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Defilement

noun
1.
The state of being polluted.  Synonyms: befoulment, pollution.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Defilement" Quotes from Famous Books



... defilement with dirt and corpses, the bringing of dirt and corpses to the water and fire, or the bringing of fire and water to dirt and corpses; the omission of reciting the Avesta in mind, of strewing about hair, nails, and toothpicks, of not washing the hands, all the rest which ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... nought for the purity of her own blood, so she might stain with incest the man who had cost her her own maidenhood at first! Infamous-hearted woman, who, to punish her defiler, measured out as it were a second defilement to herself, whereas she clearly by the selfsame act rather swelled than lessened the transgression! Surely, by the very act wherewith she thought to reach her revenge, she accumulated guilt; she added a sin in trying to remove a ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... opens with the impressive prayer, "Father of Heaven, from Thy eternal Throne," sung by the Priest. As the fire ascends from the altar, the sanctuary having been purified of its heathen defilement, the Israelites look upon it as an omen of victory and take courage. A Messenger enters with tidings of Judas's triumph over all their enemies. The Israelitish Maidens and Youths go out to meet him, singing the exultant ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton

... else than another compromise of human rights, as if the country had not already paid enough in costly treasure and more costly blood for such compromise in the past." He declared that he was "painfully impressed by the discord and defilement which the amendment would introduce into the Constitution." He quoted the declaration of Madison in the convention of 1787, that it was wrong to admit into the Constitution the idea of property in man. "Of all that has come to us from that historic convention, where Washington sat as President ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... great mystery. They are ceremonies to which the Divinity, they say, attaches some secret virtue, by unseen views, of which we can form no ideas. In baptism, without which no man can be saved, the water sprinkled on the head of the child washes his spiritual soul, and carries away the defilement which is a consequence of the sin committed in the person of Adam, who sinned for all men. By the mysterious virtue of this water, and of some words equally unintelligible, the infant finds itself reconciled ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach

... birds! I see them yet, Alone and starving in their pride,— Their glittering plumage still intact, While standing bravely side by side; And, although put to hunger's test, Continuing mutely to protest Against defilement ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard

... odious addresses. Some of my women hearers will be shocked to hear me tell of declarations of love of this kind, but when a woman takes the step I did, she must accept such; one cannot play with pitch and escape defilement, and though I loathed the messenger and his words it would have been an incongruity to say so; so when he said I had best take the sunny side of life's boulevard with him, with forced calmness I refused and decidedly. On his taking a reluctant leave, ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny

... the Alpine house ever saw or know that there is a dairy in its Plutonian regions. A rainy day discovered it to us, and, with many an injunction touching possible dust, we were bidden into those mysterious precincts. A carpet, laid loose over the steps, forestalled every atom of defilement, and, descending cautiously and fearfully through portals and outer courts, we trod presently the adytum. It was a dark, cool, silent place. The floors were white, spotless, and actually fragrant with cleanliness. The sides of ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... terrible conviction took possession of his mind, that the dog had a turned-up tail; and that, if, in passing under the cloths, he had elevated and wagged it, their defilement must have been consummated. Ready-witted Brahmin! another idea. He called the cleverest of his children, and bade it affix to his breech-cloth a plantain-leaf, dog's-tail-wise, and waggishly. Then resuming his all-fours-ness, he passed a second time under the cloth, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... 1905, p. 79. Cf. Lang, The Secret of the Totem, London, 1905.) Thence rose the obligation on virgins to yield to a stranger first. Only then were they permitted to marry a man of their own race. Furthermore, various means were resorted to in order to save the husband from the defilement which might result from that act (see for inst., Reinach, Mythes, cultes, I, p. 118).—The opinion expressed in this note was attacked, almost immediately after its publication, by Frazer (Adonis, Attis, Osiris, 1907, pp. 50 ff.) who preferred to see in the sacred prostitutions a relic ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont

... thus: It gives him conviction of sin, especially of the defilement of his nature and the sin of unbelief (for the sake of which he is sure to be damned, if he findeth not mercy at God's hand, by faith in Jesus Christ) (John 16:8; Rom. 7:24; John 16:9; Mark 16:16). This sight and sense of things worketh in ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... of Mehemet Ali, if, instead of constructing, at great expense, dams across the Nile to increase the extent of its inundations, he were to scatter his piasters in attempts to deepen its bed, that he might rescue Egypt from the defilement of the foreign mud which is swept down upon it from the mountains of the Moon? Exactly such a degree of wisdom do we exhibit, when at the expense of millions, we strive to preserve our country.... From what? From the blessings with which ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat

... is not by me; and, if it were, its defilement is such that I could not be tempted to give it at length. Laughable and lamentable as the article is in the main, I still thank Hibbard for some portions of it, and especially for that one which substantiates the charge which I have brought against ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen

... guest of Menel[a]os, when he eloped with his wife, Helen; and Sextus was the guest of Lucretia when he defiled her. (2) The elopement of Helen was the cause of a national war between the Greek cities and the allied cities of Troy; and the defilement of Lucretia was the cause of a national war between Rome and the allied cities under Por'sena. (3) The contest between Greece and Troy terminated in the victory of Greece, the injured party; and the contest between Rome and the supporters of Tarquin terminated in favor of Rome, the injured party. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... night closed in when I was in a mood akin to it. Dinner with Phillida and Vere was an ordeal hurried through. We were out of touch. I felt remote from them; fenced apart by a heavy sense of guilt and defilement left by those hateful books, most incongruously blended with contempt for my companions' childish light-heartedness. As soon as ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram

... the other world.[5] At least the word, which means a garden or park and was applied to the abode of our first parents in Eden, could not but call up in the consciousness of the dying man a scene of beauty, innocence and peace, where, washed clean from the defilement of his past errors, he would begin to exist again as a new creature. Even Christians have believed that the utmost that can be expected in the next world by a soul with a history like the robber's is, at least to begin with, to be consigned to ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker

... the Christian? Is not the duty separation? Is not the marriage in itself null and void? as if it were an union between one dead and one living? And that perpetual contact with a heathen, and therefore an enemy of God, is not that in a relation so close and intimate, perpetual defilement? The apostle decides this with his usual inspired wisdom. He decides that the marriage-bond is sacred still. Diversities of religious opinion, even the farthest and widest diversity, cannot sanction separation. And so he decides in the ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson

... little doubt dropped into it, "If former days there ever were." For who can tell? This crumbling, ragged business which to us means that we stand before the Past; this gradual perishing of things in neglect and defilement, may very well have formed a necessary part of our ancestors' present. Our own standard and habit of tidiness, decorum, and uniformity may be quite recent developments; barbarism, in the sense of decay and pollution, may have existed together with prosperity. It is quite possible ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee

... would have to plunge in before he could make her his own with the world's consent, was already up to her throat. She must, and without further hesitation, be steeped, that he might drag her out, washed of the imputed defilement, and radiant, as she was in character. Reflection now said this; not impulse. Her words rang through him. At every meeting she said things to confound his estimate of the wits of women, or be remembered for some spirited ring they had: A high wind will make a dead leaf fly like a bird. He murmured ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... 460 The unpolluted temple of the mind. And turns it by degrees to the souls essence, Till all be made immortal: but when lust By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk, But most by leud and lavish act of sin, Lets in defilement to the inward parts, The soul grows clotted by contagion, Imbodies, and imbrutes, till she quite loose The divine property of her first being. Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp 470 Oft seen in Charnell vaults, and Sepulchers Lingering, and sitting by a new made grave, As loath ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... powerful and the most able of all the Brahmans of the Deccan. A curious legend ascribes their origin to the miraculous intervention of Parashurama, the sixth Avatar of the god Vishnu, who finding no Brahmans to release him by the accustomed ritual from the defilement of his earthly labours, dragged on to shore the bodies of fourteen barbarians that he had found washed up from the ocean, burnt them on a funeral pyre and then breathed life and Brahmanhood into their ashes. On these new made Brahmans he conferred the ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... jealous champion of the honour of his, to him, high and noble race, found himself a god-send to the Out-castes, the Untouchables, the Depressed Classes, Mangs, Mahars, and Sudras,—they whose touch, nay the touch of whose very shadow, is defilement! For, at last, they, too, had some one to look down upon, to despise, to insult. After being the recipients-of-contempt as naturally and ordainedly as they were breathers-of-air, they at last could apply a salve, ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren

... Spanish torpedo boat rode at anchor. Then a number of tarpaulins were got up on deck and hung over the ship's sides, fore and aft, covering the hull from the bulwark rail right down to the surface of the water, to protect the white paint from defilement by flying coal dust; and, this having been done, the yacht was taken alongside the coal hulk, and the process of coaling the vessel at once began under the joint supervision of Milsom and the second engineer, the skipper being especially particular in the arranging of the fenders ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood

... whom I had come to love and desire. But what was the end of it? Owing to the necessities of statecraft and her own nobleness, she had been separated from me and although, as it would seem, she had as yet escaped defilement, was spirited away into the temple of some barbarous worship where I was almost ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard

... upon his knees before a carved oak chest of indisputable antiquity. Its panels were delightfully irregular, its angles faultlessly faulty, its one modern defilement a strong lock to the lid. Raffles was smiling as he produced his jimmy. R—r—r—rip went lock or lid in another ten seconds—I was not there to see which. I had wandered back into the bedroom in ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung

... the purity, she realized what the poisoning of the fountain springs of life could mean. By the triumph, she realized what the defeat, the debasement could be. She thought of love as a fountain spring, a spring into which you could not both cast defilement and drink of waters undefiled; as an altar flame fed with incense lighting the darkness; and one could no more offend love with impurity, than cast the dung heap on the altar flame and not expect blastment. She wanted to clap her hands as the gay, twinkling cottonwoods were clapping ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... even of the most sanguine, dared to hope that their eyes should see the salvation of the Lord. Upright men spent their lives in unyielding and indignant protest, not so much for any immediate result as because they could do no otherwise,—because the constant violation of sacred right, the constant defilement and degradation of country, wrought so fiercely and painfully in their hearts that they could not hold their peace. Though they expected no sudden reform, they believed in the indestructibility of truth, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... this boy. The horrible sense of shame, self-loathing, universal hatred, impotent vengeance, as if the spirit were steeped in abysmal blackness, which comes upon a courageous and sensitive youth condemned for the first time to taste this piece of fleshly bitterness, and suffer what he feels is a defilement, Ripton had weathered and forgotten. He was seasoned wood, and took the world pretty wisely; not reckless of castigation, as some boys become, nor oversensitive as to dishonour, as his friend ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... angels that meet us at the gate of the Golden City shall take of the blood of the Lamb, and, with gentle hands, wash away every stain of defilement from the sins here enumerated, and we, thus cleansed, find ourselves safe, forever safe, within its blessed walls, will we not shout and say: 'Behold! all things ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline

... we only ask, What must have been the effect of representing far fouler characters than Terence's on the minds of uneducated lads of the lower classes? Prynne and others hint at still darker abominations than the mere defilement of the conscience: we shall say nothing of them, but that, from collateral evidence, we believe every word they say; and that when pretty little Cupid's mother, in Jonson's Christmas masque, tells how 'She could have had money enough for him, had she been ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley

... none of us has anything that he calls his own. We do not go up to the Temple nor enter the synagogues. We have forsaken the uncleanness of the world and all the impure ways of men. Our only care is to keep ourselves from defilement. If we touch anything that is forbidden we wash our hands and wipe them with this towel that hangs from our girdle. We alone are serving the kingdom. Come, live with us, for I ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke

... curse. May the dogs of the city howl at her ugliness! How she did curse! She cursed my father and mother—she cursed their graves—flung dirt upon my brother and sisters, and filth upon the whole generation. She gave me up to Jehanum, and to every species of defilement. It was a dreadful thing to hear that old woman curse. I pulled my turban over my eyes, that she might not recognise me, and lifted up my garment to cover my face, that I might not be defiled with the shower of curses which were thrown at me like mud, and sat there watching till the storm was over. ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat

... pleasant room, so entirely feminine, where everything was safe and warm! Their imperfections were so small as compared with their sacrifice. Modern-day Christs, that's what they were! Christs by the thousands, who had found no Josephs of Arimathea to hide their defilement in garden-sepulchres. There they lay at this moment in the wilderness of corruption where they had fallen, while living people between puffs of cigarettes, undertook to explain why they should not ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson

... crime to be a foreigner. The Greek is a liar, a base flatterer, a monster of lust, a traitor, a murderer.[723] The Jew is the sordid victim of a narrow and degrading superstition.[724] The Oriental is the defilement of Rome; worst of all are the Egyptians;[725] they even eat each other. The freedman, the nouveau riche, the parvenu[726] are hated with all a Roman's hatred. The old patriotism of the city state is not yet merged in the wider imperialism. It ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler

... the examples of Moses, Daniel, and Paul, who were skilful in all the learning of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Greeks, which could not probably be without reading their books of all sorts; in Paul especially, who thought it no defilement to insert into Holy Scripture the sentences of three Greek poets, and one of them a tragedian; the question was notwithstanding sometimes controverted among the primitive doctors, but with great odds on that side which affirmed it both lawful ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton

... was always ravenous for praise and sacrifice, we could not tolerate the mockery of "Divine Service" by well-fed and respectable Christians in the midst of untaught ignorance, unchecked roguery, unbridled vice, and the degradation and defilement and ruin of weak women and little children. Seven thousand pounds to repair a chapel to the praise and glory of God, and under its very walls you may buy a woman's soul for a few pieces ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford

... most delightful of all streams glides along the Aqua Virgo, so named because no defilement ever stains it. For while all the others, after heavy rain show some contaminating mixture of earth, this alone by its ever pure stream would cheat us into believing that the sky was always blue above us. Ah! how express these things in words worthy ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... foul creature to whom she was bound, from whom there was no escape, who had but to speak and she must obey, who had the authority to compel obedience. She was sick with horror of the man's nearness. She felt defilement from the avid eyes, which moved over her in wanton lingering from head to foot, and back again. But she had no resource against him. She could only endure for the present, awaiting the return of strength. ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... advertisement columns of our magazines and newspapers are full of them. Their announcements grin down upon us from every hoarding. Do you know that we are going to do the same thing? We are going to contribute our share to the defilement of journalism. We are going to make a similar appeal to the quack ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... by the collar of his shirt and dragged him to the stairs. The man fought and bit and cursed. A black slime of words fell from his lips, covering them all with its defilement. Finally the struggles subsided, and with one mighty effort the doctor threw him into the upper chamber and closed the door behind them. In a few moments he came downstairs, bolting the door carefully. When he entered the room, he saw Mrs. Preston staring at the door ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... slime-smudged roots limpid and refreshing. If you cut into the bark of the tea-tree you will find water in beads and trickles, water which sparkles with purity and has a slightly saline taste. The bare roots alone suffer defilement. ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... a brass dish, poured water upon the hand that had gripped the wrist of Hunsa, saying, "Thus I will cleanse the defilement." Then he sat down upon his heels, adding: "Guru, holy one, repeat a prayer to appease Bhowanee, then we will go into the jungle and take ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser

... outrage that makes the Frenchman most revengeful is not the murder of his family or the defilement of his women, but the wilful killing of his land and orchards. The land gave birth to all his flesh and blood; when his farm is laid waste wilfully, it is as though the mother of all his generations was violated. This accounts for the indomitable way in which the peasants insist on staying ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson

... not reborn with the spring, they slowly and miserably died. And all the while they knew almost nothing of the real causes that made crops succeed or fail. They only felt sure it was somehow a matter of pollution, of unexpiated defilement. It is this state of things that explains the curious cruelty of early agricultural doings, the human sacrifices, the scapegoats, the tearing in pieces of living animals, and perhaps of living men, the steeping of the fields in blood. Like ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray

... Malcolm's mind, as, after Liftore's punishment, he lifted the portrait, set it again upon its easel, and went on trying to clean the face of it—with no small promise of success. But as he made progress he grew anxious—lest with the defilement, he should remove some of the colour as well: the painter alone, he concluded at length could be trusted to restore the work ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... impurity, n. defilement, contamination, taint, pollution; adulteration, alloy, sophistication; unchastity, lewdness, indecency, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... the first would overthrow all else. "Glory!" he cried mechanically aloud. He put down the hairbrush and inspected the razors on their shelf. The bright morning light flashed along the rubbed fine blades; they were beautiful, flawless, without a trace of defilement. He felt the satin smoothness of the steel with an actual thrill of pleasure; his eyes narrowed until they were like the glittering points of knives; he held the razor firmly and easily, with ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer

... mysteries are freely communicated to all who can receive them. For many ages these truths were "hid in God,[77]" but now all men may be "illuminated,[78]" if they will fulfil the necessary conditions of initiation. These are to "cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit,[79]" and to have love, without which all else will be unavailing. But there are degrees of initiation. "We speak wisdom among the perfect," he says (the [Greek: teleioi] are the fully initiated); but the carnal must still be fed with milk. Growth in ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge

... Catholic can with difficulty comprehend and enter fully into the mental constitution of the Religious. This was a nun, to whom a blur upon the crystal of the soul kept pure, like the virginal body, for the daily reception of the Consecrated Host, meant defilement, outrage, insult, to her ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... beneath a great yew tree over which climbs the wild convolvulus, amid dandelions and mosses, there lies a stone. That stone is no more exempt than others from the leprosy of time, of dampness, of the lichens and from the defilement of the birds. The water turns it green, the air blackens it. It is not near any path, and people are not fond of walking in that direction, because the grass is high and their feet are immediately wet. When there is a little sunshine, the lizards come thither. All around there ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... body and the cure of the soul: here they were combined in one act, for that touch went to the man's heart. I can only hint at them here. Hand to hand is enough for the cure of the bodily disease; but heart to heart will Jesus visit the man who in deepest defilement of evil habits, yet lifts to him a despairing cry. The healthful heart of the Lord will cure the heart spotted with the plague: it will come again as the heart of a child. Only this kind goeth not out save by prayer ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald

... collapse and could probably be saved by stimulants and warmth. This suspended animation is common enough in cholera. Why, the Brahmins have a regular ritual for dealing with cases of recovery on the funeral pyre—purification after defilement by the corpse-washers or something of the sort. These stupid oafs are letting poor ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... A metal drinking vessel, which the Hindu religiously guards against defilement, and to which he clings as a cherished possession when he has nothing else belonging ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... the uncleanness of ashes outside the camp—its throat gashed across—its entrails laid open; a vile and horrid thing, which no one could see without experiencing emotions of disgust, nor touch without contracting defilement. The description appeared too painfully vivid—its introduction too little in accordance with the rules of a just taste. But the master in this difficult walk knew what he was doing. And that, he said, pointing to the strongly-coloured picture he had just completed—"And THAT IS SIN." ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... my Wilhelm," he said, "but I am confirmed in my opinion that some of our princely houses have become tainted. The harm that was done when Napoleon smashed his way through Europe has never been undone. The touch of the democracy was defilement, and it does not pass. Do you think our ancestors would have wasted so much time over a ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler

... tares spring up; how often its light is contracted to a narrow space; what great eclipses, and how very great and thick an one it suffered under Antichrist; how it has sometimes emerged from desperate circumstances, and especially in this our age under the mighty Luther; with what defilement and spots it is often stained; how much it is conversant with the flesh. Many other such things they have in store; as also its periodical changes, and the harmonious vicissitudes of its seasons. They diligently impress them on the youth that they may learn to trust in God, to mistrust the ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... occurred.—all prove that the early ancestor-worship was of a decidedly primitive kind. This is suggested also by the peculiar Shinto horror of death as pollution: even at this day to attend a funeral,—unless the funeral be conducted after the Shinto rite,—is religious defilement. The ancient legend of Izanagi's descent to the nether world, in search of his lost spouse, illustrates the terrible beliefs that once existed as to goblin-powers presiding over decay. [41] Between the horror of death as corruption, and the apotheosis of the ghost, ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... which had so often bewildered him. And now that delicate creature was in the hands of Beauchamp—a selfish and vulgar-minded fellow! That he whom he had heard insult a dead woman, and whom he had chastised for it, should dare to touch Kate! His very touch was defilement. But what could he do? Alas! he could only hate. And what was that, if Kate should love! But she could not love him already. He would tell her what kind of a person he was. But she would not believe him, and would set it down to jealousy. And it would be mean to tell her. Was Kate then to be left ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... That such a law was worthy those dark periods when marriage was held by the greatest doctors and priests of the Church to be a work of the flesh only, and almost, if not altogether, a defilement; denied wholly to the clergy, and a second time, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... he was one of the many—not all of the purest—who cherish an ideal of woman which, although indeed poverty-stricken and crude, is to their minds of snowy favor, to their judgment of loftiest excellence. I trust in God that many a woman, despite the mud of doleful circumstance, yea, even the defilement that comes first from within, has risen to a radiance of essential innocence ineffably beyond that whose form stood white in Faber's imagination. For I see and understand a little how God, giving righteousness, makes pure of sin, and that verily—by no theological ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald

... man his sins, but it provides no remedy. While it promises life to the obedient, it declares that death is the portion of the transgressor. The gospel of Christ alone can free him from the condemnation or the defilement of sin. He must exercise repentance toward God, whose law has been transgressed; and faith in Christ, his atoning sacrifice. Thus he obtains "remission of sins that are past," and becomes a partaker of the divine nature. He is a child of God, having received the spirit of adoption, ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... illustriously bright that they excite our wonder and command our imitation), may be freed from the calumnies and detractions of ignorance and envy; and so their honour may continue as unspotted, as they have kept their persons uncontaminated and free from defilement. ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous

... not away free will, nor alloweth the forgiving of sins after baptism, or immersion in the font a second time. For it is one baptism that we confess, and need is that we keep ourselves with all watchfulness that so we fall not into defilement a second time, but hold fast to the commandments of the Lord. For when he said to the Apostles, 'Go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,' he did ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus

... Louis, Blanche of Castille, Philippe the Hardy, and the city fathers all aided the work substantially, and the fabric speedily took on its finished form. Through the later centuries it still preserved its entity, and even during the Revolution its walls escaped destruction and defilement through the devotion ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun

... his ear—doubted whether he could detect a breathing; and though scared, he being a Cohen, and the presence of death defilement, yet he stayed, bending over Mephi several minutes, thinking, not ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel

... How can my stained feet be cleansed so as to be fit to tread the crystal pavements? how can my foul garments be so purged as not to be a blot and an eyesore, beside the white, lustrous robes that sweep along them and gather no defilement there? the only answer that I know of is to be found by turning to the final visions of the New Testament, where the spirit of this whole section of our prophet is reproduced. Again, Babylon falls amidst the songs of saints; and then, down upon all the dust and confusion of the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... until dismissed by a voice sounding from a network of flowers hard by. Parsifal turns and sees Kundry, now a woman of exquisite loveliness, advancing towards him. She tells him of his dead mother, and drawing him towards her, presses upon his lips the first kiss of love. The touch of defilement wakens him to a sense of human frailty. The wounded Amfortas's cry becomes plain to him. He starts to his feet, throbbing with compassion for a world of sin. No thought of sensual pleasure moves him. He puts Kundry from him, and her ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... resolve; I lay my ban On the assassin whosoe'er he be. Let no man in this land, whereof I hold The sovereign rule, harbor or speak to him; Give him no part in prayer or sacrifice Or lustral rites, but hound him from your homes. For this is our defilement, so the god Hath lately shown to me by oracles. Thus as their champion I maintain the cause Both of the god and of the murdered King. And on the murderer this curse I lay (On him and all the partners in his guilt):— ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles

... debased, not dignified, by the solemn mien, roused her indignant wrath; she sickened when Braddell touched her child. All her pride of intellect, that had never slept, all her pride of birth, long dormant, woke up to protect the heir of her ambition, the descendant of her race, from the defilement of the father's nurture. Not long after her confinement, she formed a plan for escape; she disappeared from the house with her child. Taking refuge in a cottage, living on the sale of the few jewels she possessed, she was for some weeks almost happy. But Braddell, less grieved by the ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... any Buddhist were offered the alternative of an existence as king of a dewa loka, keeping his personality for a hundred million years in the uninterrupted enjoyment of perfect happiness, or of translation into Nirwana, he would spurn the former as defilement, and would with unutterable avidity choose the latter. We must therefore suppose that by Nirwana he understands, not naked destruction, but some mysterious good, too vast for logical comprehension, too obscure to Occidental thought to ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... impure in the end, it is because it has contracted fresh defilement by coming in contact with other bodies. But this impurity is only superficial, and does not prevent its being used; whereas its former impurity was hidden within it, and, as it were, ...
— A Short Method Of Prayer And Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon

... for Christian joy. There was music and dancing, as well as feasting, when the prodigal son came home; returned from his sins, washed from his defilement, clothed at last in "the best robe" a sinner can ...
— Tired Church Members • Anne Warner

... should appear to any one hardly religious enough for the purpose of this book, I would remark that it reminds me of what our Lord says about the true source of defilement: it is what is bred in the man that denies him. Our Lord himself taught a divine morality, which is as it were the body of love, and is as different from mere morality as"the living body is from ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald

... Prior's Chapel, and necessary to the church of Rochester, were destroyed and torn up. The oratories, cloisters, chapter house, infirmary and all the sacred buildings were turned into horses' stables, and everywhere filled with the dung of animals and the defilement ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • G. H. Palmer

... adulterates them. Of the corresponding state of the heart, or of its blood in the lungs, there is no need to say more than has been said above (n. 420), except that instead of the purification of the blood its defilement takes place; and instead of the nutrition of the blood by fragrant odors its nutrition is effected by stenches, precisely as it is respectively ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg

... the passing umbrellas, whose varied tints of pink, blue, and orange, like the draggled finery of feathers and flounces beneath them, only made the scene more glaringly desolate. Then came the rush and splatter of cabriolets, scattering terror and defilement. The well-mounted English dandy shows his sense by hoisting his parapluie; the French dragoon curls his mustachio at such effeminacy, and braves the liquid bullets in the genuine spirit of Marengo; the old French count picks ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 273, September 15, 1827 • Various

... things decay! The noblest powers, the purest joys of life At length subside: then wherefore not the curse? And have I vainly hop'd that, guarded here, Secluded from the fortunes of my race, I, with pure heart and hands, some future day Might cleanse the deep defilement of our house? Scarce was my brother in my circling arms From raging madness suddenly restor'd, Scarce had the ship, long pray'd for, near'd the strand, Once more to waft me to my native shores, When unrelenting fate, with iron ...
— Iphigenia in Tauris • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... armies had reached the Rhine. It is possible that we might obtain some slight modifications, if we continued the war, but would those modifications be worth the loss of a few more hundred thousands of human lives, of a few more months of this hideous, pagan slaughter and defilement of God's beautiful world?" ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... brig sailing into the China Sea in all the perfection of order of the British Marine: at, perhaps, Hong Kong, sold to a native firm, she would be refitted under an extravagant flag, and slowly the order would depart until, in a slovenly tangle of rigging and defilement, she'd be seen yawing on ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer

... have occasion to take part in them, let not your attention be relaxed for a moment, lest you slip after all into evil ways. For you may rest assured that be a man ever so pure himself, he cannot escape defilement ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus

... finest quality, will grow good crops for you with the most imperfect tilling. At a safe distance of a day's riding lie the tartarean copper-forges of Swansea, the tartarean iron-forges of Merthyr; their sooty battle far away, and not, at such safe distance, a defilement to the face of the earth and sky, but rather an encouragement to the earth at least; encouraging the husbandman to plough better, if he ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... prayer, becomes a second nature, that sets the will free for higher conquests. The habit of purity, which at first may have resulted only from a sleepless watch of the will in directing the thoughts and imagination into safe channels, becomes an instinctive recoil from the least touch of defilement. The habit of unworldly simplicity, which may have had to be induced by deliberate self-denial, becomes a natural disposition which rejects superfluities from ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins

... was so great, the defilement so thorough, that at first he despaired of the possibility of a complete cleansing. "Why, you have tried to improve before, and failed," the tempter in his soul whispered. "What is the good of trying again? You are not the only one—all are alike. Such is life." But the free, spiritual being ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy

... rather hollow among the hills which form a half-circle behind the city. Few Japanese of the better classes have ever visited such a village; and even the poorest of the common people shun the place as they would shun a centre of contagion; for the idea of defilement, both moral and physical, is still attached to the very name of its inhabitants. Thus, although the settlement is within half an hour's walk from the heart of the city, probably not half a dozen of the thirty-six thousand residents ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn

... world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoso believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.' Nancy perused the passage without perception of incongruity, without emotion of any kind. Her religion had long since fallen to pieces, and universal defilement of Scriptural phrase by the associations of the market-place had in this respect ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing

... rice-fields, filling up drains, destroying aqueducts, sowing seeds twice in the same place, putting spits in rice-fields, flaying an animal alive or against the grain, etc. The crimes against the State were cutting and wounding (whether the living or the dead), defilement on account of leprosy or cognate diseases, unnatural offences, evil acts on the part of children towards parents or of parents towards children, etc. Methods of expiating crime were recognized, but, as was the universal ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... sake, or swarming into clans Beneath one head for purposes of war, Like flowers selected from the rest, and bound And bundled close to fill some crowded vase, Fades rapidly, and by compression marred Contracts defilement not to be endured. Hence chartered boroughs are such public plagues, And burghers, men immaculate perhaps In all their private functions, once combined, Become a loathsome body, only fit For dissolution, hurtful to ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... common course of the world, which, like a great deluge, has flooded all lands. Hence we have also as our reward what we seek and deserve: pestilences wars, famines, conflagrations, floods, wayward wives, children, servants, and all sorts of defilement. Whence else should so much misery come? It is still a great mercy that the earth bears and ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther

... or left hand section, the total loss to him of all that was worth living for. He could never be received in intercourse again with his own people, and so strong are the caste ideas of ceremonial uncleanness that it would be defilement to his friends and relations even to offer to him sustenance of any kind, and he was in point of fact excommunicated and avoided. Happily this dread of caste defilement has now, by railway communication ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair

... meant something definite, and tried to lead her to Jesus. But as soon as she understood Who He was, she drew back. "I cannot be a disciple of your Guru, here," she said; "would my relations bear such defilement?" Being a Christian really meant sooner or later leaving her home and all her people for ever. Can you wonder an old lady of ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael

... Next, we want girls of sense,—girls who have a standard of their own regardless of conventionalities, and are independent enough to live up to it; girls who simply won't wear a trailing dress on the street to gather up microbes and all sorts of defilement; girls who don't wear a high hat to the theatre, or lacerate their feet with high heels and endanger their health with corsets; girls who will wear what is pretty and becoming and snap their fingers at the dictates of fashion when fashion is horrid and ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden

... the losing of the gem on the day the ship sailed forth. Of the value of the amethyst the most fabulous stories went abroad, and for a season the good wives of the settlers had but a sorry time of it, cleansing their husbands' garments from a daily defilement of mud. ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... everyone speak of His glory' " (Ps. xxix. 9). The question is asked, "Why are the Gentiles defiled?" "Because they did not stand on Mount Sinai, for in the hour the serpent came to Eve he communicated defilement, which was removed from Israel when they stood on Mount Sinai." Rav Acha, the son of Rabbi, said to Rav Ashai, "How then is it with proselytes?" He answered, "Although they went not there, their lucky ...
— Hebrew Literature

... shot, to know that the earth would really be cleaned of all the people. It is the most beautiful and freeing thought. Then there would NEVER be another foul humanity created, for a universal defilement.' ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... she was well able to care deeply if her heart were once bestowed. She had, also, kept this capacity for loving unsullied from what she believed to be the defilement of flirtation. Now were revealed the depths of love and tenderness of which she was possessed. They seemed fathomless, ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... the wounds which they received in past years while fighting for you, and you both refuse to ratify the war in which these very men elected to serve, and show yourselves inferior to them, who are ready to face dangers; for while you praise the soldiers that detected the defilement of Antony and withdrew from him, though he was consul, and attached themselves to Caesar, (that is, to you through him), you shrink from voting for that which you say they were right in doing. Also we are grateful to Brutus ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio

... morning, while Turnbull was still half asleep on his iron bedstead which was lifted half-way up the wall and clamped to it with iron, four sluices or metal mouths opened above him at the four corners of the chamber and washed it white of any defilement. Turnbull's solitary soul surged up ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton

... the midst of them, And as they drew back their garment-hem For fear of defilement, "Lo, here," said he, 'The images ye ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch

... fell; night came; and then Madeline rose to sit by the window to let the cool wind blow upon her hot face. She passed through hours of unintelligible shame and impotent rage and futile striving to reason away her defilement. ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey

... caused to be slain for the faith of the saints and their testimony, and whom ye set free from the bondage of man forever. Behold, I have washed my robes and made them white in better blood than this, but I am sent in the garment o' earth, sair stained wi' its defilement, and in my ain unworthy blude, that ye may ken me and ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren

... the Slave Act, it constantly becomes more revolting, particularly in its influence on the agents it enlists. Pitch cannot be touched without defilement, and all who lend themselves to this work seem at once and unconsciously to lose the better part of man. The spirit of the law passes into them, as the devils entered the swine. Upstart commissioners, mere mushrooms of ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various

... answer, Sihamba broke in eagerly, "Nay, lady, let not your lips be stained and your heart be shamed for the sake of such as I. Better that I should die than that you should suffer defilement at the hands of Swart Piet, who, born of white blood and black, is false to both and a disgrace ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard

... has always been unanimous in this point; and among the Romans, Greeks Syrians, and Barbarians, many holy virgins joyfully preferred torments and death to the violation of their integrity, which they bound themselves by vow to preserve without defilement, in mind or body. The fathers, from the very disciples of the apostles, are all profuse in extolling the excellency of holy virginity, as a special fruit of the incarnation of Christ, his divine institution, and a ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... admit the impure to this knowledge, but said: "Whoever has clean hands, and, therefore, lifts up holy hands to God ... let him come to us ... whoever is pure not only from all defilement, but from what are regarded as lesser transgressions, let him be boldly initiated in the Mysteries of Jesus, which properly are made known only to the holy and the pure." Hence also, ere the ceremony of Initiation began, he who acts as Initiator, according to the ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant

... to truth, turn it to their own uses and play with it. The voice, human speech, that sacred organ, whose whole worth lies in sincerity, has in all ages been the victim of odious profanations. But in this age it is more than ever attainted. The evil from which it suffers is defilement. ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various

... of Lucretia's powers. This perpetual atmosphere of duplicity was positively distasteful. In the free gallop of the horses there was nothing but an inspiration to honest endeavor; but in this subtle diplomacy Allis detected the touch of defilement which her mother so strongly resented. Perhaps to-night she was more sensitive to depressing influences; at any rate she felt a great weariness of the whole business. Then the spirit of resolve rose in open rebellion against these questionings; ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser

... Weguelin's beautiful eyes were resting upon me with that disapproval I had come to know. To her, sociology and evolution and all "isms" were new-fangled inventions and murky with offense; to touch them was defilement, and in disclosing them to John Mayrant I was a corrupter of youth. She gathered it all up into a word that was radiant with a kind ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister

... liable to turn up impurities, by touching which in passing by, a Jew would be ceremonially defiled, and rendered incapable of visiting the Temple to perform his devotions, till after the evening of the day on which the defilement took place], therefore all the four Gospels which all contain, this story, must have been written by Gentiles ignorant of the custom ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English

... She's firm. My fathers! whom I will rejoin, It may be, purified by death from some Of the gross stains of too material being, I would not leave your ancient first abode To the defilement of usurping bondmen; If I have not kept your inheritance As ye bequeathed it, this bright part of it, Your treasure—your abode—your sacred relics 430 Of arms, and records—monuments, and spoils, In which they ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... are," replied the Shaykh, his lip curling, his eyes gleaming. "They will tear their clothes, and cut their shaven crowns, and wail, 'Woe's me, O Ali!' then kiss the Kaaba with defilement on their beards. The curse of the Shaykaim is ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... Witchcraft! firstborn child of Crime! Produc'd before the bloom of Time; Ambition's maiden Sin, in Heaven conceiv'd, And who could have believ'd Defilement could in purity begin, And bright eternal Day be soil'd with Sin? Tell us, sly penetrating Crime, How cam'st thou there, thou fault sublime? How didst thou pass the Adamantine Gate; And into Spirit thy self insinuate? From what dark state? ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... perhaps by violence, in terror at my furious looks, when my features would have been distorted by rage, and my hands clenched in spite of myself in a gesture of menace and of murder, I might have forced her to open her heart, to show me its defilement, and to tell me this sad ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... appetite and dies very quickly if unable to obtain food. I was interested to watch the bustling, active life of the little creature; his morning toilet when the black velvet coat was attended to, carefully brushed and licked by a tiny red tongue (though it never seemed to pick up dirt or defilement in its passage through the earth) and finally, after a few days, I had the pleasure of setting him free, when he dived into the ground out of sight in ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen

... be in great plenty that day upon the braes of Balmaghie, pursued his insulter along the glade with such excellent aim and good effect that the black unadorned armour of the horseman showed disks of defilement all over, like a tree trunk covered ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... started on our journey; a long way, but one that did not seem long to us, so engaged were we with our hopes. It was with me thou sawest Jerusalem for the first time; and I remember telling thee as we journeyed by the Jordan seeking a ford that the Essenes looked upon oil as a defilement, and if any one of them be anointed without his approbation it is wiped off, for we think to be sweaty is a good thing, and to be clothed in white garments, and never to change these till they be torn to pieces ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... it was thinning, and at length, like a slow blossoming of the sky-flower, the sun came melting through the cloud. Between the gables of two houses, a ray fell upon the pavement and the gutter. It lay there a very type of purity, so pure that, rest where it might, it destroyed every shadow of defilement that sought to mingle with it. Suddenly the boy made a dart upon all fours, and pounced like a creature of prey upon something in the kennel. He had found what he had been looking for so long. He sprang to his feet and bounded ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... sigh—"But it was not my Edward; no, it was not he that gave a stranger twenty dollars. It is a pity too; I see it now. . . " Then, with a shudder—"But it is gamblers' money! the wages of sin; we couldn't take it; we couldn't touch it. I don't like to be near it; it seems a defilement." She moved to a farther chair. . . "I wish Edward would come, and take it to the bank; a burglar might come at any moment; it is dreadful to be here all ...
— The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg • Mark Twain

... relate, you remember, sweet airs out of woods aflame with flowers and murmurous with the sound of pellucid waters. The hemisphere lay waiting to be touched with life,—life from the old centres of living, surely, but cleansed of defilement, and cured of weariness, so as to be fit for the virgin purity of a new bride. The whole thing springs into the imagination like a wonderful vision, an exquisite marvel which once only in all ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson

... accomplished. Never had a passion approached her, yet she had sounded them all. She had a disgust for realizations, and at the same time a taste for them. If she had stabbed herself, it would, like Lucretia, not have been until afterwards. She was a virgin stained with every defilement in its visionary stage. She was a possible Astarte in a real Diana. She was, in the insolence of high birth, tempting and inaccessible. Nevertheless, she might find it amusing to plan a fall for herself. She dwelt in a halo of glory, half wishing to descend from it, ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... conqueror, and Christ redeems us. Sin is a slavery, and Christ ransoms us. Sin is defilement, and Christ washes us. Sin is a disease, and Christ heals us. All this occurs again and again, but nothing occurs about constitutional governments, or conflicts between the claims ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... described by the divine penman in Leviticus. He described the slaughtered animal—foul with dust and blood, its throat gashed across, its entrails laid open and steaming in its impurity to the sun—a vile and horrid thing, which no one could look on without disgust, nor touch without defilement. The picture appeared too vivid; its introduction too little in accordance with a just taste. But this pulpit-master knew what he was all the time doing. "And that," he said, as he pointed to the terrible picture, "that is SIN!" ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte

... purify herself, but she is no sooner washed than she seems to fall into a slough yet more filthy and polluted than that from which she has just escaped. She does not see that it is because she runs that she contracts defilement, and falls so frequently, yet she is so ashamed to run in this condition, that she does not know where to hide herself. Her garments are soiled; she loses all she has ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon

... schoolmaster. Only conceive him in blessed weather like this, in his close school, teaching children to write in copy-books, "Evil communication corrupts good manners," or "You cannot touch pitch without defilement," or to spell out of Abedariums, or to read out of Jack Smith, or Sandford and Merton. Only conceive him, I say, drudging in such guise from morning till night, without any rational enjoyment but to beat the children. Would you compare such a dog's life as that with your own—the happiest ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... hands, for my right hand withered for the length of seven days. Then I knew that what had happened was for the sake of Joseph. I repented and prayed to God to restore my hand and withhold me henceforth from all sorts of defilement, envy, and folly. For two years I gave myself up to fasting and the fear of God, for I perceived that redemption from jealousy could come only through ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... impure; and I will receive you, [6:18]and will be to you a father, and you shall be to me sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty. [7:1] Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us purify ourselves from every defilement of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness ...
— The New Testament • Various

... of ordinances is the knowledge of Allah Almighty; that, which is the initiative of all others, is the testifying there is no god but the God and Mohammed is the Apostle of God; that, of which all others have need, is the Wuzu-ablution; that, which compriseth all others, is the Ghusl-ablution from defilement[FN342]; the Traditional ordinance that entereth into the Koranic, is the separation of the fingers and the thick beard;[FN343] and that, wherewith all Koranic ordinances are completed, is circumcision."[FN344] Therewith was made manifest the defeat of the doctor, who rose to his feet and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... words of an eyewitness, that the deaths took place among this close-packed crowd without the smallest decencies of attention—that the dead and the dying lay piled one upon another not merely in the public roads, but even in the temples, in spite of the understood defilement of the sacred building—that half-dead sufferers were seen lying round all the springs, from insupportable thirst—that the numerous corpses thus unburied and exposed were in such a condition that the dogs which meddled with them died in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various

... and when the enclosure can conveniently contain no more pits a new one is selected and prepared. None but priests and bearers of the dead may enter, or even look into, these walled cemeteries. The priests, by virtue of their holy office, are preserved from defilement, but the bearers are men set apart for this express purpose, and they are considered so unclean that they may not enter under the roof of any other Parsee or salute him on the street. If in passing a bearer do but touch one's clothes accidentally, he ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... writing against the Valentinians and certain Gnostics led by Marcus, states explicitly that many of the women who had been led into heresy and impurity, and who afterwards returned to the Church, confessed even publicly, and wept over their defilement. "But others, ashamed to do this, and in some manner secretly despairing within themselves of the life of ...
— Confession and Absolution • Thomas John Capel

... addressed the Senate in opposition to the measure. His speech was five hours in length, and occupied parts of the sessions of two days in its delivery. Mr. Sumner argued that the proposed amendment would introduce "discord and defilement into the Constitution," by admitting that rights could be "denied or abridged on account of race or color," and that by its adoption Congress would prove derelict to its constitutional duty to guarantee a republican form of government ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... describes the original state of man, as a state of perfect purity and innocence. He was made in the image of God. He was made upright [Gen. i. 26, 27.; Eccles. vii. 29.]. His understanding, will, his affections and conscience, his body and soul, were free from defilement, guilt, or guile, and while he continued so, he was not liable to pain, misery, ...
— An Address to the Inhabitants of the Colonies, Established in New South Wales and Norfolk Island. • Richard Johnson

... crimes charged against him, as far as he could commit them, is evident. The only INTENT which his act did not overtake, was the defilement of Isabel. Of this Angelo was only intentionally guilty. Angelo's crimes were such, as must sufficiently justify punishment, whether its end be to secure the innocent from wrong, or to deter guilt by example; and I believe every reader feels some indignation when he finds him spared. ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson

... in the deep of sorrow, whatever that depth may be, cry to God. To God Himself; and to none but God. If you can go to the pure fountain-head, why drink of the stream, which must have gathered something of defilement as it flows? If you can get light from the sun itself, why take lamp or candle in place of his clear rays? If you can go to God Himself, why go to any of God's creatures, however holy pure, and loving? Go to God, who is light ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley

... of the gift. God looks not at the gift, but at the hand that brings it. "Your hands are full of blood!" "Your hands are unclean!" The Lord demands "clean hands." He will not have our compliments if there is defilement behind them. Our courtesies are rejected if iniquity attends them. The shining gloss on the linen is an offence if the dirt looks through! Who cares for food if presented by unclean hands? "Be ye clean, ye that bear ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett

... the World, the frequent Distractions of their Mind in Prayer, and the Unruliness of their Lusts and Passions, delight to frequent a Place where they are surrounded with Temptations to the Love of the World; where what can excite to unlawful Desires and Actions is promoted; and the Arts of an easie Defilement are studied? Can they think this consistent with the Rules of keeping from all Appearance of Evil, of avoiding the Occasions and Temptations to Sin, and that Watchfulness over their Thoughts, and that Diligence in ...
— Representation of the Impiety and Immorality of the English Stage (1704); Some Thoughts Concerning the Stage in a Letter to a Lady (1704) • Anonymous

... deeply discussed between the rector and his wife. She had given it as her opinion that priest M'Carthy was pitch, pitch itself in its blackest turpitude, and as such could not be touched without defilement. Had not all the Protestant clergymen of Ireland in a body, or, at any rate, all those who were worth anything, who could with truth be called Protestant clergymen, had they not all refused to enter the doors of the National schools because ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... rather of the things offered to idols which many early Christians scrupled to eat. It has, however, another and special significance due to the regulations imposed by caste. As a rule a Hindu of respectable social status cannot eat with his inferiors without incurring defilement. But in many temples members of all castes can eat the prasad together as a sign that before the deity all his worshippers are equal. From this point of view the prasad is really analogous to the communion ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot



Words linked to "Defilement" :   defile, uncleanness, dirtiness



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