"Providential" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... until facts should either confirm it, or force it to give way to another, either different or at least modified. That this Personal Will is benevolent, and is shown to be so by the facts of the Universe, which evince a providential care for man and other animals—this is just one of those plausibilities which passed muster before scientific method was understood, but modern science rejects it as unproved. Modern science holds that there may be design in the ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... at night when I arrived, and bewildering with rain, total darkness, and an upheaval of cobbles in by-ways that wandered to no known purpose. But a guide presently brought me to a providential window, and quarters in the Turk's Head. In my room I could hear a continuous murmuring, no doubt from the saloon bar below, and occasional rounds of hearty merriment. That would be the place for news, and I went down to get it. An oil-lamp veiled in tobacco smoke was hanging from a beam of a sooty ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... an 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 ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... which he had believed so wholly inapplicable to her, of 'kept' woman. He could not explore the idea further, for a sudden access of that mental lethargy which was, with him, congenital, intermittent and providential, happened, at that moment, to extinguish every particle of light in his brain, as instantaneously as, at a later period, when electric lighting had been everywhere installed, it became possible, merely by fingering a switch, to cut off all the supply of light from a house. His ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... the hoarse whisper, and it was as much as he could do to stop himself looking up. He remembered the motor-car and Cherry's mysterious and providential appearance from the roof, and he could guess ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... things are not perpetual; all pass through the same cycle—beginning, progress, perfection, corruption, end. This, however, does not explain the succession of empires in the world, the changes of the scene of prosperity from one people or set of peoples to another. Le Roy finds the cause in providential design. God, he believes, cares for all parts of the universe and has distributed excellence in arms and letters now to Asia, now to Europe, again to Africa, letting virtue and vice, knowledge and ignorance travel from country to country, that all in their turn may share in good and bad ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... essentially military. The conditions are to my apprehension forces, contending, perhaps even conflicting; to be handled by those responsible as a government disposes its fleets and armies. This is not advocacy of war, but recognition that the providential movement of the world proceeds through the pressure of circumstances; and that adverse circumstances can be controlled only by organization of means, in which armed physical ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... most providential circumstance which seems a very simple one. I did not sleep in the room which had been prepared for me. The place seemed wretchedly damp and chilly, the chimney smoked abominably when an attempt was made at lighting ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... 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, her troops were ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... thinking for 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
... royalty, we have no king; having legality, we have no laws; having property, no owners; no government with our elections, no force with freedom, no happiness with equality. Let us hope that before that day comes God may raise up in France a providential man, one of those Elect who give a new mind to nations, and like Sylla or like Marius, whether he comes from above or rises ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... government of this difficulty, Bristol merchants, and merchants probably from other English cities, trading with the new British colonies of North America, thought it a providential opening for a great profit to accrue to the soils of the benighted Irish women and children, and likely at the same time to add something to their own purses and those of their friends, the West ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... Polterham—and had arrived at an understanding with them which made it all but a settled thing that Denzil Quarrier should be their prospective candidate. Tobias was eager to back out of the engagement into which he had unadvisedly entered. Denzil's arrival at this juncture seemed to him providential—impossible to find a better man for their purpose. At eight o'clock an informal meeting was held at the office of the Polterham Examiner, with the result that Mr. Hammond, the editor, subsequently penned that significant paragraph ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... 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 he could remember,—free at last to become ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... rising. Shouting to his mother and the children, he struck a light, and leaped into the water; and, taking Bub in his arms, and directing the movements of the rest, he hurried them out of the door, away from the river bank, as fast as they could go. How providential it was that he should have, in his restlessness, dropped his hand over the bedside! for scarcely had they ascended a swell of ground beyond the field when the cabin went down with a crash, and the fragments, whirling about and ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... massacre; not, however, without its advantages, as it eliminates the more brutal and troublesome of the Isosceles; and by many of our Circles the destructiveness of the Thinner Sex is regarded as one among many providential arrangements for suppressing redundant population, and nipping ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott
... maize, or Indian corn, is totally new since 1846. The famine in Ireland in that year, and the potato rot in almost every successive year since, have now fully established it. Like the gold discoveries, the potato rot may be regarded as a providential means of effecting a great change in the condition of society. Those discoveries are not without their influence in the East, and, combined with the potato rot, they have rapidly increased the commerce ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... wanted a bonnet with red feathers, but that she had never expected to have one. When she got this money, she went out to buy clothing, and in a window she saw this bonnet marked five dollars. She piously remarked that it seemed providential. She's like the rest of the world in finding what she ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... up about it. I've been clear beat to see how she understands books, and people, too. And she's so industrious and pleasant-tempered. She makes me think of Grandmother Underhill and Aunt Eunice. I do hope you'll be able to keep her. It's a providential mercy she hasn't been in the city all summer. The cholera has been just awful! I don't see how you had the courage ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... and carried Every and the woman into the open air. As the former was borne past his tormentor, the fallen chief, so cowardly was his wicked heart, actually prayed him to intercede for him, and save him from a fate which, but for our providential appearance, would have been ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... that people in general, and especially girls, never know what is good for them till afterward. Do you remember that summer I was at the beach, what a ninny I made of myself over that little Mr. Parker? How providential it was for me that he did not reciprocate. It gives me the cold shivers when I think what might have become of ...
— A Love Story Reversed - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... 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 ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... naughty wicked man, to frighten me so; but is this dear, pretty darling really the policeman's daughter? I won't believe it yet—how providential, isn't it?" ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... carefully excluded the young ones. Maiden aunts triumphed, mammas were reduced to the lowest depths of despair, and there is no telling in what act of violence the general indignation against the three Miss Browns might have vented itself, had not a perfectly providential occurrence changed the tide of public feeling. Mrs. Johnson Parker, the mother of seven extremely fine girls—all unmarried—hastily reported to several other mammas of several other unmarried families, that five old men, six old women, and children innumerable, in the free ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... not unlikely event under fire, when a shrapnel burst some twenty feet from me, with an explosion which almost lifted me from the ground. The door before which I sat, and the front of the cottage, were liberally studded with bullets and pieces of the casing, but in a most providential manner I was untouched. Very quickly I completed my change of boots, and got my kit-bag once more stowed away in a transport wagon. Strictest orders had been given that no kits were to be removed from the wagon, and I hope that the O.C., if ever he discovers my delinquency, will take into consideration ...
— With The Immortal Seventh Division • E. J. Kennedy and the Lord Bishop of Winchester
... thy unerring Spirit 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 love, ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... 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 ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... May, who was present, has preserved his impressions of the lecture and lecturer. "Never before," he records many years afterward, "was I so affected by the speech of man. When he had ceased speaking I said to those around me: 'That is a providential man; he is a prophet; he will shake our nation to its center, but he will shake slavery out of it. We ought to know him, we ought to help him. Come, let us go and give him our hands.' Mr. Sewall and Mr. Alcott ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... 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
... been rehabilitating domestic affairs, he never for a moment neglected the foreign situation. He felt that it was almost providential that he was in a position to handle it unhampered, for at no time in our history were we in such peril of powerful foreign coalition. Immediately after receiving from Selwyn the information concerning the ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... covered with blood—(though the little 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 ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... passed, and before the arrival of the next. But there was no child's play in the matter. We had one very tense moment; the boat was flung sideways in the turmoil, and nearly got taken aback. However, a providential buffet on the port bow gave us a set in the right direction; once more our tarpaulin filled, and we drew slowly and laboriously out of the area of danger. I looked back and saw the angry combers roaring after us, as though enraged at our escape. As we ran ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... of the little single-action weapon for a second shot the stranger was at him. The force of the attack sent them both crashing back against the wall of the cabin, and in the few moments that followed Philip blessed the providential forethought that had made him throw off his fur coat and strip for action. His antagonist was not an ordinary man. A growl like that of a beast rose in his throat as they went to the floor, and in that death-grip Philip thought ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... mythological bards, or, perhaps, the brotherhoods impersonated under those names, to the time when the republics lost their independence, and their learned men sank into copyists of, and commentators on, the works of their forefathers. That we include these as educated under a distinct providential, though not miraculous, dispensation, will surprise no one, who reflects, that in whatever has a permanent operation on the destinies and intellectual condition of mankind at large,—that in all which has been manifestly employed as a co-agent in the ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... she allow her son to enter the navy. He was compelled to give up all ambition in that direction and to take up the study of theology. At this writing he is a popular preacher, who will always believe it was a most providential thing for our country that turned him aside from blocking the entrance of George Dewey to the Naval ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... Herschel,—these are the royal names, the fixed stars, set, as it were, in that very firmament which for so many years they searched with telescopic eye. And yet neither of them lived less than seventy-eight years. As for the men of natural science, it looks as though they were spared by some Providential provision, in order that they might observe and report for long epochs the changes of this old earth of ours. Cuvier dying at seventy-five, Sir Joseph Banks at seventy-seven, Buffon at eighty-one, Blumenbach at eighty-eight, and Humboldt at fourscore and ten, are some of the cases which make ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... with his engine had been providential, for ten minutes later he realized that had he gone on at full speed he would have encountered the advance guard of at least a full division of ...
— The Boy Scout Automobilists - or, Jack Danby in the Woods • Robert Maitland
... historical studies with haughty indifference. Bossuet's Discours is a vindication of the ways of God in history, a theology of human progress. He would exhibit the nations and generations of human-kind bound each to each under the Providential government. The life of humanity, from Adam to Charlemagne, is mapped into epochs, ages, periods—the periods of nature, of the law, and of grace. In religion is found the unity of human history. By ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... are making a very grave mistake. I regard Zora as a very undesirable person from every point of view. I look upon Mr. Cresswell's visit today as almost providential. He came offering an olive branch from the white aristocracy to this work; to bespeak his appreciation and safeguard the future. Moreover," and Miss Taylor's voice gathered firmness despite Miss Smith's inscrutable eye, "moreover, I have reason to know that the disposition—indeed, ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... been a long, steady boarder, and 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 see ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... men feel the truth of this is one characteristic object of the miracles worked by Moses;-in them the providence is miraculous, the miracles providential. ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... so long as they arc limited to vulgar views; but woe to the people who confide on great emergencies in any but the honest, the noble, the wise, and the philanthropic; for there is no security for success when the meanly artful control the occasional and providential events which regenerate a nation. More than half the misery which has defeated as well as disgraced civilization, proceeds from neglecting to use those great men that are ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... rain and storm were providential, for I will always believe if the movement had been started we should have met with disaster. The ground was broken, deep ravines and underbrush with wire fences running through it. I have never learned who was "the father" of ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... there was in that likeness a providential instruction which the king ought to have heeded; I say that your mother committed a crime in rendering those different in happiness and fortune whom nature created so startlingly alike, of her own flesh, and I conclude that the object ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... 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 ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... been able to see, or, from carelessness, had neglected to see, any peculiar wrong done to her in the matter which occasioned her grief,—but had simply felt compassion for her as for one summoned, in a regular course of providential and human dispensation, to face an affliction, heavy in itself, but not heavy from any special defect of equity. Consequently their very sympathy, being so much built upon the assumption that an only child had offended to the extent implied in his sentence, oftentimes ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... this 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
... against that of Felton. And there is no incens'd Person so destitute, but can provide himself with a Knife or a Pistol, if he finds stomach to apply them. That Things and Persons of no moment should give such powerful Revolutions to the progress of those of the greatest, seems a providential Disposition to baffle and abate the Pride of human Sufficiency; as also to engage the Humanity and Benevolence of Superiors to all below 'em, by letting them into this Secret, that the Stronger ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... 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 myself with my ...
— David • Charles Kingsley
... inspired. This, however, was sheer nonsense. That the very peculiar requirements of these four years found a president so well responding to them may be fairly regarded, by those who so please, as a specific Providential interference,—a striking one among many less striking. But, in fact, nothing in Mr. Lincoln's life requires, for its explanation, the notion of divine inspiration. His doings, one and all, were perfectly intelligible as the outcome of honesty of purpose, strong common ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... her as providential that she should be the instrument of his initiation. Some girls would not have known how to manage him. They would have over-emphasized the novelty of the adventure, trying to make him feel in it the zest of an escapade. But Lily's methods ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... Andromeda gets ripped to pieces in the Recife, or I'll know the reason why. Wot a card to play at the inquiry! Owner's niece on board—bound to South America for the good of 'er health. 'Oo even 'eard of a man sendin' 'is pretty niece on a ship 'e meant to throw away? It's Providential, that's wot it is, reel Providential! I do believe ole Verity 'ad a ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... the ruins. A few gendarmes had come up, and very soon a party of labourers was at work clearing away the lighter rubbish under the lurid glare of pitch torches stuck into the crevices and cracks of the rent walls. The devilish deed was done, but by a providential accident its consequences had been less awful than might have been anticipated. Only one-third of the mine had actually exploded, and only thirty Zouaves were at the time within ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... 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 ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... What a wonderful providential escape these three men, Parker, Browne, and La Voy had! They reached a spot within three or four hundred feet of the top of the mountain, struggling gallantly against a blizzard, but were compelled at last to beat ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... glorious God," a messenger comes hastening in, as in the Book of Job, to tell him that his own house has just been struck, and though no person is hurt, yet the house hath been much torn and filled with the lightnings. With what joy and power he instantly wields above his audience this providential surplus of excitement, reminding one irresistibly of some scientific lecturer who has nearly blown himself up by his own experiments, and proceeds beaming with fresh confidence, the full power of his compound being incontestably ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... they lay down at night, with their tongues swollen and their lips parched with thirst, scarcely hoping to see the morning sun; and it is impossible to form an idea of their feelings when the morning dawned, and they found their prayers had been heard and answered by a providential supply ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... 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 name for ...
— 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
... 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
... the lady, "our meeting this morning seems providential. I have every reason to believe that this child—your adopted sister—is my daughter, stolen from me by an unknown enemy at the time of which I speak. From that day to this I have never been able to obtain the slightest clew that might lead to her discovery. I have long ...
— Jack's Ward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... that these books are made to bear on them most peculiarly the stamp and the claim of Inspiration. For they do not profess to be so much the account of what Man did, as what GOD did in ruling men, and guiding human events. They are a history of a providential course of events, and, (which is the point,) as seen from the providential point of view. They are a history written not on Earth, but above the skies. Events are spoken of therefore in this view. A man's obduracy is recorded thus,—'GOD ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... utilitarian, some countenance. Far from it; he is as high and as keen, as removed from softness and mawkishness, as ascetic and as reverential, as any bishop among them. He is as superstitious (as men now talk), as fanatical, as formal, as Athanasius or Augustine. Certainly, there seems something providential in the place which Origen holds in the early Church, considering the direction which theories about it are now taking; and much might be said ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... do know that it must have been administered with a caution that is almost diabolical in its ingenuity—so slowly, by such imperceptible degrees, that you have scarcely been aware of the change which it has worked in your system. It was a most providential circumstance that you came to me when you did, as I have been able to discover the treachery to which you are subject while there is yet ample time for you to act against it. Forewarned is forearmed, ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... glasses with trembling 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 found myself in a position—I have ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... at the mercy of his colleague to resist or refuse his application for her person; and though for a long time baffling, under various pretences, the pursuit of that ferocious ruffian, he felt that the time was at hand, unless some providential interference willed it otherwise, when the sacrifice would be insisted on and must be made; or probably her safety, as well as his own, might necessarily be compromised. He knew too well the character of Rivers, and ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... and yourself, you have always religiously kept the secret of your tortures; and it was only a providential accident that revealed them to me. But I learned every thing at last. I know that she whom I love exclusively and with all the power of my soul is subjected to the most odious despotism, insulted, and condemned to the most humiliating privations. ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... daughter of Abubeker a secret supply of intelligence and food. The diligence of the Koreish explored every haunt in the neighborhood of the city: they arrived at the entrance of the cavern; but the providential deceit of a spider's web and a pigeon's nest is supposed to convince them that the place was solitary and inviolate. "We are only two," said the trembling Abubeker. "There is a third," replied the prophet; "it is God himself." No sooner was the pursuit abated than the two fugitives ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... 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 "Eternal ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... turning sullen, would answer nothing except that he knew naught of the paper. I thought it best, therefore, to conduct him at once to my lodgings, whither it will be believed that I returned with a lighter heart than I had gone out. It was, indeed, a providential escape. ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... 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 there is nothing the matter with us, ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... but think how providential it was that we started in the night for in an hour after the sun had risen that little sheet of ice would have melted and the water sank into the sand. Having quenched our thirst we could now eat, and found that we were nearly starved also. In making this meal we used up all our little store of ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... 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, or with just a few notions of hardware ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... we feel for the United States, we cannot find this attitude of their Government either fair or dignified. I offer these remarks in no spirit of uncalled-for criticism, but because I see how much the moral authority of the United States and their splendid situation as the providential peace makers of some future—alas! still far off—day has been impaired by the aforementioned proceedings. We cannot help considering them as so many acts of ill-disguised hostility against ourselves ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... away by the Captain's reasoning; "if the surface of the sea is solidified by the ice, the lower depths are free by the Providential law which has placed the maximum of density of the waters of the ocean one degree higher than freezing-point; and, if I am not mistaken, the portion of this iceberg which is above the water is as one to four ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... 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 lovely Utah Lake, and up the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... he stayed in England any longer. On the morning of the day before Judy's departure Blanche, who, half-packed, was still trying to make up her mind, received a letter that, with no sense of impiousness, she considered providential. ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... 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 turn their minds to celestial ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... use them, if Providence gives him opportunity. He has a self-moving power. He cannot be still. Use of the faculties increases their facility and productiveness; and the increase of products increases the love of acquisition. His gains, and his consequent love of gain, will be according to the Providential direction which he takes, whether to a trade, an art, a profession, to the pursuit of wealth, or power, or general knowledge. Mr. Chase's direction was to knowledge. He acquired it easily, his stores rapidly increased, and the love of it became a passion. He loved knowledge ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... business indeed, Clinton," the doctor said, "and I feel for you most deeply. Of course the possibility of such a thing never entered my mind when I recommended you to let Mrs. Humphreys act as its foster-mother. It seemed at the time quite a providential circumstance that she too should be just confined, and in a position to take to your baby. The only possible suggestion I can offer is that you should for a time bring up both boys as your own. At present they are certainly wonderfully alike, ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... microbes, yet never to see his own face. And even the reflection, the shadow of it, which he can see in a looking-glass, even that he perforce sees a rebours. You can't deny it's rum. But if I had a face as long as yours, I solemnly believe, I should deem it likewise providential." ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... and hereafter, so I wrote a letter to the Topeka Journal making a call for helpers setting Sept. 28 as the day. When I arrived in Topeka I learned that the W. C. T. U would be in convention session on that day in Wichita, and also that there was a carnival going on in the place, and thought it providential to have a crowd. I arrived in Wichita the 28th, the raid was postponed until the 29th. I took hatchets with me and we also supplied ourselves with rocks, meeting at the M. E. church, where the W. C. T. U. Convention was being ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... 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
... circumstances of the journey, through two thousand miles of diversified wilderness, during which we rested each night in a different spot; it seems providential that, on every occasion when the time came for making camp, a supply of water and fuel was obtainable. Without these essentials there would have been much additional suffering. Sometimes the supply was limited or inferior, sometimes both; especially during ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... natural progress of his own advance in the knowledge of Christ, for he always wrote straight out of his own experience; and partly by the various forms of error which he had at successive periods to encounter, and which became a providential means of stimulating and developing his apprehension of the truth, just as ever since in the Christian Church the rise of error has been the means of calling forth the clearest statements of doctrine. The ruling impulse, however, of his thinking, as of his life, was ever Christ, and it was ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker
... it is my first duty to invite your attention to the providential favors which our country has experienced in the unusual degree of health dispensed to its inhabitants, and in the rich abundance with which the earth has rewarded the labors bestowed on it. In the successful ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson
... happened after that. Jilly was past all control. She was screaming steadily but her anguished howls were almost providential for they helped out Jane's weakening shouts. Again and again Jane turned the steers, her voice growing fainter and hoarser. The cattle seemed to gather impetus with each rush—the distance between them was fast lessening and the beasts became more ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... Then let us, like God Himself, try to see the end in the beginning, let us spread out the Scroll, so that the glory of the finish may transfigure and illumine the gloom and sadness of the intermediate course, and thus "the miracle" of God's providential love will be "made visible" to all who have eyes ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... that you have been actually face to face with our cripple friend?" Venner said. "You mean to say that he would actually have murdered you if Vera had not interfered in that providential manner? I suppose I must accept your assurance that she is absolutely safe, though I can't help feeling that she has exaggerated her own position. I am terribly anxious about her. I have an idea which ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... that to touch the sovereign is not to touch the Pontiff. Certainly his temporal power is not a divine institution; who does not know this? But it is a providential institution, and who is ignorant of the fact? Doubtless, during three centuries, the Popes only possessed independence enough to die martyrs; but they assuredly had a right to another sort of independence; and providence, which does not always ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... is what I call a providential circumstance; indeed, from all I have seen and learned since I came into the world, I am convinced that there is nothing happens in it by chance. The God of heaven orders all for the best in kindness to us. Sometimes, it is true, things ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... of Europe, has a sort of providential signification. It is the great moat which divides the north from the south. The Rhine for thirty ages, has seen the forms and reflected the shadows of almost all the warriors who tilled the old continent with that share which they call sword. Caesar crossed the Rhine in going ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... Roman Church 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 is what ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... shot. His misses at so short a distance were practically non-existent, nor would he have missed this time but for an accident occurring at the very instant that his finger tightened upon the trigger—an accident to which Meriem owed her life—the providential presence of a water-logged tree trunk, one end of which was embedded in the mud of the river bottom and the other end of which floated just beneath the surface where the prow of Malbihn's canoe ran upon it as he fired. The slight deviation of the boat's ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... tray left standing on the library table. It was summer, but a cold rain was falling forbiddingly without. No one else could come, and no one could wish to go. The conditions all favored a just self-esteem, and a sense of providential preference in the accidental assemblage of those people at that time ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... the committee would purge him or at least give him another chance. It was inconceivable that they would pronounce the penalty of expulsion, although they might impose a fine. He was so glad to be rid of Brauer, though, that he counted the whole circumstance as little short of providential. ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... previous search, and smarting under the sense of their intolerable wrongs, the party regarded this as a providential deliverance of their arch-enemy into their hands. Here was the chief cause of all their woes, the man who, more almost than any other, had been instrumental in the persecution and ruin of many families, in the torture and death of innumerable innocent ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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 ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... killed him! As Mr. Slocum passed from page to page, following the dark thread of narrative that darkened at each remove, he lapsed into that illogical frame of mind when one looks half expectantly for some providential interposition to avert the calamity against which human means are impotent. If Richard were to drop dead in the street! If he were to fall overboard off Point Judith in the night! If only anything would happen to prevent his coming back! Thus the ultimate disgrace might be spared them. ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... sir, you go on your way rejoicing; that you are enabled to thank Him who is the giver of every good gift, spiritual, temporal, and providential, for blessings to yourself and your ministry. I do not doubt but you often meet with circumstances which are not pleasing to nature; yet, by the blessing of God, they will be all profitable in the end. They are kindly designed by grace to make and keep us humble. The difficulties which you spoke ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... suddenly, with so unexpected a movement that no one stirred until all was over, struck the king in the body with a knife! As the blade flashed and was hidden, and His Majesty with a deep sob fell back on the stool, then, and not till then, I knew that I had missed a providential chance of earning pardon and protection. For had I only marked the Jacobin as we passed the door together, and read his evil face aright, a word, one word, had done for me more than the pleading of ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... furnish him, on his pledging the public faith for repayment, with a draught on the financier for such a sum as would relieve the urgency of the moment. Thus was Greene occasionally rescued from impending ruin by aids which appeared providential, and for which he could ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... John," I asked, "that if you really wish to visit Pongo-land here is perhaps what you would call a providential opportunity. Certainly none of these Mazitu will go, since they fear lest they should find a permanent peace—inside of the Pongo. Well, you are a blood-brother to Bausi and can offer to play the part of Envoy Extraordinary, with us as the members ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... that they had found a fair opportunity to assert a right to choose their own governors, much less to make an election the only lawful title to the crown. Their having been in a condition to avoid the very appearance of it, as much as possible, was by them considered as a providential escape. They threw a politic, well-wrought veil over every circumstance tending to weaken the rights which in the meliorated order of succession they meant to perpetuate, or which might furnish a precedent ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... correspondence with the notary, M. Arbillot, and becoming assured of the reality of his rights and of the necessity of his presence at Vivey, he had obtained leave of absence from his official duties, and set out for Haute Marne. On the way, he could not help marvelling at the providential interposition which would enable him to leave a career for which he felt he had no vocation, and to pursue his independent life, according to his own tastes, and secured from any fear of outside cares. According to the account ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... disposition to 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 ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... met with a fir tree demurred as to its right to build its nest there; and I never heard of a coney yet that questioned whether it had a permit to run into the rock. Why, these creatures would soon perish if they were always doubting and fearing as to whether they had a right to use providential provisions. ...
— The Way to God and How to Find It • Dwight Moody
... to the wild excess of joy with which the slaves on all the plantations accepted the freedom which had come to them in this remarkable, but no doubt providential, way. For the moment they took no account of the future; they were altogether intoxicated while trying to estimate the reality of that new condition in which they found themselves—that inestimable blessing about which their forefathers had prayed through long and weary generations. ...
— From Slave to College President - Being the Life Story of Booker T. Washington • Godfrey Holden Pike
... not, in the Creator's design, a motive to compel society to go down on its knees before the man of superior talents, but a providential means for the performance of all functions to the greatest ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... was a providential thing, for which all may be thankful," said Wildschloss gravely; "yet it is no small thing to lose the hope of so many years! However, young Baron, I have grave matter for your consideration. Know you the service on which I am to be ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Emma, 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 fox-hunter or a ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wandering away in a swirl of drift to clear some irregularities at the ice-foot, he completely lost the island when he could only have been a few yards from it. In this predicament he clung to the old idea of walking up wind, and it must be considered wholly providential that on this course he next struck Tent Island. Round this island he walked under the impression that it was Inaccessible Island, and at last dug himself a shelter on its lee side. When the moon appeared he judged its bearing well, and as he traveled homeward was ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... that however indiscreet such an action might appear in the case of an ordinary person, the most select maiden need not hesitate to perform so honourable a service in regard to one whose virtues had by that time undoubtedly placed him among the Three Thousand Pure Ones. Being disturbed in this providential manner, Ling opened his eyes, and faintly murmuring, "Oh, sainted and adorable Koon Yam, Goddess of Charity, intercede for me with Buddha!" he again lost possession of himself in the Middle Air. At this remark, which plainly proved Ling to be still alive, in spite of ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... mission embodied in the first promise. The bruising of the serpent's head by the bruised heel of the Saviour, in order to repair the ruin wrought by the tempter, suggests very significantly the truth which is so explicitly announced here. And a similar combination runs through the ancient providential history. The destruction of the old world in order to the salvation of the righteous, and the fulfilment of the promise of redemption; and the destruction of the first-born of Egypt in order to the deliverance ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... A providential visitation suddenly fell upon them. The small-pox broke out and killed upwards of 800 bloodthirsty cannibals who had been ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... groaned, rising to his feet; then his whole frame dilated. "The first step—the most difficult, yet the simplest. A providential delivery into my hands of that for which I have hungered for forty years. No withdrawal now! It is possible, because scientific; rational, but perilous. If I succeed—if? I shall succeed. I will succeed.... And after success—what?... Yes; what? Publish the plan ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... and a promise of our ultimate conquest over all its power. We are all ineluctably bound about by countless chains of second causes, "awful with inevitable fates," until we see through them all the close providential working of our Creator, who is also our Saviour, and who is in no way shackled by His own laws, but conducts all things according to the counsel ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price
... down to watch the ship now," said Miss Pilbeam. "Of course, it's the exact description of the man that assaulted him. Providential he ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... in this pure sense, is the type, in the arts of mankind, of the Providential government of the world.[245] It is an exhibition, in the order given to notes, or colours, or forms, of the advantage of perfect fellowship, discipline, and contentment. In a well-composed air, no note, however short or low, can be spared, but the least ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... 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 longer ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... went 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
... had been made to retrieve the family fortunes by the marriage of his sister, the beautiful Lady Margaret Tamerton, to her cousin, the wealthy Sir Ernest Scrivener, but the providential discovery that the latter was already married under the alias of Marmaduke Moorsdyke had prevented the match. Since then Sir Ernest had been their implacable and relentless enemy, and his desperate attempt to kidnap Lady Margaret had only been frustrated ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 26th, 1914 • Various |
