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Acolyte   Listen
noun
Acolyte  n.  
1.
(Eccl.) One who has received the highest of the four minor orders in the Catholic church, being ordained to carry the wine and water and the lights at the Mass.
2.
One who attends; an assistant. "With such chiefs, and with James and John as acolytes."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Acolyte" Quotes from Famous Books



... progress of the Garden Home. While they dallied over coffee at the luncheon table, Sabre was fidgeting for Bagshaw to be gone. Mabel, operating dexterously behind the blue flame of a spirit lamp, Low Jinks hovering around in well-trained acolyte performances, said, "Now I rather pride myself on my Turkish coffee, Mr. ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson

... Oxford undergraduates. Oscar wrote for it a handful of sayings which he called "Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young." His epigrams were harmless enough; but in the same number there appeared a story entitled "The Priest and the Acolyte" which could hardly be defended. The mere fact that his work was printed in the same journal called forth a storm of condemnation though he had never seen the story before it was published nor had he anything to do ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris

... of the choir. He entered, knelt before the high altar, remembering the warnings which his aunt had given him about behaving with decorum in church; then visited a chapel, and was about to enter another when an acolyte, warden, or beadle approached him, and with the rudest manner and in the most discourteous ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos

... here but also by those who come in ships from far distant ports shines the sign of Our Lord." Of all that the head of the order of missioners said on this occasion this impressed little Willy most, and when the celebration was over the small acolyte went to Father Somazzo and said: "Father, the Apostolic Prefect said that the cross on the cathedral could be seen from all the ships that come into the harbor. From the cross can you see all ...
— The Shipwreck - A Story for the Young • Joseph Spillman

... entry of the temple musicians. They carry copper bassoons ten feet long, so heavy that their bells have to rest on the shoulder of an acolyte. With deep, long-drawn blasts the monks proclaim the New Year, just as long ago the priests of Israel announced with trumpet notes the commencement of the year of jubilee. Then follow cymbals which clash in a slow, ringing ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin

... such feelings cannot last, nor such moments endure; that in the footsteps of the priest, be he never so holy, treads ever the grinning acolyte with his mind on sweet things. They pass, these feelings, and too quickly. But once to have had them, once to have lived such moments, once to have known a woman and loved her in such wise leaves no man as he was before; ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... she went with her mistress to the Observance to hear high mass, and when the priest, the deacon and the sub-deacon came out of the vestry to go to the high altar, she saw her hapless lover, who had not yet fulfilled his year of novitiate, acting as acolyte, carrying the two vessels covered with a silken cloth, and walking first with his eyes upon the ground. When Pauline saw him in such raiment as did rather increase than diminish his comeliness, she was so exceedingly moved and disquieted, that to hide ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... additions of a choir that gathers round the organist and without exception forgets like him time and place, and of a mother superior who sends the sacristan to remind those music-enthusiasts in the organ-gallery of the impatiently waiting priest and acolyte, &c. Men willingly allow themselves to be deceived, but care has to be taken that their credulity be not overtaxed. For if the intention is perceived, it fails in its object; as the German poet says:—"So fuehrt man Absicht und ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... interrupted the Jesuit, on seeing that his acolyte was going astray, "now your thesis would please the ladies; it would have the success of one of Monsieur ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... music, perfumes, calling upon him to return, but he forced his way through a passage, stifling, low and laden with the breath of remote mortality like those in the depths of Egypt's pyramids. He came forth into a vast cathedral and stood before the high altar. As the acolyte swung the thurible and incense floated upward to the Cross, he, too, arose seraphic and alighted upon the very top of the dome. Below him stretched a maze of tortuous streets, thronged with men and women of a thousand ages and of all the races of mankind. Minaret, ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... as the Catamaran had fairly recovered her equilibrium, Snowball condescended to climb aboard. The ludicrous appearance of the negro, as he stood dripping upon the deck, might have excited laughter; but neither Ben Brace, nor his acolyte, nor the little Lalee, were in a mood for mirth. On the contrary, the curious incident that had just occurred was yet unexplained; and the awe with which it had inspired them still continued to hold all three in a sort of speechless control. Snowball ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... mullions are continued down the wall below, forming panels. The lowered sill and recess probably formed a convenient retable to an altar against the wall. The west window preserves some fragments of glass dated 1532. There is an obliterated inscription and small etched figures—among them an acolyte carrying a cross, one of those whose services are mentioned in the accounts after this wise: "to the crosebeirer and torchebeirer, for Seynt George day, hollieroode day, shire thuresday and Whit Sunday, 12d.; to 2 childern for the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Churches of Coventry - A Short History of the City and Its Medieval Remains • Frederic W. Woodhouse

... the Lady Eleanor as an acolyte tends the chapel of a saint, only she was further removed from him than a saint, by reason of her pale humanity. He soon perceived, as he watched her at banquet, tourney, or pageant, that she went to ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless

... temples of the quarried air, Which we call music, scholars are of thee. Henceforth in might of such, the earth shall be Truth's temple-theatre, where she shall wear All forms of revelation, all men bear Tapers in acolyte humility. O master-maker, thy exultant art Goes forth in making makers! Pictures? No, But painters, who in love and truth shall show Glad secrets from thy God's rejoicing heart. Sudden, green grass and waving ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald

... exprest, Lifteth slowly, lifteth sweetly, From out its Orient tabernacle drawn, Yon orb-ed sacrament confest Which sprinkles benediction through the dawn; And when the grave procession's ceased, The earth with due illustrious rite Blessed,—ere the frail fingers featly Of twilight, violet-cassocked acolyte, His sacerdotal stoles unvest— Sets, for high close of the mysterious feast, The sun in august exposition meetly Within the flaming monstrance of the West. O salutaris hostia, Quae coeli pandis ostium! Through breach-ed darkness' rampart, a Divine assaulter, art thou ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson

... crippled friend away. After all, there was nothing to be said. The Cardinal was a free agent,—he had a perfect right to befriend a homeless boy and give him sustenance and protection if he chose. He would make, thought Madame, a perfect acolyte, and would look like a young angel in his little white surplice. And so the good woman, deciding in her own mind that such was the simple destiny for which the Cardinal intended him, smiled, murmured ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... the Hermit hastened to bring. And looking through the door of the chapel, I saw on the altar a burning cresset flickering like the planet Mercury on a December morning. How often did I light such a cresset when a boy, I mused. Yes, I was an acolyte once. I swang the censer and drank deep of the incense fumes as I chanted in Syriac the service. And I remember when I made a mistake one day in reading the Epistle of Paul, the priest, who was of an irascible humour, took me by the ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... my tears to-night, And yet to-day I saw thee smiling. How Refer the cause?—Beloved, is it thou Or I, who makes me sad? The acolyte Amid the chanted joy and thankful rite May so fall flat, with pale insensate brow, On the altar-stair. I hear thy voice and vow, Perplexed, uncertain, since thou art out of sight, As he, in his swooning ears, the choir's amen. Beloved, dost thou love? ...
— Sonnets from the Portuguese • Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

... is not destined to be solved so easily; nor had it ever been solved in centuries dead by Egyptian, Mongol, or Greek—by priest or princess, prophet or singer, or by any vestal or acolyte of love, sacred ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers

... there came to the temple a little boy who gave him a letter, whispered the name of the sender, and ran away in the dark. According to the subsequent testimony of an acolyte, the priest read the letter, restored it to its envelope, and placed it on the matting, beside his kneeling cushion. After remaining motionless for a long time, as if buried in thought, he sought his writing-box, wrote a letter himself, addressed it to his spiritual superior, ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn

... knife that should have cut the string of the basket in the train, opened it and cut the stalk of the moonflower, very carefully so that none of the seeds should be, and only a few were, lost. He crept into the house holding the stalk upright and steady as an acolyte ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit

... once laid his hands on his acolyte's head and murmured a few words over him; then the boy advanced and bent devoutly above the crystal. Almost immediately the globe was seen to cloud, as though suffused with milk; the cloud gradually faded and the boy began to speak ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... watched the full, gathered lips of the man gently touch those of the boy, so gently. Then Birkin lifted his fingers and touched the boy's round, confiding cheek, with a faint touch of love. Neither spoke. Billy seemed angelic like a cherub boy, or like an acolyte, Birkin was a tall, grave angel looking ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... first beheld such system in operation, and became inflamed with a sacred zeal to administer it, matters not. It was the function of the chief executioner to hold forth, and it was the function of the acolyte to dart at sleeping infants, yawning infants, restless infants, whimpering infants, and smooth their wretched faces; sometimes with one hand, as if he were anointing them for a whisker; sometimes with both hands, applied after the fashion ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... of the church we have Lister, a reader, [Footnote: Found in Late Latin as legista, from Lat. Legere, to read.] Bennet, an exorcist, and Collet, aphetic for acolyte. But each of these is susceptible of another origin which is generally to be preferred. Chaplin is of course for chaplain, Fr. chapelain. The legate appears as Leggatt. Crosier or Crozier means cross-bearer. At the funeral of Anne of Cleves ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley

... appointed hour, Gobardhan came accompanied by his acolyte, with whom he sat down at the Chandimandab (a shrine of the goddess Durga, found in most Hindu houses, which serves for social gatherings). Jadu Babu and the bhadra-lok (gentle-folk) took their seats there too, while the underlings formed a respectful half-circle in front. Adjuring ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea

... followed that Grizzie, in her turn that morning, was gathering to Cosmo's scythe, hanging her labour on that of the young laird with as devoted a heart as if he had been a priest at the high altar, and she his loving acolyte. I doubt if his lordship would have just then approached Cosmo, had he noted who the woman was that went stooping along behind the late heir of the land, now a labourer upon it for the bread of ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... lighted altar, decked with flowers, the priests in gorgeous vestments, the acolyte with the swinging censer, and the intoned service in foreign tongue, were bewildering to me. My eyes wandered from the clergy to the benches upon which sat the rich and the great, then back to the poor, among whom I was kneeling. Each humble worshipper had spread a bright-bordered ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

... study bell Essy came into the dining-room. Essy was the acolyte of Family Prayers. Though a Wesleyan she could not shirk the appointed ceremonial. It was Essy who took the Bible and Prayerbook from their place on the sideboard under the tea-urn and put them on the table, opening ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair

... for the last fortnight," continued Lady Garnett, with some malice. "He succeeded Lord Overstock, as Mary's musical acolyte. In revenge, Lord Overstock wished to teach her baccarat, and Mr. Sylvester remonstrated. It was sublime! It was the one moment of ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... throughout the year, one humble kind of procession might be met in the streets of Paris. A poor priest, in a worn surplice, reverently carries the Host under an old dirty canopy. A beadle plods along in front, with an acolyte to ring the bell, at the sound of which the passers-by kneel in the streets and cabs and coaches are stopped. Louis XV. once met the "Good God," as the eucharistic wafer was piously called, and earned a ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... life on earth aspired to be One altar-smoke, so pure!—to win If not love like God's love for me, At least to keep his anger in; And all their striving turned to sin. 50 Priest, doctor, hermit, monk grown white With prayer, the broken-hearted nun, The martyr, the wan acolyte, The incense-swinging child—undone Before God fashioned star or sun! God, whom I praise; how could I praise, If such as I might understand, Make out and reckon on his ways, And bargain for his love, and stand, Paying a price, at his right ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning

... that some of those who are involved here in too close an accusation for them to clear themselves have fled, we have sent this letter to you, beloved, by our acolyte; that your holiness, dear brothers, may be informed of this, and see fit to act more diligently and cautiously, lest the men of Manichaean error be able to find opportunity of hurting your people and of teaching these impious doctrines. For we cannot otherwise rule those intrusted to ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... human love. Indeed, had Isaura's heart been free to give away, love for Raoul de Vandemar would have seemed to her a profanation. He was never more priestly than when he was most tender. And the tenderness of Raoul towards her was that of some saint-like nature towards the acolyte whom it attracted upwards. He had once, just before Enguerrand's death, spoken to Isaura with a touching candour as to his own predilection for a monastic life. "The worldly avocations that open useful and honourable careers for others have no charm for me. I care not for riches nor power, nor ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... going to send you an acolyte. If you see anything, send him to me immediately." Miron turned to go back to ...
— The Players • Everett B. Cole

... felt that he was about to take part in a struggle for Patsy. It was to be a fight, not so much against danger from unscrupulous dandies like the Duke of Lyonesse and his acolyte, my Lord of Wargrove, as between Stair and himself. Louis de Raincy himself was "of as good blood as the King, only not so rich," as say the Spaniards. But this restless, stern-visaged Stair Garland, with his curious Viking fixity of gaze, what ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett

... full possession of herself after the Requiem Mass, the cortege was on its way to the cemetery. There was a line of carriages. Most of them were empty as the mourning of which they formed a part. The parish priest sat with his acolyte, who held a crucifix before his eyes so that his thoughts might not wander. He took snuff and said his ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... similar; and the coincidence impressed him as strange. He looked again at the tombs; but the tombs explained nothing. Neither bore any personal name,—only the Buddhist kaimyo, or posthumous appellation. Then he determined to seek information at the temple. An acolyte stated, in reply to his questions, that the large tomb had been recently erected for the daughter of Iijima Heizayemon, the hatamoto of Ushigome; and that the small tomb next to it was that of her servant O-Yone, who had died of grief soon after the ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... at the approach of such a number of rustics, and inquired who they were. They held a songful colloquy with him; but he continued to refuse them admittance, until an angel again intervened, this time in the form of a tall acolyte from the sanctuary, accompanied by two little angelic choristers. He reassured Joseph, and invited the shepherds to enter and worship the Babe. They came up the aisle flourishing their be-ribboned crooks and singing in praise of the Child, but ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various

... "Ite in pace, catechumeni," "Depart in peace, catechumens;" and then the kiss of peace was passed round, and the people began to sing some psalms or hymns. While they were so engaged, the deacon received from the acolyte the sindon, or corporal, which was of the length of the altar, and perhaps of greater breadth, and spread it upon the sacred table. Next was placed on the sindon the oblata, that is, the small ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... corpse of his daughter into the store-closet. As they were sending to make the matter known in the village of Maki, and taking other measures, who should come up but the priest of the temple called Anrakuji, in the village of Iwahara, with an acolyte and a servant, who called out in a loud ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... le Cadre appeared in elegant vestments, his eyes grave above a foot-long beard, and the mass began. The acolyte was very agile in a short red cassock, below which his naked legs, and bare feet showed. The people responded often through the mass, rising, sitting down, and kneeling obediently. Baufre sat on a chair in the ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... her: for that night Did fond O-Shichi dare To set aflame her father's house, Hoping again to share The temple with her acolyte, Her lover-priest, who, spent With speechless passion for her face, in vain ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice

... of gold) and the other leading a white charger, whose coat was as soft and as shining as silk. And all the gear and furniture of this horse was of silver and of white samite embellished with silver. So from this you can see how nobly that young acolyte was provided with all that beseemed his future greatness. For, as you may have guessed, this youth was Launcelot, King Ban's son of Benwick, who shortly became the greatest knight ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle

... rankling in my stomach. I thought I had swallowed the Devil himself, whom the old woman had been boiling down. It would be curious enough if the hideous decoction was the same as old Friar Bacon and his acolyte discovered by their science! One ingredient, however, one of those plants, I scarcely think the old lady can have put into her pot of Devil's elixir; for it is a rare plant, that does not grow in ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... to the original elders (presbyters) mentioned in the New Testament. Below the bishop and the priest were the lower orders of the clergy,—the deacon and sub-deacon,—and below these the so called minor orders—the acolyte, exorcist, reader, and doorkeeper. The bishop exercised a certain control over the priests within his territory. It was not unnatural that the bishops in the chief towns of the Roman provinces should be especially influential in church affairs. They came to be called archbishops, and might ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... the hunted of all the brighter worlds, crowded onto Yaroto. But even here was there salvation for Ransome, the jinx-scarred acolyte, when tonight was the night of Bani-tai ... the night of expiation by the photo-memoried ...
— Bride of the Dark One • Florence Verbell Brown

... seventy-two witnesses; nor a cardinal priest of the Roman Church, unless there be sixty-four witnesses. Nor a cardinal deacon of the Roman Church, unless there be twenty-seven witnesses; nor a subdeacon, an acolyte, an exorcist, a reader or a doorkeeper without seven witnesses." Now the sin of one who is of higher dignity is more grievous, and consequently should be treated more severely. Therefore neither is the evidence ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... was Sunday, and she was in the church at sunrise listening for the music. But she heard and saw nothing until the priest had reached the middle of the Mass. The acolyte had rung the bell to prepare the people for the Elevation, and it was then that she heard a faint low sound that the light wire emitted when the saint touched her harp, and she noticed that it was the same saint that had played yesterday, the tall saint with the ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore

... Of servants hurrying here and there, The voice in the courtyard, the step on the stair, Waiting for some one who doth not come! But letters there are, which the old man reads To the Curate, when he comes at night Word by word, as an acolyte Repeats his prayers and tells his beads; Letters full of the rolling sea, Full of a young man's joy to be Abroad in the world, alone and free; Full of adventures and wonderful scenes Of hunting the deer through forests vast In the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... retiring, pale-browed student was contrasted with the ferocious aspect and reckless bearing of his immediate neighbor, whose appearance was little better than that of a bravo. The grave theologian and embryo ecclesiastic were placed in juxtaposition with the scoffing and licentious acolyte; while the lawyer in posse, and the law-breaker in esse, were numbered among a group whose pursuits were those of violence ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... It is Exhibit A in the Church's assets, and we pull it out every Sunday and give it an airing. But you are not permitted to try to smuggle it into this discussion, where it is irrelevant and would not feel at home. It is strictly religious furniture, like an acolyte, or a contribution-plate, or any of those things. It has never intruded into business; and Jewish persecution is not a religious passion, it is a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... he came to Heaven's door, To Peter's self or acolyte, The holy warder looking o'er, "'Tis 'Honest John!'" he said aright; And his pilgrim spirit passed within Because his walk with God ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard

... of the Sumida, loaded barges, covered for the night with huge squares of fringed straw mats, begin to nod and preen themselves like a covey of gigantic river birds. Sounds of prayer and of silver matin bells come from the temples, where priest and acolyte greet the Lord Buddha of a new day. From tiny chimneyless kitchens of a thousand homes thin blue feathers of smoke make slow upward progress, to be lost in the last echoes of the vanishing mist. Sparrows begin to chirp, first ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa

... indeed, is private, and when incomes, as in a few individual cases, reach enormous figures, the unpretentious donations are of no slight weight. But charity is a virtue that counts for nothing unless meekness, philanthropy, altruism, is each its acolyte. How can we expect that beings who busy themselves with affairs of such poignant importance as whether they shall give Jones a full nod or Brown a quarter of a nod when they next meet him; as whether the Moneypennys ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various

... vestments, with his boy clerks in copes, walked in procession, and after censing the altar of the Blessed Trinity returned and occupied dignitaries' stalls, and any evicted dignitary had to take the boy's place as thurifer or acolyte, the boy bishop giving the benediction. The next day (Holy Innocents) this youth preached and took the earlier part of the mass. These choir lads were trained to act mysteries and, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock

... priestlike, to feed the sacred fire itself. And if at the time he paid the penalty exacted by the sordid unimaginative ones who temporarily rule the roast, he must ever after, one feels sure, have carried inside him some of the white gladness of the acolyte who, greatly privileged, has been permitted to swing a censer at the sacring of ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame

... near a chapel is frequently selected—and this for two or three obvious reasons. The sanctity of the spot may be supposed to impress the neophyte; and if the police or any other undesirable people should suddenly come upon the officiating adepts and the expectant acolyte, a group on the roadside is not necessarily a criminal gathering—though I do not see why, in such times, our old American college definition of a "group" as a gathering of "three or more persons" should not be adopted by the authorities, and held to make such a gathering liable to ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... graciously accepted the charger of cartridges which an obsequious acolyte was proffering, rammed it into the magazine, adjusted the sights, spread out his legs to an obtuse angle, and ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... fingers, the baron interrupted him. "Set to work, and don't give yourself the slightest uneasiness about that. You may do whatever you like, if you only succeed in unmasking this dear marquis, and Coralth, his worthy acolyte. Show me up in whatever light you choose. Who will you be in Valorsay's eyes? Why, Maumejan, one of my business agents, and I can always throw the blame on you." And as if to prove that he had divined even the details of the scheme devised by his young friend, he added: "Besides, every ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... for the operation and maintenance of a batch operated computer system. On these computers, a user never had direct access to a computer, but had to submit his/her data and programs to a priest for execution. Results were returned days or even weeks later. See {acolyte}. ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... time the guests began to arrive. First and foremost appeared the Bishop and his Vicar-General, dignified and reverend figures both, though no two men could well be more unlike, his lordship being tall and attenuated, and his acolyte short and fat. Both churchmen's eyes were bright; but while the Bishop was pallid, his Vicar-General's countenance glowed with high health. Both were impassive, and gesticulated but little; both appeared to be ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... I force myself to stay out until late afternoon. When I return, behold! The goddess has waved her hand, and invisible minions—" he circled the air with his cigarette—"have transported her temple across the square. There she sits enthroned, waiting for her acolyte. How will that do?" He turned ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... Petronelle showed the way to the little side chapel, close to the noble apse. There, beneath the six altar-candles, a priest was hurrying through a mass in a rapid ill-pronounced manner, while, besides his acolyte, worshippers were very few. Only the light fell on the edges of a dark-green velvet cloak and silvered a grizzled head bowed in reverence, and Madame de Ste. Petronelle touched Sir Patrick and made him a ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge

... entirely participate in this roseate view it may have been because Enriquez, although a few years my senior, was much younger-looking, and with his demure deviltry of eye, and his upper lip close shaven for this occasion, he suggested a depraved acolyte rather than a responsible member of a family. Consuelo had also confided to me that her father—possibly owing to some rumors of our previous escapade—had forbidden any further excursions with me alone. The innocent man did not ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... us by the Defensors of the "sacrosanct" Roman Church that Pope Simplicius, of blessed memory, bought a house at Rome[303] of Eufrasius the Acolyte, with all proper formalities, and that now the people of the Samaritan superstition, hardened in effrontery, allege that a synagogue of theirs was built on that site, and claim it accordingly; whereas the very style ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... third temple. My imagination rather fails me, I confess, in evoking the image and symbolism of Mr. Bennett's or Mr. Archer's idolatries; and if I had to choose between the three, I should probably be found as an acolyte in the shrine of Mr. Wells. But, anyhow, the trend of all this is to polytheism, rather as it existed in the old civilisation ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton

... beard was longer and grayer since we last saw him; but his cheeks were rosy, and his figure that of a Samson. His deacon and acolyte, who had come with him, had remained in the veranda, and were trying to make friends ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... of rebellion. The habit of application had become deeply rooted. The pride born out of his first easy successes still had urged him to master any subject offered. But there was a change in his manner of studying as well as in his general attitude toward the school. Until then he had been an acolyte in sacred precincts. Now he turned gradually into a time-server doing his duty out of vanity and a desire to remain a public school pupil. Until then he had never felt that he had to study. Now fear of the old Rector and of his father entered ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman

... sometimes occur in rooms above porches, in side-chapels and the like; in every instance they were so situated that the altar could be seen. When they occur in porches or the rooms above they are thought to have been for the use of the acolyte appointed to ring the sanctus bell, who, viewing the performance of mass, would be thus able to sound the bell at the proper time. The name hagioscope has been used to describe these ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath

... rough panelling behind, was the chapter-house of the order. There were robes and initiations and a book of proceedings. Hugh held the undistinguished office of Servitor, and his duties were mainly those of a kind of acolyte. I think he somewhat enjoyed the meetings, though the difficulty was always to discover any purpose for which the society existed. There were subscriptions and salaries; and to his latest day it delighted him to talk of the society, and to point out that ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson

... into the fireplace; then another. Beppo did the office, meek as an acolyte. Then he sighed, for the legs drew up the chimney ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... a pilgrimage, an adventure so naturally full of great, wonderful, far-off and holy things should breed such fantastic nonsense as all this; but remember at least the little acolyte of Rheims, whose father, in 1512, seeing him apt for religion, put him into a cassock and designed him for the Church, whereupon the youngling began to be as careless and devilish as Mercury, putting beeswax on ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... The prefect and his acolyte were feeling somewhat abashed at their failure, when the concierge who had taken Mme. de Combray back to the Palais asked to speak to them. He told them that in the carriage the Marquise had offered him a large sum if he would take some letters ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre

... me to a new version of 'je me regrette!' With your knowledge of this precious world and its holy crew, I confess it seems farcical in the extreme that open-eyed you can venture another experiment on human nature. Some fine morning you will rub your eyes and find your acolyte non est; ditto, your silver forks, ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... my only thought had been to serve Monsieur. From waking in the morning to sleep at night, my whole life was Monsieur's. Never was duty more cheerfully paid. Never did acolyte more throw his soul into his service than I into mine. Never did lover hate to be parted from his mistress more than I from Monsieur. The journey to Paris had been a journey to Paradise. ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle

... a pledge for that sum," said the ambassador, putting the ring into his pocket. The other looked chop-fallen, and Murray laughing at his retiring manners told the girl to put on her cloak and to pack off with her worthy acolyte. She did so directly, and with a low ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... the realms of night Nor monthly moon's bright acolyte, This star directs the course of day, Sole sovereign of the ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius

... up his acolyte from the weedy end of the cavern, and, "Bring me," he said, "the heart of the toad that dwelleth in Arabia and by the mountains of Bethany." The acolyte slipped away by the hidden door, leaving that grim old man ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany

... robe came down the aisle, accompanied by a surpliced acolyte bearing a cup of oil. As the cardinal passed each kneeling person, he dipped his thumb into the oil and then, repeating a formula, made a sign of the cross with his thumb on the worshiper's forehead. A priest in black cassock and a chorister in white followed the cardinal, ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob

... before him. But he would have been wide of the mark. The scum, indeed—and a dangerous scum—frothed and foamed and spat under Tavannes' bridle-hand; and here and there among them, but not of them, the dark-robed figure of a priest moved to and fro; or a Benedictine, or some smooth-faced acolyte egged on to the work he dared not do. But the decent burghers were not there. They lay bolted in their houses; while the magistrates, with little heart to do aught except bow to the mob—or other their masters for the time being—shook ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... all its humble coasts, it had undermined and rafted-down the goodlier timber of the forest; and on these rough clearings it now set and tended primrose gardens, and planted woods of willow, and made a favourite of the silver birch. Through all these friendly features the path, its human acolyte, conducted our two wanderers downward, - Otto before, still pausing at the more difficult passages to lend assistance; the Princess following. From time to time, when he turned to help her, her face would lighten upon his - ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson

... of Hetty's arrival, a burial service was just about to take place in this little chapel, and the procession was slowly approaching: the priest walking in front, lifting up a high gilt crucifix; a little white-robed acolyte carrying holy water in a silver basin; a few Sisters of Charity with their long black gowns and flapping white bonnets; behind these the weeping villagers, bearing the coffin on a rude sort of litter. As Hetty saw this procession, she was seized with an irresistible ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson

... of clergy caused by the Black Death, Wykeham, after the laying-on of hands by his old master, Bishop Edington, became an acolyte in the December of 1361, a sub-deacon in the March following, and priest in the June of 1362. A few years later, when Edington was laid to rest within his cathedral, a sharp controversy arose between the King ...
— Winchester • Sidney Heath

... altered world, William Forrester was an acolyte of Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, and therefore a teacher, in this case of a totally altered history—and Maya Wilson, girl student, evidently had a totally altered way of grading in mind—but what else would a worshipper of Venus, Goddess of Love, have ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett

... ever since. That broad face, the clear eyes, the bold, clean-cut mouth, the audacity—only, the live face was English, not Italian, had more humour, more "breeding," less poetry—something "old Georgian" about it. How he would laugh if she told him he was like that peasant acolyte with fluffed-out hair, and a little ruching round his neck! And, smiling, Gyp plaited her own ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... of carols has fallen into disuse the inhabitants are content with the priestly blessing only. To distribute this the priest of each parish starts off on Christmas morning with the candle-lighter and his tray, and an acolyte to wave the censer; he blesses the shops, he sprinkles holy water over the commodities, and then he does the same by the houses; the smell of incense perfumes the air, and the candle-lighter rattles ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... well up at the base of the Palatine Hill. Lacus Juturnae is a four-sided basin with a pillar in the middle, on which rested a marble altar decorated with figures in relief. Beside the basin are rooms for religious purposes. These rooms are adorned with the gods of healing, AEsculapius with an acolyte holding a cock, the Dioscuri and their horses, the head of Serapis, and a ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott

... Eastern city where I happened to be known I have had as many as twelve persons squatting round upon the floor, watching a barber shave me, while a little boy, the barber's 'prentice, bearing towels, jug, and basin, waited upon him like an acolyte. ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall

... so plain why," he commented. "You are so much more wonderful than your place gives you scope for. You are an individual, not an acolyte to swing a censer for another. Mr. Sohlberg is very interesting, but you can't be happy that way. It surprises me you ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... reached the church they stopped, and an acolyte appeared holding upright the large silver crucifix, followed by another boy in red and white, who bore a chalice ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... very patient with one who was as yet a mere acolyte in love's ways and uses ... she taught me many things, and I adored her for it—as little by little, day by day, she brought me to the full stature ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... Still less reliance can be placed on the action of the British Press, which falls a ready victim to the specious arguments advanced by some strategical pseudo-Imperialist in high position, or by some fervent acolyte who has learnt at the feet of his master the fatal and facile lesson of how an Empire, built up by statesmen, may be wrecked by the well-intentioned but mistaken measures recommended by specialists to ensure Imperial salvation. ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... not enough to make a village, and far too humble to support an inn. But in their midst rose a well-to-do temple, where, according to the guidebook, good lodging was to be had. It may indeed be so. For our part we were not so much as granted entry. An acolyte, who parleyed with us through the darkness, reported the priest away on business, and refused to let us in on any terms. Several bystanders gathered during the interview, and had it not been for one of them we might have been there yet. From this man we elicited the information ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell

... melting ice on my plate, and my gaze on a very distant swinging door, through which came and went every figure except the familiar figure I desired. The figure of a woman came. She wore a pale-blue dress and a white apron and cap, and carried a dish in uplifted hands, with the gesture of an acolyte. On the bib of the apron were two red marks, and as she approached, tripping, scornful, unheeding, along the interminable carpeted aisle, between serried tables of correct diners, the vague blur of her face ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett

... nervous at first, for, seeing that the church was dark and empty, she feared lest she had mistaken the time and place; but after ten minutes of painful suspense a bell in the church tower began to toll solemnly. Shortly thereafter an acolyte in black gown and white surplice appeared and lighted groups of candles on either side of the altar. A hushed stirring of feet in the choir-loft indicated that the service was to be accompanied by music. Some ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser

... the truth, but she had not divined that preoccupation of the priest's mind which charged her words with a strange significance. Only a little while ago, the young acolyte had brought word to the Padre that he had seen the Holy Mother with the Babe, fetching water for the sick: she was as tall as the cypresses, and had a light about her head, and she looked up at the church. The pievano [parish priest] had not listened with entire ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... stranger, Sir," said Mr. Thurgood, coming briskly into the room, accompanied by a transitory acolyte bearing clothes. "Shall we try the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 4, 1914 • Various

... with his censer, And his little cheeks crimson as beets, Your acolyte, perfume-dispenser, Is sweet as a page ...
— Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers • Don Marquis

... my Father, that I became accustomed to make the laborious and exquisite journeys down to the sea and back again. His work as a naturalist eventually took him, laden with implements, to the rock-pools on the shore, and I was in attendance as an acolyte. But our earliest winter in South Devon was darkened for us both by disappointments, the cause of which lay, at the time, far out of my reach. In the spirit of my Father were then running, with furious ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse

... dispatched and considered. In consequence a proclamation was sent through all the wards of Paradise, calling on whatever person, archangel, seraph, cherub, or acolyte had found a threepenny-piece since midday of the tenth of August then instant, that the same person, archangel, seraph, cherub, or acolyte, should deliver the said threepenny-piece to Rhadamanthus at his Court, ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens

... then darting around the room, passed from one candelabrum to another, till every waxen candle was tipped with its star of light. In her scarlet dress and the holly berries, her cheeks glowing and the taper held above her head as she tiptoed to reach the highest one, she looked like some radiant acolyte of Joy. ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston

... before I went to sleep," I replied, to avoid the possible embarrassment of her comments should I admit to having slept in the open air; and then John and a female acolyte came in with the ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford

... of making a face, and it is quite tremendous. I don't think the Copt has any such ardours, but the scene this morning was all the more touching that no one was 'behaving him or herself' at all. A little acolyte peeped into the sacramental cup and swigged off the drops left in it with the most innocent air, and no one rebuked him, and the quite little children ran about in the sanctuary—up to seven they are privileged—and only they and the priests enter it. It is a pretty ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... messengers warming themselves at the lobby fire. On this occasion he was kept three hours in the waiting-room, and some of the younger clerks ventured to come and speak to him. At length Mr. Snape appeared, and desired the acolyte to follow him. Charley, supposing that he was again going to the awful Secretary, did so with a palpitating heart. But he was led in another direction into a large room, carrying his manuscript neatly rolled in his hand. Here Mr. Snape introduced him to five other ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... of a powerful mangonel, whose mighty beam, swinging high, hurled aloft the bulging wine-skin, the which, bursting in mid-air, deluged with water all below—prior and monk, acolyte and chorister; whereat from all Belsaye a shout went up, that swelled to peal on peal of mighty laughter, the while, in stumbling haste, the dripping Prior was borne by dripping monks back to Duke Ivo's mighty camp. And lo! from this great camp another sound arose, a roar of anger, ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... towards the people, and sing the chant ITE MISSA EST. If ever he had seen himself celebrant it was as in the pictures of the mass in his child's massbook, in a church without worshippers, save for the angel of the sacrifice, at a bare altar, and served by an acolyte scarcely more boyish than himself. In vague sacrificial or sacramental acts alone his will seemed drawn to go forth to encounter reality; and it was partly the absence of an appointed rite which had always constrained him to inaction whether he had ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce

... children in the choir were seized and tortured to disclose where the treasures of the abbey were concealed, and were also put to death with the prior and sub-prior. Turgar, an acolyte of ten years of age; a remarkably beautiful boy, stood by the side of the sub-prior as he was murdered and fearlessly confronted the Danes, and bade them put him to death with the holy father. The young Earl Sidroc, however, struck ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty

... ever come so near granting his self-love all that it demanded. Her sweet presence, always looking up to him, had been like the perpetual swinging of a censer perpetually giving the fragrant incense that his vanity craved. And now all this was changed. The gentle acolyte was gone, the censer no longer swung, and instead there was a keen critic armed with words as hard as stones. No, there was nothing strange in the fact that, when William Pressley finally turned his gaze on Ruth, he looked at her as if she had been a stranger whom he had never seen ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks

... monsieur. As soon as mass began to be celebrated after the Revolution, his mother took him with her to church. They were nearly the only persons in the church, and his mother bade him go and offer to act as acolyte to the priest. The boy went up timidly to the priest, and with a blush said, "Citizen, will you allow me to serve mass for you?" "What are you saying!" exclaimed his mother; "you should never use the word citizen to a priest." His affability ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... curate; deacon, deaconess; preacher, reader, lecturer; capitular^; missionary, propagandist, Jesuit, revivalist, field preacher. churchwarden, sidesman^; clerk, precentor^, choir; almoner, suisse [Fr.], verger, beadle, sexton, sacristan; acolyth^, acolothyst^, acolyte, altar boy; chorister. [Roman Catholic priesthood] Pope, Papa, pontiff, high priest, cardinal; ancient flamen^, flamen^; confessor, penitentiary; spiritual director. cenobite, conventual, abbot, prior, monk, friar, lay brother, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... stands the high priest, Night, Robed in his shadowy stole; And beside him I kneel as his acolyte, To respond ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)

... like a genial host at an inn, hands outstretched, and his wife followed him. They looked even adoring, and again Jeffrey wondered, so droll was their excess of welcome, if he were going to be embraced. The boy, too, was radiant, and, like an acolyte at some ritual, more humbly though exquisitely proffered his own fit portion of worship. Jeffrey, it being the least he could offer, shook hands all round. ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown

... (Chloris sits behind a tree.] in the printed source, nor in a Spanish text of the play, to explain this. Perhaps (as may be guessed from the line "From their tender years go thither" in the previous scene) the character is an acolyte or novice priestess played by a child. She only appears ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... Bread was prepared, and the priest turned round from the altar on which it was placed, to see who would be its safest bearer. Before any other could step forward, the young acolyte Tarcisius knelt at his feet. With his hands extended before him, ready to receive the sacred deposit, with a countenance beautiful in its lovely innocence as an angel's, he seemed to entreat for preference, and even to ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools

... therefore to be sought for at an earlier date than his pontificate. It is possible that the Liber Pontificalis refers to the office under the Latin synonym, when it says of Pope Victor (186—197) that he made sequentes cleros, a term—-sequens—-which Pope Gaius (283—293) uses in the sense of acolyte. While the office was well known in Rome, there is nothing to prove that it was also an order through which, as to-day, every candidate to the priesthood must pass. The contrary is a fact proved by many monumental inscriptions and ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... bell outside called him to the window, and he saw a procession which had just issued from the church going to administer the extreme unction to some dying person across the piazza. The parish priest went first, bearing the consecrated wafer in its vessel, and at his side an acolyte holding a yellow silk umbrella over the Eucharist; after them came a number of facchini in white robes and white hoods that hid their faces; their tapers burned sallow and lifeless in the new morning light; ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells

... zeal, Father Jose went forward in the van of Christian pioneers. On reaching Mexico, he obtained authority to establish the Mission of San Pablo. Like the good Junipero, accompanied only by an acolyte and muleteer, he unsaddled his mules in a dusky canyon, and rang his bell in the wilderness. The savages—a peaceful, inoffensive, and inferior race—presently flocked around him. The nearest military post was far away, which contributed much to the security of these pious pilgrims, who ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte

... night the priest was called away, to perform a Buddhist service at the house of a dead parishioner; and he went there with his acolyte, leaving Hoichi alone in the temple. It was a hot night; and the blind man sought to cool himself on the verandah before his sleeping-room. The verandah overlooked a small garden in the rear of the Amidaji. There Hoichi waited for the ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn

... inlaid Sheraton tray with china and a copper kettle droning over a lamp, and near it a cakestand in three storeys. And Leonora, manoeuvring her bangles, commenced the ritual of refection with Harry as acolyte. 'If he doesn't come—well, he doesn't come,' she thought of her husband, as she smiled interrogatively at Arthur Twemlow, holding a lump of sugar ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett

... leave no useful result behind it. I put forward this obvious reflection, not out of any desire to disparage Mr. Waldron in particular, but that you may not lose your sense of proportion and mistake the acolyte for the high priest." (At this point Mr. Waldron whispered to the chairman, who half rose and said something severely to his water-carafe.) "But enough of this!" (Loud and prolonged cheers.) "Let me pass to some subject of wider interest. What is the particular ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle

... better than we are. We do not wish to be elevated and improved. At midnight, away with such books! As for the literary pundits, the high priests of the Temple of Letters, it is interesting and helpful occasionally for an acolyte to swinge them a good hard one with an incense-burner, and cut and run, for a change, to something outside the rubrics. Midnight is the time when one can recall, with ribald delight, the names ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson



Words linked to "Acolyte" :   reverend, altar boy, clergyman, holy order, thurifer



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