Part 5 (1/2)
CHAPTER VIII
SUNDRY PROVIDENCES
Carlyle soives utterance to a truisratefully countersign, that ”it takes a great deal of providence to bring a man to threescore years and ten” Not only are we in peril every time we take breath, both froer in the air, but from all sorts of outer accidents (so-called, whereas they all are ”well ordered and sure”) ith our little life is corave; in truth, trifles see this way or that, the casual stopping or hastening hath saved life or destroyed it, hath built up or flung down fortunes” Every inch and every instant, we are guided and guarded, whether we notice it or not: ”the very hairs of our heads are all numbered” Here shall follow soo I knew a small schoolboy of seven who accidentally slit his own throat while cutting a slate-fraainst his chest with a sharp knife; there was a knot in the wood, the knife slipped up, a pinafore was instantaneously covered with blood--(though the little semisuicide was unconscious of any pain)--thereafter his neck was quickly strapped with diaculuht scar may be found on the left side of a silvery beard! Was not this a providential escape? Again--a lively little urchin in his holiday recklessness ran his head pell-e, leading from Princes Street, Hanover Square, to Oxford Street, and was so daton Street: a little more, the doctors said, and it would have been a case of concussion of the brain
The post is still there ”to witness if I lie,” as Macaulay's Roht, thank heaven! aain, so on a chestnut horse in Parliaainst his shying steed, the wheel ripping up a saddle-flap, just as the rider had instantaneously shi+fted his right leg close to the horse's neck! But for that providence, death or a crushed knee was iain, after so creeping up a hill after a hard ride on his grey h men on the tramp before him, one of whom needlessly crossed over so that they co; which when aesop fortunately noticed, with a quick spur into Brenda he flashed by the rascals as they tried to snatch at his bridle and alalloped up the hill followed by their curses: was not this an escape worth being thankful for?
Once -cart accidents, noticeable, for these causes; viz--broken ribs, and a crushed right hand, have proved to him experimentally how little pain is felt at the moment of a wound; which will explain the unconscious heroism of coh loss of blood is ever felt until wounds stiffen: further, a blow on the head not only dazes in the present and stupefies further on, but also completely takes away all memory of a past ”bad quarter of an hour” At least I re of hoorst misadventure happened; and only know that I crawled ho both sides together with my hands to enable one with broken ribs Though these two accidents cost er of a (partly bedridden) helplessness, were they not good providences towith the same healed broken hand
So much of perils by land, by way of sample: here are three or four by sea, to er was nearly swept off the _Asia's_ slippery deck in a stor to the side rail of a then unnetted bulwark, swinging hi waves--like an acrobat? Had I let go, no one would have known of that mystery of the sea,--where and when a certain celebrity then expected in America, had disappeared! Captain Judkin after that always had his bulwarks netted; so that was a good result of er on deck, a favoured one,--the captain being on his bridge, two men at the wheel in their covered house, the stor sea beneath,--and so all unseen I had been swept away,--but for good providence
Once again; do I not shudderingly recollect how nearly the little Guernsey steamer was run over by an American man-of-war in the Channel, because a tipsy captain would ”cross the bows of that d---- d Yankee:”--the huge black prow positively hung over us,--and it was a hty waters What er that tells its own tale in a sonnet written at the ti Tenby and the sea-anemone caverns there, accessible only at lowest neap tide
”An hour of peril in the Lydstep caves: Down the steep gorge, grotesquely boulder-piled And te wild Up it in thunder breaks and vainly raves,-- My haste hath spedon either hand These halls of A clear The ceaseless mournful music of the waves: Ten thousand beauteous for in and out A the seaflowers, tapestried about All over those alls--A shout of fear!
The tide, the tide!--I turned and ran for life, And battled stoutly through that billowy strife!”
Perhaps this is enough of such hairbreadth 'scapes both by land and water: though I ht (in America especially) mention many more Then there are all manner of the ordinary ht; it _does_ require ”a good deal of providence” to coe
CHAPTER IX
YET MORE ESCAPES
But there are many other sorts of peril in human life to which I may briefly advert, as we all have had some experiences of the same Who does not know of his special financial te hiulfed as by Niagara? Or of the ives to soatee a junior partner's free arm-chair, only that he may utilise his money and keep the house solvent for yet a year or two, utterly unheeding that ere long the grateful beneficiaire ed doith his chief to poverty? Or, which of us has not had experience of sohts by evil influence? Or of the see benefactor just before that promised codicil? Or of the ruinous investment? Or of the bankrupt Life assurance? Or of the unhappy fact of your autograph, ”a mere matter of for friend?
Yet all these are providences too,--lessons of life, and parts of our schools and schoolmasters
And there are many like social evils besides Let me delicately touch one of the the close of my career, at least in this the caterpillar and soon to be chrysalis condition of ive my testimony seriously and practically to the fact (disputed by too many from their oorse experience) that it is quite possible to live froe in many scenes and under h thereater knowledge is added to the Man; but although it be a knowledge both of evil and of good, theoretically,--it need not practically be a guilty knowledge If one of any age, froest to the oldest, has not the power of self-control perpetually in exercise, and the good mental help of prayer habitually at hand to be relied on, he is in danger, and hest Power intervene But, if the senses are trained to resist the first inclinations to unchastity, by the eye that will not look and the ear that will not listen, then the doors of the ainst the enemy, and even ”hot youth” is safe
We live in a co-operative cycle of society; and auilds to encourage, by exareat virtues, and some less iht to disparage any gatherings for prayer, or te ated help as the weaker brethren yearn for Many a veteran now, changed to good morals from a looser life in the past,purity to the youngtheet what young blood is, his own having cooled down apace; anon he will find that Nature is not so easily driven back--_usque recurrit_--and he will soon have to acknowledge that if the higher and deeper influences of personal religion, earnest prayer, honest watchfulness, and sincere--though it be but incipient--love of God and desire to imitate Christ, are not chief motives towards the purification of huuild hteousness, and it will be well if hypocrisy and secret sin does not accompany that open boastfulness of a White Cross Order After all said and done, a man--or woman--or precocious child--must siuide and guard, by ”Resisting,” ”Fleeing,” ”Cutting off--ht eye;” so letting ”discretion preserve hiht; it is easy and speedy, and e than a cowardice Take a sio, an author, well-known in both he in London, received by post a pink and scented note froreat admirer of his books, &c &c: would he favour her by a call” at such an hotel, in such a square? Much flattered he went, and was very gushi+ngly received; but when the lady, probably not an Ah to be one), after a profusion of co deserted her, and to throw herself not without tears on the kindness of her favourite author, that individual thought it would be prudent to depart, and so proement he took up his hat and--fled He had afterwards reason to be thankful for this escape, as for others _I, fac simile_; as no doubt you have done, and you will do, for there are many Potipheras; ay, and there exist some Josephs too
Other forms of evil in the way of heterodoxy and heresy have assailed your confessor, as is the common case with most other people, whether authors or not The rashest Atheisnosticism are rampantme to think out and to publish my Essay on Probabilities, whereof I shall speak further when my books come under review But beyond these open foes to one's faith, who has not e upon his acceptance under penalty of the worst for all eternity if refused, any a, Irving, Mormon,--and of the other 272 sects which affect (perhaps ion in this free land? I have hadme by word or letter on the excuse of ent advice to ”search and see for himself,” will not soon be addled and muddled by all sorts of sophistical and controversial botherations, if even he is not tempted to accept--for lucre if not Godliness--the office of bishop, or apostle, or prophet, or anything else too freely offered by zealots to new converts, if of notoriety enough to exalt or enrich a sect; such sect in every case proclai nothing but impostors? We have all encountered such spiritual perils,--and happy s, there is an orthodox and established foro freely to any house of prayer, national or nonconformist, where the Gospel is preached and the preacher is capable: all I want is a good ood word and work--and if he has the true Spirit in hih to many less independent minds human authorisation may be a necessity Fros of senility, ion in tords is crystallised as ”Abba, Father;”h this life and beyond it the Holy Spirit, who unites all the family of God May I die, as I have lived, in this sist others apposite, this sentence about the origin of evil, and the usefulness of te, at least, there was no possiblethe amiabilities of Goodness and the contrivances of Wisdom but by the infused permission of son would in a universe of Best have nothing to do; that universe itself would grow stagnant, as incapable of progress; and the principal record of God's excellences, the book of redemption, would have been unwritten Is not then the existence of evil justified in reason's calculation? and was not such existence an antecedent probability?”
CHAPTER X
FADS AND FANCIES
In a recent page I have alluded to sundry ”fads and fancies of the day,”
soreater and others of lesser import, and I have been raduate at Oxford I starvedthe slave-trade; I don't know that either Caesar or Pompey was any the better forfact, I may mention that I then followed some of the ings after ht an immense Cheshi+re cheese, and, after two th to such utter weakness as quite to endanger health So I had to relapse into the old carnality of mutton chops, like other folk: such extreme virtue doesn't pay
Of course abstinence from all stimulant has had its hold on me heretofore, as it has upon many others,--but, after a persistent six months of only water,hard at the tiazine) that my wise doctor enjoined wine and whisky--of course inheart soon recovered, and I have been well ever since
Now about temperance, let me say thus much Of course, I must approve the modern very philanthropic movement, but only in its rational aspect oftowards excess, now its reaction being exactly opposite; both extre And here let me state (_valeat quantum_) that I never exceeded in liquor but once inafterwards as a valuable life lesson all through the wine-parties of Christ Church, the abounding hospitalities of A visits--and the genialities of our own Great Britain duringTours If it had not been for that three days' frightful headache when I was a youth (in that sense a good providence), I could not have escaped so es That one departure from sobriety happened thus My uncle, Colonel Selwyn, just returned froave a grand dinner at the Opera Colonnade to his friends and relatives, resolved (according to the fashi+on of the tienerous Bacchus by obligatory toasts, he hi to prefer his own bottle of brown sherry,--in fact, dishonest toast and water; but that sort of practical joke was also a fashi+on of the day The result, of course, hat he desired; everybody but himself had too much, whilst his mean sobriety, cruel uncle! enjoyed the calm superiority of teh never intended as such) waslife to be forewarned by having been for only that once overtaken I have ever since been thankful for it as a mercy; and few have been so favoured; howa great deal more to write about tehty people indulged freely in strong drinks of the strangest names and most delicious flavours: on my second in 1876,--just a quarter of a century after,--there was ally when I was at Charleston I took up h a local paper as follows: I fear the extract is sou unprinted in any of ive it here in full, to be skipped if the reader pleases It is introduced thus by an editor:--