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Idolatrous   Listen
adjective
Idolatrous  adj.  
1.
Of or pertaining to idolatry; partaking of the nature of idolatry; given to idolatry or the worship of false gods; as, idolatrous sacrifices. "(Josiah) put down the idolatrous priests."
2.
Consisting in, or partaking of, an excessive attachment or reverence; as, an idolatrous veneration for antiquity.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Idolatrous" Quotes from Famous Books



... with the farms? They had no horses or ploughs, no cattle to stock the land, no labourers to till it. Above all, they had no women. Flogging was the punishment for amours with Irish girls, and marriage with the idolatrous race was forbidden under heavy penalties. Hence the soldiers pretended that their wives were converted to Protestantism. But this was to be tested by a strict examination of each as to the state of her soul, and the means by which she had been enlightened. If she did not stand the test, ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... foolish gain and worldly aggrandisement, which vain women, alas! covet more than the enjoyment of their lives and the salvation of their souls. I would have a woman seek for her husband one whom she can love with an ardent, but not idolatrous passion; capable of being a firm, consistent friend; who has sufficient knowledge and virtue to sit in council within her bosom, and direct her in all things. Having found such, the wife should desire and strive to be as a very faithful mirror, reflecting truly, however dimly, his own virtues. ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... the idols in the village was finished, the procession moved on to the next hamlet. The villages were very near each other, so the journey was not wearisome; and at last when every vestige of the old idolatrous life had been taken from the homes of five villages, the happy crowd marched back to the first village. There was a large courtyard near the temple and here the procession halted. The boys dropped their well-filled baskets, and their contents were piled in the center ...
— The Black-Bearded Barbarian (George Leslie Mackay) • Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, AKA Marion Keith

... compulsion, and that his free will is a chimera, even according to the theological system. Does it depend upon man whether or not he shall be born of such or such parents? Does it depend upon man to accept or not to accept the opinions of his parents and of his teachers? If I were born of idolatrous or Mohammedan parents, would it have depended upon me to become a Christian? However, grave Doctors of Divinity assure us that a just God will damn without mercy all those to whom He has not given the grace to know the religion ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier

... there to show. But amongst the large body of Mahomedans scattered through India, and especially amongst the higher classes, Islam has in a great measure lost its aggressive character. Surrounded on all sides by an overwhelming majority of Hindus, whose religion he regards as detestably idolatrous, the Indian Moslem is inclined to sink his hostility to Christianity and to regard us less as "infidels" than as fellow-believers in the central article of his monotheistic faith, the unity of God. We, too, in his eyes are a "People of the Book," though our Book is not ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... array of Missals and Breviaries and Books of Hours, not even the gallery with its "superstitious pictures," the three Italian masterpieces that he hurried as evidence to the bar of the House of Lords, so revealed to this terrible detective "the rotten, idolatrous heart" of the Primate as the sight of the chapel. It was soon reduced to simplicity. We have seen how sharply even in prison Laud felt the havoc made by the soldiery. But worse profanation was to follow. In 1648 ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green

... man? Thou should'st be friend of righteousness to know That zealous patriot and pure-minded man, Of whom thou spakest; surely he hath taught thee More than mere classic lore—wisdom and faith To help this stricken people from the thrall Of their idolatrous, self-seeking rulers? ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards

... as dear to them, as it was to the Christians, and that they could on no account give it up. In respect to the true cross, the Christians, he said, if they could obtain it, would worship it in an idolatrous manner, as they did their other relics; and as the law of the Prophet in the Koran forbade idolatry, they could not conscientiously give it up. "By so doing," said he, "we should ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... invited the Boers to keep up the fight. The betrayal of India is much worse than the injustice done to the Boers. The Boers fought and bled for their rights. When therefore, we are prepared to bleed, the right will have become embodied, and idolatrous world will perceive it ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi

... saw him in my church. His peculiar gait as he walked up the center aisle, first attracted my attention. He carried a stout cane and walked a little lame. His wife was with him. Indeed, except at his office, I rarely saw them apart. She loved him with an almost idolatrous affection; as well she might, for he was the most lovable man I ever knew; and he loved her with a tenderness almost womanly. I think he never for a moment forgot that it was her assiduous nursing which saved his life. His face attracted ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott

... the nobler reality. Under cover of a fusion or neutrality between idealism and realism, moral materialism, the reverence for mere existence and power, takes possession of the heart, and ethics becomes idolatrous. Idolatry, however, is hardly possible if you have a cold and clear idea of blocks and stones, attributing to them only the motions they are capable of; and accordingly idealism, by way of compensation, has to take possession of physics. The idol begins to wink and drop tears under the wistful ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana

... Ten Commandments, that against making graven images, was founded on the fallacy that sculpture and idolatry were one and the same thing. The Puritans believed that the arts of sculpture and painting were both idolatrous. Some believed also that instrumental music was the work of the devil. While a few believed that wind-instruments, like the organ, were proper and right, yet stringed instruments were harmful and tended ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard

... which shows that the ground was somehow prepared for Christianity. It was ready for the monotheism which Paul substituted for their multitude of gods, and for their idolatry and image-worship. The statues had ceased to be symbols, and the minds of the Greeks rested in the image itself. This idolatrous worship Paul condemned, and the people heard him willingly, as he called them up to a more spiritual worship. We think, therefore, that the Greek religion was a real preparation for Christianity. We have seen that it was itself in constant transition; the system ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... Transcendental movement. William Henry Channing who, like Margaret, was a part of it, says, "the summer of 1839 saw the full dawn of this strange enthusiasm." As he briefly defines it "Transcendentalism, as viewed by its disciples, was a pilgrimage from the idolatrous world of creeds and rituals to the temple of the living God in the soul." Its disciples, says Mr. Channing, "were pleasantly nick-named the 'Like-minded,' on the ground that no two were of the same opinion." Of this company, he says, "Margaret was a member by the grace ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach

... tooth is a prophecy of evil unfulfilled! It's not that he considers I've gone to work, incorrigible vagabond that I am; it's the fact that my intolerable idling has produced money which sets his teeth on edge—money, the golden calf of Uncle Peter's narrow idolatrous soul." ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther

... benches and walls to hide him. This must be an idolatrous chapel where the filthy savages congregate to ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... had been thwarted. In every direction he was driven to yield. And yet now he had to undergo rebuke from his own son, because one of those inward plaints would force itself from his lips! Of course this girl was to be taken in among the Pallisers and treated with an idolatrous love,—as perfect as though "all the blood of all the Howards" were running in her veins. What further inch of ground was there for a fight? And if the fight were over, why should he rob his boy of one sparkle from off the joy of his triumph? Silverbridge was now standing ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope

... written, having given utterance to one single coherent word, and by some of those who were best able to judge it was held to have been a mercy that he did die without having been restored to consciousness. And, presently, tales began to be whispered, about some idolatrous sect, which was stated to have its headquarters somewhere in the interior of the country—some located it in this neighbourhood, and some in that—which was stated to still practise, and to always have practised, in unbroken historical continuity, the debased, unclean, mystic, and ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh

... West, as they tripped upon merciful errands, like good angels, and left paths of sunshine behind them. The soldiers had seen none of their countrywomen for months, and they followed these ambassadors with looks half-idolatrous, half-downcast, as if consciously unworthy of so ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... Chunder Sen. Formation of a new Samaj.] In January, 1830, a place of worship was opened by Rammohun Roy and his friends. It was intended for the worship of one God, without idolatrous rites of any kind. This was undoubtedly a very important event, and great was the interest aroused in connection with it. Rammohun Roy, however, visited Britain in 1831, and died at Bristol in 1833; and the cause for which he had ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir

... plague, To see him every hour, to sit and draw His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls In our heart's table: heart too capable Of every line and trick of his sweet favour. But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy Must ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... sufficient of themselves to justify the admiration entertained for the genius of Greece. It is not, however, so much on account of their magnificence as of their exquisite beauty, that the fragments obtain such idolatrous homage from the pilgrims to the shattered shrines of antiquity. But Lord Byron had no feeling for art, perhaps it would be more correct to say he affected none: still, Athens was to him a text, a theme; and when the first rush of curiosity has ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt

... To the idolatrous Arabs one of the most ancient universal objects of worship was that Black Stone, still kept in the building called Caabah at Mecca. Diodorus Siculus mentions this Caabah in a way not to be mistaken, as the oldest, most honoured temple in his time; that is, some half-century ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... membership. In many places it finds numerous accessions; but not a few of its people backslide and return to their ancestral faith. The marked defects of Romanism in that land have been its concessions to, and compromise with, the religion of the land both on the side of idolatrous worship and of caste observance. I have discussed the subject with Indian Roman Catholics in the villages and find that to them the worship of saints, through their many obtrusive images, is practically the same as the idolatry of the Hindus—the only marked difference being ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones

... Oath of Abjuration the priest was ordered to swear that the sacrifice of the mass and the invocation of the Blessed Virgin and the saints were damnable and idolatrous. In other words, the priest was ordered to apostatize, or fly ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous

... ashamed at first to be downright Romans—so they would be Lauds. The pale-looking, but exceedingly genteel, non-juring clergyman in Waverley was a Laud; but they soon became tired of being Lauds, for Laud's Church, gewgawish and idolatrous as it was, was not sufficiently tinselly and idolatrous for them, so they must be Popes, but in a sneaking way, still calling themselves Church of England men, in order to batten on the bounty of the Church which they were betraying, and likewise ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... dwelt, where some maize was growing in a field in the environs. In the same place, they found some Spanish chests, in each of which was a dead body wrapped up in painted deers skins; and as the commissary Juan Xuarez considered this to be some idolatrous institution, he ordered the chests and bodies to be burned. They likewise found some pieces of linen and woollen cloth, with several plumes of feathers which seemed to have come from Mexico, and a small quantity of gold. Being interrogated ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr

... legitimate knowledge of her primitive story is, unfortunately, of the most fragmentary character. Our information concerning the early inhabitants comes almost solely through the writings of irresponsible monks and priests who could neither see nor represent anything relative to an idolatrous people save in accordance with the special interests of their own church; or from Spanish historians who had never set foot upon the territory of which they wrote, and who consequently repeated with heightened color the legends, traditions, and exaggerations of others. "The general opinion ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou

... that the magnificent enterprises of the Portuguese and Spaniards, would, ere this, have colonised and converted to Christianity, all the eligible spots of idolatrous Africa, if their attention to this grand object had not been diverted by the discovery of America, and their establishments ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny

... self-government; and yet this wonderful man has such a hold upon the masses that he is going home to win the cause of oppression at the head of the oppressed. When he's in power again, he will be as subjective as ever, with the power of civic life and death, and an idolatrous following perfectly ruthless in the execution ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... breath, and the soldier looked up from under his hat-brim and mildly remarked, "Madam, you're prejudiced," whereat even some of her sympathizers forgot their rancor and roared with laughter, and the idolatrous rank of his soldiery doubled up like so many blue pocket-rules, and the newspaper men chuckled with glee. By tacit consent, apparently, the Chicago papers were saying as little as possible against the regulars just then, ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King

... time when the world of human kind, both Jews and Gentiles, was more deeply involved in the darkness and stupidity of superstition than when the Messiah entered on his public ministry? If the doctrine of Jesus had been pleasing to the superstitious Jews, if it had accorded with the idolatrous notions of the Gentiles, (which was impossible) if his Messiahship had been espoused by both, and by their consent and influence had been handed down, and declared to have been evidenced by all the miracles ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou

... adoration in this humblest of places of worship was a bambino, a holy infant, done in wax, and covered with cheap ornaments such as a little girl would like to beautify her doll with. Many a good Protestant of the old Puritan type would have felt a strong impulse to seize this "idolatrous" figure and dash it to pieces on the stone floor of the little church. But one must have lived awhile among simple-minded pious Catholics to know what this poor waxen image and the whole baby-house of bambinos mean for a humble, unlettered, unimaginative peasantry. He will find ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... bless light and spices of idolatrous Gentiles, nor light and spices of corpses, nor light and spices before an idol. They must not bless the light until they have enjoyed ...
— Hebrew Literature

... this mountain is a little hill which the idolatrous Agaus have in great veneration; their priest calls them together at this place once a year, and having sacrificed a cow, throws the head into one of the springs of the Nile; after which ceremony, every one sacrifices ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo

... which she was supposed to lament over the funeral of Adonis; a ceremony which obtained over all the eastern world from great antiquity, and is supposed to be referred to by Ezekiel, who accuses the idolatrous ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin

... mass of meaningless parliamentary ceremonials that are no longer even symbolic; the rule by which a parliamentarian possesses a constituency but not a surname; or the rule by which he becomes a minister in order to cease to be a member. All this would seem the most superstitious and idolatrous mummery to the simple worshippers in the shrines of Jerusalem. You may think what they say fantastic, or what they mean fanatical, but they do not say one thing and mean another. The Greek may or may not have a right to say he is Orthodox, but he means that he is Orthodox; in a very different ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton

... calamities about to fall upon France. Burke's treatise was no dispassionate inquiry into the condition of a neighbouring state: it was a denunciation of Jacobinism as fierce and as little qualified by political charity as were the maledictions of the Hebrew prophets upon their idolatrous neighbours; and it was intended, like these, to excite his own countrymen against innovations among themselves. It completely succeeded. It expressed, and it heightened, the alarm arising among the Liberal section of the propertied class, ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... impossibility of escaping it) which is the foundation of the Protestant Reformation, and which was the doctrine accepted by the vast majority of the Anglicans of my youth, before that backsliding towards the "beggarly rudiments" of an effete and idolatrous sacerdotalism which has, even now, provided us with the saddest spectacle which has been offered to the eyes of Englishmen in this generation. A high court of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, with a host of great lawyers in battle ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley

... of Caiju, in the middle of the River, there stands a rocky island on which there is an idol-monastery containing some 200 idolatrous friars, and a vast number of idols. And this Abbey holds supremacy over a number of other idol-monasteries, just like an archbishop's see among ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... cases, where the Almighty interposed) was a kind of republic administered by a judge and the elders of the tribes. Kings they had none, and it was held sinful to acknowledge any being under that title but the Lord of Hosts. And when a man seriously reflects on the idolatrous homage which is paid to the persons of kings, he need not wonder that the Almighty, ever jealous of his honour, should disapprove of a form of government which so impiously invades ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine

... Elinor an exacting friend, always ready to take offence, and to remain jealous and sulky for days if one of her sisters, or any other little girl, engaged her cousin's attention long. On the other hand, Elinor's attachment was idolatrous in its intensity; and as Marian was sweet-tempered, and more apt to fear that she had disregarded Elinor's feelings than to take offence at her waywardness, their friendship endured after they were parted. Their promises of correspondence ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw

... can never be any real antagonism between Science and Religion themselves. 'In the eighth century before Christ,' he goes on to say, 'in the eighth century before Christ, in the heart of a world of idolatrous polytheists, the Hebrew prophets put forth a conception of religion which appears to me to be as wonderful an inspiration of genius as the art of Pheidias or the science of Aristotle. "What doth the Lord require of thee but ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham

... coat and wig, and conducted in shirt-sleeves and cotton nightcap. When the rehearsal was over, prince and marquis contended as to who should act the part of valet de chambre. The composer at this time was the subject of almost idolatrous admiration, for it was at a later period that the old quarrels were resumed again with even more acrid personalities, and Piccini was imported from Italy by the Du Barry faction to be pitted against the German. Gluck returned from Germany, whither he ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris

... an arch, at a distance in light beyond, there is a vista to a stone cross, which, in the seventeenth century, would have been idolatrous! ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various

... making you laugh only by talking about ordinary things. And when he joked anybody would laugh, even the Predikant, who was always preaching about the crackling of thorns under a pot. With him, in a black box like a little coffin, he had a machine he called a banjo, upon which he would play lewd and idolatrous music which was most pleasing to the ear; and he would sing songs while he played, which all ended with a yell. He was good at bursting the rocks, too. He would load holes full of dynamite in three or four places at once, ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... most was to give up her room,—so nice for poor Loulou! She looked at him in despair and implored the Holy Ghost, and it was this way that she contracted the idolatrous habit of saying her prayers kneeling in front of the bird. Sometimes the sun fell through the window on his glass eye, and lighted a great spark in it ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert

... to the Weimar milieu is told very fully in his frequent letters to Koerner. He called upon Herder and Wieland, and was received with 'amazing politeness' by the one, with loquacious cordiality by the other. Herder knew nothing of his writings and regaled him with idolatrous talk about Goethe. Wieland knew all about him except that he had not yet seen 'Don Carlos'; criticised his early plays frankly as lacking in correctness and artistic finish, but expressed the utmost confidence in him nevertheless. He was received ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... have said concerning the nature and powers of man. How is it that you can desire that mankind should remain any longer under the dominion of the same gross and pernicious errors that have for so many ages oppressed them! Only consider the horrors of an idolatrous religion in Egypt and Assyria, in Greece and in Rome—and do you not desire their extermination?—and what prospect of this can there be, but through the plain ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware

... generation after generation, and nobody knew what its carved birds and beasts and hieroglyphic inscriptions meant. Nobody cared much, until a gloomy set of men in a General Assembly, when Charles I was King of England, threw it down and broke it up, because it was an idolatrous emblem. Luckily, some wise person hid all the pieces in the church; but after a while another person not so wise threw them out into the backyard. There they stayed until a Doctor Duncan thought he would have the cross put up in his manse garden: ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... worshipping of the Buddha?" protested Wang Yuen. Then the master said: "Nothing is better than anything good."[FN140] These examples fully illustrate Zen's attitude towards the objects of Buddhist worship. Zen is not, nevertheless, iconoclastic in the commonly accepted sense of the term, nor is it idolatrous, as Christian ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya

... Christian, should talk one half-hour as you have been talking to that poor girl, and the next go for information about the next life to poor old disappointed, broken-hearted Solomon, with his three hundred and odd idolatrous wives, who confesses fairly that this life is a failure, and that he does not know whether there is ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... the Jews were circumcised for a sign. And so are all the Syrians and Arabians, and all the idolatrous priests: but are they therefore of the covenant of Israel? And even ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake

... battle, lovingly fondled the murderous machines of war, responding to the appeal "call me pet names, dearest." The unrelenting gun was the stern cannoneer's lady love. He kissed it with unwashed, mustached lip. In rude and rough devotion he was ready to die rather than abandon the only object of his idolatrous homage. Consistently he baptized the life-devouring monster with blood. Affectionately he named it Mary, Emma, Lizzie. In crossing he Alps, dark night came on as some cannoneers were floundering through drifts of snow, toiling at their gun. They would not leave ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott

... occurred since the first commencement of Christianity.' He explained that 'there were nations still existing in a distant portion of the globe in a state of the wildest barbarism. Ignorant savages were they, with many cruel and idolatrous customs, who were cannibals and murderers, and given up to the worst vices of the heathen. Their abject and pitiable state, he told us, the Lord God had witnessed with Divine commiseration, and ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat

... having what they valued most of any thing in the world, I mean, liberty of conscience. Amidst cold, hunger, toil, disease, and distress of every kind, they comforted themselves with the thoughts of being removed far out of the reach of tyrants, and triumphed in their deliverance from an idolatrous and wicked nation. Neither the hideous gloom of the thick forest, nor the ravages and depredations of savage neighbours, appeared to them so grievous and intolerable as conformity to the that of England, and an implicit ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt

... new religion at that time had borne by no means all its fruits. There was a perceptible improvement of the public morals, and a partial release from oppression; but, other than that, the SEEDS SOWN BY THE SON OF MAN, having fallen into idolatrous hearts, had produced nothing save innumerable discords and a quasi-poetical mythology. Instead of developing into their practical consequences the principles of morality and government taught by The Word of God, his followers ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... thoughts seemed filled with nothing but God and the service of God: and yet the Lord Jesus told them that they were in a worse state, greater sinners in the sight of God, than they had ever been; that they, who hated idolatry, were filling up the measure of their idolatrous forefathers' iniquity; that the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth was to fall on them; that they were a race of serpents, a generation of vipers; and that even He did not see how they could escape the damnation of hell. And they proved how true His words were, ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley

... was made to lessen the surrounding cheerlessness. So the walls were in some places covered over with white stucco, and in others these again were adorned with pictures, not of deified mortals for idolatrous worship, but of those grand old heroes of the truth who in former generations had "through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, ...
— The Martyr of the Catacombs - A Tale of Ancient Rome • Anonymous

... Christian missionaries; nor did their work attract much attention in Europe till very lately, when a schism broke out in the Brahma-Samj between the old conservative party and a new party, led by Keshub Chunder Sen. The former, though willing to surrender all that was clearly idolatrous in the ancient religion and customs of India, wished to retain all that might safely be retained: it did not wish to see the religion of India denationalized. The other party, inspired and led by Keshub Chunder Sen, went further in ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller

... out to the land of the Indians, preaching the Gospel of Salvation. "The Lord working with him and confirming the word with signs following," the darkness of superstition was banished; and men were delivered from idolatrous sacrifices and abominations, and added to the true Faith, and being thus transformed by the hands of the Apostle, were made members of Christ's household by Baptism, and, waxing ever with fresh increase, made advancement ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus

... Hugh like Miss Ellis. Oh, I'se happy chile to-night. I prays wid a big heart, 'case I sees Miss Ellis again," and in his great joy Sam kissed the hem of Alice's dress, crouching at her feet and regarding her with a look almost idolatrous. ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... Teutonic ancestors, according to their views of the correspondence of the two mythologies; and the Quakers, in rejecting these names of days, have cast aside the most ancient existing relic of astrological as well as idolatrous superstition. ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor

... became private persons, rather than abjure their religion." And here it may not be unworthy of remark, that soldiers, after their conversion, became so troublesome in the army, both on account of their scruples against the idolatrous practices required of the soldiery, and their scruples against fighting, that they were occasionally dismissed the ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... 1845. This morning I came, in course of my reading, to the commencement of the book of Ezra. I was particularly refreshed by the two following points contained in the first chapter, in applying them to the building of the Orphan-House: 1. Cyrus, an idolatrous king, was used by God to provide the means for building the temple at Jerusalem: how easy therefore for God to provide Ten Thousand Pounds for the Orphan-House, or even Twenty or Thirty Thousand Pounds, if needed. 2. The people were stirred up by God to help those who went up ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller

... the prophetes in the olde tyme were conuersaunte with the Idolatrous people. So were the Apostles famyliarlie conuersaunte with the vnbeleuinge Iues / and went also emongest other vnbeleuing nations ...
— A Treatise of the Cohabitation Of the Faithful with the Unfaithful • Peter Martyr

... Talmud was simultaneous with Israel's return from the Babylonian exile, during which a wonderful change had taken place in the captive people. An idolatrous, rebellious nation had turned into a pious congregation of the Lord, possessed with zeal for the study of the Law. By degrees there grew up out of this study a science of wide scope, whose beginnings are hidden ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles

... long with disease; the writer nourished on thought, whose nerves are braced and his loins girt to struggle with a real meaning, is not subject to these tympanies. He feels no idolatrous dread of repetition when the theme requires, it, and is urged by no necessity of concealing real identity under a show of change. Nevertheless he, too, is hedged about by conditions that compel him, now and again, ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh

... doctrines of the last century would have been much more difficult, perhaps even impossible. . . . But France had not that good fortune; its national poets were almost all pagan poets, and our literature was rather the expression of an idolatrous and democratic, than of a monarchical and Christian society." The prevailing note, accordingly, in these early odes is that of the Bourbon Restoration of 1815-30, and of the Catholic reaction against the sceptical Eclaircissement of the eighteenth ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... had a Chaucer Club in Andover at that time; a small company, severely selected, not to flirt or to chat, but to work. We had studied hard for a year, and most of us had gone Chaucer mad. This present writer was the unfortunate exception to that idolatrous enthusiasm, and—meeting Mr. Emerson at another time—took modest occasion in answer to a remark of his to say ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various

... though indistinctly, some of the characteristics of the people. From the absence of all weapons of war, however, we may suppose them peaceable, though grossly idolatrous, and, from being unwarlike, ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... first to worship her new idol. But could she dethrone herself for Lucy Robarts? Could she give up her chair of state in order to place thereon the little girl from the parsonage? Could she take to her heart, and treat with absolute loving confidence, with the confidence of an almost idolatrous mother, that little chit who, a few months since, had sat awkwardly in one corner of her drawing-room, afraid to speak to any one? And yet it seemed that it must come to this—to this—or else those day-dreams of hers would in nowise ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... in Germany, where a Jew, on a Rhine boat, inspired or increased his aversion to works of sacred art, as being "idolatrous." About 1542-43 he was reading with pupils at Cambridge, and was remarked for the severity of his ascetic virtue, and for his great charity. At some uncertain date he translated the Helvetic Confession of Faith, and ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... and woman may and do freely cohabit, having first gained each other's consent, not by private conversation or courtship, but through the intervention of some third person or persons; that they strongly discourage, as an evidence of sinful selfishness, what they call "exclusive and idolatrous attachment" of two persons for each other, and aim to break up by "criticism" and other means every thing of this kind in the community; that they teach the advisability of pairing persons of different ages, the young of one sex with the aged of the other, ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff

... have been longing to see; in spirit, matter and form it appears to me to be exactly what people like myself have been wanting. For though for the last quarter of a century I have done all that lay in my power to oppose and destroy the idolatrous accretions of Judaism and Christianity, I have never had the slightest sympathy with those who, as the Germans say, would "throw the child away along with the bath"—and when I was a member of the London School Board I fought for the retention of the Bible, ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley

... Church, with its redemption and sacraments, excludes the teaching of Christ; most of all the teaching of the Orthodox Church with its idolatrous observances. ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy

... Romanists hold the faith in Christ,—but unhappily they also hold certain opinions, partly ceremonial, partly devotional, partly speculative, which have so fatal a facility of being degraded into base, corrupting, and even idolatrous practices, that if the Romanist will make them of the essence of his religion, he must of course be excluded. As to the Quakers, I hardly know what to say. An article on the sacraments would exclude them. My doubt is, whether Baptism and the Eucharist ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... Giver, a mind entrusted with high powers, and uncontrolled affections, who, in the waywardness of youth, cast unreservedly at the shrine of idolatrous love, her all of earthly hopes, then wandered forth with naught but their ashes, in the treasured urn of past remembrance, seeking to cover that with the mantle of ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... feast on such days as are pointed out by his soothsayers, or the Nestorian priests; and on these days the Christians came first to court and pray for him, and bless his cup, after which the Saracen priests do the same, and after them the idolatrous priests. The monk pretended that he only believed the Christians, yet would have all to pray for him; but in this Sergius lied, for he believes none, but all follow his court as flies do honey. He gives to all, and all think they are his familiars, and all prophecy ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... seemed to be his ruling taste, and as Dr. Kennedy still cherished for his crippled boy a love almost idolatrous, he spared neither money nor pains to procure for him everything necessary for his favorite pursuit. Almost the entire day did Louis pass in what he termed Maude's library, where, poring over books or busy with his pencil, he whiled the hours away without a ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes

... From the people generally she received an enthusiastic welcome, but, when on the following Sunday she insisted that Mass should be celebrated in the private chapel of Holyrood, it required all the efforts of her brother to prevent a riot. Knox and his brethren denounced such idolatrous conduct as intolerable, and bewailed the misfortunes that God must inevitably pour out upon the country in punishment for so grievous a crime. A few days later Mary issued a proclamation announcing that no change would be made in the ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... times there was a king of Judah, an excellent man, who, through some unaccountable ideas of policy, had entered into an alliance with a very wicked king of Israel, and had even encouraged his son to marry the daughter of his idolatrous neighbor. On one occasion, he was paying a visit to his ally, when the latter proposed to him that they should join together in recovering a city which had formerly belonged to the Jewish nation, from their enemy, the King of Syria. ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins

... worthy to be called a Christian; I am not worthy to be as you are. I believe in Christ for salvation, but I am too vile to be honoured with baptism.' One day, by way of showing that he had done with idolatry, he took a number of iron things—not idols, but instruments that had been used in idolatrous ceremonies by himself and his forefathers—and with his own hands he made them into reaping-hooks and other useful farming instruments, preceding his work by the declaration, 'These things won't be wanted any more in their present shape, so I will make something ...
— Old Daniel • Thomas Hodson

... minded, it hath this comfortable commoditie, that in this trade their Factours, bee they their seruants or children, shall haue no instruction or confessions of Idolatrous Religion enforced vpon them, but contrarily shall be at their free libertie of conscience, and shall find the same Religion exercised, which is most agreeable ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt

... military duty and religious duty must have not unfrequently arisen during the religious wars of the sixteenth century, and in our own century and in our own army there have been instances of soldiers refusing through religious motives to escort or protect idolatrous processions in India, or to present arms in Catholic countries when the Host was passing. Quaker opinions about war are absolutely inconsistent with the compulsory service which prevails in nearly all European countries, and religious scruples about conscription ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... copious chapter, entitled "Heretiques, leurs attentats." In this enumeration of their attempts to give vent to their suppressed indignation, it is very remarkable that, preceding the time of Luther, the minds of many were perfectly Lutheran respecting the idolatrous worship of the Roman Church; and what I now notice would have rightly entered into that significant Historia Reformationis ante Reformationem, which was formerly ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... shrine Return'd the wiser, or the more instruct To flye or follow what concern'd him most, 440 And run not sooner to his fatal snare? For God hath justly giv'n the Nations up To thy Delusions; justly, since they fell Idolatrous, but when his purpose is Among them to declare his Providence To thee not known, whence hast thou then thy truth, But from him or his Angels President In every Province, who themselves disdaining To approach thy ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... of their connection with the ancient faith such performances gave great offence to the Puritans. In 1581 "an Act against idolatrous and superstitious pastimes, especially against the Sanct Obert's Play," was issued by the Session. It seems to have had little effect, for again in 1587 the bakers were required "to take order for the amendment of the blasphemous and heathenish plays of Sanct Obert's pastime." Eventually in 1588, ...
— A Calendar of Scottish Saints • Michael Barrett

... no reason to doubt that Mohammed was a sincere "Hanif." Having means and leisure for study, and being of a bright and thoughtful mind, he doubtless entered with enthusiasm into the work of reforming the idolatrous customs of his countrymen. From this high standpoint, and free from superstitious fear of a heathen priesthood, he was prepared to estimate in their true enormity the degrading rites which he everywhere witnessed under the ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood

... earn his bread, must be worthy of confidence. However sincere his repentance may have been, he relapsed into his former life when he was removed from his office by Solomon, who filled all position with new incumbents at his accession to the throne. Finally he abandoned his idolatrous ways wholly, and became so pure a man that the was favored by God with the gift of prophecy. This happened on the day on which the man of God out of Judah came to Jeroboam, for the grandson of Moses is none other than the old prophet at ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... the gray head in that prominent central pew, was the devout offering of Thomas Barnard and Almira, his wife, in testimony of their abandonment of the faith of their fathers and the adoption of that which in school days they had held to be idolatrous. Wilbur Cranston well recalled how in his school days Tom Barnard's honest, sturdy form went trudging by at nightfall from the long day's labor with the railway gang of which he was "boss," but Tom was a division ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... tell me that the city was the metropolis of a kingdom now governed by his father; that the former king and all his subjects were Magi, worshipers of fire and of Nardoun. the ancient king of the giants who rebelled against God. 'Though I was born,' continued he, 'of idolatrous parents, it was my good fortune to have a woman governess who was a strict observer of the Mohammedan religion. She taught me Arabic from Al Koran; by her I was instructed in the true religion, which I would ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various

... of the shadow of death.' Are you not a follower of idle ceremonies, which belong to the vain church that our tyrants would gladly establish here, along with their stamp acts and tea laws? Answer me that, woman; and remember, that Heaven hears your answer; are you not of that idolatrous communion?" ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... Bear"; they apply to it the name Kamui, which has been translated god; but it is a word applied to all strangers, and so only means what catches attention, and hence is formidable. In the religion of the Ainos "the Bear plays a chief part," says one writer. The Bear "receives idolatrous veneration," says another. They "worship it after their fashion," says a third. Have we another case of "the heathen in his blindness"? Only here he "bows down" not to "gods of wood and stone," but to a live thing, uncouth, ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison

... not seen the last of the generation of those who doubted that education would fit the slaves for the exalted position of citizens. The retrogressives made much of the assertion that adult slaves lately imported, were, on account of their attachment to heathen practices and idolatrous rites, loath to take over the Teutonic civilization, and would at best learn to speak the English language imperfectly only.[1] The reformers, who at times admitted this, maintained that the alleged difficulties encountered in teaching the crudest element of the slaves could not ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson

... smoking of tobacco, which was compared to the smoke of the bottomless pit. Drinking of healths, and wearing long hair, were also forbidden, under the same penalty: the first was considered as a heathenish and idolatrous practice, ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest

... familiar to us by the figure of John the Baptist; and they probably subsisted on the gifts of those who benefited from their oracles. Their numbers may have been very large; we hear of hundreds of prophets even during an idolatrous reign, when they were exposed ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker

... This is true not only of their territorial possession but of their distinctive characteristics. The opulence of the Babylonians, the splendor of the Persians, the strength and discipline of the Greeks, were all merged into the Roman Empire. And more than this, these kingdoms were all idolatrous, and the religion of the Babylonians was merely absorbed in the Persian Kingdom (not destroyed); that of the Persian was perpetuated under the Greek reign; and all these found recognition in the divers forms of paganism existing under Rome. In this sense the image, as opposed to the ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith

... is called the land of purity, in a religious sense, it having never been polluted with idolatrous worship. ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous

... superstition which had been let loose. But what was the use of struggling any longer? He felt the wretchedness of the suffering people committed to his care to be so great that he resigned himself to granting them the idolatrous religion for which he realised them to be eager. Some prudence remaining to him, however, he contented himself in the first instance with drawing up an ordonnance, appointing a commission of inquiry, which ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... people to whom death no terror brings; If these, with new devotedness, we see In Gothic fury baring the keen glaive, Turk, Arab, and Chaldee! All, who, between us and the Red Sea wave, To heathen gods bow the idolatrous knee, Arm and advance! we heed not your blind rage; A naked race, timid in act, and slow, Unskill'd the war to wage, Whose far aim on the wind contrives ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... commands of your royal decrees—namely, that wherever the monastery of one order is established, no other shall be placed except at the distance appointed by your Majesty. As most of the Chinese settled there are idolatrous heathen, it is a great disadvantage for them to be mingled with the newly-converted Christian Indians, the natives of another race; and from this mingling arise many offenses against God our Lord. In order to avoid these, it would be advisable for your Majesty to have those Chinese ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair

... original Greek—Gehenna and Hades. Gehenna was the name of a deep, narrow valley, bordered by precipitous rocks, in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, which had been desecrated by human sacrifices in the time of idolatrous kings, and afterwards became the depository of city refuse and of the offal of the temple sacrifices. The other noun, rendered by the same English word Hell, is Hades, which means "covered," "unseen" or "hidden." ...
— Exposition of the Apostles Creed • James Dodds

... right: and that law is eternally right which says, "Thou shalt love thine enemy." And had the Jews acted upon this principle they would have done well to spare their enemies: but they did it thinking it to be wrong, transgressing that law which commanded them to slay their idolatrous enemies—not from generosity, but in cupidity—not from charity, but from lax zeal. And so doing, the act ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson

... other times he permits these same nations to exercise over his favorite people the greatest of cruelties. He delivers them into the hands of their enemies, who are likewise the enemies of God himself. Idolatrous nations become masters of the Jews, who are left to feel the insults, the contempt, and the most unheard-of severities, and are sometimes compelled to sacrifice to idols, and to violate the law of their God. The race of Abraham becomes the prey of impious ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach

... commotion soon spread to Mosul, where the terrified workman, "entering breathless into the bazars, announced to every one he met that Nimrod had appeared." The authorities of the town were alarmed, put their heads together and decided that such idolatrous proceedings were an outrage to religion. The consequence was that Layard was requested by his friend Ismail-Pasha to suspend operations for awhile, until the excitement should have subsided, a request with which he thought it wisest to comply without remonstrance, lest the people ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin

... comprehended all nature and were identified with it. The various deities were nothing but different aspects under which the supreme and infinite being manifested itself. Although Syria {133} remained deeply and even coarsely idolatrous in practice, in theory it approached monotheism or, better perhaps, henotheism. By an absurd but curious etymology the name Hadad has been explained as ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont

... already sufficiently hideous cult. I give these facts as they were given to me, and shall not believe them until I am compelled. It has always been the natural tendency in everything which (like the idolatrous practices still existing among the pueblos, of which there is no doubt) we do not positively know, to make bad look worse and good better than it actually is. The prospect of securing a knowledge of it is, however, not very good. The Indians themselves appear to deny it, and are generally ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier

... what to do, for, as an English Churchman, I have been taught to regard such things as in some measure idolatrous, and yet it seemed so ungracious to refuse an old lady meaning so well and in ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... suggested by Bryant, though, I believe, not noticed by any writer on popular customs, that the Good Friday cakes, called Buns, may have originated in the cakes used in idolatrous worship, and impressed with the figure of an ox, whence they were called [Greek: boun]. The cow or bull was likewise, as Coleridge (Lit. Rem. vol. ii. p. 252.) has justly remarked, the {245} symbol of the Cosmos, the prolific or generative ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 16, February 16, 1850 • Various

... was preserved to his days, says, it was of a dark burnt colour. And though he does indeed speak of it as being of an extravagant weight and size, in which circumstance perhaps he was misled: yet he mentions another of a moderate size, which fell in Abydos, and was become an object of idolatrous worship in that place; as was still another, of ...
— Remarks Concerning Stones Said to Have Fallen from the Clouds, Both in These Days, and in Antient Times • Edward King

... in full testimony the nevertheless fact that such a pagan city as Rome, or licentious Corinth or idolatrous Ephesus were lifted into cleanness and moral decency, not by legislative action, by reorganization of local conditions, but by the regeneration of one individual at a time until the divine sanity and personal spirituality ...
— Why I Preach the Second Coming • Isaac Massey Haldeman

... he thus acquired of his own worth made him credit the excessive and almost idolatrous adoration that was paid to his understanding; which but for this increased self-complacency, must have necessarily recalled him from his aberrations. For the present, however, this universal voice was only a confirmation of what his complacent vanity whispered in his ear; a tribute ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... their horn, Master Pettigrue,' said the grizzly-haired Puritan. 'They have set up their candlestick on high—the candlestick of a perverse ritual and of an idolatrous service. Shall it not be dashed down by the hands of ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... he said to the assembled multitude, "Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you," and then began to preach Jesus Christ and His great salvation. But so far from imitating this example, they, in many instances, took part in their idolatrous and superstitious ceremonies. It is vain to attempt an excuse of these Englishmen by saying either that it was the fashion of the times to pass by the heathen without a thought for their wretched lost condition, or that the ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston

... awoke from his idolatrous dream. He brought Nellie to a seat and sat awkwardly beside her. His old self-complacency had left him. Nellie was talking to him, but he did not hear what she said. He was not looking at her, but at himself. Before he knew ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung

... themselves in a body at the singer, stark mad with love of him and love of France and pride in her great deeds and old renown, and smothered him with their embracings; but Joan was there first, hugged close to his breast, and covering his face with idolatrous kisses. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... frightful genius of pagan worship seemed to brood in silence over the place, breathing its spell upon every object around. Here and there, in the depths of these awful shades, half screened from sight by masses of overhanging foliage, rose the idolatrous altars of the savages, built of enormous blocks of black and polished stone, placed one upon another, without cement, to the height of twelve or fifteen feet, and surmounted by a rustic open temple, enclosed with a low picket of canes, within which might be seen, ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... ages. Of these we have frequent notices in the Old Testament, as of that raised by Jacob at Lug, afterwards named Bethel; a pillar was also raised by him at the grave of Rachel. The Gentiles set up pillars for idolatrous purposes. The Paphians worshipped their Venus under the form of a white pyramid, and the Brachmans the great God under the figure of a little column of stone. Many large stones are found at this day in Wales and Cornwall, which are supposed to have ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 394, October 17, 1829 • Various

... kept her own counsel. She saw that Evelina wanted her sympathy as little as her admonitions, and that already she counted for nothing in her sister's scheme of life. To Ann Eliza's idolatrous acceptance of the cruelties of fate this exclusion seemed both natural and just; but it caused her the most lively pain. She could not divest her love for Evelina of its passionate motherliness; no breath of reason could lower it to the cool ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton

... life with a mad passion for its own sake, and the only object of his study was to find a means of living longer than other men. All the aims and desires and complex reasonings of his being tended to this simple expression—the wish to live. To what idolatrous self-worship Keyork Arabian might be capable of descending, if he ever succeeded in eliminating death from the equation of his immediate future, it was impossible to say. The wisdom of ages bids us beware of the man of one idea. He is to ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford

... Barameda, having embarked to cross over to the province of Nueva Espana in the Yndias, thence to the Philipinas Islands, Japon, and the kingdom of Great China, in order to preach the faith of Jesus Christ in those said kingdoms to the barbarous and idolatrous heathen there. After a prosperous voyage of eleven months they arrived at the city of Manila, where they were well received by the other religious who reside in those islands. However there died during the said voyage father Fray Juan Quixada, a native of Xerez, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various

... home to England. "At this puerile piece of business," says the plain spoken Stocqueler, "the commonsense of the British community at large revolted. The ministers of religion protested against it as a most unpardonable homage to an idolatrous temple. Ridiculed by the Press of India and England, and laughed at by the members of his own party in Parliament, Lord Ellenborough halted the gates at Agra, and postponed the completion of the monstrous folly he had more ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... 'From Cordova.' 'Whither?' 'To Portugal.' 'For why?' 'To speak again with King John!' 'Are you in the habit of speaking with kings?' 'Aye, I am!' 'About what, may I ask?' 'About the finding of India by way of Ocean-Sea, the possession of idolatrous countries and the great wealth thereof, and the taking of Christ to the ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston

... not deserve to be loved in that way. I do not wish it, for it is wrong—idolatrous," she said, in ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... so many and diverse peculiarities that it would be an impossibility to catalogue them with any degree of satisfactoriness. But, with the exception of his wholesale piratical methods at cards—indeed, at any kind of gambling—perhaps his most striking feature was his almost idolatrous worship for his horses. He simply lived for their well-being, and their evident affection for himself was something that he treasured far beyond the gold he so loved to take from his opponents ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... whenever near the villain, who fulfilled all the duties of a faithful and tender father, and of a good citizen, whilst the night veiled his monstrous iniquity. Madelon, dutiful, pure, confiding as an angel, clung to him with idolatrous affection. The thought often struck like a dagger to my heart that, if justice should one day overtake the reprobate and unmask him, she, deceived by the diabolical arts of the foul Fiend, would assuredly die in the wildest agonies of despair. This ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... to work together as a crew. Nearly all of them had the handiness then required for life in a new country. And, what with conviction and what with prejudice, they were also quite disposed to look upon the expedition as a sort of Crusade against idolatrous papists, and therefore as a very proper climax to the Great Awakening which had recently roused New England to the heights of religious zealotry under the leadership of the famous ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood

... calamitous state of affairs would be evolved, through the overruling of Providence, a signal moral and spiritual benefit to the people generally. Here was a large band of boys and girls taken out of native society, cut off from idolatrous training and associations, and made over in the most plastic season of their lives to be moulded by those whose supreme aim would be to strengthen and elevate their character, and prepare them for a happy, useful, ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy

... treachery and cruelty; their inroads; Bakh city; invade Balakhshan; invasion of Poland and Silesia. Mongon Khan, see Mangu. Mongotay (Mangkutai), a Mongol officer. Monkeys, passed off as pygmies. Monks, idolatrous. (See Monasteries.). Monnier, Marcel, his visit to Karakorum, on the Ch'eng-tu Suspension Bridge. Monoceros and Maiden, legend of. Monophysitism. Monsoons. Montecorvino, John, Archbishop of Cambaluc. Monte d'Ely. Montgomerie, Major T.G. (R.E.) (Indian Survey), on fire at ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... equal electoral districts, ballot, tenant right for England as well as Ireland, reduction of the standing army till there should be no standing army to reduce, utter disregard of all political movements in Europe, an almost idolatrous admiration for all political movements in America, free trade in everything except malt, and an absolute extinction of a State Church,—these were among the principal articles in Mr. Turnbull's political catalogue. And I think that when once he had learned the art of arranging his words ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... doomed to see the boxes and bales he had so diligently watched broken open by these barbarians,—nay, he had to assist in their own dissection when the secrets were too much for the Arabs. There was the King of Spain's portrait rent from its costly setting and stamped upon as an idolatrous image. The miniature of the Count, worn by the poor lady, had previously shared the same fate, but that happily was out of sight and knowledge. Here was the splendid plate, presented by crowned heads, howled over by savages ignorant of its use. The silver they seemed ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge

... a traveller, calmly as a philosopher, the Jew, himself again, looked at the Stone which more nearly than any other material thing commanded idolatrous regard from the Mohammedan world. He had known personally most of the great men of that world—its poets, lawmakers, warriors, ascetics, kings—even the Prophet. And now they came one by one, as one by one they had come in their ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... answering for beacons. Referring to this term of "meeting-house," does it not furnish conclusive evidence, of itself, of the inconsistent folly of that wisest of all earthly beings, man? It was adopted in contradistinction from, and in direct opposition to, the supposed idolatrous association connected with the use of the word "church," at a time when certain sects would feel offended at hearing their places of worship thus styled; whereas, at the present day, those very sectarians are a little disposed ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper

... no choice Leo mounted the throne, where notwithstanding his splendid presence, enhanced as it was by those glittering robes, he looked ill enough at ease, as indeed must any man of his faith and race. Happily however, if some act of semi-idolatrous homage had been proposed, Ayesha found a means to prevent its celebration, and soon all such matters were forgotten both by the singers who sang, and us who listened to the majestic ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard

... degree, the impress of that temper which nature has bestowed upon him. Thus we see that Roman Catholicism is more zealous, more enthusiastic, more turbulent, in Ireland, more artistic in Italy, more philosophic in Germany, more literary and discursive in France, more idolatrous in the States of South America, more reserved and modest, more decent and tolerant, less ambitious in its aspirations, and less audacious in its polemics, in England than in any other ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous

... slow- bellies, evil wolves, godless swine, persecuting and dishonoring the word of God.Just in the same way have they much noble music, especially in the abbeys and parish churches, used to adorn most vile, idolatrous words. Wherefore we have undressed these idolatrous, lifeless, crazy words, stripping off the noble music, and putting it upon the living and holy word of God, wherewith to sing, praise and honor the same, that so the beautiful ornament of music, brought back to its right ...
— The Hymns of Martin Luther • Martin Luther

... have taught the great Washington how dangerous and inconsistent it would be to accept an earthly crown, while denouncing the tyranny of kings, and how much more enduring is that fame which is cherished in a nation's heart than that which is blared by the trumpet of idolatrous soldiers indifferent to those rights which form the basis of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord

... mourning for his son Siyawush. It was continued till the death of Husayn on the 10th of Muharram (the first month, then representing the vernal equinox) when it was changed for black. As a rule Moslems do not adopt this symbol of sorrow (called "Hidad") looking upon the practice as somewhat idolatrous and foreign to Arab manners. In Egypt and especially on the Upper Nile women dye their hands with indigo and stair. their faces black ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... fact the Song of Songs was long held to be so objectionable that the Talmudists did not allow young people to read it before their thirtieth year. Whiston denounced it as foolish, lascivious, and idolatrous. "The excessively amative character of some passages is designated as almost blasphemous when supposed to be addressed by Christ to his Church,"[291] as it was by the allegorists. On the other hand there is a class of commentators ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... the Father but by Me." In complete agreement with the impugned statements of the Athanasian Creed, the Apology of the Augsburg Confession closes its article "Of God" as follows: "Therefore we do freely conclude that they are all idolatrous, blasphemers, and outside of the Church of Christ who hold or teach ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... of months. For visitors there was not much to see. At the beginning, hours were given up to desultory talking with the natives, but perseverance was rewarded. Those who came to talk would return to take lessons, and some impression was gradually made even on the older men attached to their idolatrous rites. Many years after Patteson's death it was still the most civilized of the islands with a population almost ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... choosing, confirming, and consecrating, &c." Suppose we held it unlawful to do so: How can we help it? but does that make it rightful, if it be not so? Suppose the author lived in a heathen country, where a law would be made to call Christianity idolatrous; would that be a topic for him to prove it so by, &c.? And why do the clergy incur a pre-munire;—To frighten them—Because the law understandeth, that, if they refuse, the chosen cannot be a bishop: But, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift

... stand in the church at Ruthwell; it escaped injury at the time of general destruction in the sixteenth century, but the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland ordered the "many idolatrous monuments erected and made for religious worship" to be "taken down, demolished, and destroyed." It was not till two years later, however, that the cross was taken down when an Act was passed "anent the Idolatrous Monuments ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey

... the vents of a great subterraneous lake. At a small distance to the south, is a village called Guix, through which you ascend to the top of the mountain, where there is a little hill, which the idolatrous Agaci hold in great veneration. Their priest calls them together to this place once a year; and every one sacrifices a cow, or more, according to the different degrees of wealth and devotion. Hence we have sufficient proof, that these nations always paid adoration ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson

... the lower must have concrete realities on which to pin their faith. With them, inevitably, ideals degenerate into idols. In all religions this unavoidable debasement has taken place. The Roman Catholic who prays to a wooden image of Christ is not one whit less idolatrous than the Buddhist who worships a bronze statue of Amida Butzu. All that the common people are capable of seeing is the soul-envelope, for the soul itself they are unable to appreciate. Spiritually they are undiscerning, because imaginatively ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell

... the last doll with which Katy had played, was a different thing, and it required all Wilford's philosophy and common sense to keep him from showing his chagrin to the girlish creature, whose love had fastened with an idolatrous grasp upon her child, clinging to it with a devotion which made Helen tremble as she thought what if God ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... the more eloquent preachers whom he had introduced. The incredible rumor even gained currency that the hot-headed prelate went through his diocese casting down the images and sparing no object of idolatrous worship in the churches.[151] But, however improbable it may be that Briconnet ever engaged in any such iconoclastic demonstrations, it is a strong Roman Catholic partisan who has preserved the record of this ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... minds abundantly satisfied, that, during this very trying reign, he never abandoned the prospect of another revolution in favour of Protestantism." In another place, the Doctor tells us, that Cecil went to mass "with no idolatrous intention." Nobody, we believe, ever accused him of idolatrous intentions. The very ground of the charge against him is that he had no idolatrous intentions. We never should have blamed him if he had really gone to Wimbledon Church, with the feelings of a good Catholic, to worship the host. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... lie back in Abraham's own life. Abraham was Israel's link with the idolatrous heathen, as well as the beginning of the new life away from idolatry. He grew up among an idolatrous people, yet in his heart there was a yearning for the true God. Back in his old home there came to him ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon

... by arguments preceding the proof of facts, that one idolatrous people must have borrowed their deities, rites, and tenets from another, since gods of all shapes and dimensions may be framed by the boundless powers of imagination, or by the frauds and follies of men, in countries never connected; but when features ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller

... the continuance of these amusements. Few of the priests had the liberal views of Father Duran, already quoted; most of them were of the opinion of Torquemada, who urges the clergy "to forbid the singing of the ancient songs, because all of them are full of idolatrous memories, or of diabolical and suspicious allusions of ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton

... wilfully unkind to her—her last extravagance had been foolish, not criminal—and two or three were even sorry for the woebegone figure she cut. But her idolatrous attachment to Evelyn had been the means of again drawing round her one of those magic circles, which held her schoolfellows at a distance. And the aroma of her eccentricity still clung to her. The members of her ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson

... their prayers. Nevertheless, the monks began to leave Luther's own monastery, and the students and citizens to tear down the images of the saints in the churches. The Lord's Supper was no longer celebrated in the form of the Mass, since that was declared to be an idolatrous worshiping of the bread and wine. Then Carlstadt reached the conclusion that all learning was superfluous, for the Scriptures said plainly that God had concealed himself from the wise and revealed ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... people who worshipped it. His own ancestors had been pagans, but never heathen. They had worshipped a living God, not a wooden one, and the boy turned in sadness, and some horror, from the spectacle of these idolatrous Delawares. Then his eyes lighted with pleasure, for there, near the door, stood Fire-Flower and Fish-Carrier. True, they were not now telling their boastful but harmless tales of mighty hunting and prowess, but their friendly faces still looked laughter-loving and genial, and Wampum moved quickly ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson



Words linked to "Idolatrous" :   idolatry



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