"Idolatry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... order to this I shall examine the Ways and Means by which the People of God in all Ages, came to the Understanding of his Will. Now 'tis evident, from the absurd Notions which the ancient Heathens had of the Deity, and their Idolatry, that Mankind was so far degenerated and deprav'd, that they had lost the true Knowledge of God, and of his Attributes, and consequently were ignorant of their Duty towards him; for which reason, God was pleas'd, out of his infinite Love ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail
... Gospel, to whom therefore as Christians neither the precepts nor the examples of those ancient times are applicable: {46} the injunctions consequently given of old to preserve the chosen people from idolatry and paganism, cannot be held to prohibit Christians from seeking the aid of those departed saints who are now reigning with Christ. But, surely, those precepts, and denunciations, and commands, are still ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... common sense! Let us pause here a little.—Mr. Godwin indulged in extreme opinions, and carried with him all the most sanguine and fearless understandings of the time. What then? Because those opinions were overcharged, were they therefore altogether groundless? Is the very God of our idolatry all of a sudden to become an abomination and an anathema? Could so many young men of talent, of education, and of principle have been hurried away by what had neither truth, nor nature, not one particle ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... the earth; but these saints lived in faith; and Jacob, dying and blessing his children, cried in a transport which made him break off his discourse, "I await, O my God, the Saviour whom Thou hast promised. Salutare taum expectabo, Domine."[220] The Egyptians were infected both with idolatry and magic; the very people of God were led astray by their example. Yet Moses and others believed Him whom they saw not, and worshipped Him, looking to the eternal gifts which He ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... the past and present environment that bound him. Then at once his instinct was to make a better home for his family. He must get away from the heathen village, with its squalor, and impurity, and idolatry. It is true that environment does not regenerate the soul, but the renewed soul transforms the environment. Better conditions are evidence of the new life. On the contrary, when some fall back to heathenism, they fall into slovenly ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen
... the innuendo. "Yes, what is gone is gone. Graves are idolatry. Gravestones are ghostly. It is people without imagination who need these things, together with crape and black-edged paper. It is all barbaric ritual. I know you think I am callous, but I cannot help that. For myself, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... congregation at Frankfort and Geneva his energy had already given a decisive impulse to the new movement. In a gathering at the house of Lord Erskine he persuaded the assembly to "refuse all society with idolatry, and bind themselves to the uttermost of their power to maintain the true preaching of the Evangile, as God should offer to their preachers an opportunity." The confederacy woke anew the jealousy of the government, ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... stand it like a man." He did; for "Mrs. Cluppins," "Chadband," and "Sam Weller," always helped him through; thereby causing me to lay another offering of love and admiration on the shrine of the god of my idolatry, though he does wear too much jewelry ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... to idolatry; how, then, could she hate him? The emperor was her compatriot and the benefactor of her father. The Baron di Piombo was among those of Napoleon's devoted servants who had co-operated most effectually in the return from Elba. Incapable of denying his political faith, anxious even ...
— Vendetta • Honore de Balzac
... opponent of Suttee and Idolatry, who also dared to make the voyage to England. He died ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... beautifully painted. The temples differ greatly in form and size. The ordinary temples or joss-houses, consist each of one chamber containing an idol. This, gentle reader, is the store-house of pagan idolatry to which some unbelievers in Indiana and elsewhere resort for names or titles by which to designate the houses of Christian worship in our own country. How would those men like to emigrate to China, where they could have a language that suits ...
— The Christian Foundation, February, 1880
... he murmured. "Holy Church, assuming spiritual leadership of the world, sunken in idolatry, and publicly parading her fetishism in these lingering ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... austerity, expressed one day his surprise at seeing him eat sweet-cakes. "Do you think," he replied, "that the bees make their honey only for fools?" He seems to have had as little respect as Lucian for the idolatry of his day, for on one of his companions saying to him "Let us go to the Temple of AEsculapius to pray for my son," he answered, "Is the god then so deaf that he cannot ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... nation, Chief, and darkness has again come over a land which of late shone with a clear and shining light! The just are made to flee from the habitations of their infancy, and the temples of the elect are abandoned to the abominations of idolatry. Oh England! England! when will thy cup of bitterness be full?—when shall this judgment pass from thee? My spirit groaneth over thy fall—yea, my inmost soul is saddened with ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... same cause will produce the same effect upon the rest of the world. All her pictures, therefore, like those of the painter who doated upon his mistress to such a degree as to introduce her face into every one of his works, contain the object of her idolatry, either prominently in the foreground, or so ingeniously placed in the background, as to be quite as well fitted to draw attention.—But it is time to follow her ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... In at least a formal obedience to the deuteronomic laws of worship, the people of the land continued to resort to the Temple fasts and festivals.(309) But resenting the failure of their God to grant victory numbers relapsed into an idolatry as rank as that under Ahaz or Manasseh;(310) while others, more thoughtful but not less bewildered, conceived doubts of the worth of righteousness. And these tempers were embittered by the cruel selfishness of the new monarch and his reckless injustice. To the taxes ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... had Henry's idolatry all to himself. I have caught them often sitting quietly opposite each other at Grafton Street, just adoring each other. Occasionally Fussie would thump his tail on the ground to express ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... place in the religion of the country.—"Our present belief," said he, "is preferable to that which it has supplanted; but the inhabitants of the mountains cannot understand its superiority; and strong measures are necessary to prevent their relapsing into idolatry. The King should not have so suddenly annihilated all that they held sacred. As a first consequence, he has been obliged to seek for safety in a foreign country. How all will end, I cannot foresee; but I look forward with fear. The people are attached to me, and I have ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... rendered their reign infamous by their worship of idols, and their cruel persecution of prophets. She had been espoused by Jehoram, king of Judah, son of Jehosaphat, and the seventh king of the race of David. His son, Ahaziah, seduced into idolatry, as well as Jehoram, by the example of Athaliah, after a reign of one year was put to death, together with all the princes of the house of Ahab, by Jehu, whom God had anointed by his prophets to reign over Israel, and to be ...
— Athaliah • J. Donkersley
... and west of Asia, were objects of this worship. In Palestine these stones are not found, though they occur in the neighbouring lands; and this is attributed by Major Conder[4] to the zeal of the orthodox kings, who, we know from the Bible, destroyed all the monuments of idolatry in ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... love with a man may make his fortune, but a stupid woman is certain to ruin it. Finally he related how he, Jules Defourcambault, had driven the General's carriage on a famous occasion through Paris, and how the populace in its frenzy of idolatry had even climbed on to the ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... out of Idolatry. Worshyp nat thy ryches nor thy vayne treasoure Ne this wretchyd worlde full of mysery. But lawde thy maker and thy sauyour With fere, mekenes, fayth, glory, and honoure Let thy treasoure onely in his seruyce be ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... Ancestors—a plea for toleration.") But Dr. Hudson Taylor condemned bitterly this plea for toleration. "Ancestral worship," he said (it was at the Shanghai Missionary Conference of May, 1890), "Ancestral worship is idolatry from beginning to end, the whole of it, and everything connected with it." China's religion is idolatry, the Chinese are universally idolatrous, and the fate that befalls idolaters is carefully pointed out by Dr. Taylor:—"Their part is in the ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... Merritt came forward with an admiration almost fawning. He did not know quite how the thing had happened, but Chris had done the police. Smartness and trickery of that kind were the highest form of his idolatry. His ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... under the protection of the monarch than it would have been in complete independence. The dreadful lesson taught by the desolation of the land, the destruction of the temple, and the captivity of the people, had effectually cured the Jews of that tendency to idolatry which had been their ruin. But, as time went on, the distortion of character which had been restrained in one direction broke forth in another; and although they no longer went formally astray ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley
... duty, and holiness, were fast losing their divine attributes in the common estimation, and were hurrying downwards with tears and a sad threnody into gloom and darkness. Carlyle saw all this, and knew that it was the reaction of that intellectual idolatry which brought the eighteenth century to a close; knew also that there was only one remedy which could restore men to life and health,—namely, the quickening once again of their spiritual nature. He felt, also, that it was his mission to attempt ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... themselves to be prejudiced by them; in which case, we might make the same commentary on Seneca, applied, as we have seen, to the Twelve Tables. But I go further still. This is not the place to speak of the punishments decreed in the Scripture against the impiety of the Canaanites, who joined to idolatry the most extravagant magic. In regard to the Greek laws, of which authors have preserved for us so great a number, I do not remember that they anywhere make mention of this crime, or that they subject it to any penalty. I can say the same of the Roman laws, ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... fast, and it is condemned, already, by all reasoning minds, that it is only a matter of time before the human race shall be free from these parasites. The priest, of the Jewish faith, failed because he was inhuman, the priest of the Greek idolatry failed, because he was a philosophical fraud; and the priest of the present time, shall fail, because he is the very opposing visible enemy of God's kingdom. The sacerdotal office of the ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden
... he despised the conventionalities of society, and was a sloven in his toilet, was firmly believed; and the belief endeared him to the hearts of the people. To them "the old white coat"—an antique garment of unrenewed immortality—was as much a subject of idolatry as the redingote grise to the soldiers of the first Napoleon, who had seen it by the campfires on the Po and on the Borysthenes, and believed that he would come again in it to lead them against the enemies of France. The Greeley of the popular heart ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... peculiar a tinge to the maternal tenderness of Constance; she not only loves her son with the fond instinct of a mother's affection, but she loves him with her poetical imagination, exults in his beauty and his royal birth, hangs over him with idolatry, and sees his infant brow already encircled with the diadem. Her proud spirit, her ardent enthusiastic fancy, and her energetic self-will, all combine with her maternal love to give it that tone and character which belongs to her only: ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... Madagascar but a little way farther; South America, and all the numerous and large islands in the Indian and Chinese seas, I hope will not be passed over. A large field opens on every side, and millions of perishing heathens, tormented in this life by idolatry, superstition, and ignorance, and exposed to eternal miseries in the world to come, are pleading; yea, all their miseries plead as soon as they are known, with every heart that loves God, and with all the churches ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... indigestible historical facts to know that the English had always beaten the French, and I had drawn the natural conclusion that the French were a vastly inferior race of beings. It was, I verily believe, the first step in my spiritual education to realise that the god of my idolatry suffered no diminution of grandeur by reason of his nationality. Indeed he gained accession, for after this he talked often to me of France in his magniloquent way, until I began secretly to be ashamed of being English. This ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... He was a man of enterprise, with a strong dislike to the Roman Catholic faith, and never doubted that he was perfectly justified in relieving the churches of plate and other valuables. These were, in his eyes, articles of idolatry that no man of puritanic and Protestant principles could refrain from removing and placing under the safe keeping of his revered chief, who was no more averse to robbing a church than he was to robbing a ship carrying ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... but carefully eschewed personifications and images, which, he thought, sooner or later produced idolatry. ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... heardest my words in the Sanctuary, Ayesha, so let us make a pact. Thy religion I do not understand, but I understand my own, and not even for thy sake will I take part in what I hold to be idolatry." ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... Robinson was again in the park, and after wandering among its rural shades for half a day, he was rewarded by seeing the goddess of his idolatry. Miss Brown was there with a companion, but not with Sarah Jane. He had already, as though by instinct, conceived in his heart as powerful an aversion for one sister as affection for the other, and his delight was therefore unbounded when he saw that she ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... of physical science has more been learnt of the SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM, the priceless art of learning; no branch of science has more utterly confounded a wisdom of the wise, shattered to pieces systems and theories, and the idolatry of arbitrary names, and taught man to be silent while his Maker speaks, than this apparent pedantry of zoophytology, in which our old distinctions of "animal," "vegetable," and "mineral" are trembling in the balance, seemingly ready to vanish ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... that nothing but the direct worship of Jehovah was left. The strongest step he took, however, was that he attempted to put an end altogether to the shrines at which local worship had hitherto been conducted, thus making a clean sweep of the idolatry of the rural districts. All this was done, we are told, in accordance with a law-book which had been found in the temple by certain high officials, and which, after duly consulting a prophetess about ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... "Thou shalt not commit—idolatry," he remarked in a low, cynical tone, which the repressed feeling in his face and the terrible new ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... toleration. This view acknowledges the reality of other gods, but ignores their claims. The still later view was that other gods were non-existent, a position started by the Hebrew prophets in contempt of idolatry, scarcely grasped by early Christianity, ...
— The Religion of Ancient Egypt • W. M. Flinders Petrie
... prevent one of his converts from being drawn in; and when an old man came up and terrorized his pupils by planting a symbolic tree outside the Mission hut, Patteson argued with him at length and persuaded him to withdraw his threatening symbol. But apart from idolatry, from internecine warfare, and from such horrors as cannibalism, prevalent in many islands, he was studious not to attack old traditions. He wanted a good Melanesian standard of conduct, not a feeble imitation of European culture. He was prepared to build upon ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... of the same," was to lose his right hand. All evil prayers (namely, for the Queen's death) were made treason. The Gospellers guessed readily that this shaft was aimed at Mr Rose, who was wont to pray before his sermon, "Lord, turn the heart of Queen Mary from idolatry; or if not so, then ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... form, ending with making the sign of the cross in a very conspicuous manner over the table. The gentry of Dover, who had been admitted as spectators of this banquet, were greatly scandalized at this deed. They regarded the gesture as an act of very wicked and vary dangerous idolatry. ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... never so intimately associated as they are now; and it is a little preposterous to ask a moth fluttering round a candle-flame to see life steadily and see it whole. We happen to have been born into an age without perspective; hence our idolatry for the one living poet and prose writer who has it and comes, or appears to come, from another age. But another rhythm is possible. No doubt it would be mistaken to consider this rhythm as in fact wholly divorced from the rhythm of personality; ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... temples, and that these new separatists may either form themselves into a sect far more formidable than the sect which we are now seeking to conciliate, or may, in the violence of their disgust at a cold and ignoble worship, be tempted to join in the solemn and gorgeous idolatry of Rome? ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... you were virtuous from vanity, not principle, and I seized the fit moment for your seduction. I observed your blind idolatry of the Madonna's picture. I bade a subordinate but crafty spirit assume a similar form, and you eagerly yielded to ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... he made a vow to St. Sebastian or Rochio, and a countless number of such abominations, where every one selected his own saint, worshiped him, and called for help to him in distress. Here belong those also, as, e.g., sorcerers and magicians, whose idolatry is most gross, and who make a covenant with the devil, in order that he may give them plenty of money or help them in love-affairs, preserve their cattle, restore to them lost possessions, etc. For all these place their heart and trust elsewhere than in the true God, look for nothing ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... to show that she was not unmoved. Lydia had shown a keen, girlish pleasure in the prospect of sitting to Delorme, the god, professionally, of her idolatry. Yet the sketch, for that afternoon, came to nothing. For after an hour's sitting Delorme, as usual, became restless and excited, exclaimed at the difficulty of the subject, cursed the light, and finally, in a fit of disgust, wiped out everything he had done. Lydia rose from her seat, ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... for nearly 200 years in this scale of grandeur, during which idolatry, pride, cruelty, and every abomination prevailed among all ranks of the people, when God, by His prophet, pronounced its utter ruin, which was accordingly accomplished, commencing with Cyrus taking the city, after a siege of two years, in the year 588 Before Christ, to emancipate ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... Christian people, infinitely above their brethren in their original seat. The contrast in this regard between the race here and there is simply immeasurable. They have been taken out of the blackness of idolatry, and nurtured for two centuries in the light of an advance Christianity, so that heathenism has passed ...
— The Future of the Colored Race in America • William Aikman
... sooner out of his mouth than I fell at his Grace's feet, quite overwhelmed with gratitude. I embraced his elliptical legs with almost pagan idolatry, and considered myself as a man on the high-road to a very handsome fortune. "Yes, my child," resumed the archbishop, whose speech had been cut short by the rapidity of my prostration, "I mean to make you the receiver-general of all my inmost ruminations. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... the power of enemies, whose glory it was to tread down the glories of the world; who, so far from finding any sacredness in his royalty, had classed him amongst all the wicked kings of the Old Testament, sentenced to be exterminated with the idolatry they fostered, and with whom the very audacity and fearful temerity of the deed, (if this at all affected them,) would add only to its merit. Unfortunate monarch! The tide of sympathy runs now against him, but we confess still to retain our compassion for the fallen prince,—our ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... birthday of the unconquered Sun. Cyprian (de orat. dom. 35) calls Christ Sol verus, Ambrose Sol novus noster (Sermo vii. 13), and such rhetoric was widespread. The Syrians and Armenians, who clung to the 6th of January, accused the Romans of sun-worship and idolatry, contending with great probability that the feast of the 25th of December had been invented by disciples of Cerinthus and its lections by Artemon to commemorate the natural birth of Jesus. Chrysostom also testifies the 25th of December to have been from the beginning ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... rocks which surround it, a withdrawn and recluse passage which the eye cannot look into but with an idea of its coming from some more secret and holy adyt. All these circumstances, in an age of tutored superstition, would give, even to the finest minds, the impressions that lead to idolatry." ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... set up,' she harangued, 'to ruin the old house in the spirit of covetousness, you say' (Puddock had not said a word on the subject;) 'well, covetousness, we have good authority for saying, is idolatry—nothing less—idolatry, Sir,—you need not stare.' (Puddock certainly did stare.) 'I suppose you once read your Bible, Sir, but every sensible man, woman, child, and infant, Sir, in the kingdom, knows it was malice; and malice, Holy Writ says, is murder—but I forgot, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... sigh as a "silly superstition." They represented, with patches of gold and cataracts of purple, with stiff saints and angular angels, with ugly Madonnas and uglier babies, strange prayers and prostrations; so that she at first took his words for a protest against devotional idolatry—all the more that he had of late often come with her and with Mrs. Wix to morning church, a place of worship of Mrs. Wix's own choosing, where there was nothing of that sort; no haloes on heads, but only, during ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... to your daughter, so that she might easily be seduced from the truth. Yet, sir, bethink you is it well to remove the maiden from witnessing that which will be a warning for ever of the judgment that falleth on conspiracy and idolatry?" ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... descendants, until of late, their places of worship were not churches, but meeting-houses merely; and by the stout-hearted men who used to dwell in New England it would have been deemed a heresy near akin to idolatry itself, or at least savoring strongly of the damnable errors of the Romish Church, to hold that wood and stones, carved and fashioned by the hand of man, could be hallowed by an ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... newspapers of a considerable emigration from the Papal dominions, by rejoicing at this outcrowding of many, throughout the harlot's domain, from her sin and her plagues," and he even carried his hatred so far as to denounce the keeping of Christmas, which to him was nothing less than an act of idolatry. ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... thereunto by the Spirit, I have already sought serious converse with yonder priest of Baal, kneeling at this side of that accursed shrine of idolatry. Yet so wedded is he to idols of wood and stone, he merely chattered back at me in unintelligible speech, and when I laid hand upon him to compel him to listen, the brown savage beyond grievously thrust me with a spear. But I retain ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... ignorant, and yet radiant with a strong, childlike light of imagination, which flames up under Constantine, illumines all the shores of the Bosphorus and the Aegean and the Adriatic Sea, and then gradually, as the people give themselves up to idolatry, becomes Corpse-light. The architecture sinks into a settled form—a strange, gilded, and embalmed repose: it, with the religion it expressed; and so would have remained for ever,—so does remain, where its languor has been undisturbed. [Footnote: The reader will find the weak points of Byzantine ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... doubt also as the Lord of earth; they believed Him to be "supreme" or "the Most High;" and they realised his personal relation to each one of his worshippers, who were privileged severally to address Him as Adonai—"my Lord." It may be presumed that at this early stage of the religion there was no idolatry; when One God alone is acknowledged and recognised, the feeling is naturally that expressed in the Egyptian hymn of praise—"He is not graven in marble; He is not beheld; His abode is unknown; there is no building that can contain Him; unknown is his name in ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... love for me was wonderful." We cannot, as some have done, compare it with Shakspeare's sonnets, or with Lycidas. In spite of the amazing genius and tenderness, the never-wearying, all-involving reiteration of passionate attachment, the idolatry of admiring love, the rapturous devotedness, displayed in these sonnets, we cannot but agree with Mr. Hallam in thinking, "that there is a tendency now, especially among young men of poetical tempers, to exaggerate the beauties of these remarkable productions;" and though we ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... easiest to be caught with bait of a little gain. Then work they miracles. They appear to men in divers shapes; disquiet them when they are awake; trouble them in their sleeps; distort their members; take away their health; afflict them with diseases; only to bring them to some idolatry. Thus, when they have obtained their purpose that a lewd affiance is reposed where it should not, they enter (as it were) into a new league, and trouble them no more. What do the simple people then? Verily suppose that the image, the cross, the ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... fastidiousness of my caprice than the delicacy of my taste; but I am so often tired, disgusted and hurt with insipidity, affectation, and pride of mankind, that when I meet with a person "after my own heart," I positively feel what an orthodox Protestant would call a species of idolatry, which acts on my fancy like inspiration; and I can no more desist rhyming on the impulse, than an AEolian harp can refuse its tones to the streaming air. A distich or two would be the consequence, though the ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... with many more on the side of truth. On that of Popery and falsehood there's the Rev. Father M'Stake, the Rev. Father O'Flary, the Rev. Father M'Fire, and the Rev. Nicholas O'Scorch, D.D. Dr. Sombre is to be second on our side; and Father M'Fud on the part of Popery and idolatry." ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... others who saw the matter in the same light. These were the magicians, diviners, fortune-tellers, all the servants of idolatry who had risen up at Julian's bidding and were swarming in Alexandria as everywhere else. The presence of Athanasius in their midst, they complained to the Emperor, was the ruin of their trade. Even their charms would not work as long as ...
— Saint Athanasius - The Father of Orthodoxy • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... Irving to the old Brick Church, and whose early progress he was permitted to witness. The biographer passes lightly over the scenes of boyhood, and there was hardly any need for his expatiating on that idolatry which surrounded the youngest. He was no doubt the first child ever named after the father of his country, and the touching incident of Lizzie's presenting the chubby, bright-eyed boy to Washington, is hit off in a few touches. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... few who so blended the grace and the gentleness of the friend with the dignity, courage, faith and manliness of the soldier. His public enemies, even the men who directed the fatal shot, never spoke or wrote of him without expressions of marked respect. Those whom he commanded loved him even to idolatry, and I, his associate and commander, fail in words adequate to express my ...
— The Battle of Atlanta - and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc. • Grenville M. Dodge
... all, but Roman, of the time of Hadrian. Such was the effect of Payne Knight's opinion that the Marbles went down in the public estimation, the Government hesitated to buy them for the nation, and they were left neglected in a damp shed. Haydon was furious at this insult to the objects of his idolatry, whose merits he had been preaching in season and out of season since the day that he first set eyes upon the Theseus and the Ilissus. At this critical moment he found himself supported by a new and powerful champion in the person of ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... denounced the idolatry of Ahab, and followed this with a command to assemble his people on Mount Carmel, and bring also all the priests and attendants of Baal and Ashtoroth. Ahab did not dare to disobey, and a great, weary, ...
— The Man Who Did Not Die - The Story of Elijah • J. H. Willard
... days of bus'ness and delights, Of sleep thou robb'st my nights. Ah! lovely thief! what wilt thou do? What! rob me of heaven too? Thou ev'n my prayers dost steal from me, And I, with wild idolatry, Begin to GOD, and end them all ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... in the flesh. And for these reasons. The first commandment is, "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me" (Exod. xx. 2). Look at the millions throughout Christendom who worship Jesus Christ as God. If Christ be not God this is idolatry. We are all guilty of breaking the first commandment if Jesus Christ were mere man—if He were a created being, and not what ...
— The Way to God and How to Find It • Dwight Moody
... sometimes it devours him, and you have in England 1649, and in France 1793. That the lion should relapse into the donkey is astonishing; but it is so. This was occurring in England. It had resumed the pack-saddle, idolatry of the crown. Queen Anne, as we have just observed, was popular. What was she doing to be so? Nothing. Nothing!—that is all that is asked of the sovereign of England. He receives for that nothing L1,250,000 a year. In 1705, ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... at all; Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self, Which is the god of my idolatry, And ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... light upon the more human side of the great movement. It is easier perhaps to us who are acquainted with all that followed to understand the fiery zeal which flamed against every accessory of what they conceived to be idolatry—the saintly image, which was nothing but a painted board, and the "round clipped god" upon the altar which was blasphemously asserted to be the very Lord Himself—than to remember that these men had also many links ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... said Bearwarden, "that people are better now than formerly. The sin of idolatry, for ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... entertained the hope that by raising riot in Negros they would draw off troops from Panay, and so favour the movement in that Island. Armed groups rose everywhere against the Americans and the established government. In the south-east the notorious Papa Isio appeared as a Santon, preached idolatry, and drew to his standard a large band of ruffians as skilled as himself in villainous devices. Insurgency, in the true sense of the word, did not exist in Negros; opposition to the American domination was merely a pretext to harass, plunder, ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... turned his inspection to Tennys, his eyes riveted themselves upon her clear white face, the most gorgeously beautiful flower he ever had seen. He could not grasp the full glory of that dazzling flower; he was stupefied, helpless before the blue eyes and dazzling smile. In mute idolatry he at last lifted his puzzled gaze to the sun and then, extending his great arms upward, uttered a few low, guttural appeals to the King of ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... ministry among them, seem to have been scrupulously observant of the institutions and usages of the "Old Dispensation." They stood far aloof from whatever was characteristic of Samaritans and Gentiles. From idolatry and slaveholding—those twin-vices which had always so greatly prevailed among the heathen—they seem at length, as the result of a most painful discipline, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... turn; but it will be at a remote period. I know there are some among us, who would now establish a monarchy. But they are inconsiderable in number and weight of character. The rising race are all republicans. We were educated in royalism; no wonder, if some of us retain that idolatry still. Our young people are educated in republicanism; an apostacy from that to royalism is unprecedented and impossible. I am much pleased with the prospect that a declaration of rights will be added; and I hope it ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... to preach the gospel to those at Rome also, felt his spirit saddened and stirred within him, as he saw that city wholly given to idolatry—not pagan but papal idolatry—the Rome not of the Caesars, but of the popes. While at Naples he ascended Vesuvius. Those masses of lava, which seemed greater in bulk than the mountain itself, more impressed him with ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... with moon-worship, is designed to show that anthropomorphism and sexuality have been the principal factors in that idolatry which in all ages has paid homage to the hosts of heaven, as heaved above the aspiring worshipper. Man adores what he regards as higher than he. And if the moon is supposed to affect his tides, that ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... idolatry The heart has turned, and wiser grown, In earnestness and purity Would make a nobler plan its own,— Yet, after all its zeal and care, Must of its chosen aim despair,— Some bitter tears may be forgiven By Man, at least,—we trust, ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... past month, had demurred at his plans. He would have none near him but Kate, and she had hovered about him, ministering to his wants as a mother over a sick child. ... Kate! It all came back with a rush. Kate! Oh, what was she, Patty, to believe? That night she had loved Kate almost to idolatry. She shuddered, turned away from the ruins, and set off at a gallop till she came upon brick pavement. She rarely trotted upon pavement, but this morning she had no thought for the horse; she burned to be at work. She trotted rapidly into ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... to find the Devil behind the Cross, is to cower beneath it in weak idolatry, instead of grasping it in courageous faith,' said Mr. Ferrars. 'Such faith would have made you trust yourself implicitly to your father. Then you would either have gone forth in humble acceptance of the punishment, or else have stayed at home, free, pardoned, and guarded; but, as ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Jews forbade creative imitation? Is it to be found in the letter or the spirit of the second commandment, which interdicts the making of graven images of any pattern in earth or heaven? We should hardly think so, since the object of this prohibition is rather to prevent idolatry than to discourage the gratification of taste. "Thou shalt not bow down to them nor serve them." The Jews did have emblematic observances, costume, and works of art. Yet, on the other hand, the Jews possessed something resembling the drama, and that out of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... he was condemned to rule a generation which hated him, to do the will of God and to perish in his success. He pursued an object, the excellence of which, as his mind saw it, transcended all other considerations, the freedom of England and the destruction of idolatry, and those who, from any motive, noble or base, pious or impious, crossed his path, he crushed and passed on over ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... clothed in flashing points of light. Beautiful women were gathered round him,—boys with musical instruments crouched at his feet—attendants stood on every hand to minister to his slightest call or signal,—and all eyes were fixed upon him as upon some worshipped god of a nation's idolatry. I felt and knew that I was looking upon the 'shadow-presentment' of the Roman tyrant Nero; and I wondered vaguely how it chanced that he, in all the splendour of his wild and terrible career of wickedness, ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... lady's niece, coming home for the holidays regularly, but leaving my education in her hands. At first my mother would not hear of it, for she and I scarcely ever left each other; my love for her was an idolatry, hers for me a devotion. (A foolish little story, about which I was unmercifully teased for years, marked that absolute idolatry of her, which has not yet faded from my heart. In tenderest rallying one day of the child who trotted after her everywhere, content to sit, or stand, ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... Of Him whose life was Love! Holy with power He on the thought-benighted Sceptic beamed 30 Manifest Godhead, melting into day What floating mists of dark idolatry Broke and misshaped the omnipresent Sire:[110:1] And first by Fear uncharmed the drowsd Soul. Till of its nobler nature it 'gan feel 35 Dim recollections; and thence soared to Hope, Strong to believe whate'er of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Assembly can be packed with republicans at the annual election, to take place the next Sunday. This will enable Lockwin to carry the district in case he should get the nomination. To show a deep interest in the party and none in himself must arouse popular idolatry. ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern
... suppose the Gipsies to have been heathens before they came into this country, their separation from pagan degradation and cruelty, has been attended with many advantages to themselves. They have seen neither the superstitions of idolatry, nor the unnatural cruelties of heathenism. They are not destitute of those sympathies and attachments which would adorn the most polished circles. In demonstration of this, we have only to make ourselves acquainted with the fervour ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb
... of a prince, found, as I had found it, and to which some people may say I had no right, and I often thought so myself. But on the other hand I felt that I could do more good with it than it would do left there in the bed of that stream—so many relics of a superstition—of a pagan idolatry carried on three hundred years ago. The traditions of its being hidden there had of course been handed down, but it had never been seen since it was buried at the time of the conquest, and all who had a right to it ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... this Covenant, those subscribing bound themselves to "maintain and further the blessed Word of God and His congregation and to renounce the congregation of Satan with all the superstitions, abominations and idolatry thereof." To the general declaration were appended two particular resolutions, in which was expressed a determination to further the preaching of the Word, in the meantime, in private houses, and to insist on the use ...
— Presbyterian Worship - Its Spirit, Method and History • Robert Johnston
... himself. This is the young lady who turns her bright, keen, beautiful face upon Farnham, with eyes eager to criticise, a tongue quick to flatter and to condemn, a head stuffed full of poetry and artificial passion, and a heart saved from all danger by its idolatry of her ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... word more I must leave with you. There is yet another danger. The reverence, the almost idolatry of the American people for their martyred President, is being used and abused by the political managers at Washington, and over all the country. The people are lulled to sleep over the most startling propositions, by insidious whisperings that President ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... the walls of the great building," says he proudly, "astonish the world." If Chicago can only astonish the world, that is enough. Its citizens fondly hope that everything they do is on the largest scale. Size, speed, and prominence are the three gods of their idolatry. They are not content until they—the citizens—are all prominent, and their buildings are all the largest that cumber the earth. It is a great comfort to those who gamble away their substance in the Board of Trade to ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... light—so to speak—of that laugh. Great loves mature and deepen under the action of sorrow and the necessity to forgive; yet it is a shrewdly bitter moment, when the heart of either man or woman first admits that the god of its idolatry has, after all, feet of but very common clay. Her head erect, her eyes moist, Mary turned to Julius March and asked him of the welfare of a certain labourer's family that had lately migrated from Newlands to Sandyfield. But Ormiston's voice broke ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... very superstitious country where such zeal passes for true devotion. I doubt it will be damned by all our Protestant husbands for flat idolatry. But, if you can make Alderman Fondlewife of your persuasion, this letter ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... change, of life or death. And so doubt has no power to blight Its bloom, or quench its deathless light,— A deathless light, a peerless bloom, That beams and glows beyond the tomb! Go tell the trusting devotee, His worship is idolatry; Say to the searcher after gold, The prize he seeks is dull and cold; Assure the toiler after fame, That, won, 'tis but a worthless name, A mocking shade, a phantasy,— And they, perchance, may list to thee; But say not to ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... nor reverence their thresholds, it is a sign that they have dishonoured both, and that they have never acknowledged the true universality of that Christian worship which was indeed to supersede the idolatry, but not the piety, of the pagan. Our God is a household God, as well as a heavenly one; He has an altar in every man's dwelling; let men look to it when they rend it lightly and pour out its ashes. It is not a question of mere ocular delight, it is no question ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... the moral condition of the world just before the coming of Our Lord? A. Just before the coming of Our Lord the moral condition of the world was very bad. Idolatry, injustice, cruelty, immorality and horrid ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 3 (of 4) • Anonymous
... am unable to utter the words of Ruth,' said Cecilia, in a low voice. She felt rather tremulously; opposed only to the letter and the writer of it, not at all to Beauchamp, except on account of his idolatry of the wicked revolutionist. Far from having a sense of opposition to Beauchamp; she pitied him for his infatuation, and in her lofty mental serenity she warmed to him for the seeming boyishness of his constant and extravagant worship ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Drina was always delightful—a mixture of self-repressed idolatry and busily naive belief in a thorough understanding between them to ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... Mrs. Val, for the first time in her life, was able to set up her carriage. Among the effects arising from this cause, the female Neverbends, who had lately been worshippers of Gertrude, veered round in their idolatry, and paid their vows before Mrs. Val's new yellow panels. In this new carriage now came the four ladies to pay a morning visit to Mrs. Tudor. It was wonderful to see into how small dimensions the Misses Neverbend had contrived to pack, not ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... from Kealakekua Bay is a spot of historic interest—the place where the last battle was fought for idolatry. Of course we visited it, and came away as wise as most people do who go and gaze upon such mementoes of the past when in an ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... have often a tenacious belief in the efficacy of some of those childish superstitions and charms which were largely their main stay in their ancestral religion. In most cases these are not a matter of faith so much as of inheritance which have become more than a second nature to them. Idolatry may be abandoned, belief in Hinduism as a saving faith may be thrown to the winds, Hindu ritual may lose its charm; but the many little superstitions which are connected with private life and social customs have still a quiet influence and a lingering ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... brilliance and wit, and, moreover, that she understood Julius as one native of a strange realm understands another. When they entered the Park, they were the observed of all. And, indeed, Leonora Lefevre was a vision to excite the worship of those least inclined to idolatry of Nature. She was of the noblest type of English beauty, and she seemed as calmly unconscious of its excellence and rarity as one of the grand Greek women of the Parthenon. She had, however, a sensuous fulness and bloom, a queenly carriage of head ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... Blessings of his Gospel. Who can doubt but that the Suggestion so forcibly press'd upon the Mind of Albert (when a Boy) that there was a Being superior to the Sun, Moon, and Stars (the Objects of African Idolatry) came from the Father of Lights, and was, with Respect to him, the First-Fruit of the Display of Gospel-Glory? His long and perilous Journey to the Coast of Guinea, where he was sold for a Slave, and so brought into a Christian Land; shall we consider this as the alone ...
— A Narrative Of The Most Remarkable Particulars In The Life Of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, An African Prince, As Related By Himself • James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw
... Alett. She was the only daughter of a distinguished general, whose name was the terror of all the foes, and the confidence of all the friends, of Italy-his eldest daughter; and with love approaching idolatry he cherished her. She was his confidant. In the privacy of her faithful heart he treasured all his plans and purposes. Of late, the peaceful security in which the nation dwelt gave him the opportunity of remaining at home, where, in the companionship of a wife he ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... explanations of the customs of Romanists and Protestants. It is amusing or lamentable to think, as we may sneer at or regret the matter, that these rude children of The Desert should have ground for charging upon the high-bred and transcendantally-polished nations of Europe, idolatry. But, if any one, determined to be an impartial judge, were to visit the Madelaine of Paris, and then pass rapidly over to Algeria, (a journey of a few days), and there enter the simple mosque, and compare ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... Whittlestaff, assumed something of the manner rather than of the airs of a mistress to Mrs Baggett. This the old woman did not at all resent, because the reality of power was still in her hands; but she could not endure that the idolatry of love should always be present in her master's face. If the young woman would only become Mrs Whittlestaff, then the idolatry would pass away. At any rate, her master would not continue "to make an ass of himself," as Mrs Baggett ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... of humanity, they were largely negatived, and even reversed in value, just because the sense of proportion had been lost. The image which might have stimulated reverence had become a fetish. There were voices crying in the wilderness against a worship that had poisoned into idolatry, but they were unheard. Progressively the real things of life were blurred and forgotten and the things that were so obviously real that they were unreal became the object and ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... freedom. I appeal to your own conscience, Julian Peveril, whether this awakening hath not been in time, since you yourself know, and none better than you, the secret but rapid strides which Rome has made to erect her Dagon of idolatry within ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... conception of the difficulties that missionaries have to contend with, and the dangers to which they are exposed on the one hand, and, on the other, the rapidity with which success is sometimes vouchsafed to them. In some instances, they have passed years in the midst of idolatry and bloody rites, the mere recital of which causes one to shudder, while their lives have hung on the caprice of a volatile chief; at other times God has so signally blessed their efforts that a whole tribe has adopted Christianity in the course of a few weeks. Misunderstand ...
— Sunk at Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... that far from me may be Lying and idolatry; Poverty immoderate Give me not, nor riches great; Too great wealth or poverty Is not good, for either may 'Neath the devil's pow'r ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... 350). | According to this emphatic strand of | Baconian doctrine, religion that | joins with the study of nature is in | danger of becoming atheistic, or an | enthusiastic rival of the true | church. Natural philosophy that | traffics unwisely with divinity | collapses into idolatry or fakery. | | Bacon's exemplum of these abuses in a | modern proto-science is the divine | philosophy of the Paracelsian school, | which seeks "the truth of all natural | philosophy in the Scriptures." The | Paracelsians ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... notion going about, among those half-educated people who frequent Ethical Platforms, that Literary Criticism must be "constructive." O that word "constructive"! How, in the name of the mystery of genius, can criticism be anything else than an idolatry, a worship, a metamorphosis, a love affair! The pathetic mistake these people make is to fancy that the great artists only lived and wrote in order to buttress up such poor wretches as these are upon the particular little, thin, cardboard ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... have been written by Solomon, after he repented of the idolatry and sin into which he fell, towards the close of his life, and with the design to point out the vanity of worldly pursuits, in order to induce men to prepare for that state, where there will be no vanity nor ...
— A Week of Instruction and Amusement, • Mrs. Harley
... cried out to the Lord. Then He would raise up a mighty warrior, and give him the victory, so that he became ruler and judge over Israel; but no sooner was he dead, than they would fall back again into idolatry, and receive another chastisement, repent, and be again delivered. This went on for about 400 years, the Israelites growing constantly worse. In the latter part of this time, their chief enemies were the Philistines, ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... always been a natural terror in the religious mind of laying too much stress on this, or of seeming to encourage too much an aesthetic emotion. If the first business of religion is to purify life, there will always be a suspicion of idolatry about ritual, a fear of substituting a vague desire for beauty for a ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... serious, reflective, and prayerful. Her mind, so far as religion was concerned, was very much in the state of that of any intellectual, high-minded, uncorruptible Roman, who renounced, without opposing, the idolatry of the benighted multitude; who groped painfully for some revelation of God and of truth; who at times believed fully in a superintending providence, and again had fears whether there were any God or any immortality. In the ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... and impersonal was McElroy now,—only she loved him with that vast idolatry which seeks naught but the good of ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... filled with tears, "if you did but know what a heart is, I would explain, and convince you; a loving heart is stronger than all your coquetry, more powerful than all your pride. A woman is never truly loved, I believe; a man never loves with idolatry, unless he feels sure he is loved in return. Let old men, whom we read of in comedies, fancy themselves adored by coquettes. A young man is conscious of, and knows them; if he has a fancy, or a strong desire, and an absorbing passion, ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... drew my thoughts to the subject of idolatry, which was severely censured at the missionary meeting. I cross- examined my Father very closely as to the nature of this sin, and pinned him down to the categorical statement that idolatry consisted in praying to anyone or anything but God himself. Wood ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... them words of simple, clear, vigorous, and assured life. They prefer a sturdy lie to an anemic truth. Skepticism is only to their liking when it is the covering of lusty naturalism or Christian idolatry. The scornful Pyrrhonism in which the Esope clothed itself could only be acceptable to a few minds—"aeme sdegnose,"—who knew the solid worth beneath it. It was force absolutely lost ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... The only thing that puzzles me is that you, Jack De Baron, should be led away to such idolatry. Why should she be different from others? Her father is a money-loving, selfish old reprobate, who was born in a stable. She married the first man that was brought to her, and has never cared for him because ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... have been called Geddes, as likening them to the fish called a Jack, Pike, or Luce, and in our country tongue, a GED—a goodly distinction truly for Christian men! Yet did they paint this shark of the fresh waters upon their shields, and these profane priests of a wicked idolatry, the empty boasters called heralds, who make engraven images of fishes, fowls, and four-footed beasts, that men may fall down and worship them, assigned the ged for the device and escutcheon of my fathers, and hewed it over ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... wants to contribute nowadays to the maintenance of the ministry, and the erection of schools. When it comes to establishing false worship and idolatry, no cost is spared. True religion is ever in need of money, while false religions ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... ice or anything, not that I wanted to in that tone. Arvilly thought mebby she could canvass the royal family or some on 'em, and Tommy wuz willin' to go to any new place, and I spoze Carabi wuz too. And I said I wanted to stand on Mars' Hill, where Paul preached to the people about idolatry and their worship of the Unknown God. As we sailed along the shores Dorothy spoke of Sapho. Poor creeter! I wuz always sorry for her. You know she wuz disappointed, and bein' love-sick and discouraged she writ some poetry and drownded ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... insisted upon the force of it against those heathens who denied that they took their images for gods; and, therefore, this is a very insufficient account of leaving out the second commandment (that the people are in no danger of superstition or idolatry by it.)."—Stillingfleet's Doctrines of the Church of Rome, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 82, May 24, 1851 • Various
... in which he was about to take part. The one great outstanding fact in relation to it was that it was a pagan rite; and he felt that, regarded from an abstract point of view, it was distinctly wrong for him, a professed Christian, to countenance or abet idolatry in any form. Yet he had not been all those months in Peru without having acquired a certain elementary knowledge of the early history of the country, much of which, by the way, had been gained through his conversations with Arima long before ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... curls," and here the lady's small white hand played like lightning through Vivian's dark hair; "and truly, when I do remember the beauty of your all-perfect form, I cannot deem your self-worship a false idolatry," and here the lady's arms were locked round Vivian's neck, and her ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... individually and by combined exertions labour to spread its heavenly influence throughout the whole mass of their fellow-creatures, not only in every corner of their own land, but to the utmost coasts of the civilized world, and through the still numberless regions of barbarism and idolatry. "Freely ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... "occasional conformists" and attend Mass without being false to their convictions. But in this brief lull Knox came over to Scotland at the end of harvest, in 1555. On this point of occasional conformity he was fixed. The Mass was idolatry, and idolatry, by the law of God, was a capital offence. Idolaters must be converted or exterminated; they were no better ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... everything is drawn naturally from what we may presume would be the condition of Daniel's time. Both behind and through the details of the stories we can see the heart of one who praised God, loved justice, and hated idolatry; who took delight in what was noble, pure, and truthful, and waged a successful warfare with whatever he encountered ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney
... of demons! Lewd couch of the Gentiles, tainted pulpit of Arian heresy, be thou accursed! And thou, winged son of heaven who led the holy hermit Anthony, our father, when he came from the depths of the desert, and entered into the citadel of idolatry to strengthen the faith of believers and the confidence of martyrs, beautiful angel of the Lord, invisible child, first breath of God, fly thou before me, and cleanse, by the beating of thy wings, the corrupted ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... say I've read all Balzac. That's a colossal order," said Paul, rather excited-for, in his limited acquaintance with cultivated folk, Colonel Winwood was the only human being who could claim acquaintance with one of the literary gods of his idolatry—"but I know him pretty well. I can't stand his 'Theatre'—that's footle—but the big things—'Le Pere Goriot,' 'La Cousine Bette,' 'Cesar Birotteau'—what a great ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke |
