"Tempter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... intermeddler without proper warrant in Government affairs, an unscrupulous dealer in threats and promises amongst public men, a constant menace to sworn servants of the people in their offices of trust, a tempter of the corrupt and a terror to the timid who are delegated to power a remorseless enemy to wholesome legislation, a constant friend to conspirators against the common welfare for private gain—if such a compound of ...
— How Members of Congress Are Bribed • Joseph Moore
... was so agitated by this influence, that for the moment she seemed to herself to know no man in the world but Coronado. Even while she tried to remember Thurstane, he vanished as if expelled by some enchantment, and left her alone in life with her tempter. Still she could not or would not answer; though she trembled, she ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... "Grim Want" brought me to the last shilling, the last lodging, and the last meal. What shall I do? Where shall I go? I tried to think. Must I starve? Surely there must be some door still open for honest willing endeavour, but where? What can I do? "Drink," said the Tempter; but to drink to drunkenness needs cash, and oblivion by liquor demands an equivalent in ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... Pride that made Angels fall, and pride that hurl'd Entayl'd Destruction through a ruin'd World. Adam from Pride to Disobedience ran: To be like Gods, made a lost wretched Man. There, there, my Sons, let our pour'd strength all fly: For some bold Tempter now to rap him high, From Pinnacles to Mountain Top, and show The gaudy Glories of ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... without us; and in like manner is every evil mind in communion with the evil spirit. But, O comfort! the good alone is the actual, the evil essentially potential. Hence the devil is most appropriately named the 'tempter,' and the evil hath its essence in the will: it cannot pass out of it. Deeds are called evil in reference to the individual will expressed in them; but in the great scheme of Providence they are, only as far as they are good, coerced under the conditions of all true being; ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... 'Tempter, never!' cried Glaucus, in the reaction of rage. 'Thou knowest me not: thou knowest not the haughty soul of an Athenian! The sudden face of death might appal me for a moment, but the fear is over. ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... unclouded years, and, more than all, He had an interest in the world above. The big "Old Bible" lay upon the stand, And he was wont to read its sacred page And then to pray: "Our Father, bless the poor And save the tempted from the tempter's art, Save us from sin, and let us ever be United in Thy love, and may we meet, When life's last scenes are o'er, around the throne." Thus prayed he—thus lived he—years passed, And o'er the sunshine of that happy home, A cloud came from the pit; the fatal ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... did he waver. The tempter, whispering in his ear, told him that he could conceal his knowledge, advise Sloan to sell, take his chance with Joan, and let the sleeping dog lie, forever undiscovered. It told him that Sloan was admittedly rich beyond his needs, and that ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... I to Canaan flee, To dwell, my blessed Lord, with Thee In thine eternal rest:[4] Beyond the tempter's roar and dart, And every foe to cause me smart, Thy constant, ...
— Favourite Welsh Hymns - Translated into English • Joseph Morris
... hungry the tempter said, "If thou be the Son of God command this stone that it be ...
— Child's Story of the Bible • Mary A. Lathbury
... through the ages, that forbids the use of spiritual powers for the creation of wealth or even of daily bread. Jesus was subject to the same spiritual law, and was tempted exactly in the same way as we. The tempter said: "Command this stone that it be made bread." If Christ had turned the stone into bread, He would have failed in His great mission, but He knew the law. There are thousands of people to-day who are trying, not only ...
— Within You is the Power • Henry Thomas Hamblin
... character of Burns. Both gifts are alike from heaven, and both alike tend heavenward. Therefore we lament to see genius soiled by earthly stain; therefore we lament to see virtue, where no genius is, fall before the tempter. But we, in our own clear natural perceptions, refuse the counsels of those who with the very breath of their warning would blight the wreath bound round the heads of the Muses' sons by a people's gratitude—who, in affected zeal for religion and morality, have so deeply ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... Mainyus, literally the being of an evil mind, the ill-conditioned being. He was labouring perpetually to spoil the good work of Ormuzd alike in nature and in man. He was the cause of the fall of man, the tempter, the author of misery and death; he was eternal and uncreate as Ormuzd was. But that, perhaps, was a corruption of the purer and older Zoroastrian creed. With it, if Ahriman were eternal in the past, he would not be eternal in the future. Somehow, somewhen, somewhere, in the day when three prophets—the ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... tree, and the hydraulic rights going with the same, he offered all the bounties dearest to the priestly heart—unlimited milk and honey, livers of fat geese and pies lined with rabbit. The priest, though hungry—hungry with the demoniac hunger of a fat and paunchy man—turned his back on the tempter. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... drooped low on her bosom, and all the view waned before her eyes with the waning moon. She saw no sea, no sky. Death, the Tempter, was busy at her heart. Death, the Tempter, pointed homeward, to the grave of her dead parents in ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... be beat for something more,' says Elzevir the tempter. 'Give me that firelock that thou ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... I will keep my promise at all costs," sighed Treherne, and with a gesture full of pathetic patience he waved the fair tempter from him, saying steadily, "I will never tell you, though you rob me of that which is dearer than my life. Go and work your will, but remember that when you might have won the deepest gratitude of the man you profess to love, you chose ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard
... achievement of infernal skill, to inflate a poor worm with pride of talent, and fill his heart with hatred to the Gospel, and then persuade him that his hatred arises from its falsehood and absurdity. No event can afford the tempter greater joy, than success in persuading perishing sinners to reject the only possible way of escape from eternal death, and to contemn, as foolishness, that doctrine which is the wisdom of God and the power of God to salvation to ...
— The National Preacher, Vol. 2 No. 7 Dec. 1827 • Aaron W. Leland and Elihu W. Baldwin
... spring came, and the birds twittered, and the stream ran proud and full, little sister Lizzie, bold and thoughtless, flushed with the passion of youth, bestowed herself on the tempter, and brought home a nameless child. Josie shivered and worked on, with the vision of schooldays all fled, with a face wan and tired,—worked until, on a summer's day, some one married another; then Josie crept to her mother like a hurt ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... repentant Chichikov. "Gladly will I do as you wish, since for many a day past have I been longing to amend my life, and to engage in husbandry, and to reorder my affairs. A demon, the tempter Satan himself, has beguiled me and led me from ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... "The serpent-tempter himself could not have invented anything worse . . . . Why, to put such a phantasmagoria on the table would be defiling the ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... and the ribs of a skeleton, from the head and the outstretched arms of which spring the branches and the foliage. It is worthy of remark, that many painters, the greatest of them (Raphael) at their head, have represented the tempter of Eden as a beautiful woman, whose body terminates in a serpent. It was a mistake on their part to do so. They knew how much of the Devil a woman might have in her, and how irresistible a temptress she ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after he had fasted forty days and forty nights he was hungry. Then the tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread." But Jesus answered, ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... not necessary to suppose great horror and indignation on the part of Lady Byron. She may have regarded her sister as the victim of a most singularly powerful tempter. Lord Byron, as she knew, had tried to corrupt her own morals and faith. He had obtained a power over some women, even in the highest circles in England, which had led them to forego the usual decorums of their sex, and had given rise to great scandals. He was a being of wonderful ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... was feeding his lamp, which had begun to grow dim as he parleyed with the tempter, and that he ceased not till it streamed out as bright ...
— The Rocky Island - and Other Similitudes • Samuel Wilberforce
... of America, wherein this remarkable custom is represented in an unfavorable light, and as prevailing among the lower class of people. The truth is, the custom prevails among all classes, to the great honor of the country, its religion, and ladies. The virtuous may be tempted; but the tempter is despised. Why it should be thought incredible for a young man and young woman innocently and virtuously to lie down together in a bed with a great part of their clothes on, I cannot conceive. Human passions may be alike in every region; but religion, diversified as ...
— Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America • Henry Reed Stiles
... be in your power; you will then obtain honor, glory, and wealth."—Proclamation of April 26, 1796:—"Friends, I guarantee that conquest to you!"—Cf. in Marmont's memoirs the way in which Bonaparte plays the part of tempter in offering Marmont, who refuses, an opportunity to ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... seen him come near its finest points in anything else. He said two things in a way that would put him far apart from all other actors. One to his wife, when he has exultingly shown her the money, and she has asked him how he got it—'I found it;' and the other to his old companion and tempter, when he charged him with having killed that traveler, and he suddenly went headlong mad and took him by the throat and howled out, 'It wasn't I who murdered him—it was misery!' And such a dress! such a face! and, above all, such an extraordinarily guilty, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... emaciated with fasts and vigils, but handsome like the monk playing the virginal in Giorgione's "Concert," and under his brown serge still the most stalwart fellow of the country all round? One has heard of men struggling with the tempter. Well, well, Father Domenico had struggled as hard as any of the Anchorites recorded by St. Jerome, and he had conquered. I never knew anything comparable to the angelic serenity of gentleness of this victorious ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... mechanically down to caress it, it crept upon my knees and licked my face, as if it meant to tell me that there was one who understood; that I was not alone. And the love of the faithful little beast thawed the icicles in my heart. I picked it up in my arms and fled from the tempter; fled to where there were lights and men moving, if they cared less for me than I for them—anywhere so that I saw and heard the river no ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... thee; even from thy virtue!— What's this, what's this? Is this her fault or mine? The tempter or the tempted, who sins most? Ha! Not she; nor doth she tempt; but it is I That, lying by the violet, in the sun Do, as the carrion does, not as the flower, Corrupt with virtuous season. Can it be That modesty ...
— Measure for Measure • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... my son; nor can I doubt what that voice is, nor whence it comes. I will pray for you, that you may have strength to struggle with the tempter." ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... coffin sat, and did admire her winding sheet," before she related her experiences "among lonesome wild deserts and briary woods, which dismal were and dark." But immediately after her description of the lake of burning misery and of the fierce grim Tempter, the Puritan matter-of-fact acceptance of it all is ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... Great Britain; I recognize even here no one worthy of bearing the name of gentleman: for it is in the name of King Charles II. that an emissary, whom I took for an honest man, came and laid an infamous snare for me. I have fallen into that snare; so much the worse for me. Now, you the tempter," said he to the king, "you the executor," said he to D'Artagnan; "remember what I am about to say to you; you have my body, you may kill it, and I advise you to do so, for you shall never have my mind or my will. And now, ask me ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... part of his being. How hard it is to give it up! His technique has become almost universally successful. If he has made L50,000 by it, why not go on and make half a million; if he has made a million, why not go on and make three? All that you have to do, says the subtle tempter, is to reproduce the process of success indefinitely. The riches and the powers of the world are to be had in increasing abundance by the mere exercise of qualities which, though they have been painfully acquired, have now become the very habit of pleasure. How ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook
... half my fortune. But circumstances were altered. I was no longer in the panic of despair. The lesson I had received from Tom Brice was fresh in my mind, and my profound distrust of her was uppermost. I saw before me only a tempter and betrayer, and said— ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... that persuasion is his instrument, not violence; is that no reason rather for a deeper loathing? since he who uses violence (42) at any rate declares himself in his true colours as a villain, while the tempter corrupts the soul of him ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... invade and destroy my planting; may not violate and ruin the weak consciences." As seen in his epistle to the Corinthians, directed against the false apostles, and in that to the Thessalonians, such is his vigilant anxiety to guard them from the tempter that he sends them a special messenger, and he exultingly declares it is life to him ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... the man's heart. This was his child! In doing for her lay the only expiation possible for him in the world. What were the claims of that man over on the dunes compared to his, should he powerfully press them? What if Captain Billy had given his life to the doing of a duty belonging to another? The Tempter now took on a virtuous, unselfish guise. Think what the girl's life might be! Could any true love, even such stupid love as Billy might bear her, stand in the way? No; Billy would be the first to relinquish ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... exorcising devils from men and driving them into swine. There are numerous passages of the Bible which speak of the Devil, the Devil and his angels, spirit of an unclean devil, dumb spirit, foul spirit, unclean spirit, evil spirit, witch, witchcraft, wizards, necromancers, satan, the tempter, prince of the power of the air, prince of ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... see-saw, between that and this, Now high, now low, now make up, now miss, And he himself one vile antithesis. Amphibious thing! that acting either part, The trifling head, or the corrupted heart; Fop at the hostel, flatterer at the board, Now trips a lady, and now struts a Lord. Eve's tempter thus the Rabbins have expressed, A cherub's face—a reptile all the rest. Beauty that shocks you, parts that none can trust, Wit that can creep, and pride that ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... all others, as an eagle disperses a flock of timid birds in order to remain sole master of its prey. If one tries to repeat the accustomed prayer, and invoke the aid of the Virgin, or the good angel who watches at the foot of young girls' beds, in order to keep away the charms of the tempter, the prayer is only on the lips, the Virgin is deaf, the angel sleeps! The breath of passion against which one struggles runs through every fibre of the heart, like a storm over the chords of an Tolian harp, and extorts from it those magic ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... copy a manuscript. This gives Maturin the opportunity, for which he has been waiting, to introduce his "Tale of the Indian." The story of Immalee, who is visited on her desert island by the Wanderer in the guise of a lover as well as a tempter, forms the most memorable part of Melmoth. In the other stories the stranger has been a taciturn creature, relying on the lustre of his eyes rather than on his powers of eloquence to win over his victims. To Immalee he pours forth floods of rhetoric on the sins and follies ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... The tempter was gone; Florence was left alone, her head reeling with pain, her heart aching within her bosom. Jameson's last words had fallen upon her heart like fire; what if this refusal to share his fate had confirmed him in evil? What if she, by partaking of his fortunes, might have won him to an ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... my mind was much agitated: doubts and fears and forebodings seized me. I was alone, seeking a resting-place and finding none. It seemed as if God had forsaken me in this dark hour; and the Tempter whispered, that after all I might be only the victim of a delusion. My prayers for faith and strength seemed all ...
— The Record of a Quaker Conscience, Cyrus Pringle's Diary - With an Introduction by Rufus M. Jones • Cyrus Pringle
... echoed the wily tempter; "I will prove myself the true friend of the Atheling, if he will only give consent to the deed by which I will make him this very day the lord ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... a low ebb, truly, if he counts on Injin friendship because he has sold fire-water to the young men!" answered le Bourdon, with a nice understanding of not only Indian nature, but of human nature. "We may like the sin, Margery, while we detest the tempter. I have never yet met with the man, pale-face or red-skin, who did not curse, in his sober moments, the hand that fed his appetite ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... rest. As we stood at the cottage door, the pious discourse of the farmer tortured me past endurance. I was several times on the point of rushing into the cottage, and guarding my lady from the fiend; but my evil genius prevailed. When we entered and got the unsuspecting couple to their bed, my tempter smiled, and whispered 'All is safe.' I shuddered, and inquired ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... there would come to her such a feeling of overwhelming conviction she was for the moment submerged in ecstasy, and with the hot blush still upon her face she would flee from him as if he were an evil tempter. He brought her near to that great unknown, upon whose threshold she stood trembling and expectant, eager to know what was before her. And so, not understanding her own mind, and being of such tender years, drifted along with the tide that ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... of prayer, the words which I had mechanically uttered, brought on one of those sudden and unaccountable revulsions of feeling which sometimes succeed the fiercest assaults of the tempter, as if our guardian angel had wrestled with the spirit of evil, and driven him away for the time. I remembered her to whom much was forgiven because she had loved much; and as I thought of that Saviour—that man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... when Francis was at prayer in his cell, the tempter suggested to him to diminish his penances: feeling the malice of the demon, he goes into the woods, and rolls himself amongst briers and thorns until he is covered with blood. A great light shines around him, he sees a quantity of ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... 'If this tempter of the Devil's brood were brought down there should ensue so great an atonement from his sorrowful ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... death. Our Lord Himself places the whole argument of His teaching on marriage and the permissibility of divorce on Genesis ii. 24 (cf. St. Matt. xix. and St. Mark x.). In St. John viii. 44 our Lord clearly alludes to the Edenic narrative when He speaks of the tempter as a "manslayer ([Greek: anthropoktonos]) from the beginning." Still more remarkable is the argument of St. Paul in Romans v.; altogether based as it is on the historical verity of the account of the Fall; and other allusions are to be found in 1 Cor. xi. 8, ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... cried, "stand, parson, you Father Peter, tempter! You shall be beaten down with a stick." And he rushed blindly toward him with his crutch raised. Magdalene threw herself ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai
... perception (which is not caused by the object, but only occasioned by it), and the knowledge of God. The literalist knows not God, but he alone who bears God in himself. Man is favored above other beings with the freedom to dwell in himself or in God. When man came out from God, he was his own tempter and made himself proud and selfish. Thus evil, which had before remained hidden, was revealed, and became sin. As the separation from God is an eternal act, so also redemption and resurrection form an inner event. Christ is born in everyone who gives up the I-ness (Ichheit); ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... second-hand promises; and who venture, without being publicly acknowledged by their employers, to undertake any diplomatic mission. Nor would Cunningham, whose natural disposition to distrust was greater than his father's, have sold himself to any political tempter, without first signing and sealing the compact, had he been in possession of his cool judgment, and had he been in any other than the desperate circumstances in which he was placed. His secret conscience whispered that his recall was in consequence of ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... turned to her with that expression which connotes the greatest joy gods or mortals can know—the joy of beholding one's own work and finding it good. He had, as she saw, returned to the cartoon of Clayton he had laid aside when the tempter came; and now it was finished. Its simple lines revealed Clayton's character, as the sufficient answer to all the charges the Telegraph might make against him. Edith leaned against the door and looked long ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... palace, of such exceeding beauty and grace that none saw her but to love her, yet of such sweetness and humility as passed all comparison; and how, when a heathen prince would have espoused her to his son, she said, "Away from me, tempter! for I am betrothed to a lover who is greater and fairer than any earthly suitor,—he is so fair that the sun and moon are ravished by his beauty, so mighty that the angels of heaven are his servants"; how she bore meekly with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... to sin, but as a talisman had her letters been. He thought on the years that were passed, on their last interview, when every word had graven itself upon his heart, on the devotedness of his orphan sister, the misery he had once occasioned; he thought on these things, and stood firm,—the tempter fled. He stood before them erect in youthful beauty, no inward stain bade him turn from those fond looks or shrink from the entwining arms of his young sister. And, oh, how blessed is it thus to meet! to feel that ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... has read this chapter up to this point, objects that I am laying too great stress on one aspect of the problem, bringing forward with undue insistence the importance of restricting prostitution—the removal of the woman tempter as the only practical way to prevent the spread of sexual diseases. She does not, I think, like my dismissal of conscious moral striving from a principal place in my scheme of reformation. That, at least, I gather ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... which hundreds of young men, cast helpless upon the reef of the strange city, are learning their first lessons of utter loneliness; for what desolation is there like that of the careless crowd when all the world rejoices? They shine upon the tempter setting his snares there, and upon the missionary and the Salvation Army lass, disputing his catch with him; upon the police detective going his rounds with coldly observant eye intent upon the outcome of the contest; upon the ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... frolic it to-day! To-morrow, and the pageant moved away Down to the poorest tent-pole, we and you Part company: no other may pursue Eastward your voyage, be informed what fate Intends, if triumph or decline await The tempter of ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... existed but was infected with sorcery, is explained by the barren, sterile, mountainous aspect of the neighbourhood of that part of the Pyrenees: the men were engaged in the business of fishermen, and the women left alone were exposed to the tempter. The priests too were as ignorant and wicked as the people; their relations with the lonely wives and daughters being more intimate than proper. Young and handsome women, some mere girls, form the greater proportion of the accused. As many as forty ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... found himself reasoning in his own mind, whilst enjoying a warm, comfortable bed, that, after all, half-crowns were very acceptable to the poor woman who received them. But he made up his mind to put an end, once and for all, to such suggestions from the tempter; and resolved accordingly that, if he got up late again, he would throw a guinea into the Cam. He did it too. The next time he rose late he walked down to the river, and threw a hard-earned guinea into the water. It was worth ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... most part of the creatures that are thus deluded by this grand impostor and ennemy of mankind are of the meanest rank, and are ather seduced by malice, poverty, ignorance, or covetousness.' But he finds comfort in the pecuniary circumstances of the Tempter. 'It's the unspeakable mercy and goodness of our good God that that poor devill has not the command of money (tho we say he is master of all the mines and hid treasures of the earth) else he would debauch the greatest part of ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... Lords three Temptations is thus related, in Mat. 4.3. He was an Hungry; and when the Tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, Command that ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... lesson he never afterward forgot. If he was tempted to do what he knew was wrong, he thought of Archy's day in the woods, and the tempter instantly left him. The boy who had been so badly hurt, did not die, as the doctor feared; but he suffered great pain, and was ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... Benedict! Methinks the same reason which led the saint to abandon his wicked sons might encourage me to follow the example of so great a father, lest, in thus exposing myself to certain peril, I might be deemed a rash tempter of God rather than a lover of Him, nay, lest it might even be judged that I had thereby taken my own life. When I had safeguarded myself to the best of my ability, so far as my food and drink were ...
— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard
... down to his otherwise inaccessible cell, the devil vainly tried to vex him by breaking the rope; that once Satan, assuming the form of a blackbird, nearly blinded him by the flapping of his wings; that once, too, the same tempter appeared as a beautiful Roman girl, to whose fascinations, in his youth, St. Benedict had been sensible, and from which he now hardly escaped by rolling himself among thorns. Once, when his austere rules and severity excited the resentment of the ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... anxious to be held up as a moral scarecrow. Rather let me take warning myself, amend my life, abandon intemperance, which leads to all manner of wickedness, and suffer myself no more to be ensnared by the wiles and delusions of the tempter in the form of a fair woman. No—no—I will alter and amend ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... upon the youngest and fairest of Iteguark's wives, and induced her to come and live with him. She knew that her new lover was strong and active, and better able to support her than her old love, and listened to the voice of the tempter. ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... nothing. It is generally a pleasant step to take. Many have taken that step; but few have persevered in their onward march. The step which costs the sacrifice is that which crosses the threshold when the door has been arrived at. For on one side stands that powerful tempter, human respect, whose baneful influence has sent back hundreds, perhaps thousands, into the dreary waste. On the other side stands ambition, with noble and captivating mien. I need not speculate here as ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... Away! tempter, away! The King has recovered his senses, and is himself again. As for you, you may, if you choose, wander about from forest to forest, till some old bear seizes you by the nose, and ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... herself as a simple-minded girl, ignorant of the world and of life, and conscious only of her boundless love for this one glorious man, and to whom the memories of a less harmless past seemed like wicked dreams sent by the Tempter to molest her chastity. This self-deception, or rather retrogression of her instincts, led her into touches of mysticism. The story of little Sonia who had fallen in love with the ten-year-old Wilhelm at first sight, to die shortly afterward ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... life is teeming,— The cruel tempter from the land of shade, He hates the asa-light with glory beaming On hero's brow and on his shining blade; Each coward deed, each act of wrathful scenting, Is his, a tribute unto darkness paid; He wins when temples burn and gods are slighted, ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... said I, "thing of evil—prophet still, if bird or devil! Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted, On this home by horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore, Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me, tell me, I implore!" Quoth ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... the rope, and the girl would be saved. Would Gowan think of it?... Of course he would think of it. But he would not do it. He would leave the deed to be done by the man to whom he had relinquished Miss Chuckie. It was for that man to save her—to destroy the tempter and break the spell of fascination that was drawing her over the brink of a pit far deeper than any earthly canyon. He, Lafayette Ashton—not Gowan—was the man. He must save her—down there in the depths, ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... be their tempter's motive, the pair thought primarily of the white slave's well-preserved beauty and the rarity of women in the far West. With that came a stinging remembrance of her glaring Hayle likeness and then of their father's old scheme—averted by their mother—to sell the girl forever out ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... He's scorn and derision all, Hydra, if true to his breed. We shall see! Just so a groom, with the bridle behind him, Tempts a free horse with some corn in a sieve. Will London's Hydra let "tentatives" blind him, Snap at the bait, and the tempter believe? Or will the "hero"—in form of Committee— Really prove wax for the Hydra to mould? Yes, there's the club, but it's rather a pity Hercules seems a bit feeble of hold. Tentative heroes may suit modern urgency, LUBBOCK may win where a Hercules fails. If we now hunt, upon public emergency, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various
... woman ever stained with redder sins. Had greater grace than mine. Praise God for Jesus! Praise God for blood that washes sins away! I was a woman fallen till Lord Jesus Forgave me, helped me up and made me clean. My name is Lilah Trickey. Let me tell you How music was my tempter. Oh, you girls, If there be one before me who can sing Beware the devil and beware your voice That it be used ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... but hearkening to her recital, they quailed and trembled when she told that the enemies of the Lord of Iblin came by night and sought to whisper treachery to his staunch soul, while in tones that scarcely broke the hush, the false words of the tempter reached their consciousness, quivering through them, as if they themselves were guilty ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... work makes a fellow take his ease with all the more zest. A life on the ocean wave one week, with hard work, and a run on shore the next week, with just enough to do to prevent one wearyin'. That's the sort o' thing for you and me, Billy, eh boy?" exclaimed the tempter, growing garrulous in his cups, and giving his small victim a pat on the shoulder, which, although meant to be a facetious touch, well-nigh ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... dregs! His blood is on my head! My brother! my brother! whom I loved above all! He was learning to love his home and children; she was weaning him from those pursuits! What might he not have been? I led him away! When he shrank from the temptation, I dragged him to it! I gave him back to the tempter! I, who thought I loved him—I did the devil's work! Oh! this is the heavier weight! Why should it crush others with the only guilty one? Oh! have mercy, have mercy on him! Let me bear all! Take me instead! Let me not have ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... strongly turned to this subject. The minds of men have been enlightened, and their responsibility pressed home upon them. The subject has been presented to them in a new light, and men cannot but see the absurdity of reprobating the tempted, while the tempter is honored—of blaming drunkards, and holding in reputation those whose business it is to ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... it does not follow that it is co-extensive with it." (p. 170.) "Under the terms of the Sixth Article one may accept literally, or allegorically, or as parable, or poetry, or legend, the story of a serpent-tempter, of an ass speaking with man's voice, of an arresting the earth's motion, of a reversal of its motion[90], of waters standing in a solid heap, of witches, and a variety of apparitions. So under the ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... shift, the priests invariably make God the author of sin. It was God who tempted Lucifer before the creation of the world; Lucifer, in his turn, became the tempter of man and the cause of all the evil our race suffers. It appears, therefore, that God created both angels and men to give them an ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... bottom the fellows did not really hate him, that he might be very popular if he chose, even without going to nearly the same lengths as the others, and that if he would but promise not to tell, his assent would be hailed with acclamations. Besides, said the tempter, the chances are very strongly in favour of your not being asked at all about the matter, so that there is every probability of your not being called upon to tell the "cram;" for by some delicate distinction the falsehood presented itself under the guise of a "cram," and not of a naked lie; that ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... street cars run 'Man is never sick; for (sic) merrily through several Mind is not sick, and matter streets, concrete sidewalks cannot be. A false belief and macadamised roads dotted is both the tempter and the (sic) the place,' et cetera. tempted, the sin and the (Ibid.) sinner, the disease and its 3. 'Shorn (sic) of its cause. It is well to be calm suburbs it had indeed little in sickness; to be hopeful is left to admire, save ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Comedie Humaine as the tempter and benefactor of Lucien de Rubempre, whom he loves with an intense devotion, and would exploit as a power and influence in the social, literary and political world. The deep-dyed criminal seems to live a life of pleasure, fashion and social rank in the person ...
— Introduction to the Dramas of Balzac • Epiphanius Wilson and J. Walker McSpadden
... threatened to drive his soul like a broken vessel headlong on the rocks of despair, were bearing him nearer and nearer to the "haven where he would be." His vivid imagination, as we have seen, surrounded him with audible voices. He had heard, as he thought, the tempter bidding him "Sell Christ;" now he thought he heard God "with a great voice, as it were, over his shoulder behind him," saying, "Return unto Me, for I have redeemed thee;" and though he felt that the voice mocked him, for he could ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... instincts, now he attempted to dazzle and pervert her reason. With subtle sophistry he brought forward arguments with which his mind was but too familiar. Pollux spoke of necessity, that artful plea of the tempter, who would try to make the Deity Himself answerable for the sin of His creatures, as having placed them under circumstances where such sin could not be avoided; as if strength of temptation were excuse sufficient for yielding to the temptation! ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... Scriptures, and a familiarity with God's Word is one of the best preventives in the case of drifting. One verse of Scripture committed to memory each day would help us to overcome the tempter; would keep us in loving touch with Jesus Christ; would inspire us to higher and holier living; and these suggestions made to those whom we win to Christ would keep them from wandering. It is the man who does not know his Bible who finds himself an easy prey to the wicked one. The ability ...
— The Personal Touch • J. Wilbur Chapman
... Andr['e] was dying the death of a spy, General Arnold, his tempter and betrayer, was living the life of a cherished traitor, in the midst of the British army at New York. This was a state of affairs far from satisfactory to the American authorities. The tool had suffered; the schemer had escaped. Could Arnold be captured, and ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... STRAT. The tempter he; Such friendship leads to death, or infamy. Oh, cursed friend, who, in dear love's despite, Has torn him from thine arms—his neophyte! He dragged him to the front;—baptized, annealed— He fights ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille
... all, restrain love!" Orpheus retraces his steps, and, contrary to his promise, looks behind and stretches his hand towards the beloved shadow, and the shadow fades away. Moral—for with Alfred everything has a moral—when going to Christ, never look behind, for fear of being beguiled by the tempter: a practical conclusion not to be found ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... as much for every month of the year, if you only say so," said the tempter. "Yes, all this gold; do you hear? in pure, ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... of the most High; from whence, commencing rebel and being expell'd, he was cast down, down, down, GOD and the Devil himself only knows where; for indeed we cannot say that any man on Earth knows it; and wherever it is, he has ever since man's creation been a plague to him, been a tempter, a deluder, a calumniator, an enemy and the object ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... Van Winkle.' 'The Scarlet Letter' will increase his reputation with all who do not shrink from the invention of the tale; but this, as we have said, is more than ordinarily painful. When we have announced that the three characters are a guilty wife, openly punished for her guilt,—her tempter, whom she refuses to unmask, and who during the entire story carries a fair front and an unblemished name among his congregation,—and her husband, who, returning from a long absence at the moment of her sentence, sits himself down betwixt the two in the midst ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various
... woman shall loathe and hate thee under heaven. Her foot shall crush thy head, and thou shalt bruise her heel anew. There shall be strife between your seed for ever, while the world standeth under heaven. Now thou knowest clearly, thou foul tempter, ...
— Codex Junius 11 • Unknown
... Meg Merrilies; "you've missed your blow, ye blood- spiller! and ye have nothing to expect from the tempter." ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... faithful ministry. 'But what have I that I have not received? Wherefore,[127] I give thanks to my God, through Jesus Christ, who hath been pleased to give me the victory; and I am persuaded that the tempter shall not again attack me, but that within a short time I shall, without any great pain of body or anguish of mind, exchange this mortal and miserable life for a blessed immortality through Jesus Christ.' During the hours which followed he lay quite still, and they delayed reading the evening prayer ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... she remembered that he must have given it to her by mistake; and therefore she had no right to it. But again the voice of the tempter whispered, "He gave it, and how do you know that he did not intend to make you a present of it? Keep it; he will never know it, even if it should be a mistake; for he had too many such bills in that great pocketbook to ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... is an auctioneer who knows all the things an auctioneer must know. His eye is piercing. His tongue can roll and rattle for twelve hours at a stretch. His voice is the voice of the tempter, myriad-toned and irresistible. ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... with flattering offers came; Against my Sire rebelling I yielded my good name At the Tempter's easy smile; In fields that were not ours, Brighter blooming, richer smelling, I ravished virgin flowers With ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... on men, Woe to the inhabitants on earth! that now, While time was, our first parents had been warned The coming of their secret foe, and 'scaped, Haply so 'scaped his mortal snare: For now Satan, now first inflamed with rage, came down, The tempter ere the accuser of mankind, To wreak on innocent frail Man his loss Of that first battle, and his flight to Hell: Yet, not rejoicing in his speed, though bold Far off and fearless, nor with cause to boast, Begins his dire attempt; ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... lest the tempter me surprise, Watch over thine own sacrifice! All loose, all idle thoughts cast out; And make my ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... secret, a painful and revolting secret, in his heart, and he feared lest something should betray its existence to his wife. What would he not have given at the moment to have blotted out for ever the memory of thoughts too earnestly cherished on the evening before, when he was alone with the tempter? ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... magnetic force; allectation|, allective|; temptation, enticement, agacerie[obs3], allurement, witchery; bewitchment, bewitchery; charm; spell &c. 993; fascination, blandishment, cajolery; seduction, seducement; honeyed words, voice of the tempter, song of the Sirens forbidden fruit, golden apple. persuasibility[obs3], persuasibleness[obs3]; attractability[obs3]; impressibility, susceptibility; softness; persuasiveness, attractiveness; tantalization[obs3]. influence, prompting, dictate, instance; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... to consign him to the flames. At that moment Satan, still disguised in human shape, approached Abraham, and said, "If thou desirest to deliver thyself from the fire of Nimrod, bow down before him and believe in him." But Abraham rejected the tempter with the words, "May the Eternal rebuke thee, thou vile, contemptible, accursed blasphemer!" and ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... came From Paradise to people its pure sphere With souls like thine which he hath ruined here! No—had not reason's light totally set, And left thee dark thou hadst an amulet In the loved image graven on thy heart Which would have saved thee from the tempter's art, And kept alive in all its bloom of breath That purity whose fading is love's death!— But lost, inflamed,—a restless zeal took place Of the mild virgin's still and feminine grace; First of the Prophets favorites, proudly first In ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... was proud, he knew it, and now, he would glory in his pride instead of trample it down, as he had been of late trying to do, as an arch tempter; he should be justified in showing ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... Thus Goodall's tempter deserts him. That youth, uncomplaining and uncaring, takes a spell at coughing, and, recovered, wanders desultorily on down the street, the name of which he neither knows nor recks. At a certain point he perceives swinging ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... be away just at the very moment when her presence was most desirable and most necessary? How could Captain Scott think of trusting her with poison? How could she do battle with so close and subtle a tempter? So long a battle, too; though all the dreary hours of the storm! Only a little while ago she had made a solemn promise never to fall into this sin, never to enter into temptation. But she had been thrust into ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... exultation—was it the poet's nature in me, hitherto only a troubled yearning sensibility, now manifesting itself suddenly as spontaneous creation? Surely it was in this way that Homer saw the plain of Troy, that Dante saw the abodes of the departed, that Milton saw the earthward flight of the Tempter. Was it that my illness had wrought some happy change in my organization—given a firmer tension to my nerves—carried off some dull obstruction? I had often read of such effects—in works of fiction at least. Nay; in genuine biographies ...
— The Lifted Veil • George Eliot
... are equally emphatic. The good dispositions which a vision, or voice, or other apparent heavenly favor leave behind them are the only marks by which we {22} may be sure they are not possible deceptions of the tempter. Says Saint Teresa:— ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... were levied as pledges for the benefit of the princes, and very distinctly understood to be levied against the wishes of the sepoy. But in the female sacrifice all parties concurred—sepoy and prince, tempted and tempter alike. I require you to murder this officer, as a pledge of your real hostility (which else might be a pure pretence) to the government. But the murder of the officer's wife and child rested on a motive totally different—namely, this:—Throughout Hindostan no feature in the moral aspects ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... the Son of Man to the top of a mountain, and promised him all the kingdoms of the earth if he would fall down and worship him, he scarce offered him more than I am offering to the Senator of Arispe. As the tempter, then, I lay at your feet honours, power, and riches, if you will subscribe ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... obstinate in all things, and especially obstinate in revenge. Ferguson was in his element. Destitute of the talents both of a writer and of a statesman, he had in a high degree the unenviable qualifications of a tempter; and now, with the malevolent activity and dexterity of an evil spirit, he ran from outlaw to outlaw, chattered in every ear, and stirred up in every bosom ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... from the mischief of the envier, whenas he envieth.'" Chapter cxiv.—"In the name of God the Compassionate, the Merciful! Say [quoth Gabriel] 'I take refuge with the Lord of Men, the King of Men, the God of Men, from the mischief of the stealthy Tempter (i.e. the devil) who whispereth (i.e. insinuateth evil) into the breasts (hearts) of mankind, from Jinn and men!'" These two chapters are often written on parchment etc. and worn as an amulet about the ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... so great, the defilement so thorough, that at first he despaired of the possibility of a complete cleansing. "Why, you have tried to improve before, and failed," the tempter in his soul whispered. "What is the good of trying again? You are not the only one—all are alike. Such is life." But the free, spiritual being which alone is true, alone powerful, alone eternal, was already awake in Nekhludoff. And he could not help believing it. However ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... plant, as if The serpent tempter, in his rage, Had put his tongue in every leaf To mock them ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... since understood that Donald Bean Lean played the part of tempter on this occasion. His motives were shortly these. Of an active and intriguing spirit, he had been long employed as a subaltern agent and spy by those in the confidence of the Chevalier, to an extent beyond what ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... Fritz's happiness," said Wilhelm. "Does that face look as if it belonged to a happy man? I am afraid of Paris; I should like to see him do as I am doing. The old tempter may awake again. Of our two heads, his carries the less ballast. His dress, and the opera-glass and the rest of it make me anxious. He keeps looking at the lorettes in the house. Oh! if you only knew how hard it is to marry Fritz. He has a horror of 'going ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... was man's moral protector, and man woman's physical protector, and I said that is only half true. Man is also woman's moral protector, and woman is also man's physical protector. She is acknowledged to be his physical tempter. If she knows her power she can, by her wise, modest, womanly demeanor, make it impossible for him to feel an impure impulse in her presence. ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... tongues, & so have the best skill in Physicke, judgment in Physiognomie, and knowledge of what disease is reigning or predominant in this or that mans body, (and so for cattell too) by reason of his long experience. This subtile tempter knowing such a man lyable to some sudden disease, (as by experience I have found) as Plurisie, Imposthume, &c. he resorts to divers Witches; if they know the man, and seek to make a difference between ...
— The Discovery of Witches • Matthew Hopkins
... romantic mind all the reflections to which v& have alluded, without any additional accessories; but when the reader is informed that it was supposed to be the abode of crime, the rendezvous of evil spirits, the theatre of unholy incantations, and the temporary abode of the Great Tempter—and when all these facts are taken in connection with its desolate character, he will surely admit that it was calculated to impress the mind of all those who knew the history of its ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... time to think, Violet dropped down on the carpet by Meta's side and complied with the request. "Just to slip on those lovely shoes, now that they were there right before her, was not much," so said the tempter: then, "Now having done a little, what difference if she did ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... on the contrary, it will take a good deal of moral courage to confess your fault now. Of course it would have been far nobler had you gone straight to your father and told him just how things were; and then, too, you would not have been Dick's tempter, leading him to sin. Still, there is a right and noble course open to you now, dear boy, which is to go and undo the mischief and the wrong as far as ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... it occurs to the rebellious that things might have been made a trifle easier. For instance, if only one had to walk miles to meet the tempter, or if only he had the decency and dignity to demand that we meet him half way, instead of coming all the way himself and invading the privacy of our very homes. If only he would wear his horns and tail ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington |
