"God's Will" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... me in earnest so, and raised her voice in saying it, until the whole valley, curving like a great bell echoed "Doone," that it seemed to me my heart was gone for every one and everything. If it were God's will for me to have no more of Lorna, let a sign come out of the rocks, and I would try to believe it. But no sign came, and I turned to the woman, and longed that she had been ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... not satisfied. If evil live Against God's will, evil is king of all, And they do well who worship Lucifer. I am not satisfied. My reason spurns Such prostitution to absurdities. I know that you are happy; but I shrink From your blind faith with loathing and with fear. And ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... little ones should be safe at home with their own people, and he, Bambo, homeless and friendless, should be free from future care concerning them—free to creep away somewhere, unnoticed and alone, to lie down and rest—sleep—suffer—or maybe die, if such were God's will for him. ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... 'God's will be done! Lady,' he added, 'you wot of that which once passed between us. I was grieved at first that you chose a different ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... upon all creation, groaning and travailing in sympathetic pain, to be delivered from the evil and misery and death with which it is laden.[534] He will allow of no ideal short of the highest pattern of angelic[535] goodness, nor concede that we are called upon to pray, 'God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven,' without its full accomplishment being in human power. This height of aspiration gives great stimulative power to Law's writing, but, as is unfortunately apt to be the case, it is a source of weakness as well as of power. With him, as with ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... is wrong not to be willing to live, and suffer too, if it be God's will," said his sister, earnestly. "And what would we do if you were to die, Archie, my ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson
... not indeed succeed in entirely destroying it. Then, mother, after the long and fatiguing journey that you would be obliged to make in order to see me, think of the terrible sorrow of the farewell when the moment came to part in this world. Let us therefore abide by the sacrifice, according to God's will, and let us yield ourselves only to that sweet community of thought which distance cannot interrupt, in which I find my only joys, and which, in spite of men, will always be granted us by ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - KARL-LUDWIG SAND—1819 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... John, "if you will shut up all bowels of compassion, and not relieve us at all, we shall not extort anything by violence, or steal from any one; but when that little we have is spent, if we perish for want, God's will be done!" ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... there anything in it—this talk of doing God's will? Can people love God and hate one another? Oh, isn't it all just words?" Her eyes burned fiercely. "I wouldn't have the love that some folks give God, I'd feel myself insulted! I want something ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... rising to repeat the blow, as the whole nobility are aware, only he lost his head by the way; and if this had not been done, all order and government must have ceased throughout the land, and the mice and the rats rule the cats, which was against the order of nature and contrary to God's will. But his gracious lady might take consolation, for Sidonia had been carried from the castle that morning by four of the clock, and, by God's grace, never should set foot in it again. But there was another gravamen, ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... yourself. There is a great difference between I WISH I WAS and I SHOULD LIKE TO BE—as much as between a grumble and a prayer. To be content is not to be satisfied. No one ought to be satisfied with the imperfect. It is God's will that we should bear, and contentedly—because in hope, looking for the redemption of the body. And we know he has a ready servant who will ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... How Sarah listens in the tent While God Almighty, come to earth, Foretells to Abraham the birth Of Isaac and his seed thereafter. Sarah cannot restrain her laughter, Since both are well advanced in years. God asks when he the laughter hears: "Doth Sarah laugh then at God's will, And doubt if this he may fulfil?" Her indiscretion to recall She says, "I did not laugh at all." Which commonly would be a lie; But God prefers to pass it by, Since 'tis not done with malice dark, And ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... have brought my boy; it is painful to part from him—very—very painful: but it is right, and God's will be done." She turned, as she spoke, towards a little, deformed rickety dwarf of a sofa, that seemed to hide itself in the darkest corner of the low, gloomy room; and Morton followed her. With one hand she removed the shawl that she had thrown over the child, and placing the forefinger of ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... shall know, if only we do What lifts, ennobles, is right and true. With kindness to all; with malice to none, That in and through us God's will may be done. ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel
... His clothes hung about his limbs in large folds, and his sunken eyes told that disease was making fearful ravages upon him. Madame La Blanche opened her bundle, and, handing him a comfortable dressing-gown nicely quilted, said, "I am sorry to find you so low, Michael, but God's will be done, perchance He means to deliver you from the pinchings of a bitter season. It is but little I can do for you," she continued, as the grateful man smoothed down the warm garment, and thanked her with tremulous lips; "my children ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... they burst into a flood of tears, in which Sparks, burying his face in the golden locks of the sweet girl who bowed her head upon his knee, joined audibly. At length, wiping away his tears, and checking the rising sobs that shook his manly bosom—'God's will be done, my children,' said the locksmith; 'we cannot help weeping, but let us not murmur. If we are to be wanderers and fugitives on the earth, let us never lose sight of the promise which assures us of an eternal refuge in a place where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... very honestly answered, "He feared he was; for that his pulse was very exalted and feverish, and, if his fever should prove more than symptomatic, it would be impossible to save him." Joseph, fetching a deep sigh, cried, "Poor Fanny, I would I could have lived to see thee! but God's will be done." ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... on this first proposition, but I hope the importance of the subject to Christians as well as to statesmen will be my apology. I have written it, not for victory over an adversary, or to support error or falsehood, but to gather up God's will in reference to holding men and women in bondage, in the patriarchal age. And it is clear, in the first place, that God decreed this state before it existed. Second. It is clear that the highest manifestations of good-will which he ever gave to mortal man, was given to ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... began to weep greatly, and kissed him. And when his wife heard that, she ran out with her hair in disarray, weeping and distressed exceedingly, for she remembered that it was he who had slain the false Ardres. And thereupon they placed him in a fair bed, and said to him, Abide with us until God's will be accomplished in thee, for all that we have is at thy service. So he and the two servants ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... refused to receive the information which it was in your power to command? I called on the Committee and yourself, from the first, to apply to Sir George Villiers; no one is so well versed in what has lately been going on as himself. But no. It was God's will that I, who have risked all and lost almost all in the cause, be taunted, suspected, and the sweat of agony and tears which I have poured out be estimated at the value of the water of the ditch or the moisture which exudes from rotten dung. But I murmur not, ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... romantic fiction half believed by Lull and Andy themselves, was taken quite seriously by the children. They imagined their home was under some kind of enchantment that would one day be broken. It was true Lull had told them the present state of Rowallan was God's will, and Andy said God alone knew when their fortune would come back; but the children, whose mind held fairies, saints, banshees, and angels, and their mother's Puritan God, had no difficulty in reconciling God's will and an enchantment. One thing had helped to confirm this belief. Mick ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick
... said, "what is our religion worth if it does not support us in times like these? Does it not teach us to bow to God's will? Surely we, who have had such advantages, ought to behave under our trials better than those who have been brought up like heathens. God will not leave us. Don't you remember Mr. Bradshaw's sermon upon the passage ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... every law of sanitation and when plagues came they were resigned and piously looked heavenward, and blamed God for the whole thing. "Thy will be done," they said, and now we know it was not God's will at all. It is never God's will that any should perish! People were resigned when they should have been cleaning up! "Thy will be done!" should ever be the prayer of our hearts, but it does not let us out of any responsibility. It is not a weak acceptance of misfortune, ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... destination; fatality, fate, kismet, doom, foredoom, election, predestination; preordination, foreordination; lot fortune; fatalism; inevitableness &c adj.; spell &c 993. star, stars; planet, planets; astral influence; sky, Fates, Parcae, Sisters three, book of fate; God's will, will of Heaven; wheel of Fortune, Ides of March, Hobson's choice. last shift, last resort; dernier ressort [Fr.]; pis aller &c (substitute) 147 [Fr.]; necessaries &c (requirement) 630. necessarian^, necessitarian^; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Angelico's paintings. Then the angel's face recurred to Lois, and she pulled herself up. The angel's face and the painter's history both confronted her. On one hand, the seraphic purity and joy of a creature who knew no will but God's will; on the other hand, the quiet, patient life, which had borne such fruits. Four hundred years ago, Fra Angelico painted; and ever since his work had been bearing witness to God's truth and salvation; was even at that minute teaching and admonishing herself. What did it signify ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... brings want; cruelty brings brutality; ugliness brings coarseness; exclusiveness brings isolation; treason brings anarchy. Just in so far as one cuts himself off from the moral order which is the expression of God's will; just in so far as there is sin, there is privation, deadening, and decay. As long as we live in this world it is impossible to live an utterly vicious life; to cut ourselves off completely from God and his order and his laws. To do that would be instant death. The man who should embody all ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... mind oft reverted, for indeed it seemed to her that naught more perfect and more noble in its high likeness to pure Nature and the fulfilling of God's will than the passing days of ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... morning, said little and refused food. A few days later she was induced to take a walk, but she seemed to have no interest in anything. When she talked at all it was about her sister and of wanting to go to a convent. When asked to do anything she said she would if it were God's will. She did not menstruate after her sister's death. When practically recovered, the patient attributed her breakdown to this tragedy. She added to the description above given that, soon after losing her sister, she had a fright at home. "It was the house in which my father died and one ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... my heart's treasure—my darling boy; I thought of my other beloved children; I thought of those still earlier loved—my dear, dear Papa and Mama, brothers and sisters. But I was calm and ready to go, if such should be God's will.... Dr. Rigby has been not only the most skilful ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... God's will, so let it be. As for me, Anytus and Meletus can indeed put me to death, but injure ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... the subject, and does not see the full consequents of his own prior, most judicious, positions. Legislation in its high and most proper sense belongs to God only. A people declares that such and such they hold to be laws, that is, God's will. ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... was, ere that man knew; himself being destitute of GOD's grace, so that all things waxed savage, the earth untilled, society neglected, GOD's will not known, man against man, one against another, and all against order. Some lived by spoil, some like brute beasts grazed upon the ground, some went naked, some roamed like woodwoses [mad wild men], none did anything by reason, but most did ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... some excellent men—Israelites without guile—do not, in fact, expect the advent of any Messiah; but believe, or suggest, that it may possibly have been God's will and meaning, that the Jews should remain a quiet light among the nations for the purpose of pointing at the doctrine of the unity of God. To which I say, that this truth of the essential unity of God has been preserved, ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... sitting here to welcome you back. A creaking wheel lasts long. I have everything to make my life happy and peaceful—the best of wives, a well-ordered farm, and no thought or care as to my worldly affairs—and since it has been God's will that such should be my life, my interest will be wholly centred in you; and I hope to see your children playing round me or, for ought I know, your grandchildren, for we are a ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... he was compelled to take to his bed. He recovered somewhat and was able to return home. But it was now clear to all that the days of the great bishop were numbered. Early in the new year he became bedfast and suffered excruciatingly at times. "But he submitted himself wholly to God's will and bore his terrible suffering with true Christian patience," one of his biographers tells us. To those who asked about his condition, his invariable answer was, that all was well with him. If anyone expressed sympathy with ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... damned him to death knew not that she did it, or would have died ere she had done it. For she loved him. He that hangs him does so in obedience to the Duke, and asks no more than "Where is the rope?" The Duke, very exactly he hath told us, works God's will, in which holy employ he's not to be questioned. We have then left upon this finger, only Jack whose soul now plucks the left sleeve of Destiny in Hell to overtake why she clapped him up like a fly on ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... spare no pains in having and maintaining in the island of Hispaniola, four good professors of theology, to the end and aim of their studying and laboring to convert to our holy faith the inhabitants of the Indies; and in proportion as, by God's will, the revenue of the estate shall increase, in the same degree shall the number of teachers and devout increase, who are to strive to make Christians of the natives; in attaining which no expense should be ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... she had flung her arms round her husband and was straining him to her heart. "Oh, my darling! my beloved! you were never, never, never, so near to me, so dear to me, as now. God does not want you to say that, Angus. Angus, it is not God's will that our child should die, it is Satan's will, not God's. God is love, and it can't be love to torture us, and tear our darling away from us like that. The will of God is righteousness, and love, and happiness; not darkness, and death, and misery. Oh, Angus! let us ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... and conscientious, one of the most single-minded men on the face of the earth. No man, I imagine, was ever more anxious to be right,—no one was ever more desirous to know and teach God's truth in all its purity, and in everything to do God's will and bless mankind. And he knew and chose the right standard of truth and goodness, and honestly endeavored to conform to it both in thought and deed and word. Yet he could err in this strange and wholesale way. What then may we expect ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... all necessary care and diligence, by prayerful instruction, admonition, example, and discipline that this child may renounce and avoid everything that is evil and that she may keep God's will and commandments as declared in His ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... perfect and irrevocable consecration, I gave myself and all I had to Him, and have never, for one moment, regretted that I did so. The single principle of my existence, from that day to this, has been to do with my might what it was given to me to see it was God's will I should do. You see, my dear Miss Carroll, that I, who never sought anything, am not now capable of seeking anything, nor even permitted to do so; and, on the other hand, that I, who never refused to undertake any duty, am not allowed now to hesitate, if the Lord shows ...
— A Military Genius - Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland • Sarah Ellen Blackwell
... cell saying my prayers for the day, when I heard bolts rattling in the corridor. We were no longer locked in with keys. Suddenly the door of my cell was thrown open, and a voice cried: 'Courage! our time has come.' 'Yes, courage!' I answered. 'God's will be done.' I had on my ecclesiastical habit, and went out into the corridor. There I found a mixed crowd of prisoners, priests, soldiers, and National Guards. The priests and the National Guards seemed resigned to their fate, but the soldiers, who had fought the Prussians, could not believe ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... a heavy hit. "It was a devil of a sacrifice, Mary,"—and he sighed, "to give up the sweetest pack that ever man rode to; one, that for a mile's run you could have covered with a blanket—heigh-ho! God's will be done;" and after that pious adjuration, my father turned down his tumbler No. 3, to the bottom. The memory of the lost harriers was always a painful recollection, and brought its silent evidence that the ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... hardship, banishment, and even death as proofs of righteousness and truth. Convinced of the scriptural soundness of what they believed and what they practised, and confident of salvation through unyielding submission to God's will as they interpreted it, they became conspicuous because of their radical thought and peculiar forms of worship, and inevitably drew upon themselves the attention of the ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... "God's will be done," she said, "but oh, I grudged Him my bairn terrible sair. I dinna want him back noo, an' ilka day is takkin' me nearer to him, but for mony a lang year I grudged him sair, sair. He was juist five minutes gone, an' they brocht him back ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie
... kneel down on your soft hassocks and pray all your enormous, needless wealth away from you, for you pray, 'Thy kingdom come,' which you know is the kingdom of love and equality and justice, and 'Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,' when you know that God's will is mercy, pity and love. And 'Give us our daily bread,' when you must know that you are takin' it right out of the mouths of the poor when you are makin' your big corners on wheat and meat, and freezin' the widder and orphan ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... am coming." He does not tarry; he does not higgle and hesitate; he makes for the "straw pile" if in a New England camp; the "saw-dust" if down South; the "altar rail" if in a spiritual church; to his knees at any rate, for God's will he desires and must have. Thank God he ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... the same year, aroused a violent and bitter controversy. She claimed to be favored with special revelations of God's will. These she expounded to crowded congregations of women, greatly to the scandal of the clergy and people. Finally she ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... over in silence," says a dusty chronicler, "that glorious star, that lively pattern of virtue, and the lovely joy of all the learned sort. It was God's will that he should be born into the world, even to show unto our age a sample of ancient virtue." The descendant of an ancient Norman race, and allied to many of the proudest nobles in England, Sidney himself was but a commoner, a private individual, a soldier ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... a melancholy sight to witness at your return, Philip," said he; "and to you who are so ardent, so impetuous, it must be doubly so; but God's will be done. Remember there is yet hope—not strong hope, I grant, but still there is hope, for so told me the medical man who has attended her, and who will return, I expect, in a few minutes. Her disease is a typhus fever, which has swept off whole families within these ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... cemetery, but God's will be done!" and Troubert raised his eyes to heaven resignedly. "I came," he said, "to ask you to lend me the 'Register of Bishops.' You are the only man in Tours I know ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... why should you be surprised that, as God has not let you know by what means these effects are produced, that in his written word he should also keep from you that which for good purposes you are not permitted to know. Everything here is by God's will, and that must be sufficient for us. ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... "God's will is the best," he would then say. "It was well that I was not allowed to keep my power over Molly's heart, and that she did not remain true to me. How I should have felt it now, when fortune has deserted ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... God's will That I shall love her still As He loves Mary. And night and day I will go forth to pray That ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... having myself became a Jesuit, I took care not to say it openly. It would of course be better if such an idea appeared to have emanated from those men, so simple, and at the same time so truly virtuous. "It is God's will," I wrote to them (for deceit must always take refuge under the protection of that sacred name), "that you employ all your influence in Venice to find an honourable position for M. de la Haye, and to promote the interests of young M. Bavois ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the married state is as perfect as that of virginity. But, if all should aspire to perfection, if all are free to choose the kind of life that will better insure the attaining of that perfection, then all are not obliged to embrace the celibate state, since our perfection consists in doing God's will. ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... among them!" thought Grace. "It is God's will!... Madam, if it would not seem forward on my part—if you could tell him the truth, and what I have for him, and where I am, in case he might wish—wish to see me—when you ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... fisherman, who heard her cruel words, hushed her, saying, 'It was God's will that Huldbrand should die, and Undine alone, forsaken, weeps for his death in great ...
— Undine • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... During this interval, Nelson's anxiety was very great. "Dear Parker is my child," said he; "for I found him in distress." And when he received the tidings of his death, he replied: "You will judge of my feelings: God's will be done. I beg that his hair may be cut off and given me; it shall be buried in my grave. Poor Mr. Parker! What a son has he lost! If I were to say I was content, I should lie; but I shall endeavour to submit with all the fortitude in my power. His loss has ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... But God's will be done!—and then, faith, sure enough, As the pig was desaiced, 'twas high time to be off. So we gothered up all the poor duds we could catch, Lock the owld cabin-door, put the kay in the thatch, Then ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... is said to have married her secretly within three years of first setting eyes on her. Her future and that of the children she had borne to him became his chief concern; and as early as 1708, when he was leaving Moscow to join his army, he left behind him a note: "If, by God's will, anything should happen to me, let the 3000 roubles which will be found in Menshikoff's house be given to Catherine Vassilevska and ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... by the two petitions in the Lord's Prayer which are quoted above. The second petition explains the first: the kingdom comes in proportion as men do on earth the will of God. For our present purpose, therefore, we may think of the kingdom as a spiritual commonwealth embracing all who do God's will. To much that Christ taught concerning the kingdom—its Head, its numbers, its growth and development—it is impossible, in one brief discourse, even to refer. Here again, it must suffice to single out one or ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... now, I think," she said slowly, for she was fatigued. "When I was well enough I came here and found a telegram from Don Juan. I knew you had delivered the casket. Here I have remained; here I shall, if it be God's will, ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... "It was God's will that I should come to set a term to such vanities before they take too strong a hold upon you," answered she. ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... ordinarily a very common-place man. His little girl has been near the gates of death, but has been miraculously spared, and it has been a means of grace to the parents. The little baby, Mary Clementine, (my only namesake), is not yet very strong; a relapse may take her off at any time. If it is God's will I hope she may be spared. This afternoon Elias went up to hold services at the Upper Station and I took charge of the meeting here. I told them something of the mission work in Africa. ...
— American Missionary, August, 1888, (Vol. XLII, No. 8) • Various
... Gnaden,' which Christian rulers join to their names, are no empty phrase, but I see in them the recognition that the princes desire to wield the sceptre which God has assigned them according to the will of God on earth. As God's will I can, however, only recognize what is revealed in the Christian gospels, and I believe I am in my right when I call that State a Christian one which has taken as its task the realization, the putting into operation, of the ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... potentially perfect. He is the process of the ideal; his life is the divine activity within him. Still, it is also man's activity. For the process, being the process of spirit, is a free process—one in which man himself energizes; so that, in doing God's will, he is doing his own highest will, and, in obeying the law of his own deepest nature, he is obeying God. The unity of divine and human within the spiritual life of man is a real unity, just because man is free; the identity manifests itself through ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... thought wholly subdued seemed to rise under him as a rebellious giant. A few hours before, he thought himself established in an invincible submission to God's will that nothing could shake. Now he looked into himself as into a seething vortex of rebellion, and against all the passionate cries of his lower nature could, in the language of an old saint, cling to God only by the naked force of his will. That will rested unmelted amid the boiling sea of passion, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... musician when he wrote it must have caught an inspiration of divine trust and peace. The wish among the last words he uttered when dying in London of slow disease was, "Let me go back to my own (home), and then God's will be done." That wish and the sentiment of Schmolke's hymn belong to each other, for they end in the ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... a path of action. When the whole inward disposition is hopelessly corrupt, the idea of achieving salvation by growing, by bringing one's hidden life to the perfection of maturity, must perforce be abandoned. It is only by doing God's will that Man can hope to regain his favour. One thing, then, is clear. Man must be told in exact detail what he is to do and also (should this be necessary) how he is to do it. In other words, an elaborate ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... subdue the royal will and not to prefer it to the bishops of Christ, and rather to learn holy things by them than to teach them; to follow the form traced out by the Church, not after human fashion to impose rules on it, nor wish to dominate the commands of that power to whom it is God's will that your clemency should devoutly submit, lest, if the measure of the divine disposition be overpast, it may end in the disgrace of the disponent. And from this time I absolve my conscience as to all these things, ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... ennobling influence on the mind of its possessor. The field of human happiness, then, with the virtuous, seems to enlarge in proportion as a knowledge of the works and laws of the beneficent Creator is extended. There is little ground for doubt as to what is GOD'S WILL in relation to the universal education of the family of man, when he has connected with the exercise of mind in the study of his works superior ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... teach that this faith is bound to bring forth good fruits, and that it is necessary to do good works commanded by God, because of God's will, but that we should not rely on those works to merit justification before God. For remission of sins and justification is apprehended by faith, as also the voice of Christ attests: When ye shall have done all these things, say: We are unprofitable servants. Luke 17, 10. The same is also ...
— The Confession of Faith • Various
... place above all others, and that he had long desired that he should have as the day of his burial this day on which the general memory of all the faithful is celebrated.[1020] Moreover, these joys of ours were worthily increased by the circumstance that we had selected that same day, by God's will, for bringing hither from the former cemetery for their second burial the bones of our brothers.[1021] And when we were bringing them, and singing psalms in the accustomed manner, the same holy man said that he was very ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor
... He returned the letter to me with a few lines saying: 'I can not go. If I desert my people here it would be a sin. There are plenty at home for the rich places but you have no one to send here. Please ask the bishop to let me stay. I think it is God's will.' The day I received that letter I heard one of my priests at the Cathedral say: 'How seedy that young Belmond looks! for an Eastern man he is positively sloppy in his dress. He ought to brace up and think of the dignity ...
— The City and the World and Other Stories • Francis Clement Kelley
... of satisfaction must be repudiated, it remains a purely formal conception, except in so far as the worldly imagination unlawfully prefigures it. Rigorously construed, it consists only in obedience, a willing of God's will, whatever that ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... into the common trick of calling unbelief Resignation; of asking, and then because we have not faith to believe, putting in a "Thy will be done" at the end. Let us make God's will our will, and so say, "Thy will be done." There is a false as well as a true and holy resignation. When the sorrow is come or coming, or necessary apparently for others' good, let us say with our Master in the Agony, "Not what we will, but what Thou wilt!" But up to that point, let ...
— Out of the Deep - Words for the Sorrowful • Charles Kingsley
... "It cannot be helped; it is God's will, we must submit," he said. "Perhaps a breeze will again spring up." There was nothing to be done; not a particle of fruit, not a biscuit remained. Langton did not express his apprehensions to his younger companions, but the dreadful thought forced ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... he discovered him. Herod, the Irenarch, or keeper of the peace, whose office it was to prevent misdemeanors and apprehend malefactors, sent horsemen by night to beset his lodgings. The saint was above stairs in bed, but refused to make his escape, saying: "God's will be done." He went down, met them at the door, ordered them a handsome supper, and desired only some time for prayer before he went with them. This granted, he began his prayer standing, which he continued in that posture for two hours, recommending to God his own flock and the whole ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... what he has worked for, what he has earned and done and deserved,—to this man broad lands and honours, to that man high gibbets and treadmills: what more have I to ask? Heaven's Kingdom, which we daily pray for, has come; God's will is done on Earth even as it is in Heaven! This is the radiance of celestial Justice; in the light or in the fire of which all impediments, vested interests, and iron cannon, are more and more melting like wax, and disappearing from ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... think seriously over this. If we see that we have no ground for hope upon which we can continue the war, then we must now try to get for our people the best that can be got. We were proud and despised the enemy, and is it not perhaps God's will to humble us and cast down the pride in us by allowing us to be oppressed by the English people? The time will come when we shall again exist as a people. If you decide to proceed with the war, I shall stand or fall with your decision, ...
— The Peace Negotiations - Between the Governments of the South African Republic and - the Orange Free State, etc.... • J. D. Kestell
... our will is free. Yet if our will crosses God's will, crucifixion of some kind is ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... entire: and ye, O mortal men! be wary how ye judge: For we, who see our Maker, know not yet The number of the chosen: and esteem Such scantiness of knowledge our delight: For all our good is in that primal good Concentrate, and God's will and ours ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... strengthen her child, while her own heart was throbbing with painful emotions. She could not sleep that night, for her heart yearned over her darling boy, and she longed to fold him under the shelter of a loving home. She felt that she needed in her own heart more of that perfect submission to God's will which she enjoined on others, and it was only by earnest and humble prayer that she could calm her troubled spirit, and feel trust and confidence that all was for the best. But she had found prayer ...
— Arthur Hamilton, and His Dog • Anonymous
... that he hints at others philosophically under the form of allegory. And to these commonplaces of Alexandrian exegesis he adds as the lesson of the history of his people that "it goes well with those who follow God's will and observe His laws, and ill with those who rebel against Him and neglect His laws." To exhibit to the Greco-Roman world the power and majesty of the Jewish God and the excellence of the Jewish law—these are the two main purposes which he professes to set ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... as soon as you can, and we will look out for each other; but give your thoughts and energies to taking care of yourself. More than likely we shall not see each other until we meet at the post, if it be God's will that we shall safely ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... to fasten its claws more deeply on him, and when his wife returned she found him constantly racked with cough and fever. One day he saw the first fatal spot of blood upon his handkerchief; he turned pale and sighed: "God's will be done." ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... weather we must sleep Sometimes without our supper. Now! Ah, well— 'Tis not my fault. These accidents are deep; It was the good God's will. I cannot tell. ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... above illuminating his pale face, the glow of the great red fire relieving from behind his slim figure. He had to propose, as an amendment to the next subject in the case-book, "Whether capital punishment be consistent with God's will or man's policy?" ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... wonderful," observed old Andrew. "You will see thousands of such bergs as this where we are going, all formed by God's will, just as He forms everything else in the world; and yet if all the kings of the earth and their people were to try and build up one like them, they could not succeed. Now, Archy, I put it to you, whether it is not wise to try and be friends with such a God—to know that you are under His care ...
— Archibald Hughson - An Arctic Story • W.H.G. Kingston
... of God's will on earth As it is done above! Bear witness to the cost and worth Of ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... said, 'no one ever saw thee do deeds, or heard thee utter words, which any one could say were prompted by devils. We have seen thee, poor lad, with thy wits gone astray for a time, but all thy thoughts sought rather God's will in forbidden places, than lost the clue to them for one moment in hankering after the powers of darkness. Those days are long past; a future lies before thee. Think not of witches or of being subject to the power of witchcraft. I ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... helper, "and I would have done as you directed me, but God would have it otherwise, and God's will was done." ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... "This is God's will," said the monarch. "Let the brute be brought before me. I may deny justice to none of ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... truly accustomed now to the idea that whatever has life cannot possibly remain unchanged, but must always develop by leaving some part behind and producing some part that is new. It is God's will that the religious thought of the world, which is made up of the thought of individuals, shall proceed in this way, whether we will or not, but it must always help progress when we can make our wills at one with God's in this matter; we go faster and safer so. ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... reader is eager to know how it was that I kept out of the enemy's hands until the end of the war, I can only answer, although I may not be understood, that I ascribed it to nothing else than this:—It was not God's will that I should ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... tried to find my wife and son—but it was not God's will. I have lived with the stain of murder on my soul"—his voice sank—"and it has never been washed away. Perhaps it will be in God's good time.... And I had condemned my son to a horrible existence—for I knew my wife was ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... mountain top he stood, gazing into the far distance, where the Land of Canaan, that fair land flowing with milk and honey, lay stretched out before him. Then he bowed his head to God's will. The murmuring people never saw their great leader again. He "was not, for God ...
— The Babe in the Bulrushes • Amy Steedman
... Spaniards to arms—an exercise they were more ready to since the Governor of Panama had warned them to expect Drake. "The rich Gnuffe Pezoro," it was thought, had paid the cost of the sentries. "It was not God's will that we should enter at that time," says the narrative. The wind shifted opportunely to the westward; and Drake put his helm up, and ran away to the east, where he picked up the Bear, "according to appointment." ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... there is another secondary distinction—a distinction among those who are conscientiously endeavoring to do God's will. Among the converted there are two classes—the regenerate and the unregenerate. A man may be converted, and not be regenerate; for a man may repent of his sin and turn towards God, and yet not have the life of love and joy which we ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... double emphasis upon meekness as a condition of such guidance and teaching. Meekness is a real preference for God's will. Where this holy habit of mind exists, the whole being becomes so open to impression that, without any outward sign or token, there is an inward recognition and choice of the will of God. God guides, not by a visible sign, but by swaying the judgment. To wait ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... and conscience as are his soul and her affinity with God, methinks neither the King's Highness' pleasure, neither the teaching of the Church, hath much ado. I would say that a man should submit his will to God's will, and his conscience to God's Word, ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... the justice of my sentence, and own that a severe example is wanting. It is eleven years since I was in England; I have served faithfully the whole of that time, nor did I ever misbehave except in this one instance. I think if our good king knew my sad story, he would be merciful; but God's will be done! Yet, if I had a wish, it would be that the enemy's fleet would come out, and that I might die, as I have lived, defending my country. But, Mr Mildmay, I have one very important question to ask you—do you believe that there is such a thing ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... sorts of death—some wherein the body remaineth; and in some it vanisheth quite away with the spirit. This commonly occurreth only in solitude (such is God's will) and, none seeing the end, we say the man is lost, or gone on a long journey—which indeed he hath; but sometimes it hath happened in sight of many, as abundant testimony showeth. In one kind of death the spirit also dieth, and this it hath been known to do while yet the ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... the Tabernacle of God's Will This woman's form enshrineth. What is this, More glorious than all our age-long bliss, Which shines within the shadow of her sill? How shall we lift this strangeness which doth fill Her human heart to breaking,—we who miss In our immortal joy, the enlight'ning kiss Of sorrow's ...
— The Angel of Thought and Other Poems - Impressions from Old Masters • Ethel Allen Murphy
... him so when I had learned the facts. A poor fellow this Panfilo—evidently a very bad man, indeed—but Jose admired him and was harboring thoughts of revenge. I said to him: 'Jose, my boy, it is better to do nothing than to act wrongly. Since it was God's will that your cousin came to a bad end, why follow in his footsteps? You will not make a good soldier. Go back to your beautiful employer, be loyal to her, and think no more about this unhappy affair.' It required some argument, I assure you, but—he is here. He comes to ask your forgiveness ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... is God's will that it should be so. Two days ago, as I journeyed hither, after going down to Sepphoris with a message from the general to some of the principal inhabitants there, I met an old man, traveling with his wife and family. I asked him ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... first light next day, to Simmons. Sure enough, the poor fellow did get a bit easier next day, and I felt clear mad to think he was goin' to die before my very eyes. "Not if I can help it!" I cries, quite savage like. But he only smiled a patient smile, and said, "God's will be done, mate. He knows best, and I aint in any pain to ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... some part of a field of his possession" (Lev. 27:14, 16). So also the first-born of all the children were sanctified unto the Lord (Num. 8:17). Even the Son of God Himself, in so far as He was set apart by the Father and sent into the world to do God's will, was sanctified (John 10:36). Whenever a thing or person is separated from the common relations of life in order to be devoted to the sacred, such ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... them now. Religion is as becoming in the young as it is respectable in the aged. I'll not disturb you to-night, for it is God's will that I should stay ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... Tarshish ship to lift anchor. We have services in the steerage and second-class and distribute tracts and New Testaments; but all the time we're headed for Tarshish; our way, not God's. It won't do simply to do good. We must do God's will. Find that and fit ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... says John, 'if you shut up all bowels of compassion, and not relieve us at all, we shall not extort anything by violence or steal from any one; but when what little we have is spent, if we perish for want, God's will be done.' ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... flowers to kill. As I have said, I felt power for strategy, unknown to my nature before, rising in me. Certain ideas were suggested to me, on which I acted with coolness and promptness. I felt like a minister of God's will, charged with destruction. It no longer remained for me to decide what to do: some power dwelling in me impelled me, against which I could not, even if I would, ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... Melancholy and in the works of "the poet- preacher," Jeremy Taylor. At this time, too, his thoughtful nature turned to the serious problem of his life work. He eagerly questioned his capabilities as preliminary, to use his own words, "to ascertaining God's will with reference to himself." As already learned from his notebook, he early recognized his extraordinary gifts in music. But his ambition aimed at more than a musician's career, for it seemed to him, as he said, that there were greater things that he ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... existence. The sacred creed of each is that the immensity of Germany is such that there can be no room on the earth for another than itself. Blood and iron will clear the world of the inferior peoples. To the masses that is their God's will. Their God is an understudy of ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... shifted to the loss of her son and she wept, using the corner of the quilt to wipe away her tears. "Eddie" had been her idol and, as she said, it was hard to believe what folks kept tellin' her, that it was God's will, and therefore all ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... No, Alexander Morton, I have come thousands of miles for one sacred purpose,—to save you; and I shall, with God's will, do it now. Be it so, on one condition. You shall have this girl; but lawfully, openly, with the sanction of Heaven ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... open hours When God's will sallies free And the dull idiot may see The flowing fortunes of a ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... eat it. "But one does not eat gold," said the prisoner. "Why, then," replied the Tartar, "did you hoard it, instead of expending it in keeping up an army? Why did you not meet me at the Oxus?" The Khalif could only say, "Such was God's will!" "And that which has befallen you was also ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... said the father, sorrowfully, "I can give you no more, and in these hard times I cannot earn a farthing more than will suffice for our daily bread." "Dear father," answered the son, "don't trouble yourself about it, if it is God's will, it will turn to my advantage I shall soon accustom myself to it." When the father wanted to go into the forest to earn money by helping to pile and stack wood ans also chop it, the son said, "I will go with you and help you." "Nay, my son," said the father, "that would ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... me mind my own personal work; keep myself pure and zealous and believing; laboring to do God's will in this fruitful vineyard of young lives committed to my charge, as my allotted field, until my work ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... you shall agree on earth, as touching anything that they shall ask [according to God's will] it shall be done for them," saith Christ, "of my Father which is in heaven" (Matt 18:19). Now, I say, if things prayed for in assemblies must first be jointly agreed upon, then must such things, by some one, or more of that assembly, be first propounded, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... boy; but those cool winds have made me like this. It was sitting out, in the evenings there, that first gave me my cough. But it was God's will," she said half to herself, "and why should one look to ...
— Wilton School - or, Harry Campbell's Revenge • Fred E. Weatherly
... prospects from now on, I could wish better things for thy cause. However, I shall never hide from you anything that it is my duty to say and yours to do, knowing that while human affairs follow whatever course may be in accordance with God's will, yet those who are in charge of any enterprise always win praise or blame according to their own deeds. Therefore let both arms and soldiers be sent to us in such numbers that from now on we may engage with ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius
... Israel the fact that it was a preparatory stage in the revelation of God's will must not be overlooked. We are not surprised, therefore, that, judged by the absolute standard of the New Testament, the morality of the Old Testament must be pronounced imperfect. In two respects at least, in intent ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... to see you recovering, my dear Hurry," he said in a low, feeble voice. "It is all up with me, though. I shall never be a post-captain—never command a ship—my last battle is fought. I must yield to God's will. It seems hard, though. You know all about my friends. If you ever reach home, go and tell them about me. I can't talk more. I am weak—very weak—couldn't hail the maintop if I was to try. Oh, it's hard, very hard, to be thus cut off by the arm of ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... plans, and now purposed to remain in the house. However, I was to call again in a week, when I should receive an answer. I was not in the least discomforted by this obstacle. "Lord, if thou hast no need of another Orphan House, I have none," was the burden of my prayer. I was willing to do God's will, yea, to delight myself in his will. And just on this very ground, because I knew I sought not my own honor, but the Lord's; because I knew I was not serving myself, but the Lord, in this thing; and because I ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... the answer would never come. Sometimes it has seemed that the Lord had forgotten. Many times I have had to say to my heart, "Be patient and wait." This is the hardest lesson that many of us ever have to learn, but learn it we must if God's will and his plan are to ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... to be led, or want to be, at any rate. I must do the best—not second best—for her, for me. The best only is God's will. What else would you have? Be good to her these days, dear old ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... strangely quiescent and acquiescent in all that was done to her or for her. Perhaps extreme weakness had a share in this; but she felt as if sorrow and mourning were as far from her as was active, tumultuous joy. Calm thankfulness and satisfaction with God's will seemed to be the prevailing tone of her mind. Neither grief for the past nor anxiety for the future had any place in it. Her soul was as ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... be well satisfied, seeing it is said, 'God is in heaven, and doth whatever pleaseth him.' And do you not pray every day that the will of God may be done upon earth as it is in heaven? Now, father, this is God's will, that I should lie upon this sick bed, and die of this disease; shall we not be content when our prayers are answered? I will, as long as I live, pray that God's will be done, ...
— Stories of Boys and Girls Who Loved the Saviour - A Token for Children • John Wesley |
