rth and man's
ways as I upon an ant-hill, and seeing all at once. To such an eye,
lady, that may be best which to mine is worst.'

'I believe it is often so, Isaac,' replied Julia. 'Just as in nauseous
drugs or rankest poisons there is hidden away medicinal virtue, so is
there balm for the soul, by which its worst diseases are healed and its
highest health promoted, in sufferings, which, as they first fall upon
us, we lament as unmitigated evil. I know of no state of mind so proper
to beings like us, as that indicated by a saying of Christ, which I
shall repeat to you, though you honor not its source, and which seems to
me to comprehend all religion and philosophy, "Not my will, but thine, O
God, be done!" We never take our true position, and so never can be
contented and happy, till we renounce our own will, and believe all the
whole providence of God to be wisest and best, simply because it is his.
Should I dare, were the power this moment given me, to strike out for
myself my path in life, arrange its events, fix my lot? Not the most
trivial incident can be named that I should not tremble to order
otherwise than as it happens.'

'There is wisdom, princess, in the maxim of thy prophet, and its spirit
is found in many of the sayings of truer prophets who went before him,
whose words are familiar to thy royal mother, though, I fear, they are
not to thee; a misfortune, wholly to be traced to that misadventure of
thine, Piso, in being thrown into the company of the Christian Probus on
board the Mediterranean trader. Had I been alone with thee on that
voyage, who can say that thou wouldst not now have been what, but this
morning, I took thee for, as I looked upon those marble figures?'

'But, Isaac, forget not your own principles,' said Julia. 'May you, who
cannot, as you have said, see the end from the beginning, and whose
sight is but a mole's, dare to complain of the providence which threw
Piso into the society of the Christian Probus? I am sure you would not,
on reflection, re-arrange those events, were it now permitted you. And
seeing, Isaac, how much better things are ordered by the Deity than we
could do it, and how we should choose voluntarily to surrender all into
his hands, whose wisdom is so much more perfect, and whose power is so
much more vast, than ours, ought we not, as a necessary consequence of
this, to acquiesce in events without complaint, when they have once
occurred? If Providence had made both Piso