S. Austin Allibone, comp. Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay. 1880.
Submission
Submit to God in all crosses and revolutions. Infinite Wisdom cannot err in any of his paths, or step the least hair’s breadth from the way of righteousness: there is the understanding of God in every motion; an eye in every wheel, the wheel that goes over us and crusheth us. We are led by fancy more than reason: we know no more what we ask, or what is fit for us, than the mother of Zebedee’s children did when she petitioned Christ for her sons’ advancement when he came into his temporal kingdom (Matt., xx. 22): the things we desire might pleasure our fancy or appetite, but impair our health: one man complains for want of children, but knows not whether they may prove comforts or crosses; another for want of health, but knows not whether the health of his body may not prove the disease of his soul.
We learn the great reasonableness of not only a contented, but also a thankful, acquiesence in any condition and under the crossest and severest passages of Providence.
