What do you think--what sort of a wedding would you
have had? Just imagine what kind of a wife you would have got, and the
prospects you would have had, and what people would have said when they
saw you going to be married, and then see how it is today; reckon up the
enormous difference. Or what do you think about it? Is blind fortune,
accident, so-called luck, back of it all? Folks are always saying: 'I
don't have any luck; you just can't do anything nowadays.' What do you
think, Uli? Is it only luck? Would you have had this luck if you had
stayed a vagabond? But the misfortune is just that people want to be
happy through luck and not by God-fearing lives on which God's blessing
rests. And so it's quite fitting that those who are only waiting for
luck should be deceived by it, until they come to the knowledge that
nothing depends on luck, but everything on the blessing of God."
"Yes, Your Reverence," said Uli, "I can't tell you how much happier I am
now than when I was one of the rabble that run around the streets. But
something depends on luck, too; for if I hadn't come to such a good
master no good would have come of me."
"Uli, Uli," said the pastor, "was that luck or God's decree?"
"It's all the same, I think," answered Uli.
"Yes," said the pastor, "it is the same; but it's not a matter of
indifference which you call it, as men think, and that's just where the
difference lies.
Pages:
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355