370 On Gun Accidents, 



Without being anything of a fatalist, it seems hard to doubt that 

 the finger of an All-wise Providence directs even the minutest 

 actions in the life of man, and that althougli it is the duty of every 

 Christian to use all human caution to guard against accidents, it is 

 pretty clear to me at least that the most important events in our 

 career through life are predestined, and that no human power can 

 change their course. It is with no irreligious feeling that I say this j 

 on the contrary, such a belief teaches us that we are all in the hands 

 of a Higher Power, that we are totally helpless of ourselves, and 

 that we have no right, either to be too much elated by prosperity, 

 or bowed down by adversity, in this life. But I am writing 

 to amuse, not to sermonize my readers. If, as I fancy, it was plain 

 that the hand of Providence guided the bullet which struck my 

 young friend dead in the prime of youth and strength, another little 

 circumstance which happened to me, a short time after, as clearly 

 proves that the same High Power is constantly at work in our be- 

 half, and that many an accident which no human foresight could 

 have prevented was, for some wise purpose or other, turned aside, 

 but by a higher influence than our own. The circumstance which 

 I am about to relate appears almost too miraculous to be true : I 

 have often been doubted when I have told the fact in company, 

 (for it is as true a/ac^ as ever I wrote), and I shall therefore not feel 

 the least offended if any one doubts it. It was this : — 



I had one afternoon, many years ago, come home from partridge- 

 shooting. I had just fired off both barrels of my gun at a covey of 

 birds in a bit of turnips, not three hundred yards from the bouse, 

 and I therefore did not see the least danger in setting the gun in a 

 corner of the kitchen, while I went up to get ready for dinner. I 

 had not fired a dozen shots the whole day, so did not care to clean 

 my gun, which I found standing next morning, apparently untouched, 

 in the corner where I had left it. Directly I took it up, a fat old cook, 

 who was always terribly frightened at the sight of a gun, began to 

 scream and run away 5 so, thinking that I would have a lark with her, I 

 put on two caps, and foolishly presenting the gun, snapped them off' 

 to frighten her. I will not say that I aimed straight at the old 



