Chapter 49
AN ARRANGEMENT. Hester had not yet gone to see Miss Dasomma because of the small-pox. Second causes are God's as much as first, and Christ made use of them as his father's way. It were a sad world indeed if God's presence were only interference, that is, miracle. The roundabout common ways of things are just as much his as the straight, miraculous ones--I incline to think more his, in the sense that they are plainly the ways he prefers. In all things that are, he is--present even in the evil we bring into the world, to foil it and bring good out of it. We are always disbelieving in him because things do not go as we intend and desire them to go. We forget that God has larger ends, even for us, than we can see, so his plans do not fit ours. If God were not only to hear our prayers, as he
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