"Altar" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... through the pineapple fields before we came to the biggest cave, and found it wasn't very much of a cave, after all, though there was a sort of a room, on one side, which looked like a church, with altar, pillars and arches. There was a little hole, on one side of this room, about three feet wide, which led, our negro guide said, to a great cave, which ran along about a mile, until it reached the sea. There was no knowing what skeletons, and ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... the change which had been wrought, that she seemed to herself to be a real person who had lately been a shadow; a something which had lately been a nothing; a purpose, which had lately been a fancy; a finished temple, with the altar-fires lit and the voice of worship ascending, where before had been but an architect's confusion of arid working plans, unintelligible to the passing eye and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... City of the Dead; only Vesuvius thundered forth his everlasting hymn, each separate verse of which is called by men an eruption. We went to the temple of Venus, built of snow-white marble, with its high altar in front of the broad steps, and the weeping willows sprouting freshly forth among the pillars. The air was transparent and blue, and black Vesuvius formed the background, with fire ever shooting forth from it, like the stem of the pine tree. Above it stretched the smoky cloud in ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... bad, proud, luxurious, cruel; they were selling their countrymen for slaves—selling, he says so twice, as if it was some notorious and special case, an honest man for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes. They were lying down on clothes taken on pledge by every altar. They were breaking the seventh commandment in an abominable way. They were falsifying weights and measures, and selling the refuse of the wheat. They stored up the fruits of violence and robbery in their palaces. They hated him who rebuked them, ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... neophyte, and though I saw no blood on the altar of love next morning I did not suspect her on that account. I have often seen such cases, and I know by experience that the effusion of blood or its absence proves nothing. As a general rule a girl cannot be convicted of having had a lover unless ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... be here when the weapons are used," he said. "When I thought that Lura had gone to Venus, I gave her up and sacrificed both her and my heart on the altar of our cause, for it is what she would have chosen. Now I have accomplished the sacrifice and returned with the Martian weapons to find that she is a captive in the Viceroy's palace. We can turn on the rays and reduce the building ...
— Giants on the Earth • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... revealed itself to me when, wandering in a rough courtyard, I noticed a little building which jutted out over a precipice. I opened the door, and discovered a Lilliputian chapel with seats in it for some twenty people. Facing me was an altar trimmed with decaying lace and supporting a mildewed breviary, and before it, in full armor, with gauntleted hands outstretched, was the effigy of a kneeling knight. He had knelt there as an image of prayer for more than three centuries. When sightseeing was over, and we descended to the world ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... the prayers of those in trouble or in sadness, habited only by one of the elder brothers, who gave, if it were needed, advice, encouragement, or spiritual comfort. Removing his hat, the Prince entered into the silence on tiptoe, and kneeling before the altar, prayed devoutly for direction, asking the Almighty to turn the thoughts of His servant, Mayence, into channels that flowed towards peace and the relief of this ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... opened; the rush of foggy air set the flames of the altar candles blowing wildly. There came the ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... worship. It is possible for us in the ordering of our own lives to fulfil the great prophecy with which Zechariah crowned his vision of the Future, 'In that day shall there be on the bells of the horses Holiness unto the Lord'; and the 'pots in the Lord's house shall be like the bowls before the altar.' ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Gawayne's,—love that sanctifies The heart's most secret altar; and his eyes Were opened, and his pulses beat once more Their old true rhythm. And so the strife was o'er, And all the perilous wiles of magic art Were foiled by ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis
... Rajputs. They fell, while mere boys, in the heroic defence of Chitor against Akbar. Jey Singh, (Sowar Jey Singh.) Succeeded to the throne of Amber in 1699, founded Jaipur in 1728. He wrote the following, which I had not read when I visited his observatory at Jaipur "Let us devote ourselves at the altar of the King of Kings, hallowed be his name! In the book of the register of whose power the lofty orbs of Heaven are but a few leaves, and the stars, and that heavenly courser the sun, small pieces of money in the treasury of the Most High." Jheel, A small lake, or pond. ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... they would grant it; and by the time it was refused, the fellowship by rigour is forfeited. I dined with Dr. Arbuthnot (one of my brothers) at his lodgings in Chelsea, and was there at chapel; and the altar put me in mind of Tisdall's outlandish would(16) at your hospital for the soldiers. I was not at Court to-day, and I hear the Queen was not at church. Perhaps the gout has seized her again. Terrible rain all day. Have oo such weather? ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... abode of the gods, as well as to the frequency and variety of their actions.[1613] The feeling of direct contact with the deity appears in the significance attached to the movements of a sacrificial animal: if it approached the altar willingly, this, showing accord with the deity, was a good omen, and unwillingness was a bad omen.[1614] Among the later Romans the entrance of a strange black dog into a house, the falling of a snake through the opening in the ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... Paul, 'lifting up holy hands.' That, of course, needs no explanation. One of the psalms, you may remember, says 'I will wash mine hands in innocency, so will I compass Thine altar.' The psalmist felt that unless there was a previous lustration and cleansing, it was vain for him to go round the altar. And you may remember how sternly and eloquently the prophet Isaiah rebukes the hypocritical worshippers in Jerusalem when he says to them, 'Your hands are full of blood. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... befit such a farewell, and partly that less public attention might be attracted; for there was a doubt whether the King's servants would permit any further ceremonies. Six tall candles burnt upon the altar, and the usual sconces lit the service-books that lay before the brothers in the choir-stalls. It was a sad service, as every good and amiable thing is sad when done for the last time. There were agonising hearts among the brothers, especially among the older monks, who knew not whither to ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... touch your meats nor the plate off which you have eaten them. He will keep your house clean, and even perform some personal services, for he has a liberal mind, and is there not also a toolsee plant in a pot on a kind of earthen altar in front of his hut, before which he performs purificatory ceremonies every morning? And does he not bathe after leaving your presence before he eats? If you pass by the clean place where he is about to cook his food in the morning, you will see a large pot of water on the ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... Mexico are of stone or marble, without seats of any kind, and those in attendance must either kneel or stand during the ceremonies. In the present instance, the Texans were paraded in rows before the altar, and compelled to fall upon their knees while mass was said; but they were not obliged to go through all the little forms and ceremonies which the Catholic Church in Mexico exacts of its votaries, such as crossing themselves, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... resolved to marry, and on the 2d of April, 1524, led Anna Reinhart,[17] in whom he found the guardian angel of his earthly existence, before the altar, to take the pledge of fidelity in the presence of God and the congregation. Henceforth the priests wished to be, above all, Christians; but to all Christians without exception, the call has been made according to the language of the Apostle, to ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... of love, Where burns memory's exhaustless incense From the irridescent thurible of hope, On the altar and couch of my heart Rest thy limbs, O, god of my soul. Drink of the unquenchable draught of caresses; Tear the flowers of my dreams and fancies; Scatter the sacred petals of my passion To the four winds of ...
— Sandhya - Songs of Twilight • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... sun as Bhagwan, and like the Kharias offer sacrifices to that luminary in an open place with an ant-hill for an altar. The Mainpat is their Marang Buru, and as it is 16 miles long, 12 miles broad, and rises 3850 feet above the sea-level, it is not unworthy of the name, but they do not use that or any other Kol term. The great Mainpat is their fatherland and their god. They have ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... which Pliny describes. M. Collignon, in his Histoire de la Sculpture Grecque, gives reasons for assigning the date of the Laocoon to the first years of the first century B.C. It follows that the work is a century later than the frieze of the great altar of Pergamos, which contains the figure of a young giant caught in the toils of Athena's serpent—a theme which served as a model for later sculptors of the same school. In 1817 the Laocoon was in the heyday of its fame, and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... soldier, or "Tommy," who draws a very poor daily pay, for which he has to perform a tremendous lot of work, is, if not the most capable fighter, the most willing in all circumstances to offer himself as a sacrifice at the altar of duty, or of what he considers his duty, to his country. But if "Tommy" by any accident be asked to deviate from the usual routine in which he has been trained, he is a thoroughly helpless creature. This helplessness, in my opinion, ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... working guild. Have you done it? Has every man, who was present then, said since, when hewing a foundation stone, a block for a bridge abutment, a corner-stone for a cathedral or a railroad station, a cap-stone for a monument, a milestone, a lintel for a door, a hearthstone or a step for an altar, 'I belong to the great guild of the makers of this country; I quarry and hew the rock that lays the enduring bed for the iron or electric horses which rush from sea to sea and carry the burden ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... of my health, Conuaid me from their crooked nets and bands: So I escapt the furious Pirrhus wrath: Who then ran to the pallace of the King, And at Ioues Altar finding Priamus, About whose withered necke hung Hecuba, Foulding his hand in hers, and ioyntly both Beating their breasts and falling on the ground, He with his faulchions poynt raisde vp at once, ...
— The Tragedy of Dido Queene of Carthage • Christopher Marlowe
... boarding-schools, generally with a book in his hand, and perhaps another just peering from the orifice of a capacious back pocket; and at a certain season of the year he might be seen, dressed in white, before the altar of a certain small popish chapel, chanting from the breviary in very intelligible Latin, or perhaps reading from the desk in utterly unintelligible English. Such was my preceptor in the French and Italian tongues. ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... me evil for my good; but that thou bear in mind my love, and the continuation of my kindness to my beloved Mansoul, so as to provoke thee to walk in thy measure according to the benefit bestowed on thee. Of old, the sacrifices were bound with coords to the horns of the altar. Consider what is said to thee, ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... the room where prayers were read while Queen Caroline dressed, which Dr. Madox sarcastically termed "a very proper altar-piece."[95] Of the High Churchmen Defoe declared that "the spirit of Christianity is fled from among them." When the Prince of Wales died, George the Second appointed governors and preceptors for the prince's children. Horace ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... of gouernors in monasteries, and curats or priests to the ministerie in churches: and further for the behauior of priests in wearing their apparell, namelie that they should not presume to come to the altar bare legged, lest their dishonestie might be discouered. And that in no wise the chalice or paten were made of the horne of an oxe, bicause the same is bloudie of nature: nor the host of a crust, but of pure bread. Also whereas bishops vsed to ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (6 of 8) - The Sixt Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed
... lily tall, from her saddle bearing, I led then forth through the temple, faring To th' altar-circle where, priests among, Lofn's vows ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... shook the ground, And Gormul's mountain far around From all his rocks flung back the sound. Pierced by the monarch, with struggling yell A bull at Odin's altar fell; The priest in a bowl received the gore, And round the troop the chalice bore. Eager, as he the wine-cup quaffed, Each chief caroused the sable draught,— The pledge of martial faith; And not a word the stillness broke, As thus, in turn, each chieftain spoke, With slow and ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... the life of a celebrated conspirator. Then, passing quickly from theory to practice, he had entered into one of the most sinister plots framed against Richelieu, and for his first experiment he had accepted the task, he, a young abbe, of assassinating the Cardinal at the altar during the ceremony of Mademoiselle de Montpensier's baptism. In 1643, he had not hesitated to throw himself into the arms of the Importants; but the title of Coadjutor of Paris, which had just been conferred ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... the highest in the whole Island; where, as has been said before, is the Print of the Buddou's foot, which he left on the top of that Mountain in a Rock, from whence he ascended to Heaven. Unto this footstep they give worship, light up Lamps, and offer Sacrifices, laying them upon it, as upon an Altar. The benefit of the Sacrifices that are offered here do belong unto the Moors Pilgrims, who come over from the other Coast to beg, this having been given them heretofore by a former King. So that at that season there are great numbers of them always waiting there ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... in the dark our fury did escape, Returning, know our borrow'd arms, and shape, And differing dialect; then their numbers swell And grow upon us; first Choroebus fell Before Minerva's altar; next did bleed Just Ripheus, whom no Trojan did exceed In virtue, yet the gods his fate decreed. Then Hypanis and Dymas, wounded by Their friends; nor thee, Pantheus, thy piety, Nor consecrated mitre, from the same Ill fate could save; my country's funeral flame And Troy's cold ashes I ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... leaf. What could he do but place his strong arm about her? In that moment, in the happiness of being near her, he forgot that he was in honor bound to another, and that other Sally Pendleton, whom he was so soon to lead to the altar to make his wife. ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... in the dignitaries of the Church that Johnson required a particular decorum and delicacy of behaviour; he justly considered that the clergy, as persons set apart for the sacred office of serving at the altar, and impressing the minds of men with the aweful concerns of a future state, should be somewhat more serious than the generality of mankind, and have a suitable composure of manners. A due sense of the dignity of their profession, independent of higher motives, will ever prevent them from ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... Constance—"you mean that we part at the altar," and in spite of all her efforts to keep her face ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... the three lay participants sauntered into the graveyard outside the west door. The setting sun flooded the aisle of the little chapel, even to the cross on the altar. The tones of the organ rolled out into the warm afternoon. The young man approached Alves ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... Happy Ending.—And so there was nothing more to do but to get married, and consequently EDWIN led no happier bride to the altar than his much persecuted and greatly tried ANGELINA. So the bells of Tinkleton rang out their merriest chimes as the sun went down on the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 19, 1891 • Various
... not rightly taken, the business was deferred to another day. Augustus ordered that each Senator, before he took his seat, should pay his devotions with an offering of frankincense and wine, at the altar of that god in whose temple the Senate were assembled, that they might discharge their duty the more religiously. When the consuls entered, the Senators commonly rose up to do ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... porticoes, and two ambulatories, the one a little eastward, the other westward from the said cross-aisle, and running parallel therewith. The floor of the whole is paved with marble, but under the cupola and within the rail of the altar with fine porphyry, polished and ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales
... most imposing rites of the Church. In the great cathedral, which dwarfed all other buildings in the Plaza, there was high mass that day. The famous bell clanged out to all Caracas remembrance of the agony of our Lord. A silent multitude was prostrated all day long before the gorgeous altar. Prelates and priests and acolytes stood, splendid in vestments of purple and white and gold, solemnly celebrating upon the steps of the sanctuary the holiest mysteries of the Roman Catholic communion. Above and around, gigantic tapers flared from ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... represented the Lamas as very averse to Europeans, and because he might well have hesitated before admitting a promiscuous horde of thirty people into a sacred building, where the little valuables on the altar, etc., were quite at our disposal. A better tribute could not well have been paid to the honesty of my Lepcha followers. Our host only begged us not to disturb his people, nor to allow the Hindoos of our party to ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... of the island were full of pitch and a branch would burn torch-like for a long time. I kept a bundle of such handy, the short ends sharpened so's you could stick 'em round wherever the ground was soft enough and have an effect of altar candles in a draughty church. If there was occasion to leave the cave at night I'd carry one of the torches and feel as safe as if it ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... much bitterness of indignation, as any of those whom you will hear continually declaiming in the cause of peace. But peace may be sought in two ways. One way is as Gideon sought it, when he built his altar in Ophrah, naming it, "God send peace," yet sought this peace that he loved, as he was ordered to seek it, and the peace was sent, in God's way:—"the country was in quietness forty years in the days of Gideon." And the other way of ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... hereditary ruler might be; asked not whether he were wise or foolish, faithful or treacherous. She forgot all of tyranny and of double-dealing she had suffered from his forbears. She forgot even her terror of the scarlet spectre, the grim wolf of Rome, in her disgust at Puritan fervour which had torn down altar-rails, usurped church pulpits, destroyed the beauty of ancient cathedrals. Like a woman or a child, she held out her arms to the unknown, in a natural recoil from that iron rule which had extinguished her gaiety, silenced her noble liturgy, made innocent ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... neither upon the reflected light of a coterie, the arts of the courtier, nor the subtle power of personal attraction; but, firm in her convictions, clear in her purpose, and unselfish in her aims, she laid down her interests, and, in the end, her life, upon the altar of liberty and humanity. She could hardly be regarded, however, as herself a type. She was cast in a rare mold and lived under rare conditions. She was individual, as were Hypatia, Joan of Arc, and Charlotte Corday—a woman fitted for a special mission which ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... his best Sunday clothes, with his hard visage glowing with a sort of interior tenderness, ministered this morning at his family-altar—one of those thousand priests of God's ordaining that tend the sacred fire in as many families of New England. He had risen with the morning star and been forth to meditate, and came in with his ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... and the floor seems like a translucent sea of precious marbles and gems fused into solid brightness, and reflecting in long gleams and streaks dim intimations of the sculptured and gilded glories above. Altar and shrine are now veiled in that rich violet hue which the Church has chosen for its mourning color; and violet vestments, taking the place of the gorgeous robes of the ecclesiastics, tell the approach of that holy week of sadness when all Christendom falls in penitence at the feet of that Almighty ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... disengage myself from the bashful passive, and stalk about the room—to-morrow's sun shall gild the altar at which my vows ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... say the least, do not prevent such occasions... And so, as a friend, I should advise you to be more cautious. The air of these parts is very dangerous. How many handsome young men, worthy of a better fate, have I not seen departing from here straight to the altar!... Would you believe me, they were even going to find a wife for me! That is to say, one person was—a lady belonging to this district, who had a very pale daughter. I had the misfortune to tell her that the latter's colour would be restored after wedlock, and ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... conjunctures the most guilty. Help us at the same time with the grace of courage, that we be none of us cast down when we sit lamenting amid the ruins of our happiness or our integrity: touch us with fire from the altar, that we may be up and doing to rebuild our city: in the name and by the method of him in whose words of prayer ...
— A Lowden Sabbath Morn • Robert Louis Stevenson
... at the altar, outside, before the door, a man dressed in a costume of chestnut velvet, and wearing a felt hat, walked up and down, smoking a pipe. It was the Count de Brigard, whose principles forbade him to enter a church for either a wedding ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... ready for a personal consideration to forego his privileges. He, too, was for peace sake made happy; and it was there and then explained by the settlers, definitely and determinedly, that no more payment for the particular trees about to be sacrificed on the altar of civilisation would be made. In future the laws of the camps were to be restricted to the hundreds of other bean-trees in the jungle, each of which, if wanted, would be the subject of ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... when I tried to kindle my heart at the cold altar of Goethe, I did read a great deal of his prose and somewhat of his poetry, but it was to be ten years yet before I should go faithfully through with his Faust and come to know its power. For the present, I read ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... their find on the broad concrete steps that in the old days had led up to the altar, and while Allan minutely examined the mechanism to make sure that all was right, the girl, sitting on the top ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... they arose, and heard mass; then King Bagdemagus asked where the adventurous shield was. Anon a monk led him behind an altar, where the shield hung, as white as snow; but in the midst there was a red cross. Then King Bagdemagus took the shield, and bare it out of the minster; and he said to Sir Galahad, "If it please you, abide here till ye know how ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... by the sense of a soul instinct from its early consciousness with power working in her beyond her own thought or knowledge or will. Her attitude seemed by nature to be that of contemplation. Her heart was like a burning coal laid upon the altar of humanity; and when she stole up, as it were, in the night and laid it down for the slave with tears and supplications, it awakened neither alarm nor wonder in her spirit that in the morning she saw a bright fire burning there and lighting ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... ask me to become his wife,—me, Alice Bailey, his poor, hired clerk! I wondered that I should be especially interested in the matter, for its ludicrous side was at once apparent; that is to say, the situations portrayed in cheap contemporaneous fiction, of beautiful working-girls led to the altar by the sons of rich bankers, immediately suggested themselves. But nevertheless the thought haunted me, and I did not feel altogether the degree of contrition at the idea of having captivated him that I perhaps should have done. If it was not for myself alone that he loved me, what ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... as much as half a dozen times to gratify Dacres. He had sacrificed himself over and over upon the altar of friendship, and had allowed himself to be bored to death because Dacres so wished it. The whole number of his calls was in reality only about five or six; but that number, to one of his taste and temperament, seemed positively enormous, ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... the room was brightened by an altar to the Virgin, decorated with flowers, candles, and lace; and near by was the desk of the matron, who came forward, and in a soft voice, the tones of which seemed half lost among the folds of ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... enriched with jewels so large and rare, that of itself it would have constituted a prize of great magnitude. Yet this was left untouched, though suspended in a little oratory that had been magnificently adorned by the elder of the maiden sisters. There was an altar, in itself a splendid object, furnished with every article of the most costly material and workmanship, for the private celebration of mass. This crucifix, as well as everything else in the little ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... outside of this inner court was the lele, or altar, on which human and other sacrifices were offered. On the day of the dedication of the temple to Tairi, vast offerings of fruit, dogs, and hogs were presented, and eleven human beings were immolated on the altar. These victims were ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... pile of architecture of debased wedding-cake style, thick with innumerable elastic-legged, goggled-eyed, beastly, indecent Hindoo divinities. Thence to a Roman Catholic church in St Thome, the old Portuguese quarter—very pretty and simple in appearance. The half near the altar full of veiled European nuns in white and buff dresses. Nearer the door, where we sat, were native women and children, mostly in red, a few of them with antique European black bonnets and clothes; and in their withered old faces ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... from the canons of the Church of the Rotunda (i.e., of the Pantheon), to make some researches; and on the 14th of September in the same year, after five days spent in removing the pavement in several places, the remains of Raphael were discovered in a vault behind the high altar, and certified as his by indisputable proofs. After being examined, and a cast made from the skull and [one] from the right hand, the skeleton was exhibited publicly in a glass case, and multitudes thronged to the church ...
— Shakespeare's Bones • C. M. Ingleby
... around the capitals of others. The stalls of the choir are elaborately carved with cherubs' heads, medallions and figures of saints, cupids supporting shields, and free and graceful arabesques of the epoch of the Renaissance. In the chancel, close by the altar steps, are a couple of black marble slabs, with Latin inscriptions of dubious orthography, the one to Johannes Royer, who died in 1527, and the other setting forth the virtues and merits of Dom Petrus Perignon, ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... eddied and whirled above the miserable group, and the flames of their altar leaped heavenward, as if in ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... their whole lives, merge their immortal souls in ministering to its absolute necessities, who go cold, ill-clad, and ignorant, to keep off the pangs of hunger; who sacrifice pride and affection at its miserable altar. There are others, fewer in number, it is true, but scarcely less to be pitied, who exceed this enforced servility in the most abject fashion of voluntary adulation; who flatter, persuade, and bring rich tribute to this smiling Moloch, only waiting his own time to turn upon ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... 'If the altar stood here, hundreds of people have been made man and wife just there, in past times,' she said, with calm deliberateness, throwing a little stone on a spot about a ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... the mere statement of truth, my dear; it is like the altar with the wood laid in readiness and the sacrifice—all cold; and till fire falls down from heaven, no incense will arise from earth. But if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... was kneeling, or I suppose I should have felt obliged to refrain from disturbing her. As it was, Sylvia heard me, and, having seen who disturbed her, rose, with the gravest little smile, and, with a curtsy to the altar, walked out ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... of the futility of her attitude of prayer. She raised her head and saw that a man kneeling close to the altar had turned and was staring fixedly towards her. The man was the Prince of Baden. Had he recognised her? She peered between her fingers; she remarked that his gaze was puzzled; he was not then sure, though he suspected. She waited until he turned his head again, and then she silently ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... Prayer-book a controversial passage was even inserted against it. First on their own impulse, and then with the help of the Privy Council, the zealous Protestant-minded bishops removed the high altars from the churches and had wooden tables for the communion put in their place: since with the word Altar was ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... always have, and from a Child had, a mysterious feeling about that 'Sizewell Gap.' There were reports of kegs of Hollands found under the Altar Cloth of Theberton Church near by: and we Children looked with awe on the 'Revenue Cutters' which passed Aldbro', especially remembering one that went down with all hands, ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... recesses. In each of these was set a coffin with a gilded face, and behind it an alabaster statue of her who lay therein, and in front of it a table of offerings. At the head of the crypt stood a small altar of black stone, for the rest the ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... no Altar, nor never do falter, So much as to change a Gold-chain for a Halter; Though some Men do flout us, and others do doubt us, We commonly bear forty Pieces about us; But many good Fellows are fine and look fiercer, And owe for their Cloaths to the Taylor and ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... white dress, white shoes an' long white gloves dat come to my elbow, an' Mis' Betsy done made me a weddin' veil out of a white net window curtain. When she played de weddin ma'ch on de piano, me an' Exter ma'ched down de walk an' up on de po'ch to de altar Mis' Betsy done fixed. Dat de pretties' altar I ever seed. Back 'gainst de rose vine dat was full or red roses, Mis' Betsy done put tables filled wid flowers an' white candles. She done spread down a bed sheet, a sho nuff linen sheet, for us to stan' on, an' dey was a white pillow ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... at the end of two or three months. One woman drives out another so quickly in Paris, when one is a bachelor! No matter; he had kept a little altar for her in his heart, for he had loved her alone! He assured himself now that ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... the blow, so that it only made his master bleed. Another voice from among the knights again called to Thomas a Becket to fly; but, with his blood running down his face, and his hands clasped, and his head bent, he commanded himself to God, and stood firm. Then they cruelly killed him close to the altar of St. Bennet; and his body fell upon the pavement, which was dirtied ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... far earlier date. The fact, however, above all others, which stamped the cavern as a temple, was the presence of a hideously carved life-size idol, enshrined in a most elaborately carved niche, with a great block of stone before it which had evidently served as an altar. ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... they welcomed the friars. Perhaps these priests had "good medicine" that would help out. Maybe this new kind of altar, image, and ceremony would bring rain and corn and health; they were quite willing to try them. But imagine their consternation when these Catholic priests after a while, unlike any people who had ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett
... liking the theatre so well, to sit out an act or two of the play, but I could never rightly make out the nature of the service I beheld. Four or five priests and as many choristers were singing Miserere before the high altar when I went in. There was no congregation but a few old women on chairs and old men kneeling on the pavement. After a while a long train of young girls, walking two and two, each with a lighted taper in her hand, and all dressed in black with a white veil, came from behind the ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... has not sense enough to vote. It don't take much. But it seems to me there are some questions, as for instance, the question of peace or war, that a woman should be allowed to vote upon. A woman that has sons to be offered on the altar of that Moloch, it seems to me that such a woman should have as much right to vote upon the question of peace and war as some thrice-besotted sot that reels to the ballot box and deposits his vote for war. But if women have been slaves, what shall we say of the little children, born in ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... lines, escaping the shots which were fired at him. In Paris the statue of Strasbourg had become a place of pilgrimage, a sacred shrine, as it were, adorned with banners and with wreaths innumerable. Yet I certainly had not expected to see an altar set up and Mass celebrated in front of it, as if it had been, indeed, a ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... king sets out on an expedition. As a preliminary step, before leaving home he offers sacrifice (in company with (4) his staff) to Zeus Agetor (the Leader), and if the victims prove favourable then and there the priest, (5) who bears the sacred fire, takes thereof from off the altar and leads the way to the boundaries of the land. Here for the second time the king does sacrifice (6) to Zeus and Athena; and as soon as the offerings are accepted by those two divinities he steps across the boundaries of the land. And ...
— The Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians • Xenophon
... what vigil will you keep to-night? Before the altar will you lay again Your "shining armour," and renew your plight To wear it ever ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 30, 1914 • Various
... waters rose, and at intervals of seven days he sent out a raven and a dove. The flood from its beginning to the time when Noah disembarked continued sixty-eight days. At the end, when he had determined by sending out birds that the waters had subsided, he went forth from the ark and reared an altar and offered sacrifice to Jehovah of every ...
— The Making of a Nation - The Beginnings of Israel's History • Charles Foster Kent and Jeremiah Whipple Jenks
... tragedy was determined from the very beginning by the fact of its connection with religion. The season at which it was performed was the festival of Dionysus; about his altar the chorus danced; and the object of the performance was the representation of scenes out of the lives of ancient heroes. The subject of the drama was thus strictly prescribed; it must be selected out of a cycle of legends familiar to the audience; and whatever freedom might be allowed to the ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... them. The structure now before us seems to have been first granted to Sir Nicholas Lestrange, who perhaps intended, like other men, to establish his household gods in the niches whence he had thrown down the images of saints, and to lay his hearth where an altar had stood. But there was probably a natural reluctance in those days (when Catholicism, so lately repudiated, must needs Lave retained an influence over all but the most obdurate characters) to bring one's hopes of domestic prosperity and a fortunate lineage into direct hostility ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... occupation, sitting up night after night, and bringing home her wages at the end of the week. Poor Mme. Chardon! Twice already she had made a nine days' prayer for those she loved, wondering that God should be deaf to her petitions, and blind to the light of the candles on His altar. ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... curiosity of the police forced them to seek safer quarters. One of the members was an apothecary's apprentice, who, unknown to his master, installed the club in the shop cellar. There they built an altar bearing all the romantic paraphernalia of skull and cross-bones, swords, and pistols. The members stood wrapped in black garments, their faces muffled with their long Spanish capes, wearing Venetian masks, each one grasping ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... wagtail bobbing in the shallows fled into the waste. Overhead the smoke trembled upwards, a faint stain against a cloudless sky. The stillness seemed almost acute. It was as if the moor were waiting, and holding its breath while it waited. Then the twigs upon his altar crackled, and the pale flames blazed up. The man stepped back with ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... represents a space in front of the Palace of Agamemnon in Argos, with an Altar of Zeus in the centre and many other altars at the sides. On a high terrace of the roof stands ...
— Agamemnon • Aeschylus
... forgetting All thy loving care towards me, Evil child and disobedient, And for setting up an idol All of earth within thy temple. And receive from hands unworthy As a sacrifice accepted On Thine altar, Lord a bruised Contrite heart that ever suffers Daily pangs of disappointment Even than death itself more bitter. Take the one love of a lifetime, All the hopeless love and passion Dedicated to another Who with me Thy place had taken, As if they to Thee were ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones
... in the chapel, and thither I led them, placing them at the end which was farthest from the magazine. As the three nuns took their places before the altar my heart bounded with joy and pride within me, for I felt that the last obstacle had been ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... away Which spake impatience of delay: A pitying wonder, new and kind, Arose in each beholder's mind: They saw no scorn to meet reproof, No arrogance to keep aloof; Her air absorb'd, her sadden'd mien, Combin'd the mourning, captive queen, With her who at the altar stands To raise aloft her spotless hands, In meek and persevering prayer, For such as falter in despair. All that was smiling, bright, and gay, Youth's show of triumph during May, Its roseate crown, was ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... daughter of Erechtheus, fled to Minos the son of Asterius. In memory of Saturn's coming into Italy by sea, the Latines coined their first money with his head on one side, and a ship on the other. Macrobius [177] tells us, that when Saturn was dead, Janus erected an Altar to him, with sacred rites as to a God, and instituted the Saturnalia, and that humane sacrifices were offered to him; 'till Hercules driving the cattle of Geryon through Italy, abolished that custom: by the human sacrifices you may know ...
— The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended • Isaac Newton
... to the state. The man penned in jail, growing thin of cheek and lank of limb, could wait. There would be other homicide cases, but there never would be another prosecuting attorney so valuable as that one offering himself, and his young ambitions, on the altar of public service. That was according to his view. So he notified Hammer that the state would not be ready for trial on ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... me it was held in great veneration at Rome, and prayers are said daily in St. Peter's, for its prosperity, and it is considered to be the oldest church now standing in Europe." A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1749, states thus: "Christ's sacred altar here first Britain saw. Saint Pancras is included in that land granted by Ethelbert, the fifth King of Kent, to the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, London, about the year 603. The first mention that has been found to be made of this church, occurs in the year 1183; but it does ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... a magnificent wedding, as WILFRID of Ivanhoe, no longer the disowned, but the heir to estates belonging to a highly respectable county family led his bride to the altar. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various
... still as a sheet of glass, reflecting the midnight glory of the moon. It was climbing high in the sky, and the cloud-wreaths were mounting towards it as incense smoke from an altar. The thick, black curtain that hung in the west was growing like a monstrous shadow, threatening to ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... work of concealing that part of the treasures which had not been taken away. All of the plate which could not be easily transported, and a certain very rich and costly table employed for the service of the altar, and many sacred and expensive garments used by the higher priests in their ceremonies, had been left behind, as they could not be easily removed. These the abbot and the monks concealed in the most secure places ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... moments. Then suddenly he straightened himself, pushed back his brown hair that was brushed up in the German fashion, and crossed himself, dropping his knee as before an altar; crossed himself and dropped his knee once more; and then a third time crossed himself and inclined before the altar. Then he straightened himself ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... in war days tended the flames that glowed upon the altar of patriotism. Their lives were given to their country as truly as if their blood had crimsoned the sod of hard-fought fields. They gave of their best to our cause. Their bugle notes echo through the years, and the mournful tones of the dirges they sang over the grave of our ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... must be quoted, the force of which cannot well be missed. In the sixth chapter of the Book of the Revelation, S. John describes the vision which he saw at the opening of the fifth seal. He saw, he said, "under the altar the souls of them that had been slain for the word of GOD,—and they cried with a great voice, saying, How long, O Master, the holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?—And it was said unto them, that they should ...
— The Life of the Waiting Soul - in the Intermediate State • R. E. Sanderson
... breathless, happy, proud, almost intoxicated with delight. She could find nothing to say in reply; her pride and her thirst for homage were satisfied. "I shall fail," she said, raising her beautiful black eyes, "but not as you beg me, for all this incense which you wish to burn on the altar of another divinity. Ah! sire, I too shall be jealous of it, and want restored to me; and would not that a particle of it should be lost in the way. Therefore, sire, with your royal permission, I will choose one who shall appear to me the least likely to distract your attention, ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the term "rags" was a mere figure of speech, which stood for every pretense offered up as a sacrifice upon the altar of appearances. His mother had never been a spendthrift and certainly one could not convict Helen on such a charge. But they both had one thing in common—they "had to have things" for almost any and every occasion. If a trip ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... the rocks glowing in the reflected purple of the clouds, until the valley and the glens connected with it were quite dark with the gathering twilight—gazing where far off to the westward the snow-clad peaks were still burning brightly as with altar fires that reached to heaven—gazing where blazed longest of all the top of Kasbek, until from its expiring spark the evening planet seemed to catch the light with which it flamed out in the sky above it, while gradually ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... existence by abandoning the life of the home. Let us light again the flame put out on our hearths, make sanctuaries for ourselves, warm nests where the children may grow into men, where love may find privacy, old age repose, prayer an altar, and ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... him, but I see his heart. And yet—figure to yourself—he has but to keep silence, and I must go away, I must give up all. I am still married—Ou!—while he—But he is noble, he is sublime. He sacrifices love on the altar of honor, of truth. He tells all to me, his rival. He shows me I am free. He thinks I do not know his heart. But it is not only he who can be noble." (Dare smote himself upon the breast.) "I also can lay my heart upon the altar. ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... interceding evil demons were read—Bael, Forcas, Buer, Marchocias, Astaroth, and Behemoth. A prayer was read to ward off the effects of Good. And Uncle Ingemar apologized for not having a virgin to sacrifice on the Red Altar. ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... conceit that image worked by sympathy, and was but an Egyptian trick, to cure their diseases without a miracle. Again, having seen some experiments of bitumen, and having read far more of naphtha, he whispered to my curiosity the fire of the altar might be natural, and bade me mistrust a miracle in Elias, when he intrenched the altar round with water: for that inflamable substance yields not easily unto water, but flames in the arms of its an- tagonist. And thus would he inveigle my belief to think the combustion of Sodom might ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... mass, or sacrifice of the altar, is offered to God a true, proper, and propitiatory, sacrifice for the living and ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... at the altar stood Lady Dora Earle and Valentine. People said afterward they could not decide whom they admired most—Lady Helena's stately magnificence, Dora's sweet, simple elegance, or the Princess Borgezi's ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... reward, and the only one. For the last few months he had been living like a crossing sweeper in order to be able to stay in London until she came back to it, and that he might still send her the gifts he had always laid on her altar. He had not seen her in three months. Three months that had been to him a blank, except for his work—which, like all else that he did, was inspired and carried on for her. Now at last she had returned and had shown that, even as ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... roof, broke the solemn obscurity. At mid-day the doors were closed and the ceremony began. After a short service the bishop ascended the pulpit, pronounced one of the Seven Words (or sentences) and delivered a discourse thereon. This ended, he left the pulpit and knelt prostrate before the altar. The pause was filled by the music. The bishop then in like manner pronounced the second word, then the third, and so on, the orchestra falling in at the conclusion of each discourse. My composition was to be subject to these conditions, ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... be done at every time in the Church. Moreover, as to their complaints concerning the abuse of masses, there is none of those who think aright but does not earnestly desire that the abuses be corrected. But that they who wait at the altar live of the altar is not an abuse, but pertains equally to both divine and human law. "Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charge?" says Paul. "Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple? and they which wait at the ...
— The Confutatio Pontificia • Anonymous
... happiness the subject of a poem. He made himself and Clara, united by true love, the central figures, but represented a black hand as being from time to time thrust into their life and plucking out a joy that had blossomed for them. At length, as they were standing at the altar, the terrible Coppelius appeared and touched Clara's lovely eyes, which leapt into Nathanael's own bosom, burning and hissing like bloody sparks. Then Coppelius laid hold upon him, and hurled him into a blazing ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... of stones, generally of vast size, and surrounding an area of from twenty feet to thirty yards in diameter, constituted their sacred place; and in the centre of this stood the cromlech (crooked stone), or altar, which was an obelisk of immense size, or a large oblong flat stone, supported by pillars. These sacred circles were usually situated beside a river or stream, and under the shadow of a grove, an arrangement which was probably designed to inspire ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2, December 1875 • Various
... consisting (generally) of Vespers and Matins, can be read in private houses, and even by laymen: whereas, the Liturgy, or Mass, must be celebrated at a duly consecrated altar, ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... seems to thrust out a forbidding hand, the iron safe frowns at me. I want to get away from this continual insult to myself which is rankling within me. I want to keep running to Sandip to hear him sing my praises. There is just this one little altar of worship which has kept its head above the all-pervading depths of my dishonour, and so I want to cleave to it night and day; for on whichever side I step away from ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... the next morning when Las Casas went to the little chapel, which the Indians kept nicely adorned with cotton hangings and flowers, he was surprised to see that the statue was missing from its customary place above the altar. Upon inquiry he was told by the Indians that their chief, fearing that he would be forced to accept Las Casas's offer to exchange, had taken his statue and fled into the forests to save it. There ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... dining-room was ornamented with an antique sideboard, painted pink, in water colors. Out of a similar sideboard, properly draped with white napery and imitation lace, the Bishop had constructed the altar which ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Daphne!" the steward said, surprised at the question Ben-Hur put to him. "You have not been here before? Well, count this the happiest day of your life. You cannot mistake the road. The next street to the left, going south, leads straight to Mount Sulpius, crowned by the altar of Jupiter and the Amphitheater; keep it to the third cross street, known as Herod's Colonnade; turn to your right there, and hold the way through the old city of Seleucus to the bronze gates of Epiphanes. There the road to Daphne begins—and may ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... stood quietly looking over the altar-rail at the grave and its inscription, but finally, the arrival of some loud-voiced, laughing tourists, who conscientiously made fun of everything they saw, caused ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... saint, were never uttered in vain to the unheeding. Again and again St. Francis warned, but pride was still triumphant. One Sunday afternoon, after the usual meeting of the confraternity, the saint went to the alter of sodality; it was the altar of the Dolors. Seven daggers seemed to pierce the Virgin's heart. Ascending the altar, he cast a sorrowful glance on the weeping countenance of the Queen of Sorrows, and said: "Most Holy Virgin, this young man has been for you a most acute sword, piercing your heart; behold, I will ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly |
