It is human to believe in that. And we
grasp at every event that seems to favor the belief. The other evening,
in the twilight, I passed two respectable-looking women who seemed like
domestic servants; and I caught one sentence which one said to the other
with great apparent faith. "You see," she said, "if a thing's to come
your way, it'll no gang by ye!" It was in a crowded street; but if
it had been in my country parish, where everyone knew me, I should
certainly have stopped the women, and told them, that, though what they
said was quite true, I feared they were understanding it wrongly, and
that the firm belief we all hold in God's Providence which reaches to
all events, and in His sovereignty which orders all things, should be
used to help us to be resigned, after we have done our best and failed,
but should never be used as an excuse for not doing our best. When we
have set our mind on any honest end, let us seek to compass it by every
honest means; and if we fail after having used every honest means,
_then_ let us fall back on the comfortable belief that things are
ordered by the Wisest and Kindest; _then_ is the time for the _Fiat
Voluntas Tua_.
You would not wish, my friend, to be deprived of common sense and of
delicate feeling, even though you could be quite sure that once _that_
drag-weight was taken off, you would spring forward to the van, and make
such running in the race of life as you never made before.
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