"Altar" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fact that the General Synod, at its last convention in Chicago, had elected as president a man [Dr. Geo. Tressler] who was publicly known to be a Mason of a high degree, Dr. Reu warned against the union, as it would practically mean the abandonment of the Council's position on pulpit- and altar-fellowship, as well as on the lodge-question. The Kirchenblatt of the Iowa Synod: "It is apparent that the influence of the General Synod on the General Council has paralyzed the practical principles of the fathers, and that the contemplated Merger ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... Scyldings'-friend, heart-rending misery. Many nobles sat assembled, and searched out counsel how it were best for bold-hearted men against harassing terror to try their hand. Whiles they vowed in their heathen fanes altar-offerings, asked with words {2e} that the slayer-of-souls would succor give them for the pain of their people. Their practice this, their heathen hope; 'twas Hell they thought of in mood of their mind. Almighty they knew not, Doomsman of Deeds and dreadful Lord, nor Heaven's-Helmet ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous
... their tombs, even she, the most beautiful of them all, la belle des belles—she, the partner of my joys and of my sorrows—she who on that day accepted in the circling dance, for the first time, this hand, which two years after was to lead her to the hymeneal altar—yes, even she has been swept away by the tide of death. [231] May not I also say, with Ossian, 'Why art thou sad, son of Fingal! Why grows the cloud of thy soul! the sons of future years shall pass away, another race shall arise! The people are like the waves of the ocean, like the leaves of ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... friars, and women of the burgher class, up the steps, and on into the vaulted room, the lower part shut off by a rail, against which crowded the curious and only half-awed multitude, who whispered to each other, while above, at a temporary altar, bright with rows of candles, priests intoned prayers. The atmosphere was insufferably hot, and David could hardly push forward; but as he exclaimed in his imperfect French that he came with tidings of Madame's sisters, way was made, and he heard his mother's voice. 'Is it? ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the Pink Fountain room Miss Gussie Fink sat at her desk, calm, watchful, insolent-eyed, a goddess sitting in judgment. On the pay roll of the Newest Hotel Miss Gussie Fink's name appeared as kitchen checker, but her regular job was goddessing. Her altar was a high desk in a corner of the busy kitchen, and it was an altar of incense, of burnt-offerings, and of showbread. Inexorable as a goddess of the ancients was Miss Fink, and ten times as difficult to appease. For this is the rule of the Newest Hotel, that no waiter may ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... teach that the child, newly born into the world, fresh from the hand of God, is already corrupt, prone to evil, of its own volition choosing evil in preference to good. And, believing that, they require the parents when presenting the babe at the altar for holy baptism, to affirm that that pure and innocent babe has inherited an evil and corrupt nature, and that it was conceived and born in sin. A monstrous doctrine, violating not only every parental instinct, but as well all the principles of psychology and ethics. Yea, verily, the Dark ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... it is, to the most luxurious palaces; for it was the home of my ancestors, and the place where I first saw you, my heart's delight!—spot ever sacred and dear to me, upon which I should like to erect an altar." ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... part of the people. And Balaam said unto Balak, Build me here seven altars, and prepare me here seven bullocks and seven rams. And Balak did as Balaam had spoken; and Balak and Balaam offered on every altar a bullock and a ram. And Balaam said unto Balak, Stand by thy burnt offering, and I will go; peradventure the LORD will come to meet me: and whatsoever he sheweth me I will tell thee. And he went to a bare height. And God met Balaam: and he said unto him, I have ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... golden incense tripods were dying now, but the heavy clouds of frankincense, still tingled with the sweet aroma of balsam and clove, hung heavily in the quiet air over the main altar. In the flickering illumination of the gas sconces around the walls, the figures on the great tapestries seemed to move with a subtle ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... a letter; each in turn to take it as they are killed by the cardinal's hirelings—all this to save the honor of Anne of Austria by bringing back the love token given by her to the Duke of Buckingham, who keeps it in a tiny chapel draped with gold-worked tapestry of Persian silk, on an altar beneath a portrait of the ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... of fact, which required neither witnesses nor speeches. At a sign from the Duumvir in came two priests, bringing in between them the small altar of Jupiter; the charcoal was ready lighted, the incense at the side, and the judge called to the prisoner to sprinkle it upon the flame for the good fortune of Decius and his son. All ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... Bute curse you at this hour. But the great God who sees into all hearts, and in whose hands alone must rest our vengeance — He will surely repay you for the sorrows that your wickedness has caused. Go, Roderic MacAlpin. Go, ere it is too late, and before the high altar of St. Blane's pray to Him for the mercy and forgiveness that ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... of May. The altar was covered with flowers; voices were chanting; the organ was resounding through the church. But he found it impossible to pray, as the pomps of religion inspired him merely with thoughts of funerals. He fancied that he could hear the ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... there is not a more deceitful and dangerous temptation than in yielding to the beginnings of evil. "He that is unjust in the least, is also unjust in much" saith he who could not lie, Luke xvi. 20. When Uriah the priest had once pleased king Ahaz, in making an altar like unto that at Damascus, he was afterwards led on to please him in a greater matter, even in forsaking the altar of the Lord, and in offering all the sacrifices upon the altar of Damascus, 2 Kings xvi. 10-16. All your winning or losing of a good conscience, ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... Union, and the Honourable Hiram Cogshell, Calloway County's able-bodiest orator, will pour forth prodigal and perfervid eloquence upon the populace below. And Dr. David West, he who has directed this magnificent work from its birth unto the present, he who has laid upon the sacred altar of his city's welfare a matchless devotion and a lifetime's store of scientific ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... XVI. Roi des Francois, 1792; over this date is a small lion passant, being a Mint mark. The reverse, is a human figure with an enormous pair of wings,[6] holding a book in its left hand, which book rests on an altar, and with its other is represented as if writing in it; the word Constitution is already seen there. The figure is naked, except a slight drapery on the left arm; behind the figure is a bundle of staves, like the Roman Fasces, surmounted by the cap of liberty, and behind ...
— A Trip to Paris in July and August 1792 • Richard Twiss
... evenings all winter. But it was not really expensive, and she felt that she would gladly part with it if it would effect a reconciliation. The sweater would be a weightier matter; it had been a birthday gift from her father. Still, she would sacrifice that, too, on the altar of this, her greatest desire ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... Conqueror bestowed the great fee of Pontefract, the owner of twenty-eight manors and lord of the honour of Clitheroe, was no longer numbered with the living; and here in the chapel of this lone fortress, before the dim altar, all that remained of this powerful baron, the clay no longer instinct with spirit, was soon to be enveloped in the dust, the darkness, and the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... Before the high altar the old man knelt in prayer while a group of staff officers stood at a distance, watching him in silence. The crash of bursting shrapnel came to them from outside and once a window was shattered and the little church was filled with splinters of flying glass and still the King of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... her coming, and the prices of admission had been doubled, much to the discomfort of poor Jenny Lind, who feared that the over-wrought anticipation of the public would be disappointed. But when she ascended the steps of the Druid altar and began to sing, then the storm of applause which interrupted the opera for several ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... vigil is from the Latin vigilare, to keep awake, to watch, because in old times the night before any great event, religious or worldly, was spent in watching. Thus, the night prior to ordination to the priesthood, the night prior to a great battle, was spent in watching before the altar. Hence, the word vigil came to mean the prayers said during the time of watching or waking, preparatory to the great event. It signified, too, the fast accompanying the watching, and lastly it came to mean the ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... forth from her hair— 'Tis my whole, which a good father gave; Twas worn by her mother with honour before— But she sleeps in peace in her grave. Twas her earnest request, as she bade them adieu, That when her dear daughter the altar drew near, She should wear the same gem that her mother had worn When she as a bride full of ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... told him that he was sorry to see him there before he had waited on the King, and that it seemed as if he were for setting up altar against altar. This nettled the Prince to that degree that he said that those who talked against him had only self-interests in view. The First President denied that he had any such aim, and said that he was accountable to the King only for his actions. Then he exaggerated ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... because it permits grief and bereavement, is to forget whence we came, the school in which we have been taught, the example that each of us carries graven in the name of a Christian, which each of us honors at his hearth, contemplates at the altar of his prayers, and of which he desires that his tomb, the place of his last ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... showing underlay of linen, and the way it is sewn down—The work is in flax thread, red, yellow, and white, upon a blue linen ground. The stem is dotted with white beads, the ground with gold spangles. Part of an altar frontal. German. 15th ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... caught her breath away, just as the chanting of the dragon priests always did. She took a few steps forward and stood behind a low-backed bench. Before her, the light streamed into the little chapel through one luminous window of colored glass above the altar. It lay all over the gray-tiled floor in roses and sunflowers of pink and gold. A deep purple stripe fell across the head of the black-robed priest. Dong-Yung was glad of that. It made his robe less hideous, and she could not understand how one could serve a god unless in beautiful ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... tonsured crew. The "gentlemen" murderers are your herd, O most eminent shepherd! You ought to have and you could have stopped the rioters. And now your stola is a halter and your pallium gored with blood, otherwise innocent as is the blood of the lamb incensed on the altar of Saint Agnes ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... most inflammatory appeals to their fanaticism, and by examples which were calculated to encourage them. The most awful denunciations were heaped upon the heads of "all bad Catholics who should vote against their religion and country." These denunciations came from sacerdotal lips, and from the altar as well as the pulpit. The popular press rivalled the priests in anathemas against all who were not willing "to vote for Ireland against the Saxon." Public placards might be seen in town and country, headed, like the address of the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... should it come? Who else can fight my battle for me; and, John, who else can fight that same battle on your behalf? I tell you this, that with your mind standing towards me as it does stand at present you could not give me your hand at the altar with true words and a happy conscience. Is it not true? You have half repented of your bargain ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... the church, and is just across the aisle from the pulpit, and is the best of all for the purpose of seeing and hearing the clergyman, and likewise as convenient as any, from its neighborhood to the altar. On the other side of the aisle, beneath the pulpit, is Lady Fleming's pew. This and one or two others are curtained; Wordsworth's was not. I think I can bring up his image in that corner seat of his pew—a white-headed, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... am justly denied any share of these comforts that are common to the Christian world. O my God, I am an unclean worm, a dead dog, a stinking carcass, justly removed from that society of saints who this day kneel about Thine altar. But, oh! suffer me to look toward Thy holy Sanctuary; suffer my soul again to be in the place where Thine honour dwelleth. Reject not the sacrifice of a broken heart, and do Thou be with me in secret, though I am not fit to ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... ally in moving the heart of Mrs. Bucket when a maiden, and inducing her to approach the altar. Mr. Bucket's own words are 'to come ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... domain As north from south—the impulse felt before, And put away; but now it rose once more, In greater strength, and said, "Heart, wouldst thou prove What lips have uttered? Then go, lay thy love On Friendship's altar, as thy offering." "Nay!" cried my heart, "ask any other thing - Ask life itself—'twere easier sacrifice. But ask not love, ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... sayes he is a Prophet? (1 Kings 22) Of 400 Prophets, of whom the K. of Israel asked counsel, concerning the warre he made against Ramoth Gilead, only Micaiah was a true one.(1 Kings 13) The Prophet that was sent to prophecy against the Altar set up by Jeroboam, though a true Prophet, and that by two miracles done in his presence appears to be a Prophet sent from God, was yet deceived by another old Prophet, that perswaded him as from the mouth of God, to eat ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... her during the chase, they hung round these idols the feet, the skins, and the horns of the beasts they killed. Cernunnos, who was always represented with a human head surmounted by stags' horns, had an altar even in Lutetia, which was, no doubt, in consequence of the great woods which skirted the ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... as one man, friend and foe together, and marched to the front of the church and kneeled together, Confederate by Federal, their muskets joining and crossing each other; their revolvers touching each other as they kneeled; their heads bowed upon the same altar, and their tears mingling almost in their deep contrition and profound feeling. All animosities were forgotten, all strife forgotten—they were together as brothers around a ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... The temple of the god Stomach, in whose worship, with sacrificial rights, all true men engage. From women this ancient faith commands but a stammering assent. They sometimes minister at the altar in a half-hearted and ineffective way, but true reverence for the one deity that men really adore they know not. If woman had a free hand in the world's marketing ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... abode of the spirits, becoming personified, it came to be worshipped not only by the emperor, but by the people also. But there was a difference between these two worships, because the emperor performed his worship of Heaven officially at the great altar of the Temple of Heaven at Peking (in early times at the altar in the suburb of the capital), whereas the people (continuing always to worship their ancestors) worshipped Heaven, when they did so at all—the ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... effects, upon nations, of unmitigated evil, on soul and body, with perhaps as much pity, and as much bitterness of indignation, as any of those whom you will hear continually declaiming in the cause of peace. But peace may be sought in two ways. One way is as Gideon sought it, when he built his altar in Ophrah, naming it, "God send peace," yet sought this peace that he loved, as he was ordered to seek it, and the peace was sent, in God's way:—"the country was in quietness forty years in the days of Gideon." And the other way of seeking peace is as Menahem sought it when ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... the see of Carlisle, and the priory church became the cathedral. At its endowment Henry laid on the altar the famous "cornu eburneum," now lost. This horn was given, instead of a written document, as proof of the grants of tithes. Its virtue was tried in 1290 when the prior claimed some tithes on land in the forest of Inglewood, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Carlisle - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. King Eley
... the outline of each particular hill, sometimes rising cube-like, or pentagonal, but more generally built up into a perfect pyramid, with stairs mounting in equal gradations to the summit. Here and there the cone of the pyramid would be shaven off, leaving it flat-topped like a Babylonian altar or Mexican teocalli; and as the sun's level rays,—shooting across above our heads in golden rafters from ridge to ridge,—smote brighter on some loftier peak behind, you might almost fancy you beheld ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... self-castigation, because it would mean a reaction from a policy of criticism and self-sufficiency which has lasted a thousand years, ever since the 16th July 1054—the very fatal date when the Pope's delegates put an Excommunication Bull on the altar of St Sophia's in Constantinople. The primitive monks, who practised self-castigation because of the world-evil, experienced a wonderful purification of soul, a new vision of God, and an extraordinary sense of unity with all men, living and dead. ...
— The Agony of the Church (1917) • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... his knowledge become himself. It is in the seeing of his eyes and the hearing of his ears and the use of his hands. Is there not always the altar of the heavens and the earth? Laying down days and nights of joy before it and of beauty and wonder and peace, the scholar is always a scholar, i. e., he is always at home. To be cultured is to be so splendidly wrought ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... Mr. Lind, with a smile, "it is not a very terrible ceremony, is it? Did you expect prostrations at the altar; and blindfold gropings, and the blessing of the dagger? When you come to know a little more of our organization, of its extent and its power, you will understand how we can afford to dispense with all those theatrical ways of frightening ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... and Sylvia opened the boxes, one after another, and slowly and impressively removed their contents, and laid them in orderly rows on the white dimity of the table. The lamplight shone on them, and the table blazed like an altar with jewelled fires. Rose gasped. "Why, Aunt ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... with which he had loved to amuse himself from babyhood, but they seemed less beautiful and not so large as of old. And the same portraits hung upon the walls. Here Kosciuszko,4 in his Cracow coat,5 with his eyes raised to heaven, held his two-handed sword; such was he when on the steps of the altar he swore that with this sword he would drive the three powers from Poland or himself would fall upon it. Farther on sat Rejtan,6 in Polish costume, mourning the loss of liberty; in his hands he held a knife with the point turned ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... "Who would ever have imagined the possibility of the governor's turning cantankerous—assuming the character of the Roman father upon the shortest possible notice, and thirsting to sacrifice his son on the altar of the outraged laws of his country! What an interesting victim I shall make, to be sure! Lucy must lend me that wreath of roses she looked so pretty in last night, to wear at the fatal ceremony. And my dear mother shall stand near, tearing out those revered locks of hers by handfuls." (The ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... Jerusalem, to study under one of the great Rabbis; in St. Paul's case it was Gamaliel. Under his tuition the young Pharisee would learn to be a 'strong Churchman.' The Rabbis viewed everything from an ecclesiastical standpoint. The interests of the Priesthood, the Altar, and the Temple overshadowed everything else. The Priestly Code, says Mr. Cohu, practically resolves itself into one idea: Everything in Israel belongs to God; all places, all times, all persons, and all ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... This action of his was one of those that smell sweet and blossom in the dust, but, as yet, he was too near it to savour much more than its bitterness. The path is narrow and the gate is straight for those who serve faithfully at Love's high altar. As he went from the room, he looked with tender eyes at the flower-like girl who had come in with him and stood now with smiling lips and eyes full of tears looking at the man ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... the idle, and flog the untractable. Strokes of the cane are received with the same insensibility as that with which they are given. It were better if the priest did not impose these corporal punishments at the instant of quitting the altar, and if he were not, in his sacerdotal habits, the spectator of this chastisement of men and women; but this abuse is inherent in the principle on which the strange government of the missions is founded. The most arbitrary ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... some weddin'. I had on a white dress, white shoes an' long white gloves dat come to my elbow, an' Mis' Betsy done made me a weddin' veil out of a white net window curtain. When she played de weddin ma'ch on de piano, me an' Exter ma'ched down de walk an' up on de po'ch to de altar Mis' Betsy done fixed. Dat de pretties' altar I ever seed. Back 'gainst de rose vine dat was full or red roses, Mis' Betsy done put tables filled wid flowers an' white candles. She done spread down a bed sheet, a sho ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... shalt offer thy gift upon the altar, and shalt there remember that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go; first be reconciled to they brother, and then coming offer thy gift. Be well disposed toward thine adversary whiles thou art in the way with him; lest haply the adversary deliver ...
— Spiritual Life and the Word of God • Emanuel Swedenborg
... staid to partake of it. When I came afterwards into Dr. Johnson's room, he said, 'You did right to stay and receive the communion; I had not thought of it.' This seemed to imply that he did not choose to approach the altar without a previous preparation, as to which good men entertain different opinions, some holding that it is irreverent to partake of that ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... embrace, it sanctified her evening pillow with a blessing; it anticipated the difficulty of the student's page, and guided the faltering hand of the hesitating artist; it refreshed her memory, it modulated her voice; it accompanied her in the cottage, and knelt by her at the altar. Marvellous and beautiful is a mother's love. And when Venetia, with her strong feelings and enthusiastic spirit, would look around and mark that a graceful form and a bright eye were for ever watching over her wants and wishes, instructing ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... his Sentences, made the taking of interest purely and simply theft. St. Bernard, reviving religious earnestness in the Church, took the same view. In 1179 the Third Council of the Lateran decreed that impenitent money-lenders should be excluded from the altar, from absolution in the hour of death, and from Christian burial. Pope Urban III reiterated the declaration that the passage in St. Luke forbade the taking of any interest whatever. Pope Alexander III declared that the prohibition ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... Antioch, though not yet a priest, describes the awful moment of sacrifice, the altar surrounded by angels descended from heaven, the man consecrated to an office higher than any on earth, and as high as that of the incarnate Son of God—God himself coming down from above and bringing down heaven with him—who can believe in Christianity and fail ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... was always: the fiery presence-cloud in the Wilderness, Joshua's Captain taking command, Manoah's angel ascending in the flame of the altar, the voice in the night heard by Samuel, the flooding of Tabernacle and Temple with the glory-presence, Carmel's fire descending, Elijah's "still small voice," Isaiah's vision of glory and the voice, Ezekiel's man of flame speaking, and Daniel's, both ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon
... going to gather about this altar where we shall remember together the suffering love of Jesus Christ. As we take the bread and wine we are going to be reminded of the broken body and shed blood of our Lord. And I trust that as we think upon His love and upon His sacrifice for ourselves we shall come to be possessed ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... ever ate his leek, had not been of the council of war of Caractacus—for it was the scene of his great struggle we were passing. The ground still bears the name of Slaughter Field, and was a fit altar on which to offer the last victims to national freedom. The scenery all round it is of the noblest character—rock and wood, and the mountain chain that they hoped had shut out the invader. The river bends round it, and enables you to keep ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... brother to the seigneur of the neighbouring castle, who was living in seventeen hundred and eighty; he was well-educated for the time, a travelled man, and sensible and moderate in all respects but that of his abhorrence of the Cagots: he would insult them from the very altar, calling out to them, as they stood afar off, "Oh! ye Cagots, damned for evermore!" One day, a half-blind Cagot stumbled and touched the censer borne before this Abbe de Lourbes. He was immediately turned out of the church, and forbidden ever to re- enter ...
— An Accursed Race • Elizabeth Gaskell
... shining twilight boughs That fold cool arms about thine altar place, What joyous race Of gods dost serve with ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... says, "the General told me that he should never see me more; for he was going with a handful of men to conquer whole nations; and to do this they must cut their way through unknown woods. He produced a map of the country, saying at the same time: 'Dear Pop, we are sent like sacrifices to the altar,'"[195]—a strange presentiment for a ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... the daring advocates of every species of atrocity; his indissoluble connection with those, who, by their lives, have become the finished examples of profligacy and corruption; who have sworn enmity, severe and eternal, to the altar of our religion and the prosperity of our government, must infallibly exclude him from the confidence of reputable men. What sentiments can be entertained for him, but those of hatred and contempt, when he is seen the constant associate of a man whose name has become synonymous ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... south of the Saraswati, really reside in heaven. 'I will go to Kurukshetra,' 'I will dwell in Kurukshetra,' he that uttereth those words even once, becometh cleansed of all sins. The sacred Kurukshetra which is worshipped by Brahmarshis, is regarded as the sacrificial altar of the celestials. Those mortals that dwell there, have nothing to grieve for at any time. That which lieth between Tarantuka and Arantuka and the lakes of Rama and Machakruka is Kurukshetra. It is also called Samantapanchaka and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... of some vulgar amorist, or the trencher-fury of a riming parasite, nor to be obtained by the invocation of Dame Memory and her Siren daughters, but by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his Seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases. To this must be added industriously select reading, steady observation, insight into all seemly and generous arts and affairs—till which in some measure be compassed at mine own peril and cost, I refuse not to sustain ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... advantage to the Commonwealth, have gained out of this commission three, or it may be five thousand pounds. And does Cromwell imagine I will part with it for a rough word? No man goeth a warfare on his own charges. He that serves the altar must live by the altar—and the saints must have means to provide them with good harness and fresh horses against the unsealing and the pouring forth. Does Cromwell think I am so much of a tame tiger as to permit him to rend from me at pleasure the miserable dole he hath thrown ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... their unlikeness to Christ, the Holy One, that troubles them. And so it was with the prophet. But he adds: "Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar. And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged." Here again, it is purity rather than power to which ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... mere statement of truth, my dear; it is like the altar with the wood laid in readiness and the sacrifice—all cold; and till fire falls down from heaven, no incense will arise from earth. But if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not; and it ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... Billy to pull some twenty furlongs off the shore. Dom Basilio recited the funeral service; and there, watched by his comrades from the quay, we let sink my father into six fathoms, to sleep at the foot of the great rock which had been his altar. ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... garret door. Mademoiselle de Beauseant showed the way into the second room of their humble lodging. Everything had been made ready. The Sisters had moved the old chest of drawers between the two chimneys, and covered its quaint outlines over with a splendid altar cloth of ...
— An Episode Under the Terror • Honore de Balzac
... fallen into my hands at the house of one of my Russian friends (for in this happy country of the Arts, and of music in particular, you can well imagine that no one is foolish enough to spend a thirty francs' subscription on the Revue Musicale), have informed me that you had decidedly raised altar for altar, and made your charming salon echo with magnificent harmonies. I confess that this is perhaps the one regret of my winter. I should so immensely have liked to be there to admire you, to applaud you. Several people who had the honor of being present at these choice evenings have spoken ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... in fantastic flight, Was peopled wide; but the loud storm hath raved, Where its green top the high wood whispering waved, And many a year the slowly-rising flood Raked, where the Druids' uncooth altar stood. Thou only, aged mountain, dost remain, Stern monument amidst the deluged plain! And fruitless the big waves thy bulwarks beat; The big waves slow retire, and murmur at thy feet:[57] 120 Thou, half-encircled by the refluent tide, As if thy state ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... amphitheatre was erected for the accommodation of official persons. Curiosity, as on all like occasions, attracted multitudes, and the court was filled. Opposite to the principal vestibule stood the altar of the country, surrounded by the statues of Liberty, Equality, and Peace. When Bonaparte entered every head was uncovered. The windows were full of young and beautiful females. But notwithstanding this great preparation an icy coldness characterized ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... bring it. Here we recall the peasant's dream. His humble cottage while he slept lifted up its thatched roof and became a noble mansion. The one room and small became many and vast. The little windows became arched and beautiful, looking out upon vast estates all his. The fireplace became an altar, o'er which hung seraphim. The chimney became a golden ladder like that which Jacob saw, and his children, living and dead, passed like angels bringing treasure up and down. And thus, while the human heart muses and dreams, God builds His sanctuary ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... meantime, snored again with a regularity and smoothness which proved he had banished all thought of his first wife and was preparing his trousseau for a comfortable wedding, with Pa Tescheron controlled and delivered by me at the altar, ready to speak his ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... conscious of their regards, passed his cup up for some more tea and made a noble effort to appear amused, as the captain cited instance after instance of confirmed bachelors being led to the altar. ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... me dear, Till at last a day arose When, taking my hand in his own, "You have my knowledge," he said, "And now you must stand alone." And tho' I sorrowed to leave him My heart was ready to sing, So first in praise of the gods I made for an offering (Even as does a shepherd His rustic altar of sods) Bright forms larger than human As mortals dream of the gods. Then, in my strange world-worship, The Tritons, Lords of the Sea, The creatures which haunt the woodland, Happy and shy and free, Nymphs and satyrs and fauns Who worship the great god Pan, And lastly the mighty ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... Mrs. Highmore had left with me, in which I recognised an intention of a sort that I had then pretty well given up the hope of meeting. I daresay that without knowing it I had been looking out rather hungrily for an altar of sacrifice: however that may be I submitted when I came across Ralph Limbert to one of the rarest emotions of my literary life, the sense of an activity in which I could critically rest. The rest was deep and salutary, and it has not been disturbed to this hour. It ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... attractions had won the admiration of Washington.[138] Humanity is shocked that a woman was attainted of treason for no crime but that of clinging to the fortunes of the husband whom she had vowed on the altar of ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... him, as of the motion of the stars, the days and seasons, the animals and plants. There were texts of the Gospels which explicitly stated this. The boy could ascribe no form to this Being: he therefore sought him in his works, and would, in the good Old-Testament fashion, build him an altar. Natural productions were set forth as images of the world, over which a flame was to burn, signifying the aspirations of man's heart towards his Maker. He brought out of the collection of natural objects which he ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... Mikuli], Chopin made great demands on the talent and diligence of the pupil. Consequently, there were often des lecons orageuses, as it was called in the school idiom, and many a beautiful eye left the high altar of the Cite d'Orleans, Rue St. Lazare, bedewed with tears, without, on that account, ever bearing the dearly-beloved master the least grudge. For was not the severity which was not easily satisfied with anything, the feverish vehemence with which the ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... fun to lug off the old red tiles, or even the stone bowl for holy water—anything they can steal. At San Juan the plaster statues have been disgracefully mutilated by relic-hunters and thoughtless visitors. Eyes have been picked out, noses cut off, fingers carried away, and the altar-cloths everywhere have been slashed ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... selected. Many incantations and strange rites are gone through. A circle, or "Vacant Enchanted Place" is rendered pure by certain rites and sprinkled with wine. Then secret charms are whispered three times in the woman's ear. The sexual act is then consummated, and the whole procedure before the altar is distinctly a form of sacrifice ...
— The Sex Worship and Symbolism of Primitive Races - An Interpretation • Sanger Brown, II
... shortly to make a visitation of the clergy and people of Ireland.[6] On the arrival of the new Deputy in Dublin he went in state to Christ's Church to assist at Mass, after the celebration of which he received the sword of state from his predecessor before the altar, and took the oath in presence of the archbishop. "That done, the trumpets sounded and drums beat, and then the Lord Deputy kneeled down before the altar until ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... as the foes of British rule in Ireland, We have taken up the sword to strike down the oppressors' rod, to deliver Ireland from the tyrant, the despoiler, the robber. We have registered our oaths upon the altar of our country in the full view of heaven and sent up our vows to the throne of Him who inspired them. Then, looking about us for an enemy, we find him here, here in your midst, where he is most vulnerable and convenient to our strength... We have no issue with the people of ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... special and proper function of the poet; that he may do this, does God touch his lips with that which, however it may be misused, is still fire from off the altar beneath which the spirits of his saints cry,—"Lord, how long?" If he "reproduce the beautiful" with this intent, however so little, then is he of the sacred guild. And because Vavasour had this gift, therefore he was ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... cathedral, St. Martin's church is usually shewn to strangers. It is the largest church in France, but very dark, damp, and built in a very bad taste. The tomb of St. Martin, whom tradition reports to be buried here, is behind the great Altar; it is of black marble, and though very simple, is very striking. The ancient kings of France used to come to this tomb previous to any of their important expeditions, and after having made the usual prayers of intercession used to take away the mantle of the Saint as the banner ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... undaunted love of liberty, liberty for France, liberty for the United States, liberty for the world, arose, then the French people were set aflame with a desire to bring, as it were, their gifts of frankincense and myrrh to lay on this altar of liberty, that its censer might never die out, but forever perfume and ennoble the ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... to the purest moments of his rapturous youth were as present as if she had been his daily companion. He needed no picture to recall her countenance; often he had longed for the skill of an artist, that he might portray that grave sweetness, that impassioned faith, to be his soul's altar-piece. Lost, lost! and, with her, lost the uncompromising zeal of his earliest manhood. Only too consciously he had descended to a lower level; politics tempted him because they offered a field in which he could exercise his most questionable faculty, ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... duties. Was this little race, so short and gloriously won, prophetic of his life's brief course? He came home to survive but a few years, and then die of injuries received in the service. He was as much a sacrifice upon the altar of his country as if he had been killed in battle. He was long ago laid to rest in a soldier's grave. But he still lives in the hearts of ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... glory. One gathered that the Guardian's fate hung on the acceptance of this translucent risk, that it was a prize saved from the clutches of a hundred grasping competitors and brought to the counter of the Guardian like a pure white lamb to the altar of the gods. When it was all over, and nothing was wanting except Mr. Cuyler's signature to the binder—then Mr. Cuyler came into ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... than once my flesh had been moved as a woman's form passed by. That force of sex and blood which, in the madness of youth, I had imagined that I had stifled forever had, more than once, convulsively raised the chain of iron vows which bind me, a miserable wretch, to the cold stones of the altar. But fasting, prayer, study, the mortifications of the cloister, rendered my soul mistress of my body once more, and then I avoided women. Moreover, I had but to open a book, and all the impure mists of my ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... was charged, On which the pleader much enlarged: That Cupid now has lost his art, Or blunts the point of every dart; His altar now no longer smokes; His mother's aid no youth invokes— This tempts free-thinkers to refine, And bring in doubt their powers divine, Now love is dwindled to intrigue, And marriage grown a money-league. Which crimes aforesaid (with her leave) Were (as he humbly ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... his law which for many generations had been followed and respected by his class with the tacit assent of the nation. According to this law, then, he had done no wrong. But now the victim by the altar, who did not know that already he was bound upon the altar, preached a new and a very different doctrine under which, were it to be believed, he, Hokosa, was one of the worst of sinners. The matter, then, resolved itself to this: which of these two rules ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... of Fools or madmen. "The priests and clerks assembled elected a pope, an archbishop, or a bishop, conducted them in great pomp to the church, which they entered dancing, masked, and dressed in the apparel of women, animals, and merry-andrews; sung infamous songs, and converted the altar into a beaufet, where they ate and drank during the celebration of the holy mysteries; played with dice; burned, instead of incense, the leather of their old sandals; ran about, and leaped from seat to seat, with all the indecent postures with which the merry-andrews ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... watching over the worshippers below, is seen a dove, floating apparently in air. The effect is good, whatever may be thought of the taste which would allow so sacred an emblem to be thus introduced. The great attractions of the church are a row of malachite pillars on either side of the high altar. Their appearance is very fine; the malachite is, however, only veneered on copper, of which the pillars are composed. There are also numerous pictures of saints, which at first sight appeared to be of the richest mosaic, like those ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... der Haupt- und Reisdenzstadt Stuttgart, 1902," somewhat suggests bound volumes of "Jugend," with its heavy pen and ink head and tail pieces, of women marketing, of a bride and groom kneeling at the altar, and one, an excellent little drawing of a horse mounting with a heavily laden wagon a rise of ground, the driver beside him, and a street lamp behind protruding from below (remember this ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... watching this gay and singular scene, a sad-faced Japanese woman, of a youthful figure, passed up to the temple, without heeding any one of the crowd about her, and pinned a small scrap of paper on one side of the altar, among many other similar tokens. Then we wondered what her prayer might be, as she retired quietly from the spot. Was it a petition for forgiveness of sins, or asking consolation for some great bereavement? Be it what it might, tendered sincerely, though ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... influence of Burns, although he himself thought it his duty to bedizen his verses therewith, and though it was destined to flourish for many a year more in the temple of the father of lies, like a jar of paper flowers on a Popish altar. ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... deepest obscurity prevailed. Nevertheless a goodly number of tapers were burning in honor of the saints on the triangular candle-trays destined to receive such pious offerings, the merit and signification of which have never been sufficiently explained. The lights on each altar and all the candelabra in the choir were burning. Irregularly shed among a forest of columns and arcades which supported the three naves of the cathedral, the gleam of these masses of candles barely lighted the immense building, because ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac
... imagine for one instant that she would be annoyed by any such scruples as beset you!" cried Mrs. Sutton scoffingly. "Why, the woman would sooner go to the altar with a handsome, dashing libertine, who had broken hearts by the dozen, than marry a quiet, honest Christian, who had never breathed of love to any ears except hers. The aim of her life is to create or experience a sensation. I don't quite see how ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... for many years to live as innocently and as happily as two children. Those who knew them well say that there was never a shadow between them, and that the love which burned in their aged hearts was as high and as holy as that of any young couple who ever went to the altar. And through all the country round, if ever man or woman were in distress and fighting against hard times, they had only to go up to the villa to receive help, and that sympathy which is more precious ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... garlands wither on your brow, Then boast no more your mighty deeds; Upon death's purple altar now See, where the victor-victim bleeds; All heads must come To the cold tomb, Only the actions of the just Smell sweet, ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... pensile work." Each base had brasen wheels attached, with brasen axletrees, and brackets which stretched from the four upper corners of the bases to the outward rim of the laver. All the furnishings were also made by Hiram, such as pots, basons, shovels; probably also the golden altar, and table, with the seven-branched lamp stands, of which there were ten, of beautiful construction and ornamentation. But the most glorious work of Hiram was the construction of the two majestic brasen pillars, called Jachin and ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... recognised, darted down another street with the swiftness of an arrow. The governor pursued him on horseback; the robber made all speed towards the Square, and rushed into the sanctuary of the cathedral. The count galloped in after him, and dragged him from his place of refuge near the altar. This violation of the church's sanctity was, of course, severely reprimanded, but, as the governor remarked, they could no longer accuse him of want of zeal in ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... O'Moy found sanctuary at the altar of his country's need. They left him incredulously to marvel at the luck which had so enlisted circumstances to save him where all had seemed so surely lost an ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... children of Ammon in olden times, and an idol of theirs seated upon a throne or chair, and made of stone overlaid with gold. Two women are represented sitting one on the right and one on the left of it, and there is an altar in front before which the Ammonites used to sacrifice and burn incense[62]. There are about 200 Jews there, at their head being R. Meir, R. Jacob, and R. Simchah. The place is situated on the sea-border of the land of Israel. From there ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela
... his blessing, and left a better man, but fell, after ten years' reign, as Benedict had predicted, in a great battle with the Graeco-Roman army under Narses. Benedict died, after partaking of the holy communion, praying, in standing posture at the foot of the altar, on the 21st of March, 543, and was buried by the side of his sister, Scholastica, who had established a nunnery near Monte Cassino, and died a few weeks before him. They met only once a year on the side of the mountain for prayer and pious conversation. On ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... the helmet, and apparently belonging to a ghost which has lain down promiscuously in the picture gallery. Most appalling, however, of all is the adventure which happened to Count Frederick in the oratory. Kneeling before the altar was a tall figure in a long cloak. As he approached it rose, and, turning round, disclosed to him the fleshless jaws and empty eye-sockets of a skeleton. The ghost disappeared, as ghosts generally do, after giving ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... has the best guardians. You who are propitiated either by sacrifices or from the prayers of the sage, hear the call, O Maruts! Aye, the powerful man to whom you have granted a sage, he will live in a stable rich in cattle. On the altar of this strong man Soma is poured out in daily sacrifices; praise and joy are sung. To him let the mighty Maruts listen, to him who surpasses all men, as the flowing rain-clouds pass over the sun. For we, O Maruts, have sacrificed at many harvests, through ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... fell to her side wearily, and she turned away. "I suppose you're doing what you think is right, dear," she said at length. "And I can't take you and drag you to the altar, can I?" ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... to perform the deed of sacrilege from which the original assassin recoiled. They hated Lorenzo for his treatment of Volterra, and drove him behind the gates of the new sacristy. Giuliano was slain at the very altar, his body being pierced with no less than nineteen wounds, but Lorenzo escaped to mourn the fate of the handsome noble brother who had been a model ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... "the divinity of my dream and the object of your passion are so alike, that I am sure we worship the same idol, and kneel before the same altar. Fortune has led two men of soul and honor into the same route. We both struggle for an object which one only can reach. One of us must tread on a carcass, which must ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... towards the new world that was rising on the ruins of the old order, towards the Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity and other ideas of '89. One wing called for relentless hostility, for an alliance of altar and throne to set up authority once more on its pedestal and to oppose at once the anarchy of democratic rule and the scepticism of free-thought. This ultramontane attitude—this looking 'beyond the mountains' to a supreme authority in Rome to give stability in a shifting {26} ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton
... perplexity and damage: but no such opportunity can Satan have of our Advocate, for he is with the Father, always with the Father; as to be a Priest, so to be an Advocate-"We have an Advocate with the Father." It is said of the priests, they wait at the altar, and that they give attendance there, (I Cor 9:13); also of the magistrate, that as to his office, he should attend "continually on this very thing" (Rom 13:6). And as these, so Christ, as to his office ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... godfathers; the other portions of the procession falling off to the right and left to the side aisles, and mixing for the time with the spectators. As the prisoners entered the cathedral, they were led into their seats, those least guilty sitting nearest to the altar, and those who were condemned to suffer at the stake being placed the farthest ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... was one, stopped the cart. This long history is now at an end. I wanted John Allen much to be with me. I noticed the little window into which Herbert's friend looked, and saw him kneeling so long before the altar, when he was ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... with their white ermine capes, and seated themselves side by side in a great half-circle within the barrier, while the priests who had carried their trains seated themselves at their feet. By the little side door of the altar the holy father now entered, in his scarlet mantle and silver tiara. He ascended his throne. Bishops swung the vessels of incense around him, while young priests, in scarlet vestments, knelt, with lighted torches in their hands, before him ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... around the churchyard; but the spirits which hold her under their spell will seek in every way to hinder her deliverance. On the Mueggelsberg is, or was (for it is said to be now destroyed), a large stone under which a treasure lies. It was called the Devil's Altar; and at night it often seemed, from the neighbouring village of Mueggelsheim, to be in a blaze; but on drawing near the fire would vanish from sight. At Koepenick, another village not far off, it was called the Princesses' Stone, but the lake at the foot of the hill was ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... stones and made fast the hawsers, and so themselves went forth on to the sea-beach, and forth they brought the hecatomb for the Far-darter Apollo, and forth came Chryseis withal from the seafaring ship. Then Odysseus of many counsels brought her to the altar and gave her into her father's arms, and spake unto him: "Chryses, Agamemnon king of men sent me hither to bring thee thy daughter, and to offer to Phoebus a holy hecatomb on the Danaans' behalf, wherewith to propitiate the king that ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... and in Central Australia the "Corrobery"-dance and the operation performed with a quartz-flake. Teichelmann details the rite in Southern Australia where the assistants—all men, women, and children being driven away—form a "manner of human altar" upon which the youth is laid for circumcision. He then receives the normal two names, public and secret, and is initiated into the mysteries proper for men. The Australians also for Malthusian reasons produce an artificial hypospadias, while the Karens of New Guinea ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... the Altar after the consecration was material bread. And that images should in no wise be worshipped. And that men should not go on any pilgrimages. And that priests have no title to tithes. And that it is not lawful to ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... stood by the fire, which was blazing merrily, when John came in; and the fire was not blazing more merrily on the hearth than was inward happiness blazing in the eyes of all three. The hearth and its fire became a holy altar, surrounded by worshippers, who, however, only laughed and teased ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... have I to expect, but, after a deal of flimsy preparation with a bishop's license, and my aunt's blessing, to go simpering up to the altar; or perhaps be cried three times in a country church, and have an unmannerly fat clerk ask the consent of every butcher in the parish to join John Absolute and Lydia Languish, spinster! Oh that I should live to hear ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... artist, headstrong in his first triumphant mastery, the first achievement of his whole being, entertained, for some moments at least, the idea of cutting the knot then and there and taking his freedom which he had surrendered at the altar, choosing what might seem to him then spiritual life instead of prolonged death. The blood was in his head, the scent of delirious deeds which he knew now that he could do. But he was an honest and loyal young American, no matter what he had done: he could not hesitate long. One glance ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... fool to have married Sylvia. Well, he or she may do so. My only plea in extenuation is that I loved her dearly and devotedly. My love might have been misplaced, of course, yet I still felt that, in face of all the black circumstances, she was nevertheless true to those promises made before the altar. I ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... emancipated Roman Catholics. Those who had trembled before at the possibility of revolutionary sentiments leading to the subversion of the throne, now declared themselves in terror lest the spread of Roman Catholic doctrine should lead to the subversion of the Protestant altar. The truth is, and it is a truth of which governments have to be reminded even in our own times, that the long delay of justice was alone answerable for any alarm which might have been caused by its ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... under pretense of fulfilling their duties of preaching, as if intending to depart after preaching the next day. Under pretence of sickness, or on some other pretext, however, they remained, and, constructing an altar of wood, they placed on it a consecrated stone altar, which they had brought with them, and clandestinely and in a low voice performed mass, and even received the confessions of many of the parishioners, to the prejudice ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... him from his narrator's vexatious and inevitable commencement: 'Temple, tell me, did she go to the altar?' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... everything up. But, short of that, when was a country ever consciously and homogeneously heroic—except China with its opium? When did it ever deliberately change the spirit of its education, the trend of its ideas; when did it ever, of its own free will, lay its vested interests on the altar; when did it ever say with a convinced and resolute heart: 'I will be healthy and simple before anything. I will not let the love of sanity and natural conditions die out of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... their churches, which in derision they call Oysterboards, and to set up altars whereon to say mass." And he tells with sinful gravity this tale of a sacrilegious sow: "Upon the 23rd of August, the high altar of Christ Church in Oxford was trimly decked up after the popish manner and about the middest of evensong, a sow cometh into the quire, and pulled all to the ground; for which heinous fact, it is said ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the mask of Science, and under the specious name of Progress, is spreading like a fatal contagion through the length and breadth of the land; and which, if suffered to go unchastised and unchecked, will end by shaking both the Altar and the Throne!.... Look well to it, Sirs, if you care for the safety of the Ark of GOD. For my part,—like one of old time whose words I am not worthy to take upon my lips,—"I cannot hold my peace: because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... the child uplifts his cherub face, Opens his soft small arms to stroke thy cheek, Crowing with glee, while the slant sunbeams light A halo of gold fire about thy hair, I see again a canvas that is hung Over the altar in our church at home. "Mater amabilis," yet here be traits, Colors and tones the artist never dreamed. Sweet mother, let me sketch thee with thy babe: So rare a picture should not pass away With the brief moment ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... once on the great altar of the church of San Domenico, now at a side altar on the right, has the Virgin seated in the centre with the Holy Child upright on her knee, his right hand is raised in act of benediction, and with his left he holds a rose. Around the throne are four angels, one of which ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino
... having nothing, and I don't believe they are a bit the happier for it. On the contrary, the 'quarrels de menage' leading to frightful crimes appear by the 'Gazette des Tribunaux' to be chiefly found among those who do not sell themselves at the altar." ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... drama, in which the vengeful cries of the Furies seem to echo along this wild and desert shore? As soon as Madame de Hell could distinguish the line of rocks that traced the vague horizon, she began to look for Cape Parthenike, the traditional site of the altar of the goddess, to whom the young priestess Iphigenia was on the point of sacrificing her brother. Assisted by the captain, she at length descried on a rocky headland a solitary chapel, dedicated, she was told, to the Virgin ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... will, for he loves blood; and on that stone in front of him men have been butchered by hundreds in the fierce, feasting islands of the South. In this cursed, craven place I have not been permitted to kill men on his altar. Only rabbits and ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... red, radiant, half-reclined On the level quivering line Of the waters crystalline; And before that chasm of light, As within a furnace bright, 105 Column, tower, and dome, and spire, Shine like obelisks of fire, Pointing with inconstant motion From the altar of dark ocean To the sapphire-tinted skies; 110 As the flames of sacrifice From the marble shrines did rise, As to pierce the dome of gold ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley |
