only half an hour ago he had been feeling horribly bored. Here was employment the bare thought of which was righteous self-applause. He took possession forthwith. It seemed to him that the first need of this ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... 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
... whispered, as he gently soothed her; "yes, my child—thank Heaven first of all! for there was something strangely providential in the seemingly dire misfortune that was the cause of our being taken to Havana. For if we had not gone thither, we should never have found the negroes; and if we had not found them, it would have been difficult, or ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... the great Northwest, whose development he attributed to the exclusion of slave labour, seemed to inspire him with the hope and faith of youth, and he spoke of its reservation for freedom and its settlement and upbuilding in the critical moment of the country's history as providential, since it must rally the free States of the Atlantic coast to call back the ancient principles which had been abandoned by the government to slavery. "We resign to you," he said, "the banner of human rights and human liberty on this ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... feeling was deepened by providential escapes from accidents which threatened his life—"judgments mixed with mercy" he terms them,—which made him feel that he was not utterly forsaken of God. Twice he narrowly escaped drowning; once in "Bedford ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... underground, accompanied me out into the country and back again to the city, greeted me each morning in the daily paper and in my daily mail, each week or each month in the periodical, the coincidence of a familiar package on a drug-store counter seems to be providential and therefore irresistible. I know that I ought to be examined by a physician, but I am busy and not unwilling to gamble for my health; it cannot kill me and there is a chance that it will cure me. If ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... themselves were still Catholic, and might easily have been persuaded to approve the change. That Elizabeth, by her cool and cunning diplomacy, managed to evade the threatened danger, has ever been held as little short of providential by the Protestants of the world.[3] In truth, however, each of the powers which might have assailed Elizabeth, had religious difficulties of its own ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... your sake as well as Nellie's," spoke Grace. "It's really kind of you, and quite providential ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope
... For 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 as a ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... Assembly had met, with full powers to transact the affairs of the nation, and soon afterwards, the minister of France here presented an application for three millions of livres, to be laid out in provisions to be sent to France. Urged by the strongest attachment to that country, and thinking it even providential, that monies lent to us in distress, could be repaid under like circumstances, we had no hesitation to comply with the application, and arrangements are accordingly taken, for furnishing this sum at epochs accommodated to the demand and our means of paying it. We suppose this will rather ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... found immediate and successful application, and turn his attention, with undiminished vivacity, to something else; but he never owned to a real defeat. And now the problem presented at Baltimore seemed to him a providential call for his intervention. If the English engineers could not run their locomotives around sharp curves, it must be because they persisted in using the vicious crank, which he had already superseded by his (temporarily unappreciated) invention! And, with unshaken ...
— Peter Cooper - The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4 • Rossiter W. Raymond
... 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 ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... and Calton, the good fairy of the two lovers, was hurrying towards the humble abode of Mrs. Rawlins, familiarly known as Mother Guttersnipe. Kilsip was beside him, and they were talking eagerly about the providential appearance ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... a providential supply; and Hector cheered his companions with the assurance that they could not starve, as there were plenty of these creatures to be found. They had seen one or two about Cold Springs, but they are less common in the deep forest lands than on ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... when he opened the door which she had closed, all was dark, and not the slightest sound reached his quick ear from the swift foot of her retreat. He turned the key twice, and pushed two bolts, eager to regard the vision as a providential rebuke of his carelessness in leaving the door on the latch—for the first time, he imagined. Then he tottered back to his chair, and sunk on it in a cold sweat. For, although the confidence grew, that what he had seen ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... led, We shall not in the desert stray; We shall not full direction need; Nor miss our providential way; As far from danger as from fear, While ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... through all the streets, stopping whenever they saw a group of people, hoping for some providential meeting, some extraordinary luck, some ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... own domestic industry. We have thought no harm of this, so long as no Act of Congress required the reading of the "Congressional Globe." We submitted to the general dispensation of long-windedness and short-meaningness as to any other providential visitation, endeavoring only to hold fast our faith in the divine government of the world in the midst of so much that was past understanding. But we lost sight of the metaphysical truth, that, though men may fail to convince others by a never so incessant repetition of sonorous nonsense, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... bloated-looking Bishop of Oxford in balloon sleeves and a wig, whose portrait adorned the Professor's house. "How singular, dear friend, to reflect that that person should have been chosen, in the providential order, to connect ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... enlightenment. It exploded like a bomb in the midst of the self-satisfied aristocracy of the earlier social system and rent it into the fragments which no hand could put together again. In this sense the career of Napoleon seems providential. The era of popular government had replaced that of autocratic and aristocratic government in France, and the armies of Napoleon spread these radical ideas throughout Europe until the oppressed people ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... it had not been that the seat with its long record of Liberal victories and its Liberal majority of 3642 at the last election, offered a hopeless contest. The Liberal dissensions and the belated but by no means contemptible Socialist candidate were providential interpositions. I think, however, the conduct of Gane, Crupp, and Tarvrille in coming down to fight for me, did count tremendously in my favour. "We aren't going to win, perhaps," said Crupp, "but we are going to talk." And until the very eve of victory, we treated Handitch not so ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... of Victoria Station into the stir of London again, on leave from Flanders, must give as near the sensation of being thrust suddenly into life from the beyond and the dead as mortal man may expect to know. It is a surprising and providential wakening into a world which long ago went dark. That world is strangely loud, bright, and alive. Plainly it did not stop when, somehow, it vanished once upon a time. There its vivid circulation moves, and the buses are so usual, the people ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... "Singing Pilgrims," and the rich succession of Mr. Sankey's melodies, that can be traced back by a chain of causes to the poem that "wrote itself" and became a hymn. And the chain may not yet be complete. In the words of that providential poem— ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... them to retain even the shadow of a hope? No! What was their sole remaining chance? That a vessel should appear in sight off the rock? But they knew only too well from experience that no ships ever visited this part of the Pacific. Could they calculate that, by a truly providential coincidence, the Scotch yacht would arrive precisely at this time in search of Ayrton at Tabor Island? It was scarcely probable; and, besides, supposing she should come there, as the colonists had not been able ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... eastern platform of the starling. As he anticipated, he was here comparatively screened from the fury of the wind; and when he gazed upon the roaring fall beneath him, visible through the darkness in a glistening sheet of foam, his heart overflowed with gratitude for his providential deliverance. ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... destined long to be remembered as the starving time, the time when one man was reported even to have eaten his wife. Only a handful of the settlers, new and old, had survived, and Somers and Gates saw no choice but to abandon the colony. It was saved by the providential arrival early in June of Lord De la Warr, who brought with him 150 new colonists and a commission as the colony's governor. Somers went back to Bermuda in the hope of laying in a stock of pork for Virginia, but there he died and ...
— The Virginia Company Of London, 1606-1624 • Wesley Frank Craven
... 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; it's sudden enough." ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... impression of profound and fervid piety came over him, when he reflected upon the incontrovertible proofs of providential protection and interference which had been, during his absence from home, under his struggles, and, in his good fortune, so clearly laid before him. "Deep," he exclaimed, "is the gratitude I owe to God for this; may I never forget to ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... how oft have I grieved Thee! resisted Thy dealings, quenched Thy strivings; and yet art thou still pleading with me! Oh! let me realize more than I do the need of Thy gracious influences. Ordinances, sermons, communions, providential dispensations, are nothing without Thy life-giving power. "It is the Spirit that quickeneth." "No man can call Jesus, Lord, but by the Holy Ghost." Church of the living God! is not this one cause of thy deadness? My soul! is not this the secret of thy languishing frames, ...
— The Faithful Promiser • John Ross Macduff
... my evening was spoiled. I tried to laugh it off and say how Providential it was they had come to our rescue; but though I kept telling myself every minute that there was no need for me to mind Beechy, I dreaded meeting her alone. However, the evil moment wouldn't be put off forever, and she came along ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... further claim upon us," said Mrs. Heron, with a sniff, "and I hope you will make it plain, John, that on no account can we take her back. We have been put to considerable trouble and expense, and I really think that her going without any fuss is quite providential." ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... run from heart to heart through the clasping hands, and then he stoops toward her, and distractingly kisses her. And I say that there is no law of conscience or propriety worthy the name of law—barbarity, absurdity, call it rather— to prevent any one from availing himself of that providential near- sightedness, and beatifying himself upon those lips,—nothing to prevent it but that young fellow, whom one might not, of course, ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... not in the secret of the masquerade—but, had not this gentleman been a seaman, it would have surpassed all our means to get this boat into the water, or even to use her properly were she even launched. I look upon his profession as being the first great providential interference, or provision, in our behalf; and his superior skill and readiness in that profession as a circumstance of ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... board the Brig. Presents to King Boy. Perfidy of the Pilot. Hostile Motions of the Natives. Brig. Providential Escape. Nautical Instructions. Release of Mr. Spittle. Perilous Situation of the Passage to Fernando Po. Fernando Po. Colonization of Fernando Po. Traffic with the Natives. Localities of Fernando Po. The Kroomen. Natives ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... he cannot put himself in the place of Providence and save life, and a truly grateful, generous patient is almost an unknown rarity. I do not speak of these things to complain of them. I suppose they are a necessary part of that whole providential plan by which God moulds and fashions and tempers the human soul, just as my petty, but incessant household cares are. If I had nothing to do but love my husband and children and perform for them, without let ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... trusted must have betrayed him. It must have shed upon him a ray just strong enough to make him a visible object; for, suddenly, ping! something hit him violently on the leg and bowled him over like a rabbit into a providential shell-hole. And there he lay quaking for a long time, while the lunacy of his adventure coarsely ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... it were, experts in the supernatural, men who knew how to win the favor of these watchful powers. The priests were originally identical with medicine men and magicians. They knew the workings of the providential forces. In their hands lay, at least indirectly, the welfare of the tribe. Their principal duties were to administer and give advice as to the worship of the gods. Often it was necessary for them to point out to the lay members of the tribe which gods to worship ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... the praise-note of the truly Christian spirit. There are no possessions like religious possessions to fill the soul with true enjoyment. And what are they? They are, first: a mind in harmony with the works and ways of God, which sees the Father in the daily movements of the spheres and the providential arrangements of the world; in the blossoming life of spring, and the withered death of winter; in the dear relations of domestic life, and the more showy fraternities of nations; in birth, and life, and death; in every provision for happiness found ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... martial saints had 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 ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... by the numerous expressions of sympathy and goodwill addressed to me on the occasion of the providential escape of the Princess of Wales and myself from the danger we have lately passed through. From every quarter of the globe, from the Queen's subjects throughout the world, as well as from the representatives and inhabitants of ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... Potter, whose name for those few days passed into fame's trumpet, ventured to exclaim, "The Lady Mary has the better title." Gilbert's master, one "Ninian Sanders," denounced the boy to the guard, and he was seized. Yet a misfortune, thought to be providential, in a few hours befell Ninian Sanders. Going home to his house down the river, in the July evening, he was overturned and drowned as he was shooting London Bridge in his wherry; the boatmen, who were the ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... county,—yet somewhat relieved, as by the immediate mercy of Heaven, from the load of his misery, he eagerly wrote by the auspicious beams of the rising sun a few short lines to Pembroke, telling him that "a providential circumstance had occurred since they parted, which he trusted would finally reconcile into a perfect peace all that had recently passed so distressingly between them; therefore he, his ever tenderly-affectioned father, requested him to join him ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... utterly confounded. She had seldom before in her life been so thoroughly taken in. What a marvellous turn of fortune! What a providential deliverance and vindication for that poor young Lord Dunoran! What an astounding exposure of ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... "How providential!" cried Mrs. Twemlow; "but the stupid people would have gone without much pity, whatever had befallen them, unless they were blind, or too ignorant to read. Don't you think ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... raise, and all the fields on our side of the house seemed alive with savages. To render the scene more appalling, that was the precise instant when the water, previously provided by Herman Mordaunt, fell upon the flames, and the light vanished, almost as one extinguishes a candle. But for this providential coincidence, there was scarce a chance for the escape of one of the adventurers. As it was, rifle followed rifle, from among the stumps, though it was no ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... "Providential! my dear little bigot!" I repeated, with a smile. "Well, be it so. I call it lucky merely; but, perhaps, you are happier in your faith, than I in my philosophy. Yes, you are grateful for the chance that I only rejoice at. You receive it as a proof ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... has not purposely introduced any talker whose faults were unavoidable through defect of nature or providential circumstances. The faults described are such as have been acquired; such as might have been escaped; such as each is ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... 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. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... kind of God! Well, well! I know that I talk like a crazy person! Do you suppose it was providential, my being with you in the office that morning when Bartley ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... 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
... be regarded as a providential instrument the melioration of mankind, its progress and diffusion that of other causes by which human life is improved diversity is not greater, nor the advance more slow, in than we find it to be in learning, liberty, government, laws. The Deity hath not touched the order ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... free and went sprawling over the rail, a wordless prayer in his heart that no broken legs or sprained ankles were to be his portion. He landed unhurt in a providential flowerbed, and struggled again to his feet to discover that both the monk and ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... for in winter they acquire that colored fur. In opposition to the opinions of some naturalists, the doctor held that this change was not due to the lowering of the temperature, since it took place before October; hence it was not due to any physical cause, but rather providential foresight, to secure these animals against the severity of ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... first kindled in a Frenchman's soul. This communicative quality of the character of this race—this French attraction, as yet unaltered by the ambition of conquest,—was then the precursory mark of the age. It seems that a providential instinct turned all the attraction of Europe towards this point, as if motion and light could only emanate thence. The only real echoing point of the Continent was Paris. There the smallest things made great noise, literature ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... they climb? The motives are many—the result joy. Yes, joy, even in the providential escapes and the "bad five minutes," beloved by our naive scribes of the ice-axe, in the perils and death which they court for the sake of adventure and exploration. Sir Martin Conway speaks of the systematic climber as the man for whom climbing ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... under what circumstances 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 to say anything more about your means. ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... 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 sense teaches to be necessary to moral agency, which, AS HAS ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... railroad companies under which they clear certain streets, not on their routes, that are computed to have a surface space equal to that which they would have had to clean had they lived up to the old rule. The department in its turn removes the accumulations piled up by their sweepers, unless a providential thaw ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... learned, for 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 this terrible ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... some time that she must let her husband into her secret. It had begun to wear upon her. And now the time had come as by providential interposition. ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... you mean. Why, we have got the longitude by means of your chronometer. It is wonderful! It is providential! It is the finger of Heaven! Pen and ink, and let me ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... evolution of history from within, and it will spread to the minds of all men; and the misinterpretation of that doctrine so long prevalent, as a preternatural irruption of power from without, will be set aside forever. For there is a providential plan of God, not injected by arbitrary miracle, but inhering in the order of the world, centred in the propulsive heart of humanity, which beats throb by throb along the web of events, removing obstacles and clearing ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... God to tell him that he should lose his power and authority. She had not specified the manner in which the sentence would be carried into effect against him. The form of her threats had been also varied occasionally; she said that he should die, but whether by the hands of his subjects, or by a providential judgment, she left to conjecture;[193] and the period within which his punishment was to fall upon him was stated variously at one month or at six.[194] She had attempted no secresy with these prophecies; she had confined herself in appearance to words; and the publicity which ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... to her slowly, carefully, the details of that desperate journey northward, of their providential meeting on the Little Big Horn, of the papers left in his charge, of Hampton's riding forward with despatches, and of his death at Custer's side. While he spoke, the girl scarcely moved; her breath came in sobs ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... execution. Harrison was the person appointed to join in prayer with the unwary general. By agreement, he prolonged his doleful cant till intelligence arrived, that the fatal blow was struck. He then rose from his knees, and insisted with Fairfax, that this event was a miraculous and providential answer which Heaven had sent to their ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... of him, won't be a first-rate merchant, or lawyer; at all events, whatever he turns out, his own special gift is unemployed by you; and in no wise helps him in that other business. So here you have a certain quantity of a particular sort of intelligence, produced for you annually by providential laws, which you can only make use of by setting it to its own proper work, and which any attempt to use otherwise involves the dead loss of ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... control. He was a man of great ability and determination, well acquainted with the tendencies of the age, and not particularly scrupulous about the means by which the success of his policy might be assured. To such a man Luther's attack on the bishops of Germany seemed to be almost providential. He realised that by embracing the new religious system, which enabled him to seize the wealth of the Church and to concentrate in his own hands full ecclesiastical power, he could rid himself of one of the greatest obstacles to absolutism, and secure for himself and his successors undisputed ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... the contrary, I feel it to be almost providential. Mamma doesn't apologise, but says, frankly—"Why, if he comes, there'll be two tutors—and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, September 6, 1890 • Various
... truth) of superstition which has survived religion; of a heart which has abandoned the love of kindred and friends, only to lose itself in a wilderness of petty spite, terminating in an abyss of diabolical hatred. The ordinary providential helps to goodness have been rejected; the ill-provided adventurer has sought to scale the high snow-peaks of saintliness,—he has missed his footing,— and the black chasm which yawns beneath, has ingulfed him." —E. J. H{asell}, in ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... within two short years. Fortunately for the Colony, he, in some of them, flatly disregarded his instructions. The issue of paper money was one of the few blunders the full force of which Downing Street could apprehend. Hence his providential recall. ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... nationality. In his house he had three shelves of books, and the books were thoroughbred Scotch! He afterwards died of the plague, of which visitation one-half of the whole people of the city, 200,000 in number, were carried off. I took it into my pleasant head that the plague might be providential or epidemic, but was not contagious, and therefore I determined that it should not alter my habits in any one respect. I hired a donkey, and saw all that was to be seen in the city in the way of public buildings—one handsome ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... the problem—why have the gold and silver mines of the Peninsula left them the poorest nations of Europe? Yet this was contrary to the operation of new wealth. The discovery of the mines of the New World appears to have been a part of that providential plan, by which a general impulse was communicated to Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Europe was preparing for a new vigour of religion, politics, commerce, and civilization. Nothing stimulates national effort of every kind with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... viper! . . . No, I asks your pardon. Bless his tender heart, I s'pose I ought to say, seein' as how providential—" ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... am delighted, instructed, and fed at the time, and the subjects open to me without my being able to recollect the order or the words of the speaker. O let me recommend this dear Lord to your heart and confidence; commit all your concerns to him; mistrust no part of his providential dealings with you; his wisdom shall manage for you, and you shall one day say, 'He ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... told him all the tender projects she had conceived for his grandchild's happiness—how, finding Lionel so disinterested and noble, she had imagined she saw in him the providential agent to place Sophy in the position to which Waife had desired to raise her; Lionel, to share with her the heritage of which he might otherwise despoil her—both to become the united source of joy and of pride to the childless man who now favoured ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... combination of physical and mental conditions so amazingly favorable to the spread of the Voltairean ideas was a circumstance independent of the state of the surrounding atmosphere, and was what in the phraseology of prescientific times might well have been called providential. If Voltaire had seen all that he saw, and yet been indolent; or if he had been as clear-sighted and as active as he was, and yet had only lived fifty years, instead of eighty-four, Voltairism would ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... to bear in mind the significance of every moment. The problem is of perpetual urgency. On one side the providential blessing, up till the present, of complete immunity. On the other, the hazards of the future. That is how our wish to do good should be applied to the present moment. There is no satisfaction to be ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... 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 to take Rose along. It seems Mr. Brodix would not join the union, and both he and his wife ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... the pleasant supposition that the Deity, however improvident for others, will be provident for them. I recollect a paper on this subject by Dr. Guthrie, published not long ago in some religious periodical, in which the writer mentioned, as a strikingly Providential circumstance, the catching of his foot on a ledge of rock which averted what might otherwise have been a fatal fall. Under the sense of the loss to the cause of religion and the society of Edinburgh, which might have been the consequence of the accident, it is natural ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... had 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 headship of the ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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 ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... 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 ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... subject, (as indeed John Woolman was on all others,) was in the way of becoming in time more eminently serviceable to his oppressed fellow-creatures. We have seen already the good seed sown in his heart, and it seems to have wanted only providential seasons and occurrences to be brought into productive fruit. Accordingly we find that a journey, which he took as a minister of the Gospel in 1746 through the provinces of Maryland, Virginia, and, North Carolina, ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... with the fervor of an ancient clansman. For this lost sheep of the house of Endicott he developed in time an interest which Arthur foresaw would lead agreeably one day to a review of the art of disappearing. He was willing to satisfy his curiosity. Meanwhile, airing his ideas on the providential mission of the country, and of its missionary races, and combatting his exclusiveness, they became excellent friends. Livingstone fell deeply in love with Honora, as it was the fashion in regard to that charming woman. For Arthur the circle of life had its ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... sense of mankind everywhere, are united in deeming a lie incompatible with the idea of a holy God, and consistent only with the spirit of man's arch-enemy—the embodiment of all evil. Therefore he who, admitting this, would find a place in God's providential plan for a "lie of necessity" must begin with claiming that there are lies which are not lies. Hence it is of prime importance to define a lie clearly, and to distinguish it from allowable and proper ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... amendment, of the weak as well as of the strong, be GOD'S great purpose for us, who shall say that the ruggedness of the narrow road is not often smoothed for stumbling feet?) The fever seemed quite providential, and Mr. Ford's client felt quite pious about it. He was conscious of no mockery in dwelling to himself on the thought that Jan was "better off" in Paradise with his mother. And he himself was safe—for the first time since ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... 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 it introduced ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... wide ocean into the lap of Alice Southworth in old England, who caught it up, and read it, and said, "Yes, I will go." And she went! And it is said that the governor, at his second wedding, married his first love! Which, according to the New Theology, furnishes the providential reason why the first ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... things in next to no time with a special license. Luckily I'm a British subject. I never thought much about it before, but it simplifies matters; and I'll have been living in this parish a fortnight to-morrow. That's providential, for it seems that legally it must be a fortnight. I've been up since it was light, learning the ropes and beginning to work ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... a fool would 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 in jest ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... and Mr. Winters clasped his hand warmly. "I have been very anxious. I did not see what was to become of her if she was on her way in this terrible storm. How providential that you happened to be ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... the providential loneliness of the road, there were one or two terrors that could not be disposed of so summarily. The worst of all was a heavy miller's cart which one could hardly crush to silence in one's handkerchief; but it went so ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... Mayhew with great animation, "I'm excessively thankful that you happened to be on the road, and that the stage overtook you this morning. It was so fortunate that I almost think it providential. How dreadful it would have been if Ida had been alone in such frightful peril! I cannot tell you also how delighted I am that my daughter behaved so beautifully. Indeed, I must confess that I am agreeably surprised, for Ida was never famous for her courage. Your own manner must have inspired ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... I then experienced was, in reading the holy 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 upon men, in slumberings upon the bed,' Job xxxiii. 15. He ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... Mr. Darwin with having attempted to reinstate the old pagan goddess, Chance. It is said that he supposes variations to come about "by chance," and that the fittest survive the "chances" of the struggle for existence, and thus "chance" is substituted for providential design. ...
— The Reception of the 'Origin of Species' • Thomas Henry Huxley
... waste this golden, this beneficent, this providential opportunity. I am willing to make any concession you want, just so we get it settled. I am not only willing to let grain come in free, I am willing to pay the freight on it, and you may send delegates to the Reichsrath if you like. All I require is that they shall ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the delay caused by this accident the unhappy man pleaded so earnestly for a rehearing that it was decided to give it to him, and when he had secured it he conclusively proved his innocence and was set free. The tree is still standing. To the ruffians it was a warning and they went away. Even the providential saving of one man did not detract from the value of the lesson ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... were lucky that it was possible; so many children had to be sent to strangers and hirelings. Since an unfortunate infant must be brought into the world and set adrift, the haven of its grandmother and its Aunt Emma and its Aunt Alice certainly seemed providential. I had absolutely no cause for anxiety, as I often told people, wondering that I did not feel a little all the same. Nothing, I knew, could exceed the conscientious devotion of all three Farnham ladies to the ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... 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 enemies who found each other useful. Mutually antipathetic, ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... treasure to his perfectly arranged rooms, and in consequence some new song to his seductive repertoire, left a new sting in her soul. She had been influencing somebody or something all her life. She had been educating and directing and benefiting till she was forced to be grateful to that providential generosity that caused new wickedness and ignorance to spring constantly from this very soil she had cleared; for if one reform had been sufficient she would long since have been obliged to leave the little village for larger fields. She had ministered to the starved mind ...
— A Philanthropist • Josephine Daskam
... look at the book more objectively and to follow up the hints as to its aim given by the author in his opening verses. Thus (1) his second narrative is the natural sequel to his first. As the earlier one set forth in orderly sequence (kathexes) the providential stages by which Jesus was led, "in the power of the Spirit,'' to begin the establishment of the consummated Kingdom of God, so the later work aims at setting forth on similar principles its extension by means of His chosen representatives or apostles. This involves emphasis on the identity ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia |
