"Merciful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... color, the naked, bronzed, burning limbs of the seamen, the last of the old Venetian race, who yet keep the right Giorgione color on their brows and bosoms, in strange contrast with the sallow sensual degradation of the creatures that live in the cafes of the Piazza, he would not be merciful to ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... hand and said: —"I have here another record of one who likewise heard these words. Let us see whether his rendering of them can help us to the knowledge we seek." And he found a place in the book and read aloud:— "Be ye merciful, even as your Father is merciful." And all of them closed their books and fixed ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... pitiful and shameful figure into the light. Nobody can save poor Branwell now from the dreadful immortality thrust on him by his enemies and friends with equal zeal. All that is left to us is a merciful understanding of his case. Branwell's case, once for all, was purely pathological. There was nothing great about him, not even his passion for Mrs. Robinson. Properly speaking, it was not a passion at all, it was a disease. Branwell was a degenerate, as incapable of passion as ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... Then he heard a door open, and steps on the stair. Merciful heaven, the girl must not find him here. What WOULD she think? He skipped back into the pantry, and shrank into a corner. He heard the footfalls reach the bottom of the stairs. There was a door into the kitchen from the central hall: ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... that the King can by law declare anything to be current money by his letters-patents. I dare say they will not affirm it, and if Knox's patent contained in it powers contrary to law, why is it mentioned as a precedent in His Majesty's just and merciful reign:[10] But although that clause be not in Wood's patent, yet possibly there are others, the legality whereof may be equally doubted, and particularly that, whereby "a power is given to William Wood to break into houses in search of any coin made in imitation ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... babe must mourn, Be merciful and kind! And if our gentle lamb be shorn, Attemper thou the wind! Across the Deluge guide our Dove, And to thy bosom take With arm of love, and shield ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... to you hard? Is it not merciful that we can keep our worst sorrows,—that we are disposed, as it were forced, to keep them from ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... whilst residing in France, I have had an opportunity of peeping behind the scenes of what are vulgarly termed great affairs, only to discover the mean machinery which has directed many transactions of moment. The sword has been merciful, compared with the depredations made on human life by contractors and by the swarm of locusts who have battened on the pestilence they spread abroad. These men, like the owners of negro ships, never smell on their money the blood by which it has been gained, but sleep ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... for your rearing? Knowing all, as you do, Andre-Louis, you cannot altogether blame. You must be merciful to me. You must forgive me. You must! ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... another time his poetical gift gave him a merciful vent for his pent up feeling, so now it came to his aid, and upon the night of the day when she was laid to rest he poured out his sorrow in "The Paean"—which he was afterwards to revise and ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... ma'am, don't ask me. Be merciful to me, ma'am. I am not bad naturally. It was just going into domestic service that did for me; the accident of being flung among bad companions. It's touch and go how the poor turn out in this world; all depends on your taking the right or the ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie
... made no attempt at defence. To the lords, who sent a committee to inquire whether the confession was really his, he replied, "My lords, it is my act, my hand, and my heart; I beseech your lordships to be merciful to a broken reed." He was sentenced to a fine of L40,000, remitted by the king, to be committed to the Tower during the king's pleasure (which was that he should be released in a few days), and to be incapable of holding office or sitting in parliament. He narrowly escaped ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... him," Nigel replied, "but without the slightest result. He is clearly of the opinion that the open verdict was a merciful one. In other words, he believes that it was a case ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of their badges even in broad daylight. I call it a sin and a shame that such things can be. Well, well, well, let us hope that, when the great Duke comes home, he may be able to put a stop to these things. Even in warfare, men say, he is merciful, and will permit no extortion and no cruelty. We citizens of London will give him a right royal welcome; perchance we may be able to crave a boon of him in return. He—or, rather, his wife—is all-powerful with our good Queen Anne; ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... a family, a man friend, an adviser," he cries enthusiastically; "she made the writer, she consoled the young man, she formed his taste, she cried like a sister, she laughed, she came every day, like a merciful slumber, to send sorrow to sleep."[*] Certainly there was no woman on earth to whom Balzac owed so deep a debt of gratitude, and certainly also he joyfully acknowledged his obligations. "Every day with her was a fete," he said to ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... merciful in all things. Rogue that I am, I dare to build on this notorious fact. I am snared in a hard golden trap, I cannot get a guide to Manneville, I cannot even procure a horse from Count Emmerick's stables without arousing fatal suspicions; and I must be at Manneville ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... once-famous phrase, the "pathetic fallacy," for I consider it a pathetic fallacy—though not in the Ruskinian sense—in criticism to be over-shadowed by the fear that, because some of our critical predecessors misjudged Wagner or Manet or Ibsen, we should be too merciful in criticising our contemporaries. Here is the "pathos of distance" run to sentimental seed. The music of to-day may be the music of to-morrow, but if it is not, what then? It may satisfy the emotional needs of the moment, yet to-morrow be a stale formula. But what does that prove? ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... were far off in some blessed place on the other side of this nightmare, I was aware of the merciful and pitiful faces of Mrs. Lambert and ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... were it not for his weakness of chest, which renders it necessary that he should acquire the art of speaking without over-exertion, and should adopt a delivery sufficient for the display of his rhetorical talents on the one hand, yet merciful to his physical resources on the other. He is called Cicero; he will stop but a short time, and will pass over to Asia Minor and its cities, before he returns to continue a career which will render his name immortal; and he will like his short sojourn at Athens ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... and make reparation. I have now nothing to do with the matter. As I have said, if the Count is merciful, he is like to be glad of it later in his life; if he is revengeful, visiting the sin of the father on the son, innocent, I think you called him, then he deserves what his own hand deals out to himself. But we have talked ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... horror was increased by the consciousness that there was no merciful ear to listen, but only a deaf heaven. Wherever Frederick turned his eyes, he saw death. Indifferently the bottle-green, mountainous waves came rolling. In their march there was a murderous regularity, with which nothing ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... and swift to spare, Gentle and merciful and just! Who in the fear of God didst bear The sword ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... him—likeness there is none: it is certain Lord Lincoln's mother was no whore; she never recovered the death of her husband. The line that follows "son of a whore" seems but too much connected with it; at least the "could say more" is not very merciful. The person of Lord Bute, not his face, is ridiculously like; Newcastle, Pitt, and Lord Temple are the very men. It came out but to-day, and shows how cordial the new union is. Since the Ligue against Henry III. of ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... your pardon!" says Mr. Williams, his heart all aglow with gratitude. "To be kind and merciful to the poor, that isn't to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... terrified by this act of apostasy, uttered a lengthened murmur. It was felt that the last tie which bound their souls to a merciful divinity ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... he [God] will forgive thy offences."(1351) St. Augustine says: "The remission of sins itself is not without some merit, if faith asks for it. Nor is that faith entirely unmeritorious by which the publican was moved to say: 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner,' and then went away justified through the merit ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... just and kind, who put a sharp-edged and dangerous knife into the hand of a playful, and imprudent child, whom he before knew to be imprudent, and punished him during the remainder of his life for cutting himself with it? Would that prince be called just and merciful, who, not regarding any proportion between the offence and the punishment, should perpetually exercise his power of vengeance, over one of his subjects who, being drunk, had rashly offended against his vanity, ...
— Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever • Matthew Turner
... thinking in this vein, she allowed herself to wonder for the first time why her dear grandfather was being persecuted by the officers of the law—by the Government of the United States, indeed, which should be just and merciful to all its people. Of course he was innocent of any wrong-doing; Gran'pa Jim would never do anything to injure a human being, for he was goodness itself and had taught her to honor truth and righteousness ever since she could remember. Never for a moment would she doubt him. But it was ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... that Monsieur le Prefet is disloyal to the Empire," Simon went on, "though he might easily be made to appear so. It is that he thinks there is no policy like a merciful one. Also he is too soft-hearted, and too kind ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... dead. The emus, with outstretched necks, gasping for breath, searched the channels of the rivers for water, in vain; and the native dog, so thin that he could hardly walk, seemed to implore some merciful hand to ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... all. I ask for nothing. You do not forgive me—oh, not truely—you do not love me. Our old life is dead. I have killed it with my own hand. I see it all, Karen. And I accept my doom. But even so, can you not be merciful to me and let me help you now? Do not break my heart, my child. Do not crush me down into the dust. Come with me. I will take you to quiet and beautiful shores. I will trouble you in nothing. There will be no more pleading; no more urgency. You shall do as it pleases you in all things, and ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... the duke, smiling; "but you will see that that is scarcely the excuse to offer to Philippe d'Orleans. I wanted something personal. Political enemy of the regent's as I am, I know that he is not considered a bad man. Men say that he is merciful, and that there have been no executions during ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... affords, amongst others, the following valuable passages:—"Especially remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, which he spake teaching gentleness and long-suffering: for thus he said:* Be ye merciful, that ye may obtain mercy; forgive, that it my be forgiven unto you; as you do, so shall it be done unto you; as you give, so shall it be given unto you; as ye judge, so shall ye be judged; as ye show kindness, ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... other survivals of the Inquisition were applied. When the officers had extorted what they wanted, or had made sure there was nothing to extort, the poor, white wreck of a human being was delivered by the judges to an executioner, and a merciful death ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... abbe, in a tone which made the dying man shudder; "have patience!" Caderousse looked at him with amazement. "Besides," said the abbe, "God is merciful to all, as he has been to you; he is first ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... said Longarine, "that if the Word of God does not show us by faith the leprosy of unbelief that lurks in the heart, yet God is very merciful to us when He allows us to fall into some visible wrongdoing whereby the hidden plague may be made manifest. Happy are they whom faith has so humbled that they have no need to test their sinful nature by ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. IV. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... still was! The day had been almost tropical, but it is a merciful provision of Providence that all days, even one beginning at four A.M., must end at last, and as I, the nineteenth century traveller, the "elderly scribe," aroused myself sufficiently to shake off those terrible visions of a ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... most of, by this great man, and by the legislature who followed him. Quitting the dry, imperative style of an act of Parliament, he makes the Lords and Commons fall to a pious legislative ejaculation, and declare that they consider it "as a marvellous providence, and merciful goodness of God to this nation, to preserve their said Majesties' royal persons most happily to reign over us on the throne of their ancestors, for which, from the bottom of their hearts, they return their humblest thanks and praises." The legislature plainly ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... writers.'[189] And yet we find the gentle Addison, Whig as he was, suggesting in the most popular of periodicals, corporal punishment as a suitable one for the Freethinker;[190] Steele, a Whig and the most merciful of men, advocating in yet stronger terms a similar mode of treatment;[191] Fielding, a Whig and not a particularly straitlaced ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... districts it came to be said of him that he had been more sinned against than sinning; and that, but for the jealousy of the old stagers in the mercantile world, he would have done very wonderful things. Marylebone, which is always merciful, took him up quite with affection, and would have returned his ghost to Parliament could his ghost have paid for committee rooms. Finsbury delighted for a while to talk of the great Financier, and ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... This background conception of God comes to extreme expression in his De servo arbitrio ["The Unfree Will"] of 1525: "This is the acme of faith, to believe that God who saves so few and condemns so many is merciful; that He is just who at His own pleasure has made us necessarily doomed to damnation, so that . . . He seems to delight in the tortures of the wretched and to be more deserving of hatred than of love. If by any effort of reason I could conceive ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... young lady—that's the word; our wings are little use to-day, you see, such as are left to us. Runnin' for dear life, we'd better say, for that's the truth of the matter, and may the merciful Lord speed us, and have in his care all ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... Smithers was mild, but his tone was stern. It was the warning of a just yet merciful master. All the timid nature of Philips bent in deep subjection before the powerful spirit of this man. He bowed his ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... cannot be overdone by language, and this is one. There are persons, too, who see not the full extent of the evil which threatens them; they solace themselves with hopes that the enemy, if he succeed, will be merciful. It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... the back of his gloved hand with her fan, "we ought to be merciful to the faults of a succeeding generation. Tell me who is that young man with the long stride who is getting ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... eyes were still closed. But presently, groping over the bed, he found Roger's hand and clutched it tight. After this, from time to time his throat contracted sharply. Tears welled from under his eyelids. Then gradually, as the merciful drug which Allan had given did its work, his clutch relaxed and he began breathing deep and hard. But still for some time longer Roger sat quietly ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... struggle with himself until the Thing actually appears in the concrete, and he goes mad—but Night! Oh, God grant deep sleep at night—or wide wakefulness and a light. Neither Nightmare nor wakefulness in the dark, oh, Merciful God. ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... torments that devils may be doomed to inflict in the other world on the cruel in this; and to fix them writhing upon their forks as they pin the poor insects. What would they do but call you a wicked blasphemer, and prate about the merciful goodness of their Maker, as if one Maker did not make all creatures? Yet what do such as they know of mercy but the name? These are they that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... the fraternity. There have been victims enough on the shrine of Turner, and his manes are now appeased and his wrongs avenged. What need of further holocausts? So Mr. Ruskin loosens his grip and half sheaths his knife, and becomes more merciful and pitiful, though yet unable to do full justice to those who oppose him: for it is one of his marked peculiarities that he is unable to shift his point of view. He judges always by his own modern ex post facto standard; he cannot see with Salvator's eyes, or with the eyes ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... a spoonful of gruel between his lips; he swallowed it as quickly as he could. "I heard you call upon God for forgiveness; the Lord is merciful and gracious!" ...
— The Voice • Margaret Deland
... "Ah, Merciful Mother! so my ver' fine lady has found herself a lofer here already. Sapristi, an' he is well worth lookin' at! I vill ask of ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... this little bird, which is so entirely at my mercy? Could I judge it, condemn and punish it, for some mistake or wrong or weakness it had committed in its little world? And could God be less kind, less merciful to me than I could be to this little bird? Could he hold my soul in the hollow of his hand and vivisect it to judge whether its errors were worthy of his divine anger? He knows how weak and ignorant I am. I will not fear him," she said, her eyes shining. "I will trust ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... talionis as a law which may be satisfied with anybody's eye; the cool assumption that because the unfortunate fifer occasionally shuts both eyes he ought in strict justice to lose both eyes, and should be duly grateful to the merciful khan for permitting him to keep one of them,—are all the fine and skilful touches of a bright wit and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... were tried by the criminal court. He was a second Draco, who considered the smallest offence deserving of death: and wo to the wretch whom the criminal court doomed to this punishment, for he invariably carried its sentence into execution. His successor, however, has acted on more merciful principles; and, besides, crimes have so rapidly multiplied of late years, that the judge advocate would not have sufficient time for presiding in the two civil courts of which he is the head, were he obliged ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... "They won't hurt us;" but before the bewildered man could think what to do, the door flew open from the pressure of half a dozen wild-looking desperadoes, and he was powerless in their grasp. They evidently designed murder, but not a quick and merciful "taking off"; they first heaped upon their victim the vilest epithets, seeking in their thirst for revenge to inflict all the terrors of death in anticipation. The good man, however, now face to face with his fate, ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... day is fair and balmy; but the chill and sadness cannot be shaken off, as we look around us. The sunshine seems almost to be a mockery in this place where fellow-men are caged and guarded like wild beasts, and skulk about with shaved heads, clad in the striped uniform of infamy. Merciful God! is this what thy creature man was made for? How ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... passed them and reached the house. Even when there, he had little hope of making Major Scott hear him without alarming them, and he could not doubt that they would do every thing in their power to frustrate his object. But Heaven favored his merciful design—he touched the door and found it ajar. All was dark as midnight within it, and he had scarcely taken a step when he stumbled against a man whose voice sounded fiercely even in the low whisper in which he ejaculated, "D—n you. Do you want to wake the Major? Don't you see you're ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... much obliged to you for writing to me again so soon; your letter yesterday was quite an unexpected pleasure. Poor Mrs. Stent! it has been her lot to be always in the way; but we must be merciful, for perhaps in time we may come to be Mrs. Stents ourselves, unequal to anything, and unwelcome to everybody . . . . My morning engagement was with the Cookes, and our party consisted of George and Mary, a ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... steadfastly to the approach of the Last Day, when Christ by His coming should utterly destroy the Pope, whose iniquity the Word had exposed. As he had done formerly in his treatise on Christian liberty, and had now good reason to do with the Wittenbergers, he exhorts men to a loving and merciful regard to their weaker brethren, whose consciences were still ensnared by the old ordinances respecting fasting and masses. They ought not to be taken unawares, but instructed kindly and, if unable to agree ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... forgiveness, according to what he had been taught there could be no question of his perdition. Having no one to talk to, he divided himself and went to buffets on the subject, siding, of course, with the better half of himself which supported the merciful view of the matter; for all his efforts at keeping the Sabbath, had in his own honest judgment failed so entirely, that he had no ground for believing himself one of the elect. Had he succeeded in persuading himself that he was, ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... and unyielding trust in God, and that its marvelous and glorious consummation, in October, 1492, was acknowledged by the chivalrous knight, in tearful gratitude, on bended knee, at the foot of the cross of Christ, as the merciful gift of his omnipotent Master. Then it was that Christopher Columbus, the first Catholic knight of America, made the gracious Christian tribute of grateful recognition of Divine assistance by planting upon ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... perfection of sanctity cannot be so uninterruptedly maintained in this life that its serenity will be disturbed by no temptations. But as our Lord God seems to us, in times when everything appears peaceful and tranquil, to be merciful and loving and the giver of joy, thus when he exposes us either to the temptations of the flesh, or to the suggestions of demons, or when he afflicts us with the troubles, or wears us out with the persecutions of this world, he seems, as it were, a hard and angry master. ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... but hope was soon over. For six days he lay in growing agony, sending counsel after counsel to the Parliament, till on the twenty-fourth of June the end drew near. "O Lord, save my country," so ended Hampden's prayers; "O Lord, be merciful to——!" here his speech failed him, and he fell back lifeless on his bed. With arms reversed and muffled flags, his own men bore him through the lanes and woods he knew so well to the little church that still stands unchanged beside his ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... given to his desire that justice and mercy should reign in the courts of law. Referring to these words in a later manifesto, he explained his wishes more fully as "the desire to establish in Russia expeditious, just, merciful, impartial courts of justice for all our subjects; to raise the judicial authority; to give it the proper independence, and in general to implant in the people that respect for the law which ought to be the constant guide of all and every one from the ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... giant spider-creature, and clutched firmly in the great claspers just under the monster's terrible fanged mouth was the slender body of Ruth Lawton. Merciful unconsciousness had apparently overwhelmed the girl now, for she lay supinely in the dread embrace, with eyes closed ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... Mr. Ward," he cried, "be merciful. I was led into this by Theriere. He lied to me just as he did to the men. You can't kill me—it would be murder—they'd hang you ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... "Merciful Powers, it is old Bentley!" cried the colonel. "Can anything be done for you, my man? How is it ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... money out of her, if I can't get her worth any other way," retorted Mrs. B. sharply. While this scene was passing, Frado was trying to utter the prayer of the publican, "God be merciful to ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson
... "Be merciful, O Lord," continued Caesar, "to all rank unbelievers, and such as live in heathen darkness in a Christian land, and don't know Saturday from Sunday, and are imper-ent uncommon and bad with ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... not unmixed With merciful suggestion, 50 When, as my roving eyes grew fixed Upon the chair in question, I saw its trembling arms enclose A figure grim and rusty, Whose doublet plain and plainer hose Were something worn ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... harvest, and the rains descended: while by night the clouds distilled the gentle dew, filling our barns with plenty: thus crowning the year with thy goodness, in the increase of the ground, and the gathering in of the fruits thereof. And we beseech thee, O most merciful Father, give us a just sense of this great mercy: such as may appear in our lives, by an humble, holy, and obedient walking before thee all ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... path, giving new results of research, and strengthening scientific truth. Toward the end of the same century a new epoch was ushered in by Galen, under whom the same truth was developed yet further, and the path toward merciful treatment of the insane made yet more clear. In the third century Celius Aurelianus received this deposit of precious truth, elaborated it, and brought forth the great idea which, had theology, citing biblical texts, not banished it, would have saved fifteen centuries ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... this finger; it comes to me from above, a merciful token to prepare my soul for death. Perchance thou mayest have heard that once an aged pilgrim stopped me on my way from God's House, and asked for alms—and I, having nought else on my person to bestow, drew from ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... thousand pounds, exclusive of the legacies to my sisters and Miss Helstone, she had willed, not to me, seeing I was already rich, but to a good man, who would make the best use of it that any human being could do—a man, she said, that was both gentle and brave, strong and merciful—a man that might not profess to be pious, but she knew he had the secret of religion pure and undefiled before God. The spirit of love and peace was with him. He visited the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and kept himself ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... How merciful this is of you! I've just sent you a letter by Robbie Roope, begging you to see me; you've missed him. [Smiling.] It isn't as eloquent as some I started writing at five o'clock this morning. Would you like to hear it? [She nods. He recites his note tenderly.] ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... said. "I destroyed my own identity, and the Douglas Guest of Feldwick is an accounted murderer by others besides Joan. I can tell you only this, Cissy. I did it because it seemed to me the best and the most merciful thing ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... river, which was filled with wood, and set on fire. The bridegroom was required to walk through the trench to the river. The wazir proposed that Mohammed should walk through the trench first; and by the fish's advice, he stopped his ears, cried out, "In the name of God, the Compassioning, the Merciful," threw himself into the trench, and returned from the river handsomer than before. So the wazir said to the king, "Send for your son to go with us, that he may become as handsome as Mohammed." So the three threw themselves into the fire, and were burned to ashes, and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... always either because they are under the spell of infatuation for the other man, or because they are utterly miserable in their marriage and seek to drug themselves to forgetfulness or indifference by means of the poison of some intrigue. Perhaps the Judge who is more merciful than men will count both these reasons as excuses and will pardon the sinners who have greatly loved ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... twenty-nine years. He was on the whole a good and able prince, and gained great victories over the Edomites whom he attempted to reconquer. He punished also the murderers of his father, and spared their sons, according to the merciful provision of the laws of Moses. But he worshiped the gods of the Edomites, and was filled with vainglory from his successes over them. It was then he rashly challenged the king of Israel, who replied haughtily: "The thistle that was in Lebanon sent to the cedar that was in Lebanon, ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... very next room Mrs. Hardy kneeled in an agony of petition for that firstborn son, crying out of her heart, "O God, it is more than I can bear! To see him growing away from me so! Dear Lord, be Thou merciful to me. Bring him back again to the life he used to live! How proud I was of him! What a joy he was to me! And now, and now! O gracious Father, if Thou art truly compassionate, hear me! Has not this foul demon of drink done harm enough? And yet it still comes, and even into my home! Ah, I have been ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... prayers for that wicked one who is to be tortured on it! Senor, for the love of God give me a horse and let me go into the desert to that storm, any place,—any place out of sight and sound of this most desolate house! The merciful God himself has ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... his health, not go out too early, nor fret, [Footnote: The Father was strongly disposed to hypochondria.] but laugh and be merry and in good spirits. We think the Mufti H. C. [the Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo] a MUFF, but we know God to be compassionate, merciful, and loving. I kiss papa's hands a thousand times, and embrace my SISTER MADCAP as often as I have to-day taken snuff. I think I have left my diplomas at home? [his appointment at court.] I beg you will send them to me soon. My pen is rude, and ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... which I despair of being able adequately to depict. He did all that a good and true man could do to eradicate the causes of the mischief. He participated in the exercises of a day of Thanksgiving, set apart for the purpose, in 1700, to express the devout and contrite gratitude of the people to a merciful God for deliverance from the errors and passions that had overwhelmed them with such awful judgments. The removal of Mr. Parris having been effected, Joseph Green was settled near the close of the year ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... bidding they were appointed to obey, and what manner of work they are ready to perform. And shall we dare extend our profane comparisons even higher than the Cabinet? Shall we bring the shadowy majesty of Washington's august idea alongside the microscopic realities of to-day? Let us be more merciful, and take our departure from the middle term between the Old and the New, occupied by Andrew Jackson, whose iron will and doggedness of purpose give definite character, if not awful dignity, to his image. In his time, the Slave ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... rogues by slaying them as animals in a sacrifice because of the declaration in the Srutis that those killed in sacrifices ascend to heaven, purged of all their sins. Such acts, therefore, seem to be merciful to the prince, compared to death by hanging ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... should a maiden be? Honest and true, Giving to God and to neighbour their due; Modest and merciful, simple and neat, Clad in the white ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... ancient stamp he was, just and merciful exceedingly. Take but two instances of him, and know the man by them. He retook Naples. The Romans within were starving. He fed them; but lest they should die of the sudden repletion, he kept them in by guards at each gate, and fed them up more and more each day, till it was ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... know?" said Midwinter, calmly. "Happen what may, God is all-merciful, God is all-wise. In those words your dear old friend once wrote to me. In that faith I can look back without murmuring at the years that are past, and can look on without doubting to the ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... "I must let her go unpunished? Embarrassing, this merciful policy to which you have committed me! Yet—your will is my law as you know—though I feel that some day it will involve us in disaster.... You, Tara, will not be punished, much as you deserve ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... please thee, gracious sorceress, If zeal for glory chance to move thy heart, Or milk of kindness soften it, Be merciful to us, And with thy magic herbs, Heal up the wound imprinted ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... of hearing the "prayer of faith" that saves the sick man—it is only they who enjoy occasionally the consolation from the inspiring words of the church to join their tears, and unite their sighs, sobs, and sorrows with those of their pastors and fellow-Christians, for the happy passage and merciful judgment for their departing brother. Such were the tears and sadness that Paul O'Clery and his little attendants shed around the bed ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... and triumphant philosophies, with pride of civilization and savagery of life—and yet came out victorious. At that time conversion was not a question to be settled by the acceptance or rejection of certain formulas or articles; asimple prayer was often enough: "God be merciful to me ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... whom my dear lover Has taught me to adore and think most merciful, Wing with thy lightning's speed my ...
— The Indian Princess - La Belle Sauvage • James Nelson Barker
... set, and while that shines all lesser lights may go. It was the long months of suffering through which I had been passing, with the seemingly purposeless torturing of my little one as a climax, that struck the first stunning blow at my belief in God as a merciful Father of men. I had been visiting the poor a good deal, and had marked the patient suffering of their lives; my idolised mother had been defrauded by a lawyer she had trusted, and was plunged into debt by his non-payment of ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... towards convicts under sentence of death 'George II's disposition in general was merciful, if the offence was not murder.' He mentions, however, a dreadful exception, when the King sent to the gallows at Oxford a young man who had been 'guilty of a most trifling forgery,' though he had been recommended to mercy by the Judge, who 'had assured him his pardon.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... interest, and a respect for his person, that proved his strong sense of the benefits he had received. But he unfortunately fell into certain youthful indiscretions, which, if not entirely pardonable, might have been palliated by many considerations that would have occurred to a merciful man. Mr. Langton's justice, however, was seldom tempered by mercy; and, on this occasion, he shut the door of repentance against his erring protege, and left him in a situation not less desperate than that from which he had relieved him. ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... is horrible for her, and for us also—for now there is no hope. What will become of us without my son? Oh, merciful heaven!" The unfortunate woman hid her ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... ruin me, my lord," resumed the notary, trembling; "I am at your feet, your Excellency; take my life and I will die in torment without a murmur, but save my son since you have been so merciful as to spare him till now; have pity on his mother; my lord, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... You little know the relish that it gives to the blessing to hunger and thirst after righteousness, and to be filled with a satisfaction that worldly delight cannot afford, and then to rise to the higher blessedness of the merciful, the forgiving, the hearts that have learned that it is "more blessed to give than to receive," and the lives that find that "letting go is twice possessing," and blessing others is to be ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... paused, and his glance marched deliberately over us all, landing at last upon the Princess. "May the Lord help you," says he in his voice of suet. "May the Lord be merciful to you—all!" ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... or at least could, ride five hundred miles on a trotting horse. You mortally hate writing, only because it is the thing you chiefly ought to do; as well to keep up the vogue you have in the world, as to make you easy in your fortune. You are merciful to everything but money, your best friend, whom you treat with inhumanity. Be assured I will hire people to watch all your motions, and to return me a faithful account. Tell me, have you cured your absence of mind? can you attend to trifles? can you at Amesbury write domestic ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... uneasiness, that, with the consent of her father, which she obtained, though with great difficulty, in the year 1535, the fourteenth of her age, she received the religious veil in the convent of Dominicanesses at Prat, in Tuscany, to which her uncle, F. Timothy de Ricci, was director. God, in the merciful design to make her the spouse of his crucified Son, and to imprint in her soul dispositions conformable to his, was pleased to exercise her patience by rigorous trials. For two years she suffered inexpressible ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... a waiter to clear the table provided a merciful stop-gap, and Eckstein, hurriedly consulting his watch, switched abruptly. "By Jove! I'm due at the office this minute to meet a lot of cattlemen," he stammered, and escaped like a man hastening for first ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... they brought back my husband stone-blind. I gave him a nook in my home, for my children desired it. God was at least merciful ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... Adams, in surprise, for the tones, though audible, were not articulate. Suddenly they waxed louder, and "God be merciful to me, a sinner!" broke on the listener's ear. "Oh bless and deliver the men whom I have led astray—poor Edward Young, John ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... the ease (and even innocence) with which you might commence an erroneous course, my heart quails within me and my whole frame and being tremble at the possible results. May Almighty God have you in His holy keeping. To His merciful providence I commit you, and I will rely upon Him and the efficacy of the prayers that will be daily and hourly offered up by those ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various |
