"It pleased God you should live," answered Ian.
"Then you really think," she returned, "that God interfered to save us?"
"No, I do not; I don't think he ever interferes."
"Mr. Sercombe says everything goes by law, and God never interferes; my father says he does interfere sometimes."
"Would you say a woman interfered in the management of her own house? Can one be said to interfere where he is always at work? He is the necessity of the universe, ever and always doing the best that can be done, and especially for the individual, for whose sake alone the cosmos exists. If we had been drowned, we should have given God thanks for saving us."
"I do not understand you!"
"Should we not have given thanks to find ourselves lifted out of the cold rushing waters, in which we felt our strength slowly sinking?"
"But you said DROWNED! How could we have thanked God for deliverance if we were drowned?"
"What!—not when we found ourselves above the water, safe and well, and more alive than ever? Would it not be a dreadful thing to lie tossed for centuries under the sea-waves to which the torrent had borne us? Ah, how few believe in a life beyond, a larger life, more awake, more earnest, more joyous than this!"
"Oh, I do! but that is not what one means by LIFE; that is quite a different kind of thing!"