Nathan the Wise (1892) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 4 Works the same cause no longer one effect ? Since when? Where lies in this the incredible ? I grant you, Daja, it were then for you No more a miracle. Your miracles Alone demand?deserve, I mean?belief. Daja. You laugh at me. Nathan. Laughed you not too at me I? Thus was your rescue still a miracle, Dear Recha, possible alone to Him Who oft is pleased to guide, by feeble threads, ' The set decrees and purpose absolute Of kings?his toys, if not his scorn. Recha. My father, If I am wrong, not willingly I err. Nathan. Willingly rather learn. See now?a forehead Arched thus, or so; the outline of a nose Drawn this way more than that; brows curving so Or so, according as the bone is sharp Or round; a line, crease, angle, spot, a nothing Upon the face of one wild European? "I And you are rescued from the fire in Asia ! Is that no miracle, ye wonder-seekers ? What need to trouble an angel with it then ? Daja. What harm?if I may speak?in the belief An angel rather than a man has saved us ? Feel we not so much nearer brought to Him Of the deliverance the mysterious cause? Nathan. Pride, Daja, naught but pride ! The iron pot Would have itself be lifted from the fire By silver tongs, that it may deem itself A silver pot. Pah ! What the harm, you ask ? What harm? What good, I might retort. 'Tis nonsense, Or blasphemy, this "feeling nearer God." But harm it does?ay, actual harm; for listen: To your deliverer, be he man or angel, Would you not both, and you especially, Desire to render great and various service ? But how perform such service to an angel ? Thank him you can, and sigh to him and pray; Can melt away in ecstasies before him; Can keep a fast upon his sacred day; Can give your charities;?all that is naught . Your neighbor and you...