"God's Will" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Allen—no, you won't. If you try to do right, try to do God's will, you have His armies to surround you with a unseen wall of Strength." "Why, I hain't seen you look so sort o' skairful and riz up, ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... it was God's will, he was ready to go, but he believed that there was still work for him to do, and that his life would be preserved to do it. At eleven o'clock Mrs. Jackson knelt by his side, and told him that he could not live beyond ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... said Rebecca, meekly; "I am a maiden, unskilled to dispute for my religion, but I can die for it, if it be God's will.—Let me pray your answer to ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... of temptation, and the only source in earth and heaven from which deliverance can come. Theoretically he knew it, but as yet not practically. Great as his trials had been, and deeply as he had suffered, it was God's will that he should pass through a yet fiercer flame ere he could be purified from pride and passion and self-confidence, and led to the cross of a suffering Saviour, there to fling himself down in heart-rending humility, and cast his great load of cares and sins upon Him who cared for him through ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... foolish, and deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, soon grow weary of good, but are ever ready to delight in evil, it came to pass that, instead of Martha teaching poor ignorant Bess how to do God's will, Bess was leading her into all sorts of ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... not remember, lad, how we lay together thus by our dying mother. She put thy small, wee hand in mine—I reckon she sees us now; and belike we shall soon be with her. Anyhow, God's will be done." ...
— The Half-Brothers • Elizabeth Gaskell
... sick woman, 'I am very ill, dear madam, and I think that I cannot live longer than a few weeks; but God's will be done! I have no trouble in leaving this world but on account of little Marten; yet I know that God will take care of him, and that I ought not to be troubled ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... "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 ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... tender and generous in our misfortunes. The poor Eureka is lost to me and the world forever. God's will be done! Methinks Heaven designs thereby to rouse me to the sense of nearer duties; and I have a daughter whose name I adjure you not to sully, and whose heart I pray you not to break. Come hither no ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... But I stand aside and wait while she—of purer, clearer vision, and walking nearer Heaven than you or I—discerns the right, and, choosing it, rejects the wrong. Should she be satisfied that life with you is indeed God's will for her—and I tell you honestly, it will take a miracle to bring this about—she will come to you. But she will not come to you unless, in so doing, she is choosing what to her ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... "this is not wise. You cannot save me. It is God's will that I should now glorify the dear name of Jesus by laying down my life. But you are not yet condemned, and your mother needs ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... for what they need, or for pardon for their sins. My children do not need to pray to me for food or forgiveness; and I am a mere earthly father. Yet Christ, who came direct from God—who was God—to teach all men God's will, directed us to pray to God for our daily bread, for forgiveness of our trespasses against Him, and that He would not lead us into temptation! Imagine a father leading his ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... other hand,' 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
... the Land might wonder and mark "Today is a day of days," they said, "Make merry, O People, all!" And the Ploughman listened and bowed his head: "Today and tomorrow God's will," he said, As he trimmed the lamps ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... intellect of God. Wherefore the intellect of God, in so far as it is conceived to constitute God's essence, is, in reality, the cause of things, both of their essence and of their existence. This seems to have been recognized by those who have asserted, that God's intellect, God's will, and God's power, are one and the same. As, therefore, God's intellect is the sole cause of things, namely, both of their essence and existence, it must necessarily differ from them in respect to its essence, ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza
... of prayer and trust some six months before feeling a liberty to pray for the healing of my body; fearing I should desire it without due submission to God's will. It was with fear and trembling that I first made known this request. Though my pleadings in this direction were earnest, and often agonizing, yet I could say with a fervor as never before, 'Not my ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... will the next few days bring forth? It may be God's will that the opening for the Gospel may be given to us now. Sometimes I feel as if I were almost too importunate in my longings for some beginning here; and I try not to be impatient, and to wait His good ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Then, if we make us so weak and so feeble that we can neither work nor pray as we should do, nor think, are we not greatly to blame that fail when we had most need to be stalwart? And well I wot that it is not GOD'S will that we so do. For the prophet says: "Lord, I shall keep my strength to Thee," so that he might sustain GOD'S service till his death-day, and not in a little and a short time waste it, and then lie wailing and groaning by the wall. And it is much ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole
... mortally wounded: his last words were—'Walsingham, comfort my father.' That was no easy task. Stern as Captain Campbell seemed, the loss of his son was irreparable. He never shed a tear when he was told it was all over, but said, 'God's will be done;' and turning into his cabin, desired to be left alone. Half an hour afterwards he sent for Walsingham, who found him quite calm. 'We must see and do our duty together ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... honourable house, perhaps for ever; I shall lay down my life with pleasure in a cause favoured by my late dear royal mistress. When I consider that I am to be judged by the justice, honour, and virtue of my peers, I shall acquiesce, and retire with great content; and, my lords, God's will be done." The duke of Shrewsbury having acquainted the house that the earl was very much indisposed with the gravel, he was suffered to remain at his own house in custody of the black-rod; in his way thither he was attended by a great multitude of people ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... said the 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
... may be restored, and hatred and variance banished from our university, it were an ungracious act that you should refuse to join with them, for they have sought by patience and kindliness to restore you to your places; and surely it cannot be God's will that you should hold back for this small scruple, and remain cut off from His church by excommunication, as must surely be if you will not be advised and ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... is God's will. And I shall try to smile. You have reached this decision in deepest thought and prayer. And I know that ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... of Vaucouleurs were completely won over to her side by the piety and devoutness which she displayed, and by her firm assurance in the truth of her mission. She told them that it was God's will that she should go to the King, and that no one but her could save the kingdom of France. She said that she herself would rather remain with her poor mother and spin; but the Lord had ordered ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... 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 these two ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... bad for the rich man, isn't it?' said George. 'It's God's will, and we can't make or mend ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... by the tone in which he answered the lightness of mine. "I mean—don't be planning out the future. It is foolish—it is almost wrong. God's will is not as our will; and He ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... to gain over the midwife and get her to substitute a little dog and throw the child into the river, which is done accordingly, when the first son with the gold star is born. For the second son, a dog is also substituted, and the king, as on the former occasion, says, "God's will be done: take care of the poor creature." But when the little girl with the silver star is smuggled away and the king is shown a third puppy as the queen's offspring, he is enraged. "They'll call me the father of dogs!" he exclaims, "and not without cause." He orders ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... and success in preaching and catechizing, and of his humble and edifying life. By this he has attracted a great many people, and even some of the negroes, so that many are sorry for his departure. But considering the fact that he owes filial obedience to his aged parents, it is God's will that he should leave us. We must be resigned, therefore, while we commit him to God and the ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... depend on the Divine power; but God's will, because of his perfection, cannot be other than it is, and therefore things cannot be differently constituted. For to suppose otherwise is to subject God to fate, an absurdity which is not worth waste ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... 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, ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... attempt that likeness. What is the use of a man saying that he is the disciple of Incarnate Love if his whole life is incarnate selfishness? What is the use of your calling yourselves Christians, and saying that you are followers of Jesus Christ, when He came to do God's will and delighted in it, and you come to do your own, and never do God's will at all, or scarcely at all, and then reluctantly and with many a murmur? What kind of a disciple is he, the habitual tenor of whose life contradicts the life of his Master and disobeys ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... 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, and hope I shall at all ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... engage to use 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 ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... child, and yet I am wondering if, after all, it is not for the best ... that you will be an orphan. It may be better for you to go alone than to be taken to them by a mother whom they have scorned. Well, God's will is that you should be left alone ... in a few ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... would be two wills in us struggling for possession. You have come to me for help—after all I can give you none. I can only tell you what I know—that there is no way of peace but the way of renunciation. I can only say: if your will is not yet one with God's will, renounce it—give it up. Then and then only you will live—not before. Look there!" he pointed to the crucifix. "The great Pagan religions had each their symbol of life. For us who are Christ's the symbol of life is the crucifix. Crucify self. When you have done ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... his oration, held up the cross which was to be the badge of the enterprise, Louis VII. threw himself at the feet of his subject, and the whole assembly thronged round him, shouting the old war-cry, "It is God's will!" Bernard distributed to thousands of eager hands all the crosses which he had brought with him; and finding these insufficient for the demand, took off the Benedictine robe which he wore, and tore it into cross-shaped ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... monk, I promise thee," quoth he. "I am not half good enough, nor would I lose my Sissot. As to dying, be secure I shall not die an hour afore God's will is: and the Lord hath much need of good folks to keep this bad world sweet. I reckon we may be as good as we can with reasonable safety. ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... and ground his heel into the dust in the impotency of his rage. He tried to remember all that the Pater had said to him half an hour ago about forbearance and about God's will. ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... all that we know of what materialists call "evolution" and occultists might well name "uncovering of consciousness," points to a time when "God's will," "shall be done on earth as it ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... sir. I should like to go home. You've been very kind; you've done everything that could be done for me. But it's God's will.... My wife is ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... of the scenes; we must not choose which part we shall act; it concerns us only to be careful that we do it well, always saying, "If this please God, let it be as it is:" and we, who pray that God's will may be done in earth as it is in heaven, must remember that the angels do whatsoever is commanded them, and go wherever they are sent, and refuse no circumstances; and if their employment be crossed by a higher ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... thy nest Amid the fading flowers, The while we strive to learn the words: 'God's will be done—not ours!' ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... blackbird in the boughs Sing all day to his nested spouse? What but the song of his old Mother-Earth, In her mighty humour of lust and mirth? 'Love and God's will go wing and wing, And as for death, is there any such thing?'— In the shadow of death, So, at the beck of the wizard Spring The dear bird saith— So ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley
... the faculty of contemplation, but to the sin and the suffering of the fallen state, and the change of order from the keeping of the garden to the tilling of the ground. We cannot say how far it is right or agreeable with God's will, while men are perishing round about us, while grief, and pain, and wrath, and impiety, and death, and all the powers of the air, are working wildly and evermore, and the cry of blood going up to heaven, that any of us should take hand from the plough; but this we know, that there will come ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... Angel is one of the most simply beautiful, yet deeply earnest, of Browning's lyrical poems. It is a parable in which "the allegorical intent seems to be shed by the story, like a natural perfume from a flower;" and it preaches a sermon on contentment and the doing of God's will such as no theologian could better. Saul (which I shall mention here, though only the first part, sections one to nine, appeared in Dramatic Romances, sections ten to nineteen being first published in Men and Women) has been by some considered almost ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... find you in the enjoyment of health—able to be busily and usefully employed for this and coming generations. I would like, if it was God's will, to be usefully employed in such ways, too; but though I am so greatly favored as to be able to think as well as ever, I cannot work with my wonted facility and despatch. I cannot 'labor with my hands,' so as to have 'to give to him that needeth,' because my hands are weak and ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... book he said with passionate earnestness that the humor was his safety valve. If it were not for the relief he would die. It was true. But he lived on, not because he wanted to live, for he would rather have died. But it was God's will, and his country ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... and how scowling in the eyes Is man's old age!—Would that my son likewise Were happy of his hunting, in my way When with his warrior bands he will essay The wild beast!—Nay, his valiance is to fight With God's will! Father, thou shouldst set him right. Will no one bring him thither, that mine eyes May look on his, and show him ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... is God's will, we shall see each other again. I know what is driving you away from here. You are good and noble, Georg, and if there is one thing that lightens the parting, it is this: We can now think of each other without sorrow ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... said the Deputy, modestly; "we deserve only the credit of executing God's will—we are merely instruments in His ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... and she must suffer more: we do what we can to alleviate her pain;—God's will be done!" He took off his hat at these last words. I found, from Miss Matty, that everything had been done, in fact. A medical man, of high repute in that country neighbourhood, had been sent for, and every injunction he had given was attended ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... against a proclamation of liberty to the slaves, but hold the matter under advisement; and I can assure you that the subject is on my mind, by day and night, more than any other. Whatever shall appear to be God's will, I will do. I trust that in the freedom with which I have canvassed your views I have not in any respect ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... be God's will," murmured the aged man, "that within an hour both of us may stand before His Judgment Seat. Promise me that you will never accuse me of being a hard father, that you will never say that I hunted you to death. ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... 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 ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... be no dream, we shall at last Hasten the kingdom of God's will on earth. There shall be no more talk of rich and poor, Norman and Saxon. We shall be one people, One family, clustering all with happy hands And faces round that glowing hearth, the sun. Now let the bugle ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... book and you will find the authority likewise." The book was at hand, for he had brought it with him. I turned to the passage I had in mind, which he had either not discovered or else passed over as containing nothing injurious to me. And it was God's will that I quickly found what I sought. This was the following sentence, under the heading "Augustine, On the Trinity, Book I": "Whosoever believes that it is within the power of God to beget Himself is sorely in error; ...
— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard
... she would pray fervently night and day that God would be so good to him,—then everything would be well. Then he would marry and have children, and Bragton would descend in the right line. But were it to be ordained otherwise, should it be God's will that he must die, then, as he grew weaker, he would become more plastic in her hands, and she might still prevail. At present he was stubborn with the old stubbornness, and would not see with her eyes. She would bide her time and be careful to ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... heart-broken when he saw his son in such an emaciated condition. They had heard at home of his severe sufferings, but said he, "How could I ever expect to see him the like of this?" With patient resignation to God's will, the sufferer waited, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... all," said Mrs. Lennox, with a sigh. "Well—well—God's will be done!" Then trying to be more cheerful, "Had you come little sooner, you would have met Charles. He is just gone out with Lord Lindore. He was unwilling to leave me, as he always is, and when he ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... brought her dearly beloved son home to her, murdered and—disgraced. If it had been either of the others, she could have said: "God's will be done." Instead, she cried out that God had ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... sufferers of God's will Tread in each other's footprints still; Soldier or saint hath equal mind, When vows of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... letters asking his forgiveness, and begging him to come back. Both parties then appealed to the missionaries, who declined to interfere, advising them to pray and decide the matter among themselves. They agreed to accept the preacher's decision as God's will, and he after prayer and reflection, decided to return to his old people. In the mean time, twenty of the women of Hooeli, impatient at the delay, met also for prayer, and with difficulty were prevented from going in a body to take their old pastor home. But the ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... us time to think, to pray, Dan. A summer! Ah, God can work wonders for those who trust Him in a summer, Dan! Think what He does with the seed, the grain, the fruit. It is not well to move or to choose hastily when we are in the dark as to God's will. So say nothing about all this to any one as ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... am not making things clear; but I will try to do so, and then you must help me. I have been a coward, father—that's the truth—and have rebelled against my hard fate—God's will was not my will, and I wanted to ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... here at twelve o'clock. Diong Chio (her servant, who accompanied her) wishes very much to go back to Foochow. But I think now I have come so far on the way, I wish very much to obey God's will and go on to England.... Yesterday we drove in a horse carriage to see Mrs. Cooke. We saw Mrs. Ting's relatives in the school.... It is very hot here, like Foochow in the sixth moon. I wish you very much to take care of yourself and take care of the children, and do not let them play too ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton
... wouldn't I be? I'll go to hell for it, av coorse, for that's God's will on all of us. Tis hard lines, too, for 'tis none so fine a life when ye've tried ut. Thank ye kindly, both of yez. I'd pay ye for ut, but ye'd not be takin' a poor girl's last shillin', I know, from the good-tempered ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... abhorrence of slavery:—no—but for the strange purpose (the more strange for being in the breast of a minister of the gospel) of showing your readers, that even Greek and Roman slavery was innocent, and agreeable to God's will; and that, horrid as are the fruits you describe, the tree, which bore them, needed but to be dug about and pruned—not to be cut down. This slavery is innocent, you insist, because the New Testament does not show, that it was specifically condemned by the Apostles. By the same logic, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... livelihood, these runners about offer to rich priests! which have mickle more livelihood than they need: and thus those goods, they waste wilfully, and spend them unjustly, against GOD's bidding, upon strangers; with which they should help and relieve, after GOD's will, their poor needy neighbours at home. Yea, and over this folly, ofttimes divers men and women of these runners thus madly hither and thither into pilgrimage, borrow hereto other men's goods (yea, and sometimes they steal men's goods ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... "God's will be done," I said, setting my teeth, as I prepared for the end. At that moment, with an exclamation, Job lifted his revolver and fired, and hit a man—not the man he had aimed at, by the way: anything that Job shot at was ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... Thus the entire weight of the voyage was loaded upon the shoulders of our Argonaut, who made it; and he so carried himself that he shirked no toil, although of an advanced age. Every day he cast the lead, took observations, and did everything that seemed advisable for that course. Hence it was God's will that he reached Puerto de la Navidad on October 3, after a voyage of four months and three days. On arriving at port, he made the chart, showing all their routes, winds, points, and capes—so completely, that even today his chart is followed without any additions. For I believe ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various
... it," he said. "I doubt it. There's room for improvement. I have too many legs. You see, before all my legs can be set in motion, too much time is lost. I didn't use to realize this, and often wished I had a few more legs. But God's will ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... things, that it is certain that God will never allow sin, while it is not certain that He will never allow the other. But so long as God does not permit it, we ought to regard it as sin; so long as the absence of God's will, which alone is all goodness and all justice, ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... journey until he could have recovered some degree of strength. But this solicitation only irritated him. 'I must go back to my own—I must!' he sobbed, incessantly. 'Let me see them once more—and then God's will be done!' The attempt appeared impossible to all. With great unwillingness he yielded to his friends' request to have a consultation of physicians. 'Be it so!' he answered. 'But come of it what may, I go!' His only thought, his only word, was 'Home!' On the 2d of June he wrote ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... us down, determined to make us feel his vengeance in one way if he failed in the other. Poor Daphne clearly read his intention, I am sure; and it was her resistance, her defence of poor helpless me, that brought this cruel death upon her. Well, God's will be done! The poor girl was only an ignorant savage, and it is hardly possible that she can ever have heard His holy name mentioned; but for all that she had pity upon the stranger and him who had no helper, and I cannot but believe that she will therefore receive her full ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... anywhere with you. I should not fear the storms, the sight of your face would give me courage. I should be happy if I might share with you every peril, every privation, which you must now encounter alone; and if it were not God's will that we should ever attain our goal, I could ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai
... you not heard these many years ago Jeptha was judge of Israel? He had one only daughter and no mo, The which he loved passing well; And as by lott, God wot, It so came to pass, As God's will was.[404-2] ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... are concerned, it is to the Evangelical Movement that we have to look. Now, though in my opinion it was the parent of many evils, there is no doubt that there was in it real fervour; intense devotion; a genuine desire to know and do God's will; a burning love for our Lord; coupled with all which were the most distorted and distorting ideas of what was and what was not sin ever conceived by any brain. Of this creed I can speak from personal knowledge, for I was brought up in it and ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... instant they gazed upon each other with inexpressible tenderness; then the First Politician murmured, "God's will be done! Since we cannot hope for reward, let us be content ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce
... same unfortunate Isabella. He was that subtle tyrant of Spain, who had the grace to say, on the destruction of the Invincible Armada, "I sent my fleet to combat with the English, not with the elements. God's will ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... "God's will be done—not yourn nor mine!" rejoined Younker, solemnly. "But tell me, Simon Girty, as the only favor I'll ever ask o' ye—war ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... from God's will, and beyond the creature's due, can be made known to us only through being revealed in the Sacred Scripture, in which the Divine Will is made known to us. Hence, since everywhere in the Sacred Scripture the sin of the first man is assigned as the reason of the Incarnation, it is more ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... thing that grows. Every living thing bears testimony to a living God and, if there be a God, then every human life is a part of that God's plan. And, if this be true, then the highest duty of man, as it should be his greatest pleasure, is to try to find out God's will concerning himself and to do it. When Job was asked, "Canst thou by searching find out God?" a negative answer was implied, but we can see manifestations of God's power everywhere; in the suns and planets that, revolving, whirl through space, held in position ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... fringe of his beard. When he had cut only a little, the Overseer entered the Judgment Hall, saying: "The two apostles tricked Jude and crawled under the barrier, and they shot back the bolts of the gate of the Chariot House and called a charioteer to take them to Heaven. 'This is God's will,' ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans
... it is his will, that thou go to the seven lineages and say to them that thou shalt be their emperor. For thou shalt conquer the lands and the countries that be about, and they that march upon you shall be under your subjection, as ye have been under theirs, for that is God's will immortal. ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... 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
... by annihilation. But no substance, material or immaterial, can be annihilated by any finite or second cause; it can be annihilated only by the will of him who created it; and the question respecting the soul of man remains, What are the indications of God's will concerning it? When this question is seriously entertained, we can hardly fail to see in the structure of its powers, in the grandeur of its capacities, in the moral and responsible consciousness which belongs to it, a strong presumptive proof of its being His purpose ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... is finish. With my frien' Sard I shall now depart. Messieurs, I embrace and salute you. A bientot in Paris—if it be God's will! Donc—au revoir, les amis, et a la bonheur! Allons! Each for himself ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... of their conduct. "Thy word," says the Psalmist, "is a lamp, unto my feet, and a light unto my path." The will of God, as made known in his word, is like a lantern, which sheds a light on our path, and directs the steps of our feet. The sincere Christian will search after a knowledge of God's will, with more eagerness than he would search for hidden treasures of gold and silver. He will set his heart to the work. This is what God commands. After Moses had given the law of God to the children of Israel, he said unto them, "Set your hearts unto ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... 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, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... most honest 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 from other theological writers? Many ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... aghast at that obstinate silence. At length, but very slowly, as the warning bell summoned him and Sir Isaac to their several places in the train, Waife found voice. "So you too, you too desert and despise me! God's will be done!" He moved away,—spiritless, limping, hiding his face as well as he could. The porter took the dog from him, to thrust it into one of the boxes reserved for such ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... ill are the false notes struck by man across the harmony of God's will, and to strike upon or even remember such notes is instant banishment from the music of His presence. Where all is joy, there joy is all; and he who has not reached this joy does not know God—he is still a follower, and not a possessor, ...
— The Golden Fountain - or, The Soul's Love for God. Being some Thoughts and - Confessions of One of His Lovers • Lilian Staveley
... decided against a proclamation of liberty to the slaves, but hold the matter under advisement. And I can assure you that the subject is on my mind, by day and night, more than any other. Whatever shall appear to be God's will I will do. I trust that in the freedom with which I have canvassed your views I have not in any respect ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... frequent gleams of a forced and courageous eloquence, preaching energetically in a somewhat artificial voice,—in private he stammered much, as once I used to do, no doubt to his mortification, though humbly acquiescing in God's will. ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... our will is free. Yet if our will crosses God's will, crucifixion of some kind is ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... "Well, God's will be done! We must now try and console him, poor fellow; and I'm very glad that we're off to-morrow. Salt water cures love, they ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... talent. A wife and kindred murdered he bewailed, And left his land by tyrants cruel assailed; The friendly shores of Russia he attained, And hospitable shelter here he gained; Children he taught; their parents' cares allayed: Here, by God's will, in peace he ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... piety; but earnest piety independent of these is not enough; it lacks its final consequence, its praiseworthy completion or "satisfaction,"[5334] the positive act by which we atone for our sins to God and demonstrate our obedience to the Church.[5335] It is the Church, the living interpreter of God's will, which prescribes these rites; she is then the mistress of these and not the servant; she is empowered to adapt their details and forms to necessities and circumstances, to lighten or simplify them according to time and place, to establish the communion in one shape, to substitute the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... sea, and that was the establishment of a commonwealth after the model of perfection which they fondly imagined they had discovered. And where should they find that perfect system, except in the awful and mysterious volume wherein was the revelation of God's will, and which, with a devotion that had impressed its every syllable on their minds, they had day and night been studying? Was there not contained therein a form of government which He had given to his favored people; and what did both reason and piety suggest ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... ways in which living power, personal power, the power of a will, may enter a soul and give it life; the one is when God's will works upon us, and the other when our wills work upon one another. God's will may directly penetrate ours, enabling us to will and to do of his good pleasure; and our own wills, thus inspired, may be the torch to kindle other wills with the same inspiration. It ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... is great. God's Will be done. God only knows whether I shall return to my ship again, but I think I have love enough for her to make it no difficult ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... all these others to survive; he felt as if there were no life, no labour, no devotion of soul and body, that could repay and justify these partialities. A religious lady, to whom he communicated these reflections, could see no force in them whatever. "It was God's will," said she. But he knew it was by God's will that Joan of Arc was burnt at Rouen, which cleared neither Bedford nor Bishop Cauchon; and again, by God's will that Christ was crucified outside Jerusalem, which excused neither the rancour of the priests nor the timidity of Pilate. He knew, moreover, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... For my part, I have utter faith in you. If it be God's will, we will escape; and no man is more worthy than you to ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... 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 ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... good to last,' she once said to me, 'but my widow's cruse will never be empty. I have the sweetest memories, and by-and-by I shall have my treasures again. Do you know I often pray, Livy, that I may not long so much to die? God's will, not ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... in prayer, or fasting for a week continuously. The priest having imposed upon him the penance of taking food twice only in a week until he should see him again, departed into Ireland, and died there before Adamnan was able to consult him a second time. Taking this as a sign of God's Will that he was to persevere in his heroic course of penance, Adamnan resolved to continue to the end the hard life begun by the counsel of the Irish priest. Having become {16} a monk at Coldingham after his conversion, he lived there for many years, and was made one of the priests of the monastery. ...
— A Calendar of Scottish Saints • Michael Barrett
... servant. When Diego and Pepito were buried, the Father made a solemn and impressive address to the neophytes, painting in vivid colors the pains of hell, which those engaged in the insurrection were in danger of experiencing after death, contrasting it with the joys of those blessed ones who did God's will on earth, and received their own ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... Reverend Walter Francis Elgie, who had already been six years curate, and had won the love and honour of all his flock. Deeply did they all mourn him when it was God's will to take him from them on the 25th of February, 1881, in the 43rd year of his age, after ten ...
— Old Times at Otterbourne • Charlotte M. Yonge
... low. "My life has been the still, quiet, lonely, unostentatious life of a priest, and only the ever-blessed King Frederick William introduced storm and tempest into its even course. That was, without doubt, God's will; otherwise this robust and giant form which He gave me would have been in vain. My height and strength so enraptured the emissaries of the king, that in the middle of the service before the altar, as I was reading mass, they tore me ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... 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 ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... ready to do whatever was required of him, only he wished God would make it plain. The part of discipline he liked least—a part of which doubtless we do not yet at all understand the good or necessity—was uncertainty of duty, the uncertainty of what it was God's will he should do. But on the other hand, perhaps the cause of that uncertainty was the lack of perfect readiness; perhaps all that was wanted to make duty plain was ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... present year, before it is struck. It is appointed me to strike it, that is all I know; and follow it with others, sharp and swift, undoing in ten weeks England's long years of costly labor, and setting the crown upon the Dauphin's head—for such is God's will; my Voices have said it, and shall I doubt it? No; it will be as they have said, for they say only ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 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 through the Red Sea. When the Israelites were brought down ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... Winterfield, too, had admitted to Clara that she know herself to be very ill. 'I felt it coming on me last night,' she said, 'when I was talking to you; and I felt it still more strongly when I left you after tea. I have lived long enough. God's will be done.' At that moment, when she said she had lived long enough, she forgot her intention with reference to her will. But she remembered it before Clara had left the room. 'Tell Frederic', she said, 'to send at once for Mr Palmer.' Now Clara knew that Mr Palmer was the attorney, and ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... formula requires. For it was spiritual truth, not natural, of which He spoke when He said, "If any man wills to do, he shall know." To work by this formula requires the exercise of faith. For faith is that attitude of the heart toward the doing of God's will which is evidenced in willing to do that will, no matter what it costs nor where it leads. This is the first step of faith. For faith is both an attitude and an act, the genuineness of which is proven by an activity. That is, it is an attitude ...
— The Church, the Schools and Evolution • J. E. (Judson Eber) Conant
... told you all 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, remain to ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... parts, the chime of line and colour, is to beauty; thus beauty is as inevitable as fate, as structurally planted in the form and colour of the universe as fate is in its temporal movement. And as plot has its characteristic unity in the impersonal order of God's will, shown in time's event, so beauty has its characteristic unity in the same order shown in the visible creation of space. It is true that all phenomena are perceived by the mind, and are conditioned, as is said, by human modes of perception; but within the limits of the relativity ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... had gone on for three weeks or so, Stineli's grandmother called the girl into her bedroom one evening, and said, "My dear Stineli, I can very well understand that you cannot forget your friend Rico, but you must try to remember that it is God's will that he should be taken away; and that, as it is so, it is also the best thing for Rico, as we must try ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... action; to whom the letter of the law is the arbitrary expression of a despotic power, which, somehow, must be looked upon as merciful; who answer all questions concerning God's logic with the tremendous assertion of God's will; whose God is a magnified man, and whose devil is a malignant animal, second only to God in understanding, while extreme from God in disposition. There are good men and women who, to use a natural but not flippant simile, take it ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... dead? Father is gone! Why did they tax his bread? God's will be done! Mother has sold her bed; Better to die than wed! Where shall she lay her head? ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... are not clear as to what is God's will for you. You are in doubt, you are honest, but a thousand questions perplex you. Will you go to God about it, and get the ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... the line are no less numerous, and as regards physique, if it comes to that, not one whit inferior, while in reference to moral qualities, they are more susceptible to the spur of a noble ambition, if only under God's will they be correctly trained. Or again, as touching pride of ancestry, what have Athenians to fear as against Boeotians on that ...
— The Cavalry General • Xenophon
... of 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
... cried: "'Tis God's will That thou shouldst wait in suffering, yet hope.... Fulfil thy ...
— Parsifal - A Drama by Wagner • Retold by Oliver Huckel
... to measure his own life by these words. And he thought to himself, "Is my house built on the rock or on the sand? How good to be as on a rock! How easy it all seems to thee sitting alone here. It seems as if thou wert doing God's will to the full, and so thou takest no heed and fallest away again. And yet thou wouldst go on striving, for so it is good for thee. O Lord, help me!" Thus thought he, and would have laid him down, but it was a grief to tear himself away from the book. ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... said quietly. 'It may be. Mother and I don't deceive ourselves, though it is no use dwelling upon terrible possibilities. But even then, don't you see the difference? We should feel that we had done our best, and—and that more was not God's will.' ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... life. When she came to herself, pitying friends and neighbours implored her to yield. "Dear Margaret, only say, God save the King!" The poor girl, true to her stern theology, gasped out, "May God save him, if it be God's will!" Her friends crowded round the presiding officer. "She has said it; indeed, sir, she has said it." "Will she take the abjuration?" he demanded. "Never!" she exclaimed. "I am Christ's: let me go!" And the waters closed over her for the last ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 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 ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... be my fortune thee, Grahame, to kill, As God's will's, man, it all must be: But if it be my fortune thee, Grahame, to kill, 'Tis home ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various
... telegram early in the morning, and had not a minute in coming here, and that I could not make any one in the house hear me. He paused and raised his hat as he said solemnly, "Then I fear we are too late. God's will be done!" ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... such an end as this. Then the mist passed from his eyes, if not from the landscape; the gracious faith that was his returned to him: he was his grave, unyielding self again. He took Bale's hand and begged his forgiveness. "Would I had never brought you!" he said. "Why did I, why did I? Yet, God's will be done!" ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... his charge like a man fit to hold the sword of justice; and my council and friends were in great hopes for me. But, most surprising treatment! without going out of the Court, without being any time consulting, their verdict was, Guilty! God's will be done. My behaviour at my trial, and when sentence was passed, I leave to the world. My enemies, as they have done all along, may misinterpret it, and call innocence and Christian courage hardened guilt. But let them know, that ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... 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 ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... as I have often said, the poor Pharisee was ignorant of, when so swaggeringly he, with his "God, I thank thee," came into the temple to pray. And, indeed, in that which hath been said is something of the mystery of God's will in his way with his elect; and such a mystery it is, that it lieth hid for ever to nature and natural men; for they think of nothing less than of this, nor of nothing more, when they think of their souls and of salvation, than that ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... primarily, from his own sincere inward conviction; and in an inferior degree from the advice of his parents, or of God's ministers, or of other godly persons qualified to advise in such a matter. These are all ways of learning God's will. ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous
... gentle struggler with the world, whom a sudden insanity had led to the butchery of his wife and three little boys. They found him tittering among his mangled dead, and calling them pet names, telling the shattered red things that he had wrought God's will ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... of 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, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... on those things in the same fanciful manner that you do, we are contented with all the common-places of life and look for nothing beyond the present. If things don't go well, it is God's will; and if they do go well, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... their terror is. They know they are only human after all; they know what gins and pitfalls lie about their feet; and how the shadow of matrimony waits, resolute and awful, at the cross-roads. They would wish to keep their liberty; but if that may not be, why, God's will be done! "What, are you afraid of marriage?" asks Cecile, in Maitre Guerin. "Oh, mon Dieu, non!" replies Arthur; "I should take chloroform." They look forward to marriage much in the same way as they prepare themselves ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ago, without reserve and with a 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, ...
— A Military Genius - Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland • Sarah Ellen Blackwell
... matter for your Jesus to say all the great Rabbis are wrong. I always wondered if you knew what you were doing when you gave up fishing." He looked keenly at Andrew. "Today I took time off to go to listen to him myself. He talks as if he knew more about God's will than Moses did! He goes too far for me. After all, I am a Jew!" Abruptly he changed the subject. "Will you ...
— Men Called Him Master • Elwyn Allen Smith
... is thy root from such As see not the First cause 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 ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... "God's will be done," he muttered, bowing his head; then, turning towards the officer, who seemed complacently to wait until he had finished his meditations ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... of their blossoms glowing Ten for one I take they're on me bestowing: Oh, I should like to see, if God's will it may be, Many, many a summer of ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various |
