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Providential   /prˌɑvədˈɛntʃəl/   Listen
Providential

adjective
1.
Peculiarly fortunate or appropriate; as if by divine intervention.  Synonyms: heaven-sent, miraculous.  "A providential recovery"
2.
Relating to or characteristic of providence.
3.
Resulting from divine providence.  Synonym: divine.  "A providential visitation"






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"Providential" Quotes from Famous Books



... thought this. The South thought that it could easily whip the Yankees; and the North thought that it could suppress a Southern rebellion in six weeks. Both sides miscalculated. And so, in spite of warnings, the nation drifted into war; but as it turned out in the end it seems a providential event, —the way God took to break up slavery, the root and source of all our sectional animosities; a terrible but apparently necessary catastrophe, since more than a million of brave men perished, and more than five thousand millions of dollars were spent. Had the North been ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord

... sake as well as Nellie's," spoke Grace. "It's really kind of you, and quite providential ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope

... in favor of the English? By what providential circumstance did the Americans escape? What were the prison ships? Who were the Hessians? Tell the story of ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.

... death in the late fight was so wonderful as to seem clearly Providential. His friends and members of his church in Cincinnati had presented him with a pair of handsome revolvers. One of these he wore in the breast of his coat during the fight. A partially-spent Minie-ball ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett

... He was a very venerable looking old man, with gray locks curling down on his shoulders, but very stout and hearty; and, as Ben had told him all about me, he took notice of me, and appeared also to take an interest. When I came back, after the providential escape I have mentioned in the last chapter, Ben had narrated to him the conduct of my mother; and a day or two afterward, when the frost had broken up, and they were both sitting down, basking in the sun, which was shining bright, ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... This providential rescue had come about as follows. The soldier who had deserted me while I was engaged with the carabineers in the streets of Agreda had quickly reached the vines; thence, leaping across the vine stocks, ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... Balzac remarks, that a "Lepidopterian Georges" would at some time inhabit the mansion, Beaujon had actually provided a beautiful bedroom and a little drawing-room decorated in this way.[*] It seemed quite providential! ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars

... history has the concept of progress for foundation. But by progress must not be understood the imaginary and metaphysical law of progress, which should lead the generations of man with irresistible force to some unknown destiny, according to a providential plan which we can logically divine and understand. A supposed law of this sort is the negation of history itself, of that accidentality, that empiricity, that contingency, which distinguish the concrete fact from the ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce

... It was called forth by special needs, and when the conditions which it met in an almost providential manner changed, it quietly passed away. But it rendered an important and never-to-be forgotten service to war-torn Europe. Feudalism can scarcely be called a complete and rounded system. For it was constantly undergoing modification. It was ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles

... all these recollections and memories together, all the different essociations and emotions, that must cluster round each of them rings. The idee of runnin' 'em all together with the livin' one! It wuz ectin' like a fool and it seemed fairly providential that their names ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley

... our deliverance; for if McClellan had been let alone two weeks longer (provided he ascertained our present condition), he might have captured Richmond, which would be holding all Eastern and much of Central Virginia. This blunder seems providential. ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... swept in on the first fresh breezes of the Revolution. Yet it is not to be doubted that the Transylvania Company, through the courage and moral influence of its leaders, made a permanent contribution to the colonization of the West, which, in providential timeliness and effective execution, is without ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson

... caused the foliage to rustle over the heads of these two men, as they lay side by side. Neither had the least suspicion that they were here re-united by strange and providential circumstances—that twenty years before, they had lain side by side—then lulled to sleep by the sound of the ocean, just as now by the whispering murmurs of ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... really isn't, dear, you know," said Mrs. Cardew in a low tone; "and as you cannot make up your mind to live in London, those two vacancies at Aylmer House seem providential." ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade

... had to contend with grief and penury: a grief not the less undermining in its effects, from the circumstance of its being sometimes suspended by hope—a penury so extreme that every succeeding day seemed as if won by some providential interference from absolute want. And she was now, to all appearance, fast sinking in the struggle. The autumn was well nigh over: she had been weak and ailing for months before, and had now become so feeble as to be confined for ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various

... nothing but mischief—at least, so far as the account of her doings reaches my ears. She is quite too big for Jessie to teach, and we cannot afford to send her to a good school at present, which is the thing that ought to be done. It really seems to me a providential opening for Edith." ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various

... what latitude Providential channel[*] lies in, but I considered it to be within a few miles of this, which is situate in 12 ...
— A Narrative Of The Mutiny, On Board His Majesty's Ship Bounty; And The Subsequent Voyage Of Part Of The Crew, In The Ship's Boat • William Bligh

... It was only by providential good fortune that young Brainerd escaped instant destruction. The wonder was that the steam man was not so injured as to be unable to travel, in which case the maddened bull would have left ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis

... Pulling then towards the reef during the intervals of the heaviest seas, in three minutes we were in smooth water—a nearer approach showed us the beach of a well-sheltered cove in which we anchored for the rest of the night. We thought Providential Cove a well-adapted name for ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge

... the great city won their bread more hardly than these slender girls, doomed in most instances never to know a vigorous and perfected womanhood. "Belle, my child, how can you stand during these long, hot days? It's providential that we can't ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe

... Temple's hand, I was going through the same ceremony with the captain himself, not at all changed in appearance, who blessed his heart for seeing me, cried out that a beard and mustachios made a foreign face of a young Englishman, and was full of the 'providential' circumstance of his having confided his case to Temple and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... ringleaders. How thankful I was to get back safely to our mission compound. Miss Stanton's chair coolies had assured her that I was following behind, and she thought everything was secure. The church members were at prayer meeting and did not notice my non-arrival. The delay I think must have been providential, for had the members rushed there and found a crowd, I fear more trouble ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton

... Layton, putting down the wriggling Ted. "It was providential. You know, Harry, I was not so kind-hearted as John in those days and I thought he ought to send you off. But he declared he would not, even if you had cost him two cows. He said that if he did it might cost the world a man. And so it would have, if all they say you are ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... unusual excellence, though genuinely admired in their day. He was certainly an ideal missioner: saintly, inspired, eloquent, untireable, patient, consumed with the desire for the success of his undertaking, and unfaltering in his faith that success would follow by the providential action of God, despite the obvious fact that all appearances ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion

... your friend Anthony with an 'H,'" Cleopatra broke in. "He seemed providential. And he speaks English. The only objection is, he's not as good-looking as Monny and I wanted our dragoman to be. We did hope to get one who would be becoming to us, you see, and give the right sort ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... an illustration of my theory," cried the delighted Doctor. "Here are we in a gale; below, scarcely a breath of air is stirring. It did not work in Russia, and we were obliged to anchor. But I shall regard that as a providential affair and shall stick to my theory. I would not for anything have failed to plant the good seed which we left there. Great good will come of it, and it may be the commencement of a general recognition throughout all Europe of God's great ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman

... and particular or State governments having, within their respective territories, sole charge of the particular relations and interests of the American people; but I do not accept his concession that this division is of conventional origin, and maintain that it enters into the original Providential constitution of the American state, as I have done in my Review for October, 1863, and January and ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson

... own coin. The immoralities imputed to the gods were doubtless strongly calculated to draw the attention of reflecting men, but the essential nature of the pursuit in which the Ionian and Italian schools were engaged bore directly on the doctrine of a providential government of the world. It not only turned into a fiction the time-honoured dogma of the omnipresence of the Olympian divinities—it even struck at their very existence, by leaving them nothing to do. For those personifications it introduced ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... God for His great mercy; and Calton, the good fairy of the two lovers, was hurrying towards the humble abode of Mrs. Rawlins, familiarly known as Mother Guttersnipe. Kilsip was beside him, and they were talking eagerly about the providential appearance ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume

... each other, Mrs. Searle! Do you know, that whole affair has always seemed providential to me? I was a passive instrument in wiser hands." "As we all are, more often than we think—-well, good- by, and when you long for a sight of the old home, and the sea, you ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry

... the story of my happy Brooklyn pastorate; for that is succinctly given in the closing chapter of this volume. Our home-life here for the past forty-two years has been a record of perpetual providential mercies and unfailing kindness on the part of my parishioners and fellow townsmen. Brooklyn, although removed from New York (for I cannot yet twist my tongue into calling it "Manhattan") by a five minutes' ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

... spirit. There are no possessions like religious possessions to fill the soul with true enjoyment. And what are they? They are, first: a mind in harmony with the works and ways of God, which sees the Father in the daily movements of the spheres and the providential arrangements of the world; in the blossoming life of spring, and the withered death of winter; in the dear relations of domestic life, and the more showy fraternities of nations; in birth, and life, and death; in every provision ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver

... conditions so amazingly favorable to the spread of the Voltairean ideas was a circumstance independent of the state of the surrounding atmosphere, and was what in the phraseology of prescientific times might well have been called providential. If Voltaire had seen all that he saw, and yet been indolent; or if he had been as clear-sighted and as active as he was, and yet had only lived fifty years, instead of eighty-four, Voltairism would never have struck root. As it was, with his genius, his industry, his longevity, and the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... me—or, had we loitered in the alley, and arrived a moment later at the central house of Kendrick Row, there is no doubt that they would have been there to await my arrival, nor could Mr. Burress have saved me from their clutches—the whole thing seemed especially providential; but, as the efficient medium of each mercy, Napoleon B. Burress did, indeed, seem to all present crowned with a perfect nimbus of glory. Dr. Pemberton led him back to my presence with his arm encircling his shoulder; Captain Wentworth shook his hand mutely but long, with his eyes dimmed with ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield

... of the children of China to our Western coast may be a providential element in this change and the importance of the work of the Association among these peoples on our Pacific Coast, so ready to learn, and many of them so ready to return to their native land as missionaries, may be a very significant factor ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 1, March, 1898 • Various

... his mother and the children, he struck a light, and leaped into the water; and, taking Bub in his arms, and directing the movements of the rest, he hurried them out of the door, away from the river bank, as fast as they could go. How providential it was that he should have, in his restlessness, dropped his hand over the bedside! for scarcely had they ascended a swell of ground beyond the field when the cabin went down with a crash, and the fragments, whirling about and ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson

... to have a reverence for religion, and had faith in the providential care of his heavenly Father, and his mother's words ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... a fact little appreciated that the Mormons have been first in agricultural colonization of nearly all the intermountain States of today. This may have been providential, though the western movement of the Church happened in a time of the greatest shifting of population ever known on the continent. It preceded by about a year the discovery of gold in California, and gold, of course, was the lodestone that drew the greatest of west-bound migrations. The Mormons, ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock

... replied, "and if I mistake not, you are the lady concerning whom M. de Maisonneuve wrote me a few days since," handing her the letter of her friend at the same time. Margaret was very agreeably surprised by the providential rencontre, and began to hope that the mortifications of her eventful journey were drawing to a close. The merchant directed her to his home, which was not far distant, and assuring her of a hearty welcome from his wife, left her abruptly to attend to his own concerns. ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.

... own narrow ends, without any faculty of comprehensive survey and choice of intentions; impelled by thirst of adventure, or thirst of power, or thirst of gold, to the execution of his part in the great human struggle for conservation and advancement; working like other useful agencies in the Providential Scheme—like 'the ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... the nick of time for Nell, as all things, indeed, in life seemed to befall in the nick of time for her. The impious huswives shook their heads and attributed it to the evil influence; the pious huswives asserted it was providential; Nell herself laughingly declared it ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.

... delightful carpet of green, bedecked with flowers. What a contrast! How many soldiers lay beneath those verdant meadows? I went and sat at the place where I had fallen and been despoiled, and where I also would have died, had not a truly providential combination of circumstances come to my aid. Marshal Lannes wanted to see the hillock which the 14th had so valiantly defended. I took him there. Since the time of the battle, the enemy had been in occupation of the ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... thus expressed myself, I do not at all despair of the Republic. I do not believe that a dissolution or destruction of this Government is to take place. Its origin and its existence have been characterized by too many signal interpositions of Providential favor. We cannot look into the future. I have no desire to do so. If we all conscientiously perform our prescribed duties, if we are faithful to ourselves, to our people and our Constitution, HE who rules the nations will take care of ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... probability that Japan, while maintaining her isolation, would ever have succeeded in making any radical change in her social order; her communalism was too absolute. She needed the introduction of a new stimulus from without. It was providential that this stimulus came from the Anglo-Saxon race, with its pronounced principle of "individualism" wrought out so completely in social order, in literature, and in government. Had Russia or Turkey been the leading influences in starting Japan ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick

... Whitby, under circumstances of safety! They received from their townsmen the warmest congratulations; and while each individual was forward in contributing his assistance towards the restoration of their benumbed bodies, each appeared sensible that their narrow escape from death was highly providential. The forbearance of God is wonderful. Perhaps these very men a few hours before, were impiously invoking their own destruction, or venting imprecations upon their fellow beings! True it is that the goodness of the Almighty extendeth over all his works, and that while 'Mercy is his darling ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous

... confidence in himself and his men is superb. Not Hildebrand in the height of his power, or Mahommed, at the moment when he was launching the armies which offered to the world Islam or the sword, showed himself more supremely possessed with the confidence of his providential mission than does General Booth in his book. "For this end was I created, to this work was I called, all my life has been a preparation to fit me for its accomplishment." While thus speaking with the confidence of a man who feels ...
— Darkest India - A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" • Commissioner Booth-Tucker

... providential direction, Esther had returned from London, doubting not that a life of contented service would unfold with ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee

... deeply touched by the numerous expressions of sympathy and goodwill addressed to me on the occasion of the providential escape of the Princess of Wales and myself from the danger we have lately passed through. From every quarter of the globe, from the Queen's subjects throughout the world, as well as from the representatives and inhabitants of foreign countries, have these manifestations of sympathy proceeded, ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins

... places upon one or more of the above authorities, for differences between them were frequent and sometimes considerable, and in one instance alone a reduction of 12' in the chart was obtained. It is said in Hawkesworth (III, 202), "As soon as we got within side the reef (through Providential Channel) we anchored in nineteen fathom;" and afterwards (p. 204), that the channel, "bore E. N. E. distant ten or twelve miles." In the first chart the distance is 141/2 miles, and nearly the same in that which accompanies the narrative; ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders

... of Rudolph were stamped with such force and conviction, in speaking of this providential vengeance, that Louise looked at him with surprise, almost ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... felt this year, unless some great change came to her to take her out of this weary groove in which she was set, she must go melancholy mad. She had laid out a hundred schemes, all of them, she knew, impracticable; and now, in a strange, providential way, this chance to change every thought and action of her whole life had come to her. Do you wonder much she accepted it? I think it was ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.

... the new forces of civilization were to be organized. To show what he did for the new races, and how he did it, is the historian's duty and task in describing the reign of Charlemagne,—sent, I think, as Moses was, for a providential mission, in the fulness of time, after the slaveries of three hundred years, which prepared the people for labor and industry. Better was it that they should till the lands of allodial proprietors in misery and sorrow, attacked ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord

... had called a woodshed; but as no tree the size of a man's wrist was within ten miles, or a railroad within fifty, the term was manifestly a misnomer. Wood in any form it had never contained; instead, it was filled with that providential fuel of the frontiersman, found ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge

... sure we'd know each other, some day—I felt it!" Carita went on in her eager way. "And I believe Knight's meeting you that day was providential!" ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs

... little, however, Maryllia extracted a sufficient number of facts from her hesitating and reluctant evidence to gain considerable information on many points respecting the management of her estate, and she began to feel that her return home was providential and had been in a manner pre-ordained. She learned all that Mrs. Spruce could tell her respecting the famous 'Five Sisters'; how they were the grandest and most venerable trees in all the country round—and how they stood all together on a grassy eminence about a mile and a half from the Manor ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... be learned ere long by the discipline of more than one stern lesson. Hitherto a marvellous—call it a Providential—good fortune had attended the first aerial travellers; and even when mishaps presently came to be reckoned with, it may fairly be questioned whether so many lives were sacrificed among those who sought to voyage through the sky as were lost among ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon

... moment, and the moon emerging discloses to me a chasm or precipice, to the very brink of which I had advanced my foot. This is what is meant by luck, and according to the more or less serious mood or habit of our mind, we exclaim, how lucky, or how providential! The copresence of numberless phenomena, which from the complexity or subtlety of their determining causes are called contingencies, and the coexistence of these with any regular or necessary phenomenon (as the clouds with the moon, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various

... arranged rooms, and in consequence some new song to his seductive repertoire, left a new sting in her soul. She had been influencing somebody or something all her life. She had been educating and directing and benefiting till she was forced to be grateful to that providential generosity that caused new wickedness and ignorance to spring constantly from this very soil she had cleared; for if one reform had been sufficient she would long since have been obliged to leave the ...
— A Philanthropist • Josephine Daskam

... distress met with an unexpected and providential relief. For about the 24th June, a prodigious number of large sea fish, called turlehydes, were brought into the bay of Dublin, and cast on shore at the mouth of the river Dodder. They were from thirty to forty feet long, and so bulky that two tall men ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 219, January 7, 1854 • Various

... providential," declared Helen, shrinking into her seat again and beginning to tremble, now that the danger ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson

... have more than that! I'm willing to divide my magnificent profits with you. You will have furnished the picture and I the verses. It's wonderful, Letty,—it's providential! You just are a Christmas card to-night! It seems so strange that you even put the lighted candle in the window when you never heard my verse. The candle caught my eye first, and I remembered the Christmas customs we studied for ...
— The Romance of a Christmas Card • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... steadily since the Japanese war reforming her army within and without. More than one third of her officers were dismissed after that war. The Russian officials now say that the Japanese war was to Russia most providential. It showed the lines of Russian weakness, inefficiency, and graft, which could flourish at a distance from St. Petersburg but became exposed when war put the Russian organization to the test. Steadily every year Russia ...
— The Audacious War • Clarence W. Barron

... aware that this sickness was providential. It saved him from a hysterical relapse—and he recovered in time to entrain on a damp November day for New York, and ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... was spoiled. I tried to laugh it off and say how Providential it was they had come to our rescue; but though I kept telling myself every minute that there was no need for me to mind Beechy, I dreaded meeting her alone. However, the evil moment wouldn't be put off forever, and she came along the balcony ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... is right, Mary," said Lyndsay, who just then entered from superintending the removal of his luggage from the boat, accompanied by a group of friends, all anxious to congratulate Mrs. Lyndsay on her providential escape. "My dear Flora, you must be a good girl, ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie

... be no French party. I wish very much to know what effect this series of good news will have at home. I congratulate you as well as all other good people on the providential events which have lately happened; they must produce great changes with us; I hope it will ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse

... describe them. We were so wholly lost in interest at the scene that was passing, that the boat was allowed to drift at pleasure. For my own part I was overwhelmed with astonishment, and in truth stunned and confused; so singular, so unexpected, and so strikingly providential, had been ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt

... offered, provided the gift was not in the form of anything to eat. The Spaniards' food they would not even touch, apparently regarding it as the cause of the dire sickness of the troops. And this, in the long run, remarks Palou, was without doubt "singularly providential," owing to the rapid depletion of the stores. Ignorance of the Indians' language, of course, added seriously to the father's difficulties in approaching them, and presently their thefts of cloth, for the possession of which they developed a perfect passion, and other depredations, rendered them exceedingly ...
— The Famous Missions of California • William Henry Hudson

... occupying himself in being indifferent to everybody and everything around him. When he met Lady Mallinger, however, he took some trouble—raised his hat, paused, and proved that he listened to her recommendation of the waters by replying, "Yes; I heard somebody say how providential it was that there always happened to ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... never kept, and poor Isabella, sustained only by the moral support of her courageous mother, was beginning to quake and tremble, as she knew not what might happen, and the prospect for her future happiness was far from good. A providential illness overcame the dreaded bridegroom when he was less than forty leagues from Madrid, as it turned out, and Isabella was ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... against the wall, and the lid flying open, the whole mustard flew in his own face, which made him a sight not to be spoken of. However it calmed him; but really, as I had never seen such a man before, I could not but consider the accident as a providential reproof, and trembled to think what greater evil might fall out in the hands of a man so left to himself in the ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt

... forming his lines to the south. General McClernand sending to me for artillery, I detached to him the three guns of Wood's battery, with which he speedily drove them back, and, seeing some others to the rear, I sent one of my staff to bring them forward, when, by almost providential decree, they proved to be two twenty-four pound howitzers belonging to McAlister's battery, and served as well as guns ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... race and mankind. He instanced as an illustration of the fine courtesy always observed by Mr. Gladstone towards his political opponents, that the last letter he had written with his own hand was a private note to Lady Salisbury, several weeks since, congratulating her and her husband on their providential escape from a carriage accident at Hatfield. Lord Salisbury was visibly touched by Lord Rosebery's reference to ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... in Europe, the cafes are the providential rendezvous for idlers and gossips, exchanges for real-estate brokers ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... from the flames has been curiously contorted by persons who have attempted to write about it without knowing the facts. The real saviors of Mrs. Stevenson's house were her nephews and Mr. Field, and even they might have lost the day had it not been for a providential wind that blew in strongly from the sea against the advancing wall of flame. For three days and nights they looked down from their high post upon the raging furnace below and anxiously watched the progress of the fire as it leaped ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez

... entered upon a path in accordance with this tendency, required another more severe corrective—its being crushed by the mighty world's power. The appearance of these mighty powers, just at the period when Israel entered upon their hardening, is most providential.—The beginning of the end of the kingdom of the ten tribes had come, and the breaking up of its independent political existence had commenced. As enmity to Judah had given its origin to the kingdom of the ten tribes, so also did it bring about its destruction; ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg

... then session and also to serve as a pledge which he might exhibit if unredeemed at their next. These objects are well stated by Mr. Serurier to be "that the Government of the Republic may avoid, with a providential solicitude, in this unsettled state of things all that may become a cause of new irritation between the two countries, endanger the treaty, and raise obstacles that may become insurmountable to the views of conciliation and harmony which animate the councils of the King." ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson

... to the ancient and honourable family of the Swiss Robinsons, who performed a series of unassuming miracles on their island. There was no practical dispensation of providential favours on our behalf. Trees that had the reputation of providing splendid splitting timber defiantly slandered themselves, and others that should have almost flayed themselves at the first tap of the tomahawk had not the slightest regard for the ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... turn, and from hot words they had nearly come to hard blows. One of the deputies replied with so much boldness and vehemence that the Governor, seizing a heavy silver bell which stood on the table, was about to hurl it at the offender's head, when an energetic and providential interference on the part of the imperial ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... foregoing propositions is an established fact. It is at least quite certain that in the ivth century (if not long before) there existed a known Lectionary system, alike in the Church of the East and of the West. Cyril of Jerusalem (A.D. 348,) having to speak about our LORD's Ascension, remarks that by a providential coincidence, on the previous day, which was Sunday, the event had formed the subject of the appointed lessons;(339) and that he had availed himself of the occasion to discourse largely on the subject.—Chrysostom, preaching at Antioch, makes it plain that, in the latter part ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon

... it turned out, it wuz perfectly providential, so fur as I wuz concerned, for on goin' home that night fearfully deprested on account of Sister Sylvester Bobbet, lo and behold! I found a letter there on my own mantletry piece that completely turned round my own plans. It come entirely onexpected to me, and ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)

... you got out accidental you've had a most providential escape, an' me an' my mates don't deserve less than to hear about it. There's bound to be inquiries after you when the guard finds your compartment empty an' the door open. May be the train'll put back; more likely they'll send a search-party; but anyways you're all wet through, an' the ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... harm to Catholicism in France, in England, in Italy, and especially in Germany, was again being revived. The King of France demanded that the new diocese should be dependent upon the Metropolitan of Rouen, while the pontifical government, of which its providential role requires always a breadth of view, and, so to speak, a foreknowledge of events impossible to any nation, desired the new diocese to be an immediate dependency of the Holy See. "We must confess here," says the Abbe Ferland, ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath

... 17th of February 1867 the king appointed him the first constitutional Hungarian premier. It was on this occasion that Deak called him "the providential statesman given to Hungary by the grace of God.'' As premier, Andrassy by his firmness, amiability and dexterity as a debater, soon won for himself a commanding position. Yet his position continued to be difficult, inasmuch as the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... was at perfect liberty to select his phraseology, it is probable that he did not think it necessary to aim at great variety in the mere language of his devotional exercises. So long as a petition was deemed suitable, it perhaps continued to be repeated in nearly the same words, whilst providential interpositions, impending persecutions, and the personal condition of the flock, would be continually suggesting some fresh topics for thanksgiving, supplication, and confession. The beautiful and comprehensive prayer taught by our Lord to His disciples was never considered ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... "Almost providential, that rock," remarked Sinnet. "You've got your well at your back door. Food—but you can't go far, and keep your eye on the Bend too," he nodded toward the door, beyond which lay the frost-touched valley in the early morning ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker

... kept when it was perfectly convenient, and did not demand any sacrifice of time or money. But if stopping to keep the Sabbath in a journey would risk passage money or a seat in the stage, or, in housekeeping, if it would involve any considerable inconvenience or expense, it was deemed a providential intimation that it was "a work of necessity and mercy" to attend to secular matters. To their minds the fourth command read thus: "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy when it comes convenient, and costs ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... the loaf. He that could feed live thousand with five loaves and two fishes, can certainly make that half of the loaf suffice for more than our necessities." Accordingly the poor man was relieved; and this noble act of charity was soon recompensed by a providential store of fresh provisions, with ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... 13, pamphlet edition, speaking of "a hairy veil" over the eyes of a species of bison, the author says: "It immediately occurred to the acute mind of Dr. Herschel that this was a providential contrivance to protect the eyes of the animal from the great extremes of light and darkness to which all the inhabitants of our side of the moon are periodically subjected." But this cannot be thought a very "acute" observation of the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... pierced the main artery. But I have checked the bleeding—it was a providential thing that I was at hand to do it—and if you keep absolutely still, it won't burst out again. I am telling you this because it is necessary for you to know what a serious matter it is. Any exertion might bring it on again, and then I can't say what would happen. You have lost a good deal of ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... their incomes, and partly from their folly in imagining that they can subsist in idleness upon usury, will at last compel the sons and daughters of English families to acquaint themselves with the principles of providential economy; and to learn that food can only be got out of the ground, and competence only secured by frugality; and that although it is not possible for all to be occupied in the highest arts, nor for any, guiltlessly, to pass their days in a succession ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... Tobiah invited and urged him to stop building the wall and hold a public discussion as to the right to build. And doubtless a great many Jews said to him, 'Unless we establish the right in the first place, it will surely be taken from us utterly. This is a providential opportunity to preach truth in the very camp of the enemy.' But who got it up, God or the devil?... Look over the history of the world, and in nine cases out of ten we shall find that Satan, after ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney

... cure for this distressing complaint is now made known in a Treatise of 48 octavo pages, on Foreign and Native Herbal Preparations, published by Dr. O. Phelps Brown. The prescription was discovered by him in such a providential manner that he cannot conscientiously refuse to make it known, as it has cured everybody who has used it for Fits, never having failed in a single case. The ingredients may be obtained from any druggist. Persons desiring a copy may address Dr. O. Phelps Brown, No. 21 Grand Street, Jersey City, ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various

... little man, with an absurd fussy manner full of importance, as so many kindly little men have. Is it by some gentle providential dispensation that the physically insignificant are so ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten

... of a third of the women in America. What is there ever read of in books, or described in foreign travel, as attained by people in possession of every means and appliance, which our women will not undertake, single-handed, in spite of every providential indication to the contrary? Who is not cognizant of dinner parties invited, in which the lady of the house has figured successively as confectioner, cook, dining-room girl, and, lastly, rushed up stairs to bathe her glowing cheeks, smooth ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... him vanish slowly up the road, ragged himself, the car and harness almost ready to drop to pieces, the mare, I am sure, in the last week of her existence, we were glad that he had his Celtic fancy to enliven his life a bit,—that fancy which seems a providential reaction against the cruel ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... found consolation in the thought that the Lord needed just such a young man to help carry on a more important work among the spirits already called home. His companion in the discussion found an explanation to his satisfaction in the thought that it was providential that the young man could be taken when he was, that he thereby might be spared the probable catastrophies that might have visited him had he lived. Each man found complete solace in his own philosophy, though neither could accept the reasoning ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion

... the most providential thing that you should have been in that neighbourhood to-night," said the inspector, eyeing the young man keenly. "But perhaps you are a stranger in the city, and perhaps you do not realize the danger of walking in the native quarter, ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld

... from about the year 40. Its success was extremely rapid, especially among the populace, and little by little it won over the upper classes. As a general philosophy, primitive Christianity did not absolutely bring more than the Hebrew dogmas: the unity of God, a providential Deity, that is, one directly interfering in human affairs; immortality of the soul with rewards and penalties beyond the grave (a recent theory among the Jews, yet one anterior to Christianity). As a moral system, Christianity brought something so novel and so ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet

... pot of honey and one of marmalade, and tin-tacks, string, and glue. But we could not get any ladies with crosses, and the shirts and trousers were too expensive for us to dare to risk it. Instead, we bought a head-stall for eighteenpence, because how providential we should be to a farmer whose favourite horse had escaped and he had nothing to catch it with; and three tin-openers, in case of a distant farm subsisting entirely on tinned things, and the only opener for miles lost down ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit

... afterwards, the minister of France here presented an application for three millions of livres, to be laid out in provisions to be sent to France. Urged by the strongest attachment to that country, and thinking it even providential, that monies lent to us in distress, could be repaid under like circumstances, we had no hesitation to comply with the application, and arrangements are accordingly taken, for furnishing this sum at epochs accommodated to the demand ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... in whose false dry light I walked a parasang or two, did not only betray itself to me as a sham, but also turned my mind and soul to the sham I had shouldered for years. From the peddling-box, therefore, I turned even as I did from atheism. Praised be Allah, who, in his providential care, seemed to kick me away from the door of its temple. The sham, although effulgent and alluring, was as brief as ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... providential for him that he had this faithful and devoted nurse by his side. Only her earnest and incessant care saved him to join the war again. Day and night she was beside him, and when erysipelas attacked his wounded ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... she could ever have taken a penny from anyone else, before), that title, which he had believed so wholly inapplicable to her, of 'kept' woman. He could not explore the idea further, for a sudden access of that mental lethargy which was, with him, congenital, intermittent and providential, happened, at that moment, to extinguish every particle of light in his brain, as instantaneously as, at a later period, when electric lighting had been everywhere installed, it became possible, merely by fingering a switch, to cut off all the supply ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... a different sort were called into play in negotiating the purchase of machine-guns from Messrs. Vickers & Co., at Woolwich. Here a strong American accent, combined with the providential circumstance that Mexico happened to be in the grip of revolutionary civil war, overcame all difficulties, and Mr. John Washington Graham, U.S.A. (otherwise Fred H. Crawford of Belfast) played his part so effectively that he did not fail to finish the ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill

... he also observed the unities of time and place, and throughout his work practices a close economy in these respects. It goes without saying that he rejects the monologue, the unnatural reading of letters, the raisonneur or commenting and providential character, the lightly motivised confession—all the devices, in brief, by which the conventional playwright blandly transports information across the footlights, or unravels the artificial ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann

... and descriptions, formed the most magnificent idea of the wealth of the interior of the island, and even in the red pepper which abounded he fancied that he traced Oriental spices. He was thus led to believe that the shipwreck was providential, as, had he sailed away, he should not have heard of its vast wealth. What in some spirits would have awakened a grasping and sordid cupidity to accumulate, immediately filled his vivid imagination with plans of ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith

... Comte's loi des trois etats, which defines religious progress to be first fetichism, secondly polytheism, finally monotheism. Of this Mr. Lewes says: "The theological system arrived at the highest perfection of which it is capable when it substituted the providential action of a single being, for the varied operations of the numerous divinities which had before been imagined."[187-1] Nothing could be more erroneous than the spirit of this statement; nothing is more correct, if the ordinary talk of the ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton

... cabman seemed to be regaining some control over his horse, and the pursuers gained a little as they swept round into the Edgware Road. And here there occurred what seemed to the allies a providential stoppage. Traffic of every kind was swerving to right or left or stopping, for down the long road was coming the unmistakable roar announcing the fire-engine, which in a few seconds went by like a brazen thunderbolt. But quick as it ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton

... not that. It was unfortunate that you came the way you did, or unfortunate that you went, perhaps; but it is not that. It was most providential that Barton was with you, but so unfortunate that he said ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle

... sculptors who flourished during this illustrious period of art—Gros, David, Prud'hon, Girodet and Bosio—have endeavored to transmit to posterity the features of the Man of Destiny, at the different epochs when the vast providential vistas which beckoned him first revealed themselves. Thus, we have portraits of Bonaparte, commander-in-chief, Bonaparte, First Consul, and Napoleon, Emperor; and although some painters and sculptors have caught more ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere

... their repertory of quaint local songs for my benefit. It sounded bully, I tell you, out there with the sunlight, and the green leaves, and the rush of the river; and in this aroma of beer and brotherhood I blessed my damaged thigh. Three days hence! Just time for it to heal. A providential world, after all. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... commendable action, and quite providential. So I shall take an opportunity of saying, when I tell the story in all companies; and the boy may thank his kind stars, I'm sure, to the end of his days, for such an escape—But pray, Christopher," said she, persisting in her conversation with ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth



Words linked to "Providential" :   providence, fortunate, heavenly, miraculous



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