"Providential" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... farther up the valley. The second section of the express and another passenger train soon overtook the first and half an hour before the dam broke all these trains stood abreast on the four-track road. The positions now occupied seems providential. If the railroad men had foreseen the disaster they could not have shown greater prudence, for the engine of the first section of the express, on the track nearest the mountain side, stood about a car's length ahead of the second. The engine of the third train came to a stop a car's length ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... close of the first year abroad, Mrs. Ware's second child was born in Rome, and, although this was as she would have said, "providential," never was a child less needed in a family. Mrs. Ware had then two babies on her hands, and of these, her invalid husband was the greater care. In the following August, Mrs. Ware arrived in Boston with her double charge, and had the happiness to know that Mr. Ware was somewhat better ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... of the leaden missiles flew uncomfortably near his head, Jack was unharmed, and as he was borne on by the iron horse around the next curve in the track, leaving his enemies out of sight, he offered a prayer of thankfulness for his providential escape. ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... sick with terror, but she kept her self-possession, and tried to cling to one frail straw of hope—that they might by some providential chance overlook the door of the cupboard (which was papered like the walls of the room) and pass it by. She trembled lest Oliver, hearing the tramp of his enemies' steps approaching, should attempt to make his escape by the windows, in which case he would fall straight ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... nursery life proclaims a genuine memory, not a make-believe childhood faked up for literary ends. Who that has once been young can read unstirred by envy the chapter on "Devices and Contrivances," with its entrancing triumph of the chain of mirrors arranged (during the providential absence of those in authority) from the night nursery, down two flights of stairs, to the store-room in the basement? I know a reviewer whom nothing, but moral cowardice restrained from testing the possibility of this delightful plan by personal experiment. Fireworks too—Mr. ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... walked to the window, as if intent upon the still falling snow. But he had at once grasped the situation that seemed now almost providential for his inexperience and his mission. The man he was seeking was within his possible reach, if the story he had heard was true. The detectives would not be likely to interfere with his plans, for he was the only man who really wished to meet ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... the Squire had been a better farmer and less interested in books, especially in his yellow-backed law-books, the eking might not have been so continuous; and if his good wife had not been snatched away, at untimely thirty-five, by one of those accidents which we call providential, leaving a forty-year- old father alone with a five-year-old boy, her good sense would undoubtedly have made times easier with the Squire. As it was, his sister came to be mother in this little home. Good, steadfast Aunt Fannie she was, a woman without ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... intelligent unbeliever in the Providential government of the world has just said to me in discussing this greatest of calamities which has occurred in our nation's history, "Where is your benevolent God?" I answered "He still lives and guides the affairs ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... county is arranged into road districts in order that the labor and expense may be divided as equally as possible throughout the county. Three commissioners are appointed in every district for a term of two years, and are excused only for providential causes; but while serving they are exempt from jury, militia, ...
— Elements of Civil Government • Alexander L. Peterman
... demand is too much to ask of any human creature! God does not require it of us. If after creating us for each other it is His will that we should live forever apart and be eternally miserable, why has He united us to-night? Is not our meeting providential? Dolores, your decision ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... brother, lived unforgiven? Fifteen, twenty, forty, sixty years? Lived through great awakenings, lived through domestic sorrow, lived through commercial calamity, lived through providential crises that startled nations, and you are living yet, strangers to God, and with no hope for a great future into which you may be precipitated. Oh, would it not be better for us to get our nature through the Grace of ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... he owned up. He must beat Wedderburn. He forgot the examples of those starry gentlemen, John Burns and Bradlaugh. Besides, he reflected, the glimpse of the rest of the slip he had had was, after all, quite accidental, forced upon him by chance, a kind of providential revelation rather than an unfair advantage. It was not nearly so dishonest to avail himself of that as it was of Broome, who believed in the efficacy of prayer, to pray daily for a first-class. "Five minutes more," said the demonstrator, ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... towards the reef during the intervals of the heaviest seas, in three minutes we were in smooth water—a nearer approach showed us the beach of a well-sheltered cove in which we anchored for the rest of the night. We thought Providential Cove a well-adapted ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... old people and the boy discussing the fire. Probably, he thought, they would talk of little else until they heard the real story. He thanked his stars that he had struck this one quiet spot in the chaos of war to prepare himself for the adventures of the next few days. It was providential. Now he was ready to ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop
... he liked. One day, being ministered to by them after a night's perspiration of the kind referred to, he went straight to college, and there decided sixty doubtful cases against the unanimous dissent of the assembly. Providential circumstances, which happened afterward, both proved that he was right in his judgment and that his wife was wrong in suffering her fondness for him to stand in the way of the performance of his ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... as well as my little chain companion within an inch of the chopper as an involuntary accessory after the fact," Jacques Collin went on. "I discovered that Bibi-Lupin is cheating the authorities, that one of his men murdered the Crottats. Was not this providential, as you say?—So I perceived a remote possibility of doing good, of turning my gifts and the dismal experience I have gained to account for the benefit of society, of being useful instead of mischievous, and I ventured to confide ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... propositions is an established fact. It is at least quite certain that in the ivth century (if not long before) there existed a known Lectionary system, alike in the Church of the East and of the West. Cyril of Jerusalem (A.D. 348,) having to speak about our LORD's Ascension, remarks that by a providential coincidence, on the previous day, which was Sunday, the event had formed the subject of the appointed lessons;(339) and that he had availed himself of the occasion to discourse largely on the subject.—Chrysostom, ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... was so, I thought it was very providential I had fell in long o' this young mate, and we got to be fast friends. And we laid a plot that we should say nothing about it, and he would take me to his aunty's, and I should go by the name of my first husband, Wright, and lay low ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... 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 ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... this goodness, and affected the most eager impatience to know the particulars of Renaldo's fate, since their unhappy separation, more especially his errand to this uncomfortable place, which he should henceforth revere as the providential scene of their reunion. Nor did he forget to inquire, in the most affectionate and dutiful manner, about the situation of his ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... close of each evening, they received from the son and 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 ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... on your kind indulgence in venturing now to ask you how far your own are of a nature to confirm my happy presentiment. To be accepted by you as your husband and the earthly guardian of your welfare, I should regard as the highest of providential gifts. In return I can at least offer you an affection hitherto unwasted, and the faithful consecration of a life which, however short in the sequel, has no backward pages whereon, if you choose to turn them, you will find records such as might justly cause you either ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... means of moral culture which the world supplies. It is through the complex conditions of earthly existence that the character of the individual is developed. It will only be possible to indicate briefly some of the aids to the culture of the moral life. Among these may be mentioned: (a) The Providential Experiences of life. The world itself, as a sphere of Work, Temptation, and Suffering, is a school of character. The affections and cares of the home, the duties and tasks incident to one's calling, the claims of one's fellow-men, ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... perhaps 50 cents, and occasionally a still larger sum to some particular case. As I have started this subject, I take opportunity to ventilate the financial question. My supplies, altogether voluntary, mostly confidential, often seeming quite Providential, were numerous and varied. For instance, there were two distant and wealthy ladies, sisters, who sent regularly, for two years, quite heavy sums, enjoining that their names should be kept secret. The same ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... LAWS AND PRESERVATION. Happiness constitutional; Pain not necessary; Object of all Education; Reciprocation existing between Body and Mind; Health defined; Sickness—not providential. ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... shuddered and sickened at the thought of eating human flesh, or of killing their companions and relatives to preserve their own lives, now looked upon the opportunity the acts afforded them of escaping the most dreadful of deaths as providential interference in ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... and Moses were learned before they were inspired, but God did not supersede the use of the powers of the mind by the higher gift of the Spirit. The providential dealings of God are adapted to the laws of the human mind, and in the government of his creatures he never violates the principles which he ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... arguing, preaching, remonstrating? Had he discovered in himself a capacity and a taste for that sort of thing? Or was he perhaps, in an intense dislike for the job, beating about the bush and only puzzling Captain Anthony, the providential man, who, if he expected the girl to appear at any moment, must have been on tenterhooks all the time, and beside himself with impatience to see the back of his brother-in-law. How was it that he had not got rid ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... innocence, approving of all conduct since that fateful flight from bank of the Thames. Thus strangely I have been advised of every fact known by these friends about this tragedy. My trip to the Himalayas and all incidents of the past two years were providential. How else possibly could I have met Karl Ludwig, whose pause and look ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... Hazel excitedly; "worshiped, you mean. Why, we have got the longitude by means of your chronometer. It is wonderful! It is providential! It is the finger of Heaven! Pen and ink, and let ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... logician builds up his own narrow conclusions with remorseless rigour. Our author in his first part adopts this same narrow basis, and truly enough finds no resting-place for Christianity upon it, as indeed there is none for any theory of a providential government. But at the conclusion he tacitly and (as it would seem) quite unconsciously assumes a much wider standing-ground. If he had not done so, he himself would have been edged off his footing, and hurled down the precipice. A whole pack of 'pursuing wolves' ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... providential thing, as you call it, to find such a mother in the bargain! Now I might have discovered a slattern, or a scold, or a woman of bad character; or one that never went to church; or even one that swore and drank; for, begging your pardon, Miss Lucy, just such creatur's ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... admitted by any man. I dared not look at her. I called to mind the taunt of those old men, that I was young! There was in my soul vast relief that she was not delaying me here longer in this place of spells—that in this almost providential way ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... feeling was deepened by providential escapes from accidents which threatened his life—"judgments mixed with mercy" he terms them,—which made him feel that he was not utterly forsaken of God. Twice he narrowly escaped drowning; once in "Bedford river"—the Ouse; once in "a creek of the sea," his tinkering rounds ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... genius was 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 ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... hinted in my Saturday's note when my heart was pretty heavy within me. I need not tell you what to ask for the dear child; but for me do pray that I may have no will of my own. All these trials and disappointments are so purely Providential that it frightens me to think I may have much secret discontent about them, or may like to plan for myself in ways different from God's plans. Yet in the midst of so much care and fatigue I hardly ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... a railroad journey of thirty hours so filled with grand and beautiful views. I should perhaps qualify this statement by deducting the hours of darkness; yet this is really a fortunate enhancement of the traveler's enjoyment; it seems providential that there is one part of the way just long enough and uninteresting enough to permit one to go to sleep without the fear of missing anything sublime. Leaving Salt Lake City at noon, we sped through the fertile and populous Jordan Valley, past the fresh ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... exhaustion, rather than the exercising of any judgment, for, had it not been for this providential support, I would surely have drowned without a struggle. Every breath I drew was in pain; I felt as though my ribs had been crushed in, while I had lost sufficient blood to leave me as weak as a babe. I simply clung there desperately, ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... invested the money in a magnificent enterprise, paying three hundred per cent. per annum. Thanks to this stratagem, you can spend your twenty-five to thirty thousand francs right under the paternal nose without awakening any suspicions. Now, young man, was I presumptuous in affecting providential airs toward you? But why this gloom and silence? I, who expected you to burst with delight, to shout with joy, to cut capers, and give vent to many other manifestations totally excusable in the first moments of rejoicing over your sudden transformation from a poor ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... last; but what a narrow and providential escape! And now to discover whether the pirates had seen them. Jake climbed up to his former coign of vantage, and as soon as he clapped his eye to the peep-hole he held up his hand in warning. Roger shuddered. ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... "Providential for which of them?" I asked, stabbing my sheet of music paper with the pen, while I tried in vain to think how many eighth notes would fill ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the chance of your lives," said Laura. "If you can only please Aunt Susanna with this dinner it will convince her that you are good cooks in spite of your nefarious bent for music and literature. I consider the illness of Miranda Mary's mother a Providential interposition—that is, if ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... pen and ink write unto thee"! Our legitimate veneration, however, would be apt to pass over into idolatrous superstition. We should worship such precious documents as the early Christians worshipped the relics of the saints. It was, therefore, a wise providential arrangement that such a temptation should have been taken out of the way. All the original manuscripts of the sacred writings disappeared, on account of the fragile character of their materials, probably in a few years after the death of the writers, no special ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... at their success so far, and at their providential reunion. Whatever difficulties they had encountered they had surmounted, and whatever difficulties lay ahead they would meet and ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... that a change seemed impossible, died, and he was obliged not only to move, but put his precious belongings in storage until he can place himself suitably once more. So that his plan of coming here bridges the break, and seems quite providential. ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... accordingly she had bravely stopped a news-boy in the street and made the purchase. To Rachel she pointed out the paragraph with pride, and to please her and divert Louis, Rachel had introduced the newspaper into the bedroom. The item was headed: "Runaway Horses in Bursley Market-place. Providential Escape." It spoke of Mr. Louis Fores' remarkable skill and presence of mind in swerving away with two bicycles. It said that Mr. Louis Fores was an accomplished cyclist, and that after a severe shaking ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... grow old. The pagans of the fourth century no longer naively considered their gods as capricious genii, as the disordered powers of a confused natural philosophy; they conceived them as cosmic energies whose providential action was regulated in a harmonious system. Faith was no longer instinctive and impulsive, for erudition and reflection had reconstructed the entire theology. In a certain sense it might be said that theology had passed from the fictitious to ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... cruise, and the prompt measures which were taken in consequence, for the wind became fair that night. It was one of those events which so frequently occur in history, and as often in private life, where important consequences depend upon some accidental, or, to speak more properly, providential circumstance, which yet is unavailing, unless ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... before had she failed to gain her end with him—and there was a peculiar irony in the fact that Moffatt's intrusion should have brought before her the providential result of her previous failure. Not that she confessed to any real resemblance between the two situations. In the present case she knew well enough what she wanted, and how to get it. But the analogy had served her father's purpose, and Moffatt's unlucky ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... hours in town before a position was offered to H. which seemed providential. The chief of a certain department was in ill health and wanted a deputy. It secures him from conscription, requires no oath, and pays a good salary. A mountain seemed lifted off ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... 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
... for, however well you may have behaved about it, and nobody could have behaved better, you must have felt that as the old lady chose to leave all to one son, that should not have been the youngest. I hope you will be happy; and I know you will make a kind, good landlord. It seems quite providential that you should have spent so much time in learning all about land and farming. I have always felt that all which was best and nicest in you would come out, if you could have prosperity, and we now see that ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... (as indeed John Woolman was on all others,) was in the way of becoming in time more eminently serviceable to his oppressed fellow-creatures. We have seen already the good seed sown in his heart, and it seems to have wanted only providential seasons and occurrences to be brought into productive fruit. Accordingly we find that a journey, which he took as a minister of the Gospel in 1746 through the provinces of Maryland, Virginia, and, North Carolina, which were then more noted than others for the ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... countess, "it would now be a most unequal match, and one to which he is by no means entitled. How fortunate it is that I had not given him my promise!—After all, your aversion to him, child, was quite providential. Now you may form the most splendid alliance that ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... Bute Crawley, numbed with midnight travelling, and warming herself at the newly crackling parlour fire, heard from Miss Briggs the intelligence of the clandestine marriage, she declared it was quite providential that she should have arrived at such a time to assist poor dear Miss Crawley in supporting the shock—that Rebecca was an artful little hussy of whom she had always had her suspicions; and that as for Rawdon Crawley, she never could account for his aunt's infatuation ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the Bible doctrine, and the inferences which he deduces from it; but assuredly Christianity would be robbed of its most attractive and endearing attributes, were it represented as silent on the paternal character of God and His providential care. He is right in saying that "the Providence man needs, the Providence the old theologies gave him, was a personal Providence, an available help.... I care only to add, that there is hardly any feature in the Christian system ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... in you last August a wonderful and providential help. Coming home to Lorraine for a few days, ill, and with my heart full of sorrow, I dreaded the shock which I should feel at the sight of the ruins and distress . . . and went away comforted and in good health. I was at the end of my tether, and unfortunately I am not religious. I longed to find ...
— Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion • Emile Coue
... 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 of Israel, ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... providential," Molly told her mother one day at lunch, after having seen for the second time the parents of Dagmar Brodix, "for the family had to leave Pennsylvania, and it would have been very hard for them to take Rose ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... indeed, a providential interference," rejoined Mrs. Bloundel. "From what a snare of the evil one—from what a ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... am writing, smile contemptuously at the prince's credulity, and, in the fancied superiority of their own yet untempted understanding, unconditionally condemn him; not all of these, I apprehend, would have stood his first trial so courageously. If afterwards, notwithstanding this providential warning, we witness his downfall; if we see that the black design against which, at the very outset, he was thus cautioned, is finally successful, we shall be less inclined to ridicule his weakness than to be astonished at the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... 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 ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... necessary to aim at great variety in the mere language of his devotional exercises. So long as a petition was deemed suitable, it perhaps continued to be repeated in nearly the same words, whilst providential interpositions, impending persecutions, and the personal condition of the flock, would be continually suggesting some fresh topics for thanksgiving, supplication, and confession. The beautiful and comprehensive prayer taught by our ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... that very elevation so hated and so envied: wanting which the aristocracy would be subject to the vulgar ambitions, vulgar passions, and sordid desires of meaner aspirants after personal advantage and distinction. It is a providential blessing, we firmly believe, to a great nation to possess a class, by fortune and station, placed above the unseemly contentions of adventurers in public life: looked up to as men responsible without hire for the public weal, and, without sordid ambitions of their own, solicitous to preserve ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... time—there was a man named Mallory who was tried for murder, the murder of a friend, who everyone knew was his rival. Well, he got off, but only after a long trial, and only by a little weakness in the chain of evidence, which even his friends at the time thought providential. He went abroad for a long time. Then he came into a title and returned to England. He was obliged to take up his position, and people were willing enough to forget the past. He opened his London house, and accepted every invitation which came. At the very first party he went to, he ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to be otherwise than thankful for," she added, with a slightly misplaced effort at consolation. "Of course anyone must feel how providential it is to be saved from all those terrible false doctrines and practices—not that I know anything about them. There's so much, don't you think, it is so much better not to know anything about. Then one feels ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... family] was fit for this office. O, youth, the history [of the princess] is what you have heard. Finally, heaven-bestowed wealth never fails, but the intentions of the possessor must [at the same time] be just; moreover, how much soever is spent [out of this providential wealth] so much also is the increase: to be astonished at the power of God, is not right in any religion." The female servant, after finishing this narrative, said, "Now if you still intend to proceed to the country of ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... wars of their gods, who won for them territory, and presided over their national fortunes. To all that way of thinking the Apostle opposes the conception, which naturally follows from his fundamental declaration of the one Creator, of His providential guidance of all nations in regard to their place in the world and the epochs of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... that he should burst if 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
... "devise means that His banished be not expelled from Him," and in His providential mercy order those events and circumstances to occur, which are instrumental in preparing the mind for the reception of His truth! It was no chance, no mere coincidence, that the preacher took for his text those words which were associated ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... "Odd? Say providential," he answered. "I believe that's what you church folk call it when the Almighty averts a disaster that is made imminent ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... lately betrothed in a parlor-car, and the dialogue that ensues ends in reconciliation and renewal of vows. They are alone, except when the porter enters from time to time, and a providential detention on the road prolongs the interview.—W. D. Howells, The Parlor Car ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... yells from all sides at once, and all the air sawed and pawed and clawed and cloven by a writhing confusion of gesturing arms and hands. Out of the midst of this thunder and turmoil and tempest rose Dr. Lecher, serene and collected, and the providential length of his enabled his head to show out of it. He began his twelve-hour speech. At any rate, his lips could be seen to move, and that was evidence. On high sat the President, imploring order, with his long hands put together as in prayer, and his lips visibly ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... recourse to Almighty God, and not in vain. Xavier waking the next morning, found the cords fallen down, the swelling wholly taken away from his thighs, and the marks of the cords only remaining on his flesh. They joined in actions of thanksgiving to the Almighty, for his providential care already shewn in their behalf; and though the ways were very rugged, in the inclemency of that season, yet ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... the wreck and the shore, and most of the crew landed before the gale again came down with redoubled fury. By the morning scarce a vestige of the ship remained. I had the pleasure of seeing Mrs Mason completely recovered two days afterwards, and thankful for her providential escape. ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... interested by being informed of a few of the providential escapes which were experienced by Lieutenant Jones (now Rear-Admiral Jones), one of the few survivors of the catastrophe above described. This officer had been midshipman of the Providence, discovery-ship, commanded ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... some neighbors' children with a chorus of wails and the housewife too objected, but to the farmer, who was much perplexed to know what to do with the bear, it seemed like quite a Providential opening. ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... 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 seats near her ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... 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 fact that both the ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... Oliver went, and told to Ganymede and Aliena how Orlando had saved his life; and when he had finished the story of Orlando's bravery and his own providential escape he owned to them that he was Orlando's brother who had so cruelly used him; and then be ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... "pulled his freight" from the Brunswick Hotel, where he had 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 ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... colonies contributed to the resentment against the stupidity and injustice of the English colonial policy which brought about the Revolution, cannot be estimated exactly; but certain it is that the preparation of the lawyers who were then in their prime appears to have been Providential interference in behalf of the people of the United States. Never in history has the profession of the law received so great a harvest of profound students of the constitutional principles of government as did our country at this time. Our lawyers signed the Declaration of Independence, served ...
— Ethics in Service • William Howard Taft
... the chief elements in the providential training of the Hebrews as the heralds and exponents of the most exalted religious and ethical truths revealed before the advent of the Prophet of Nazareth was the fact that they were the heirs and interpreters of the best that had been hitherto attained. Babylonia, ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent
... inclosed forty cabins. They arrived before it on the fifteenth of August, in the night. The inhabitants were advertised of their arrival in the morning, by being fired upon as they opened the gates. The time of their arrival was apparently providential. In two hours most of the efficient male inmates of the station were to have marched to the aid of two other stations, which were reported to have been attacked. This place would thus have been left completely defenceless. As soon as the garrison saw themselves besieged, they found means to despatch ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... by no means suited his ardent backers-up, who looked upon the whole affair as providential, and by no means ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... to dictate much more, although many other instances occur to me of most remarkable providential occurrences, of the escape of fugitives within my knowledge. I used to say that I was the owner of half-a-horse that was in active service, near the Susquehanna River. This horse I owned jointly with another friend of the slave, dedicating ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... desire of the people, to maintain peace and establish cordial relations with all foreign powers. Our gratitude is due to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, and I invite you to unite with me in offering to Him fervent supplications that His providential care may ever be extended to those who follow us, enabling them to avoid the dangers and the horrors of war consistently with a just and indispensable regard to the rights and honor of our country. But although the present state of our ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... not all belong to the ancient and honourable family of the Swiss Robinsons, who performed a series of unassuming miracles on their island. There was no practical dispensation of providential favours on our behalf. Trees that had the reputation of providing splendid splitting timber defiantly slandered themselves, and others that should have almost flayed themselves at the first tap of the tomahawk ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... "Wasn't it providential, sir, that this young gentleman should be thrown over his horse's head at our very gate, and that he should turn out to be the son of my old schoolfellow and friend?" asked the wife. "There is something more than accident in such cases, depend upon ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and the scarlet fever is severe all round; there have been some deaths, and the gardener's child was in great danger. The doctor has analysed the water, and finds it in a very bad state, so that your absence this autumn is providential. If you are in haste, telegraph to me, and I will meet your landlord there, and the sanitary inspector, and see what can be done, without waiting for Jasper. At any rate, you cannot go back there at once. Shall I secure a ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is it not an intended lesson? Evidently it comes in as an element in the Providential plan in which we are involved. For we see its disciplinary nature,—its wise and beneficial results in harmony with that Plan. Consider whether it is not the fact, that the entire discipline of life grows out of a succession of disappointments. ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... 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 ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... learned, for the first time, that my providential fall had brought me to the bottom of an almost perpendicular gallery. As I came down, amidst a perfect shower of stones, the least of which falling on me would have crushed me to death, they came to the conclusion that I had carried with me an entire dislocated ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... [A providential opening having occurred for getting the Scriptures translated into the Indian language, Rev. Wm. Ryerson, in a letter to Dr. Ryerson, dated York, 24th ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... Maher-shalal-hash-baz, neither of whom can, by any means, have been an ideal person. The prophet gave them these names; but the matter is quite different in the case of the wife, who already had her name when the prophet took her. All that we can grant to Hofmann is, that such a providential coincidence was possible; but probable it could be, only if other decisive arguments favoured the view of the transaction having been an outward one. If the name were not symbolical—if it belonged to the real wife of the prophet, it ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... the definition of liberty, which he says is in conformity "with the common notion of mankind," is his own. He always uses this definition when he undertakes to repel objections against his scheme of necessity. "It is evident," he says, "that such a providential disposing and determining of men's moral actions, though it infers a moral necessity of those actions, yet it does not in the least infringe the real liberty of mankind, the only liberty that common sense teaches to be necessary ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... even with the quick perception and patient combination of a Grotefend, to read more than the proper names and a few titles on the walls of the Persian palaces, without the aid of Zend and Sanskrit; and it seems almost providential, as Lassen remarked, that these inscriptions, which at any previous period would have been, in the eyes of either classical or oriental scholars, nothing but a quaint conglomerate of nails, wedges, or arrows, should have been rescued ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... the Brig. Presents to King Boy. Perfidy of the Pilot. Hostile Motions of the Natives. Brig. Providential Escape. Nautical Instructions. Release of Mr. Spittle. Perilous Situation of the Passage to Fernando Po. Fernando Po. Colonization of Fernando Po. Traffic with the Natives. Localities of Fernando Po. The Kroomen. Natives of Fernando Po. Costume of the Natives. Their Thieving ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... fairly clear on the morning of March 14, which was lucky, for it was now obvious that we were miles from Corner Camp and much too near the land. The flag we had seen must have been a miraged piece of pressure, and it was providential that we had not made for it, and found worse trouble than we actually experienced. Try all I could that morning, my team, which was leading, insisted on edging westwards. At last I saw what I thought was a cairn, but found out just in time that it was a haycock or mound of ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... controversies. In the age of Frederick II., the Anglo-French deism was widely diffused (p. 493). Lessing; the genial poet and critic (1729-1781), allied himself to no party. In his work on The Education of the Human Race, he set forth the view that the Scriptures have a high providential purpose as an instrument for the religious training of mankind, but that their essential contents are ultimately verified by reason on grounds of its own; so that the prop of authority eventually becomes needless, and falls away. ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... different sort were called into play in negotiating the purchase of machine-guns from Messrs. Vickers & Co., at Woolwich. Here a strong American accent, combined with the providential circumstance that Mexico happened to be in the grip of revolutionary civil war, overcame all difficulties, and Mr. John Washington Graham, U.S.A. (otherwise Fred H. Crawford of Belfast) played his part so effectively that he did not fail to finish the deal by extracting a handsome commission ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... was, and found everywhere the bones of the poor natives who had perished in the great plague (which our Doctor there thinks was probably the small-pox), they considered this destructive malady as a special mark of providential favor for them. How about the miserable Indians? Were they anything but planetary foundlings? No! Civilization is a great foundling hospital, and fortunate are all those who get safely into the creche before the frost or the malaria has killed them, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... explain. "I mean the keys thet he always carries in his belt. The reg'lar joke there is to call him 'St. Peter,' an' he takes it in good part, for, he declares, if there is such a thing as a similitude to the kingdom o' Heaven in a hotel, why, it's in the providential supply department which, in a manner, hangs to his belt. He always humors a joke—'specially ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... for the Quiquendonians, that a providential explosion put an end to this dangerous experiment, ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... importance in the deeper significance of Thalassa's story. That was to him the great thing—the wonderful discovery which was to clear Sisily and put everything right. He believed that the plan which had brought him to Cornwall was working splendidly. The chance encounter with the detective was really providential—a speeding up, ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... meet, of course not distinguishing between English and Portuguese. Thus the unfortunate crew of the brig became their victims. They would, had we landed before they had had time to ask questions, very probably have put us all to death. We have had, indeed, a providential escape." ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... man of them was safe inside, and the door was slammed shut and locked in the faces of the foe. Under the impetus of the charge the victorious troops broke against the barrier, but it held firm. That it did so hold was one of the providential occurrences of the day. So, at last, the Hilltops were foiled and baffled. Their victory was not complete. Pen stood on the top step at the entrance, his face smeared with blood, and angrily declared his determination, by one ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... appearance apprised the commanding officer of the condition Lieutenant D—— and his handful of men were in, and he at once sent a reinforcement of two companies to rescue the besieged. This was the only way they had of knowing that the party were attacked, and no wonder it was regarded as a providential circumstance. ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle
... the appreciation of Decoud's political idea. It was a good idea—and Barrios was the only instrument of its realization. The doctor's soul, withered and shrunk by the shame of a moral disgrace, became implacable in the expansion of its tenderness. Nostromo's return was providential. He did not think of him humanely, as of a fellow-creature just escaped from the jaws of death. The Capataz for him was the only possible messenger to Cayta. The very man. The doctor's misanthropic mistrust of mankind (the bitterer because based on personal failure) did not ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... you got out accidental you've had a most providential escape, an' me an' my mates don't deserve less than to hear about it. There's bound to be inquiries after you when the guard finds your compartment empty an' the door open. May be the train'll put back; more likely they'll send a search-party; but anyways you're all wet through, an' the best ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... such acquirements which the years as they proceed tell them with increasing iteration that they do not feel. The young, the adventurous, the admired, may at first be deceived by such a glamour, and it is in the providential scheme of human affairs, and it is for the good of us all that the pleasing cheat should last while the good things are doing. Thus do substantial verse and noble sculpture and building whose stuff is lasting and whose beauty is almost imperishable, rise to the ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... answer. "The Prince says I've got to look after you. Naturally he can't see you now, but he thinks your coming's providential. Last grace of Heaven. Like ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... arrived in safety shortly afterward, timed by providential exactness to meet the emergency, and the Gospel was planted as in a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Then the star in which he trusted must have betrayed him. It must have shed upon him a ray just strong enough to make him a visible object; for, suddenly, ping! something hit him violently on the leg and bowled him over like a rabbit into a providential shell-hole. And there he lay quaking for a long time, while the lunacy of his adventure coarsely and ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... Mary," said Lyndsay, who just then entered from superintending the removal of his luggage from the boat, accompanied by a group of friends, all anxious to congratulate Mrs. Lyndsay on her providential escape. "My dear Flora, you must be a good girl, ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... of these signal victories, captain Gianavel made a suitable discourse to his men, causing them to kneel down, and return thanks to the Almighty for his providential protection; and usually concluded with the eleventh psalm, where the subject ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... 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 direction was sufficient to throw ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... youngest courageously starts on the regular path. He there is exposed to many dangers and temptations. Already, his strength failing, he feels that he is almost on the point of succumbing, when a fairy appears and stretches forth her hand to him. The young man blesses this providential aid. The fairy brings back his courage and leads him to ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... "It's providential in a manner that those unsightly cottages were swept away; but they meant homes for many poor souls; and all that they possessed ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... 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 on ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... providential good fortune that young Brainerd escaped instant destruction. The wonder was that the steam man was not so injured as to be unable to travel, in which case the maddened bull would have left little ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... 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 ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... had 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 into the harbor, ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... hastily pulled out our dripping blankets and soaked food and other things, and then, overturning the canoe, emptied it of water; and as we saw the large break in the bottom, we realised as we had not before the danger we had been in, and the providential escape which had been ours. So, with glad hearts, we said, "We do 'praise the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... circumstance, and what, without the providential interposition of very improbable events, had rendered all their schemes abortive, remains yet to be related. The general idea of the fabric and equipment of the vessel was settled in a few days, and when this was done, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... in his estimate of the character of the belligerents in our late war, and lawfulness of defensive war. I consider the war, with him, as 'made on good advice,' that is, for just causes, and its dispensation as providential, inasmuch, as it has exercised our patriotism and submission to order, has planted and invigorated among us arts of urgent necessity, has manifested the strong and the weak parts of our republican institutions, and the excellence of a representative ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... forward to 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 ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... compromise; consequently both love and self-interest were forced to 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 ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... land he has his home, must wish its perpetuity. Who of them will not now acknowledge, in the words of Washington, that "every step by which the people of the United States have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency"? Who will not join with me in the prayer that the Invisible Hand which has led us through the clouds that gloomed around our path will so guide us onward to a perfect restoration of fraternal affection that ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... pioneers, already intoxicated with the spirit of freedom swept in on the first fresh breezes of the Revolution. Yet it is not to be doubted that the Transylvania Company, through the courage and moral influence of its leaders, made a permanent contribution to the colonization of the West, which, in providential timeliness and effective execution, is without parallel ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... regeneration of the race, in its ultimate perfectibility, the synthesis of humanity, the providential idea, and the path of the future; he therefore puts on a shovel hat, cries out against ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... curiously contorted by persons who have attempted to write about it without knowing the facts. The real saviors of Mrs. Stevenson's house were her nephews and Mr. Field, and even they might have lost the day had it not been for a providential wind that blew in strongly from the sea against the advancing wall of flame. For three days and nights they looked down from their high post upon the raging furnace below and anxiously watched the progress of the fire as it leaped from street to street in its mad race up the hill, ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez |
