"God's Will" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to GOD'S Will, grieves Him, and does you harm, that alone you need fear,—the thought that will stain your soul; the wish that troubles your heart; that unwholesome action, that will weaken your intellect, and ...
— Gold Dust - A Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sanctification of Daily Life • E. L. E. B.
... years, but I trust that, on your return, you will find me sitting here to welcome you back. A creaking wheel lasts long. I have everything to make my life happy and peaceful—the best of wives, a well-ordered farm, and no thought or care as to my worldly affairs—and since it has been God's will that such should be my life, my interest will be wholly centred in you; and I hope to see your children playing round me or, for ought I know, your grandchildren, for we are a ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... many other articles to correspond, for the purchasing of each of which some new sacrifice was exacted from the gentle Mary. And Harriet suffered all this for the selfish gratification of a mere vanity, which, disdaining their humble abode, and so repining at God's will, which had changed her position from wealth to poverty, sought, at any hazard, to flutter in fine clothes, and to maintain a false appearance! Instead of perceiving the beautiful and unselfish character which Mary was developing, ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... thanks for writing about our beloved Bessie, my very dear Stuart. She is indeed much endeared to all the friends, and I am a friend of more than 50 years! God's will be done. We have come to that age when we must know our ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... wish'd it had been God's will that I, too, then could have died: I began to be tired a little, and fain had slept at his side. And that was ten years back, or more, if I don't forget: But as to the children, Annie, they're all ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... the lesson, the teacher should secure pictures, or make sketches, illustrating (1) Moses tending his flocks, (2) the Burning Bush, (3) the rod turning to a serpent, (4) Moses setting out to do God's will. The pictures and sketches are used to make ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: History • Ontario Ministry of Education
... on this first proposition, but I hope the importance of the subject to Christians as well as to statesmen will be my apology. I have written it, not for victory over an adversary, or to support error or falsehood, but to gather up God's will in reference to holding men and women in bondage, in the patriarchal age. And it is clear, in the first place, that God decreed this state before it existed. Second. It is clear that the highest manifestations of good-will ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... creation, groaning and travailing in sympathetic pain, to be delivered from the evil and misery and death with which it is laden.[534] He will allow of no ideal short of the highest pattern of angelic[535] goodness, nor concede that we are called upon to pray, 'God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven,' without its full accomplishment being in human power. This height of aspiration gives great stimulative power to Law's writing, but, as is unfortunately apt to be the case, it is a source ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... "Ah, my dear! God's will be done—I'm not complaining—but I wish, oh, how I wish you could be here to see what our dear child can do!" she told the smiling crayon portrait. "Some of these days the little son you've never ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... daybreak. He despatched this detachment with orders to fire the city first of all, and not to leave a single man living in it. He promised to join them at the first light, in order to help them should it prove necessary, as was the case. But, since nothing is done contrary to God's will or permission, it was not possible for the pirate Limahon to attain his end with the four hundred soldiers, as he thought to do; for all that night the land-breeze blew, becoming ever stronger as ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... rather than as the cause and goal, respectively, of existence and 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 for granted that the soul is cast into the troubled ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... and answer—is there anything in it—this talk of doing God's will? Can people love God and hate one another? Oh, isn't it all just words?" Her eyes burned fiercely. "I wouldn't have the love that some folks give God, I'd feel myself insulted! I want something better than He gets. I want a love that holds out. I just hate shams," ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... record of God's will, A duty to ourselves we best fulfil! From past experience, I would now advise That all young men, in this respect, be wise. Few weightier matters can attention claim, If at pure peace and happiness we aim, Than the selection ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... spared, and the holy bones preserved to bless mankind, and work wondrous miracles in the old church of the Saxon monks. Nevertheless, considerable damage was sustained, and the fury of the angry waves forced them back again to the shore. The monks deeming this an indication of God's will that they should remain, decided upon doing so, and leaving the ship, they agreed to proceed on their way rejoicing, and place still greater trust in the mercy of God and the miraculous influence of St. Cuthbert's ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... keep in sight God's will and commandment have the promise that everything which they bestow upon temporal and spiritual fathers, and whatever they do to honor them, shall be richly recompensed to them, so that they shall have, not bread, clothing, and money for a year or two, but long ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... 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 ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... weary of everything, just as you feel now." Charlie turned towards her, and looked interested. "For some weeks I was very unhappy, and thought no one had such a trouble as mine; but afterwards I learned how wrong it was of me to find fault with God's will; and when I began to count up all the blessings I had received, and remembered all that my dear Lord Jesus Christ had done and suffered for me, I felt sure that He who loved me so much would ...
— Charlie Scott - or, There's Time Enough • Unknown
... tell but he may change his mind, When your Succession shall be understood To be the Peoples Choice, and for the Nations Good? But let us leave what is to come, to Fate; Yours Father's pleasure and God's will await. Long may it be ere the King's life doth end; On it our Peace and Happiness depend. Like Wheat full ripe, with many years bow'd down, Let him leave this for an immortal Crown. And who can tell Heav'n's will? it may be too, Eliakim may die before the King or ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... mistaken, child," he said, very calmly now. "I believe it is not God's will that you remain to be taken by Breault. You must go. There is no time to lose. If Breault does not stumble off the trail in this gloom he will be here in a ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... of praise in me, had else Swelled to the full for God's will done on earth." I. The Ring and the ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... a cold only she has. (Then mournfully.) Your poor mother died of the same. (Billy looks awed.) Ara, well, it's God's will, I suppose, but where the money'll come from, I dunno. (With a disparaging glance at his son.) They'll not be raisin' your wages ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... fellow! He took so much notice of little Charles, and was so domesticated with us all, that I really looked with a schoolboy's anxiety for his being here in the season, to take his own quiet pleasures, and to forward mine. But God's will be done. All that surviving friends can do upon such a loss is, if possible, to love each other still better.—I {p.234} beg to be kindly remembered to Mrs. Terry and Monsieur Walter. Ever most ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... rain fell and the hall was nearly empty. After the concert he was so weak he had to be assisted from the room. The physician ordered postponement of the journey home, but he cried continually, "I must go to my own—I must! Let me see them once more and then God's will be done." ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... years before the conversion of Cornelius and his gentile household was followed by any extended proclamation of the good tidings of the Gospel to the heathen world. It was not God's Will that all obstacles should be at once cleared away from the onward path of the Church; and the question of the relation in which the heathen were to stand to the Law of Moses after their conversion to Christianity, presented many difficulties. St. Peter and ...
— A Key to the Knowledge of Church History (Ancient) • John Henry Blunt
... God's will That I shall love her still As He loves Mary. And night and day I will go forth to pray That ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... answered, "He feared he was; for that his pulse was very exalted and feverish, and, if his fever should prove more than symptomatic, it would be impossible to save him." Joseph, fetching a deep sigh, cried, "Poor Fanny, I would I could have lived to see thee! but God's will be done." ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... very hard to leave you, George," she said; "but it is God's will, and you must bear it for my sake. Oh! how I thank Him for having taken our boy! He is happy, and in heaven now. What would he have ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... To God's will patience boweth, Doth His command fulfil, 'Mid scorn of foes she knoweth 'Tis wisest to be still. Who will, let him despise, Unhurt by the dishonour And shame thus put upon her, Her heart doth o'er ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... but God's will be done!" and Troubert raised his eyes to heaven resignedly. "I came," he said, "to ask you to lend me the 'Register of Bishops.' You are the only man in Tours I ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... exists in this world, without asking why, except on very special occasions. I believe, too, that, in the matter of worldly preferment, there is too much fatalism in many good men. They have a vague trust that Providence will do more than it has promised. They are ready to think, that, if it is God's will that they are to gain such a prize, it will be sure to come their way without their pushing. That is a mistake. Suppose you apply the same reasoning to your dinner. Suppose you sit still in your study and say, "If I am to have dinner ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... a scheme of conduct applied to a number of typical instances. To behave as the code directs is to serve whatever purpose the code pursues. It may be God's will, or the king's, individual salvation in a good, solid, three dimensional paradise, success on earth, or the service of mankind. In any event the makers of the code fix upon certain typical situations, and then by some form of reasoning or intuition, ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... 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 absolute will to ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... 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 ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... other to shelter us, and we must live on your uncle Gascoigne's charity, until I see what else can be done. I shall not be able to pay the debts to the tradesmen besides the servants' wages. Summon up your fortitude, my dear child; we must resign ourselves to God's will. But it is hard to resign one's self to Mr. Lassman's wicked recklessness, which they say was the cause of the failure. Your poor sisters can only cry with me and give me no help. If you were once here, there might be a break in the cloud—I always feel it impossible ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... my father was a heavy hit. "It was a devil of a sacrifice, Mary,"—and he sighed, "to give up the sweetest pack that ever man rode to; one, that for a mile's run you could have covered with a blanket—heigh-ho! God's will be done;" and after that pious adjuration, my father turned down his tumbler No. 3, to the bottom. The memory of the lost harriers was always a painful recollection, and brought its silent evidence that the fortunes of the Hamiltons were not ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... parting's come at last, and a sorrowful enough parting it is! Battle, storm, fire, or shipwreck I was prepared for; but when we sailed out of London, I never dreamed that I was on the highway to slavery. Well, God's will be done! Here we are, and I s'pose we must make the best of it while it lasts, which won't be a minute longer than either of us can help, if I know anything of you or myself. If I get clear first, I vow never to steer to the east'ard until you've joined company; and if you should happen to ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... Wallace, now forth I will you tell. When he was won out of that peril fell, Right glad was he that he had 'scaped sa,[27] But for his men great mourning can he ma.[28] Flait[29] by himself to the Maker above Why he suffer'd he should sic paining prove. He wist not well if that it was God's will; Right or wrong his fortune to fulfil, Had he pleas'd God, he trow'd it might not bo He should him thole[30] in sic perplexity. But great courage in his mind ever drave, Of Englishmen thinking amends to have. As he ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... strength,—and 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
... born that woman whose beauty and whose name are set in the strong, rough Scotch heart, as a diamond in granite. Poor Mary! When her father, who lay on his death bed at that time in Falkland, was told of her birth, he answered, "Is it so? Then God's will be done! It [the kingdom] came with a lass, and it will go with a lass!" With these words he turned his face to the wall, and died of a broken heart. Certainly, some people appear to be born ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... 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
... my cell saying my prayers for the day, when I heard bolts rattling in the corridor. We were no longer locked in with keys. Suddenly the door of my cell was thrown open, and a voice cried: 'Courage! our time has come.' 'Yes, courage!' I answered. 'God's will be done.' I had on my ecclesiastical habit, and went out into the corridor. There I found a mixed crowd of prisoners, priests, soldiers, and National Guards. The priests and the National Guards seemed resigned to their fate, but the soldiers, who had fought ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... 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 ours are one." ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... further delay he let Rocinante feel the spur, and once more taking leave of Sancho, he told him to wait for him there three days at most, as he had said before, and if he should not have returned by that time, he might feel sure it had been God's will that he should end his days in that perilous adventure. He again repeated the message and commission with which he was to go on his behalf to his lady Dulcinea, and said he was not to be uneasy as to the payment of his services, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... led, or want to be, at any rate. I must do the best—not second best—for her, for me. The best only is God's will. What else would you have? Be good to her these days, dear old ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... 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 ...
— The Golden Fountain - or, The Soul's Love for God. Being some Thoughts and - Confessions of One of His Lovers • Lilian Staveley
... out calmly from his chamber, a white, stern, sanctimonious man, lulling the storm with his wise presence:—"God's will be done," said he; "what can poor weak mortals answer Him?" And he played cleverly the pious elder, the dignified official, the affectionate nephew: "Ah, well, my humble friends, behold what life is: the best of us must come to this; my poor, dear aunt, the late house-keeper, rest her ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... general, if given the choice of leaving the battle unwounded, but also without the victory, or of winning the victory at the cost of a wound, hesitate an instant to choose the latter? Other troubles, again, must be regarded as punishment for sins and as means of reformation; the man who is resigned to God's will may be certain that the sufferings which come to him will turn out for ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... Mohammed had a very bad attack of ophthalmia, and sat all of a heap, groaning all day and night, and protesting 'I am a Muslim,' equivalent to 'God's will be done.' At one place I was known, and had a lot of sick to see, and a civil man killed a sheep and regaled us all with meat and fateereh. The part of the river in which we were kept by the high wind is made cheerful by the custom of the ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... she is very calm and peaceful, ready to live or die as God's will shall be; grieving only for those who love her so dearly and find it so difficult to be reconciled to the thought of losing her; her efforts are all to comfort them. She has set her house in order and seems quite ready for ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... earnest so, and raised her voice in saying it, until the whole valley, curving like a great bell echoed "Doone," that it seemed to me my heart was gone for every one and everything. If it were God's will for me to have no more of Lorna, let a sign come out of the rocks, and I would try to believe it. But no sign came, and I turned to the woman, and longed that she had been ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... not desire this martyrdom for myself," continued the other, "on the contrary I will avoid it to the very utmost of my power, but if it be God's will that I should fall while studying what I believe most calculated to advance his glory—then, I say, not my will, oh Lord, ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... weather, and we thought we'd take th' coach to Brummagem, and walk on. It were a bright May morning when I last saw London town, looking back from a big hill a mile or two off. And in that big mass o' a place I were leaving my blessed child asleep—in her last sleep. Well, God's will be done! She's gotten to heaven afore me; but I shall get there at last, please God, though it's ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... last, cheerfully, boldly, utterly, like a hero; she put herself at the head of the battle for the freedom of the world, and she conquered, for God was with her; and so that seemingly most fearful of all England's perils, when the real meaning of it was seen, and God's will in it obeyed manfully, became the foundation of England's naval and colonial empire, and laid the foundation of all her future glories. So it was then, so it is now; so it will be for ever: he who seeks to save his life will lose it: ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... dear child, when thy will is God's will. Can it be any blessing, when thy will and His run contrary the one ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... "God's will be done, father!" said she, in reply to her confessor. "Whatever may happen, I wilt do my duty as a Christian—in obedience ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... the pains of death is gone by; the funeral day is past. We feel she is at peace. No need now to tremble for the hard frost and the keen wind. Emily does not feel them. She died in a time of promise. We saw her taken from life in its prime. But it is God's will, and the place where she is gone is better ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... you now, you are angry, uncle, why, you know, an a man have not skill in hawking and hunting now-a-days, I'll not give a rush for him; he is for no gentleman's company, and (by God's will) I scorn it, ay, so I do, to be a consort for every hum-drum; hang them scroyles, there's nothing in them in the world, what do you talk on it? a gentleman must shew himself like a gentleman. Uncle, I pray you be not angry, I know what I have to do, ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... worried about nothing in Heaven, on Earth, or in Hell," said the Captain briskly. "God's will is doing night and day, Mrs. Paige. Has your ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... knees. She cried, "O Lord, you once answered Gideon with a sign; now please give me a sign and help me to know whether I should stay at home or not. If you don't want me to go, make it rain." Though simple and short, the prayer came from the heart. She was determined to know God's will concerning her; and to such God never turns ...
— The value of a praying mother • Isabel C. Byrum
... therein; therefore the local church when in its normal condition was free from sin and sinners. The physical body, which Paul uses to illustrate the spiritual body, is normal only when every member possesses the life of the body and functions properly. So also was the body of Christ. It was not God's will that there should be (as recognized members) "sinners in the congregation of the righteous" (Psa. 1: 5). It was his will to purge Jerusalem "by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning" until "he that is left in Zion, ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith
... use the most ordinary precautions. 'I am resolved,' he wrote, in 1609, 'to give no thought whatever to these wretchednesses. He who thinks too much of living knows not how to live well. One is bound to die once; to be curious about the day or place or manner of dying is unprofitable. Whatsoever is God's will is good.'[128] As fear had no hold upon his nature, so was he wholly free from the dominion of the senses. A woman's name, if we except that of the Queen of France, is, I think, not once mentioned ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... Nothing prevents me, but I will not go. I must study. And with a heavy heart I read of the horse races. I calm myself with great difficulty and comfort myself by saying: "Let us study; our turn will come, if it is God's will." ...
— Marie Bashkirtseff (From Childhood to Girlhood) • Marie Bashkirtseff
... barbarian warriors. The Huns, having made breaches in the walls, were preparing an assault. The blessed saint went up on to the ramparts, knelt and prayed, and then, having prayed, spat upon the enemy. By God's will that drop of his saliva was followed by all the raindrops in the sky. A tempest arose: the rain fell in such torrents on the barbarians that their camp was flooded; their tents were overturned by the power of the winds, and many among them perished by lightning. The rain lasted ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... down by faith and prayer. Ah me! how little reason could do, or faith either. For reason only affirmed and enlarged my fears; and faith had no power to say; they might not come true. The promise, "He shall not be afraid of evil tidings," belongs to those who have their will so merged in God's will as not to be careful what that will may be. I had not got so far. A new lesson was set me in my experience book; even to lay my will down; and nobody who has not learned or tried to learn that lesson knows how mortal hard it is. It seemed to me my heart ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... her lips and eyes with kisses. "Farewell, farewell, Elise; and if it is God's will, ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... of his life to the ruling of a Higher Power, he was framed and braced as temperately for adversity as for joy,—and nothing seemed to him either fortunate or disastrous except as concerned the attitude in which the soul received the announcement of God's will. To resent affliction was, in his opinion, sinful; to accept it reverently and humbly as a means of grace, and endeavour to make sweetness out of the seeming bitterness of the divine dispensation, appeared to ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... for festivals and the great days, Christmas and Easter, as it has been put into mine here in Spenersberg. One day he said to her, 'It seems to us the best thing in life to be near each other. Would it might be God's will that we should never part!' She responded to that prayer from the depths of her heart, and a great gulf seemed to open before her, for she thought what would her life be worth if they were destined to part? Then he said, 'Let us inquire the will of our Lord;' and she said, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... without the god's will hath the bird flown out on the right, for I knew when I saw him that he was a bird of omen. There is no other house more kingly than yours in the land of Ithaca; nay, ye ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... 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 • Various
... flood of tears, in which Sparks, burying his face in the golden locks of the sweet girl who bowed her head upon his knee, joined audibly. At length, wiping away his tears, and checking the rising sobs that shook his manly bosom—'God's will be done, my children,' said the locksmith; 'we cannot help weeping, but let us not murmur. If we are to be wanderers and fugitives on the earth, let us never lose sight of the promise which assures us of an eternal refuge in a place ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... strange thing that happens to us, if God takes us at our word, and strips us for a while of all that made life beautiful. It may be outward things—bodily comfort, leisure, culture, reputation, friendships—that have to drift away as our hands refuse to clasp on anything but God's will for us. Or it may be on our inner life that the stripping falls, and we have to leave the sunny lands of spiritual enjoyment for one after another of temptation's battlefields, where every inch of our foothold has to be tested, ...
— Parables of the Cross • I. Lilias Trotter
... philosopher of the Epicurean school, said, "We don't look 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, that is His ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... to suffer by Law an ignominious death (God's will be done) which untimely end I never expected. I am a youth and it's above twelve months since I enlisted into his Majesty's Service. The character of my behaviour in that time I will leave to my acquaintance to declare; my character ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... evolution in religion is precisely that prayer and sacrifice come to be regarded as no longer a means whereby a man can get his desires accomplished—his will done—but as the indispensable condition for doing God's will. Prayer then becomes communion with God, and the sacrifice of self the living exhibition of love—the first principle of religion, the principle which manifests itself now in prayer and now ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... voice and opposing God's will is the mystery of our nature. How strange it is that a human will should be able to lift itself in opposition to the Sovereign Will! But stranger and more mysterious and tragic still is it that we should choose to exercise that power and find pleasure, and fancy ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... rife there as weeds be in some parts; two broad oaks stand on turf like velvet, and ring with songbirds. A spot by nature sweet, calm, and holy,—good for pious exercises and heavenly contemplation: there, methinks, if it be God's will I should see old age, I would love to end my own days, at peace with Heaven and with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... Cure when he come back; "tis for the love of God. God is with her—lave her be, and pray for her,' says he. An' he wint himself, but she would not let him in. ''Tis my work,' says she. ''Tis God's work for me to do,' says she. 'An' the woman will live if 'tis God's will,' says she. 'There's an agnus dei on her breast,' says she. 'Go an' pray,' says she. Pray the Cure did, an' pray did we all, but the woman died of the plague. All alone did Rosalie draw her to the grave on a stone-boat down the lane, an' over the hill, an' into the churchyard. An' buried ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... is the scourge of God. It is not confined to one land or another. It visits all alike, if it be God's will to send it in punishment for the many and grievous sins of its inhabitants. True, in the lands of the East, where the paynim holds his court, and everywhere is blasphemy and abomination, the scourge returns time after time, and never altogether ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... 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 ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Then the angel's face recurred to Lois, and she pulled herself up. The angel's face and the painter's history both confronted her. On one hand, the seraphic purity and joy of a creature who knew no will but God's will; on the other hand, the quiet, patient life, which had borne such fruits. Four hundred years ago, Fra Angelico painted; and ever since his work had been bearing witness to God's truth and salvation; was even at that ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... is strong, even when a fearful death seems close at hand, and there were others for whose sake, even more than my own, I desired that night that my life might be spared, if such were God's will. I knew that, under Providence, all depended on my own powers of endurance, and that the struggle for life must be a very severe one. The depth of the snow made walking a very exhausting effort. It was always up to my knees, more often up to my waist; but my only chance, as I was well ...
— A Night in the Snow - or, A Struggle for Life • Rev. E. Donald Carr
... she his shoulder and found it was wried from its place. And she so handled it with her white hands, and so wrought in her surgery, that by God's will who loveth lovers, it went back into its place. Then took she flowers, and fresh grass, and leaves green, and bound them on the hurt with a strip of her smock, and he was ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... his incredulity that he may perish. Deus ex universa generis humani massa alteri quidem donat fidem in Christum, qua iustificetur et salvetur, alterum autem relinquit in sua incredulitate, ut pereat." (Frank 4, 256.) Again: It was God's will to elect Jacob and to leave Esau in his sin. What is said of these two must be understood of the election and rejection of all men in general. "Potuisset Deus optimo iure ambos abiicere;... sed sic ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... Abbot in a vexed amaze, "Our brethren we must aid, if 'tis God's will; But the wild creatures of the forest ways Himself God heals with His Almighty skill. And charity is good, and love—but still God shall not look in vain for the white prayers We send on silver feet ...
— The Rainbow and the Rose • E. Nesbit
... Bazan, who used him well and honourably until he died: leaving to his friends the 'comfort that being dead he hath not outlived his own honour,' and that he had nobly shown how false and vain, and therefore how contrary to God's will, the 'ambitious and bloudie ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... even the welcom'st man That ever came unto a woful maid. Be brief, good fellow: I have in the world No goods to give, no will at all to make; But God's will and the king's on me be done! A little money, kept to give in alms, I have about me: deathsman, take it all; Thou art the last poor almsman I shall see. Come, come, despatch! What weapon will death wear, When he assails me? Is it knife or ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... done to his palace at Chatillon-sur-Loing. "We must follow our Head, Jesus Christ, who himself leads the way," he writes. "Men have deprived us of all that it was in their power to take from us, and if it be God's will that we never recover what we have lost, still we shall be happy, and our condition will be a good one, inasmuch as these losses have not arisen from any harm done by us to those who have brought them upon us, but solely from the hatred they bear toward me for the reason ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... a moment's pause, "bring Judith's child here to me. It is doubtless God's will to submit me to this final trial, and I will endure it. I will offer up these sufferings to God, whose Son died upon the cross. Besides, your story has awakened tender feelings; does not that ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... oftentimes to have passed, and so weened they that were with me.... And I understood in my reason, and by the feeling of my pains that I should die, and I assented fully with all the will of my heart, to be at God's will. Thus I endured till day, and by then, was my body dead to all feeling from the midst down." She is then raised up in a sitting position for greater ease, and her curate is sent for, as the end is supposed to be near. On arrival, he finds her ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... of the enemy. His passage to Gibraltar was prodigiously impeded by continual foul winds, and heavy swells. "Nothing," writes his lordship, at this anxious period, "can be more unfortunate, than we are in our winds; but, God's will be done! I submit. Human exertions are absolutely unavailing. What man could do, I have done. I hope that the wind will come to the eastward. What ill fortune! but, I cannot help myself." Thus did the hero complain, and ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... was strongly urged by his friends to postpone his 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 his last letter ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... that lowly door, lifts up, sustains The sundered soul; and His beneficence With more than father-love enfolds the heart Joined to His own forever. From His light Reflected radiance pours; to the dark sight Comes glimpse of the high justice of God's will; And all roads lead to Heaven, and all hearts lie Within His love, and all's ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... divined the future misuse of recovery and sent back the pilgrim, helped, not bodily, but with the healing of patience and resignation, under some long borne affliction. Again, the similar power to see the future augmentation of holiness in a soul under physical affliction and God's will that no cure be wrought; and still another, to see some impending cross awaiting at home a pilgrim, of whom humanly speaking, he knew nothing, and to hasten his departure; or to know by interior sight alone, a cure wrought at a distance. Surely miraculous ...
— The Life of Blessed John B. Marie Vianney, Cur of Ars • Anonymous
... where those young men arose By baptism, even where the flood sprang forth. From far and wide the warriors of that town Gathered in throngs; both men and women said That they would faithfully obey his word, Receive the bath of baptism joyfully 1640 According to God's will, and straightway leave Their devil-worship and their ancient shrines. Then noble baptism was exalted high Among that folk, the righteous law of God Established 'mong those men—a mighty boon Unto their country—and the church ...
— Andreas: The Legend of St. Andrew • Unknown
... all necessary care and diligence, by prayerful instruction, admonition, example, and discipline that this child may renounce and avoid everything that is evil and that she may keep God's will and commandments as declared ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... why I have been hurt: that is why I have been cold. I thought I might count on your friendship—and—and you can tell whether I was right or no. I relied on you as on a brother, and you come and tell me you will resign. Be it so! Being embarked in this contest, by God's will I will see it to an end. You are not the first, Mr. Warrington, has ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the pictures represent How Sarah listens in the tent While God Almighty, come to earth, Foretells to Abraham the birth Of Isaac and his seed thereafter. Sarah cannot restrain her laughter, Since both are well advanced in years. God asks when he the laughter hears: "Doth Sarah laugh then at God's will, And doubt if this he may fulfil?" Her indiscretion to recall She says, "I did not laugh at all." Which commonly would be a lie; But God prefers to pass it by, Since 'tis not done with malice dark, And ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... that my burial and resurrection shall be? As to the alleged inconvenience of dwelling therein, do you wish me to pray to God (for things) contrary to His will—to deprive the sea of its natural domain? Nevertheless in compliance with your request I shall pray to God and whatever thing be God's will, let it be done." Declan's community thereupon rose up and said:—"Father, take your crosier as Moses took the rod [Exodus 14:16] and strike the sea therewith and God will thus show His will to you." His disciples prayed therefore to him because they were tried ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous
... election, predestination; preordination, foreordination; lot fortune; fatalism; inevitableness &c adj.; spell &c 993. star, stars; planet, planets; astral influence; sky, Fates, Parcae, Sisters three, book of fate; God's will, will of Heaven; wheel of Fortune, Ides of March, Hobson's choice. last shift, last resort; dernier ressort [Fr.]; pis aller &c (substitute) 147 [Fr.]; necessaries &c (requirement) 630. necessarian^, necessitarian^; fatalist; automaton. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... observes, in his select discourses, "besides the outward Revelation of God's will to men, there is also an inward impression of it in their minds and spirits, which is in a more especial manner attributed to God. We cannot see divine things but in a divine light. God only, who is the true ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... white now as he answered quickly, "But surely a minister of the gospel is doing God's will and is ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... said Sir Henry, with a sigh; "there it is; I suppose that he never got so far. Poor fellow, poor fellow! So it has all been for nothing. God's will be done." ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... that he would keep watch over the bodies during the night; thus she did, and early in the night, Thorstein, Eric's son, sat up and spoke saying that he desired Gudrid to be called thither, for that it was his wish to speak to her: "It is God's will that this hour be given me for my own and for the betterment of my condition." Thorstein, the master, went in search of Gudrid, and waked her, and bade her cross herself, and pray God to help her; "Thorstein, Eric's son, has said to me that he wishes to see thee; thou must take counsel with thyself ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... that he thought wholly subdued seemed to rise under him as a rebellious giant. A few hours before, he thought himself established in an invincible submission to God's will that nothing could shake. Now he looked into himself as into a seething vortex of rebellion, and against all the passionate cries of his lower nature could, in the language of an old saint, cling to God only by the naked force of his will. That will rested unmelted amid the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... God's name and not use it in vain, lest it be profaned,' 'How, then, is it profaned and desecrated?' Answer: 'When we who are regarded as His children lead wicked lives, teach and believe what is wrong,' And so forth, what God's kingdom means; how it comes; what God's will is, what daily bread, etc. Likewise also of the Creed: 'What do you believe?' Answer: 'I believe in God the Father,' etc. Thereupon part for part, as leisure permits, one or two at a time. Thus: 'What does it mean to believe in God the Father Almighty?' Answer: 'It means that ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... impressed me with the feeling that this was His call, but for days I felt that I could not obey it. I had never had such a spiritual father as Mr. Burns; I had never known such holy, happy fellowship; and I said to myself that it could not be GOD'S will that ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor
... "It was God's will that I should come to set a term to such vanities before they take too strong a hold upon you," answered she. "Lay down ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... bad weather we must sleep Sometimes without our supper. Now! Ah, well— 'Tis not my fault. These accidents are deep; It was the good God's will. I ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... "God's will be done," she said, "but oh, I grudged Him my bairn terrible sair. I dinna want him back noo, an' ilka day is takkin' me nearer to him, but for mony a lang year I grudged him sair, sair. He was juist five minutes gone, an' they brocht him ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie
... abstract or mere theological blessings. Open to God the realities of your heart and seek the blessings which you sincerely desire. But in all prayers desire most to know the will of God toward you, and to do it. Prayer is not offered to deflect God's will to yours, but to adjust your will to His. When a ship's captain is setting out on a {158} voyage he first of all adjusts his compasses, corrects their divergence, and counteracts the influences which draw the needle from the pole. Well, that is prayer. It is the ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... hand on her heart. "Oh," she groaned, "how long before this troubled life of mine shall cease!—I will tell you something, Baron von Stein. Death is not far from me, and I feel that he comes nearer every day. There is no future for me on earth. But God's will be done. I read the other day somewhere, 'Sufferings and afflictions are blessings when they are overcome.' Oh, how true that is! I myself say, in the midst of my afflictions that they are blessings! How much nearer I am to God!—how clear and true my ideas of the immortality of ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... greatly, and kissed him. And when his wife heard that, she ran out with her hair in disarray, weeping and distressed exceedingly, for she remembered that it was he who had slain the false Ardres. And thereupon they placed him in a fair bed, and said to him, Abide with us until God's will be accomplished in thee, for all we have is at thy service. So he and the ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... boy, why should you succeed where your older brothers have failed? It is God's will that my golden apples should be stolen and ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore
... observed old Andrew. "You will see thousands of such bergs as this where we are going, all formed by God's will, just as He forms everything else in the world; and yet if all the kings of the earth and their people were to try and build up one like them, they could not succeed. Now, Archy, I put it to you, whether it is not wise to try and be friends with such a God—to know that you are ...
— Archibald Hughson - An Arctic Story • W.H.G. Kingston
... WARWICK. Now, by God's will, thou wrong'st him, Somerset; His grandfather was Lionel Duke of Clarence, Third son to the third Edward King of England: Spring crestless yeomen ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... somewhat and was able to return home. But it was now clear to all that the days of the great bishop were numbered. Early in the new year he became bedfast and suffered excruciatingly at times. "But he submitted himself wholly to God's will and bore his terrible suffering with true Christian patience," one of his biographers tells us. To those who asked about his condition, his invariable answer was, that all was well with him. If anyone expressed sympathy ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... martyred mother whose son had been slain at the battle of Seven Pines. Pale as death she lay, her Bible clasped to her breast, the sad eyes closed, the white lips murmuring always words of prayer for patient submission to God's will, the nerveless hands never losing their grasp upon the "rod ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... waiting for the Tarshish ship to lift anchor. We have services in the steerage and second-class and distribute tracts and New Testaments; but all the time we're headed for Tarshish; our way, not God's. It won't do simply to do good. We must do God's will. Find that and ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... alone in the room, when the drums beat and my mother accompanied my father, weeping, to the city gate. As soon as they were gone my old grandmother came in; she looked at me with her mild eyes and said, it would be a good thing if I died; but that God's will was always ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen |
