other pastor standing in the same pulpit, reading the same stanza, was also smitten and removed to die.
In marriages, both in the beginning and progress of the attachment, opportunities that are called casual, or coincidences in times, places, and circumstances of meeting, have to all appearance in many, if not in most cases, influenced the fate of the "high contracting parties" more powerfully than anything which they had intentionally arranged. Indeed, many persons troubled with misgivings concerning a proposed marriage, encourage themselves, by recalling such circumstances, in the belief that it was "meant to be," or that it was "providential."
How often resemblances of persons in no way related confuse the question of identity! Detectives frequently unravel difficult problems by their skill and sagacity, but owe their success in many cases to chance coincidences. Such happenings are of assistance to lawyers, and by them desperate causes are saved. Every lawyer of large practice has a list of anecdotes of this sort with which he delights young "limbs of the law."
In an unsigned article appearing in the "Cornhill Magazine" in 1872, which is now known to have been written by Richard A. Proctor, from the fact that he incorporated it nearly all verbatim, without quotation, in his last work, is given a case which "relates to a matter of considerable interest apart from the coincidence." I condense the account.
