"Devout" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... provocation, who had died in prison, refusing the services of the priest—impenitent to the last. The sermon followed the spirit of the absolved woman to its eternal reward in heaven, and described the meeting with dear ones who had gone before, in terms so devout and so touching that the women near us, and even some of the men, burst into tears. Far different was the effect produced when the preacher, filled with the same overpowering sincerity of belief which had inspired his ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... the Abbot of this venerable house should ask of any one whether he can alienate the patrimony of our holy and divine patroness, or give up to an unconscientious, and perhaps, a heretic baron, the rights conferred on this church by his devout progenitor. Popes and councils alike prohibit it—the honour of the living, and the weal of departed souls, alike forbid it—it may not be. To force, if he dare use it, we must surrender; but never by our ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... They believe that the doctrine of the restoration is the most consonant to the perfections of the Deity, the most worthy of the character of Christ, and the only doctrine which will accord with pious and devout feelings, or harmonize with the Scriptures. They teach their followers that ardent love to God, active benevolence to man, and personal meekness and purity, are the ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... whether Julius was a Christian, without nearly as much negation in her tones as before; and Jenny, taking it as it was meant, vouched for his piety, so as might render it a little more comprehensible to one matured on Scottish Calvinism and English Methodism, diluted in devout undogmatic minds, with no principle more developed than horror of Popery and of worldliness. Turned loose in solitude, reserve, and sadness, on her husband's family, who did nothing but shock her with manifestations of the latter, she could hardly turn even to the clerical portion of it, while ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... from a disposition to "stand by the down man," or from having an intimate knowledge of the peculiar circumstances of the country in which he was placed, or from the thorough confidence which intimacy caused us to repose in his genuine piety, and devout service of God, we came to think much more leniently of his proceedings, than his assailants did. He never seemed to doubt but that he had done his duty; and throughout he had always been supported ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... charm of their words; while others learn them to add to their knowledge, in order that through reading the errors, of the heathen they may denounce them, and that they may turn to the service of sacred and devout learning the useful things they find therein. Such are praiseworthy in adding to their learning profane literature. Whence blessed Gregory did not blame a certain bishop for learning it but because, contrary to his episcopal ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton
... while the common mind was filled with dread in the presence of phenomena which, real or imaginary, it could not explain, he found therein only such subjects for reflection as fascinated his imagination and filled his soul with devout admiration of the creative spirit which ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... it's braised," he said, in a devout undertone. "You don't expect so much, Miss May, that's what it is; you're always in the house. You don't care for exercise. Bless you, if I didn't take exercise, I should be fifteen stone before you could turn round. How much are you? about eight, perhaps; not ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... evening, he sings like a saint, and his pure, sweet notes would never lead one to suspect that he was guilty of habitual gormandizing. He settles down into a good husband and father, and, in brief, reminds one of the sturdy English squire who is sincerely devout over his prayer-book on proper occasions, and between times takes all the goods ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... you will—of the interior oppresses me; it is cavernous. A service is being held in one of the transepts, and the congregation seems noisier and less devout than I could have believed possible. My thoughts fly far to where, on its solitary hill, the noble pile of Chartres soars majestic, its heaven-piercing spires dominating the wide plain of La Beauce. In fancy I enter by the splendid north door and find myself in the pillared dimness ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... which my feet have trod, no ghost uprises to confront it; no voice cries out for retribution or justice; not even does a dumb animal whine at a blow inflicted, nor a worm which my foot has wantonly pressed, appear. I would show forth no self-praise in this, but rather a devout thankfulness unto the Creator who made me as I am, with a heart of mercy for all living things, and a reverent love for all His wonderful works. The beauty of tree, and flowering plant, and lowly creeper abides with me as an everlasting ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... mellifluous manners, writing out cheques. She had ten minutes talk with him, and went home very sad and wise. Indeed from that day, her spirit being the spirit of the true snob, the hectorer of the humble, the devout groveller in the courtyards of the great, she was a much-changed woman. Even her hair felt it, and settled down unchecked to greyness. She no longer cared to put on a pink tulle bow in the afternoons, which may or may not be ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... all their religion is so dear to devout Hindus as the Ganges. The mysterious cavern in the Himalayas which is supposed to be the source of the river is the most sacred place on earth. It is the fifth head of Siva, and for 1,600 miles to its delta every ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... in spite of him, agreed to the proposed terms. But the founders of the Empire State have left an indelible impress upon the Union, which their descendants have helped to strengthen and perpetuate. They were honest, thrifty, devout, tolerant of the opinions of others. As Holland sheltered the English Puritans from ecclesiastical intolerance, so New Netherland welcomed within her borders the victims of ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... engaged board and lodging in a private family who were extremely devout. Before each meal a long grace was said. To their dismay and horror the new boarder sat bolt upright while the others at table reverently bowed their heads. When the second day passed and the young man evinced no disposition to unbend, ...
— Good Stories from The Ladies Home Journal • Various
... in the Pinacotheca of the Vatican, in the galleries of the Pam-fili-Doria palace, the Borghese, the Corsini, the Sciarra, her easel was set up before many a famous picture by Guido, Domenichino, Raphael, and the devout painters of earlier schools than these. Other artists and visitors from foreign lands beheld the slender, girlish figure in front of some world-known work, absorbed, unconscious of everything around her, seeming to live ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... name, was a character of another complexion, a gentleman born, a graduate of Harvard in 1730, and one of His Majesty's Council in 1766—a man with the blood of the lion and the unicorn in every vein. He remained to the bitter end, and beyond, a devout royalist, prizing his shoe-buckles, not because they were of chased silver, but because they bore the tower mark and crown stamp. He stoutly objected to oral prayer, on the ground that it gave rogues and hypocrites an ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... that has not enough of the spirit of Christ in it to stand a church fair, wherein devout offerings are brought to the tithing-house in the spirit of true devotion; the Lord pity any church that has not enough of the spirit of Jesus in it to endure or enjoy a pure entertainment. Indeed, they are subjects for prayer if they cannot, without quarrels, without fightings, ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... the Revolutionary war. Alexander McLeod (1774-1833), born in the island of Mull, died in New York as Pastor of the First Reformed Church. Described as "a powerful preacher, a man of learning and wisdom, and a devout Christian." George Buist (1770-1808), born in Fifeshire, Scotland, educated in Edinburgh, "one of the most eloquent and distinguished divines of his day," was Pastor of the Scots Church in Charleston and President of the College of Charleston. Alexander Campbell ...
— Scotland's Mark on America • George Fraser Black
... in times of stress would have been as useful for purposes of defending Mondolfo as Lorenza, my mother's elderly woman, who sat below him at the board; he was toothless, bowed, and decrepit, but he was very devout—as he had need to be, seeing that he was half dead already—and this counted with my mother above any ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... and station claim, the retired merchant was not a happy man. Though his expensive carriage and liveried driver were seen to roll him regularly to the majestic church upon the Sabbath: though he was a patient listener to the massive organ's spiritual strains and the surpliced minister's devout incantations: though he defrauded no man, defamed not his neighbor, was seeming virtuous and happy, there was at his heart a pang that turned to lees ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... genuine terror. A superstitious terror! Just as though, for instance, I am standing in the dusk upon a shaking little board, bending over some dark, malodorous well, and just barely distinguish how there, at the bottom, reptiles are stirring. And yet, he is devout in a real way, and I am sure will some time join the monks and will be a great faster and sayer of prayers, and the devil knows how, in what monstrous fashion, a real religious ecstasy will entwine in his soul with ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... the people were poor and ignorant, and had little hope of bettering themselves in this world, their thoughts turned much to the other world. The country was often swept by storms of religious excitement; at the camp-meetings the devout fell in fits and trances or were convulsed with strange throes called the jerks, and all sorts of superstitions grew up easily among them. The wildest of these perhaps was that of the Leatherwood God which flourished in Guernsey County, about the year 1828. The name ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... of the trumpets that announced the accession of Bathsheba's son! He passes through the most sharply contrasted conditions, and from each gathers some fresh fitness for his great work of giving voice and form to all the phases of devout feeling. The early shepherd life deeply influenced his character, and has left its traces on many a line ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... to the Mosque of Kuba, some two miles out of the town, and witnessed the entry into Medina of the great caravan from Damascus, numbering 7,000 souls—grandees in gorgeous litters of green and gold, huge white Syrian dromedaries, richly caparisoned horses and mules, devout Hajis, sherbet sellers, water carriers, and a multitude of camels, sheep and goats. [122] Lastly Burton and his friends pilgrimaged to the holy Mount Ohod with its graves of "the martyrs;" and to the celebrated Al-Bakia, or Saints' Cemetery, where lie ten thousand of the Prophet's companions. ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... herself a musician, that the city did not contain more than a thousand persons of real musical appreciation, that a number of these could not afford to attend the operatic performances, and that opera week was, consequently, in reality more an occasion of great social festivity than of devout homage to art. ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... the present day. Our children, one may say, are almost born scientific. But our esteem for facts has not neutralized in us all religiousness. It is itself almost religious. Our scientific temper is devout. Now take a man of this type, and let him be also a philosophic amateur, unwilling to mix a hodge- podge system after the fashion of a common layman, and what does he find his situation to be, in this ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... life of M. Lamennais is conclusive proof of his anti-philosophical genius. Devout even to mysticism, an ardent ultramontane, an intolerant theocrat, he at first feels the double influence of the religious reaction and the literary theories which marked the beginning of this century, and falls back to ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... business talents, reduced by one half the expenses of his household, kept everything in good order, and, when her violences roused his wrath, turned it off with some ready retort or witticism. She was very devout, and would cross herself three times at the Angelus. One instance, of a different kind of devotion, from Byron's own account, is sufficiently graphic:—"In the autumn one day, going to the Lido with my gondoliers, we were overtaken by a heavy squall, and the gondola put in peril, hats ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... depicted the sufferings of the young martyr and of her youthful husband. Her chapel yet contains her effigy with a dove at her feet—fit emblem of her purity and faith and loving-kindness; while the devout may, in the same church, behold the religiously preserved bones of the ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... Word; for which reason it is customary for preachers to declare that men ought to prepare themselves to receive God, that He may enter into them, and be in their hearts, that they may be His dwelling-place. The devout man says the same in his prayers, and some speak more openly respecting the Holy Spirit, which they believe to be in them when they are in holy zeal, and from that zeal they think, speak, and preach. ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... a perpetual marvel. More brilliant women he had known in Paris, more devout women he had seen there, but a woman so gifted and so devout, and, above all, a woman so true, so modest, and of such perfect delicacy of feeling he had never known. And how poorly these words describe her! For she ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... breakfast, accompanied by Mr. Scott, I went to Port Lincoln to attend divine service; prayers were read by Dr. Harvey. The congregation was small but respectable, and apparently devout. After church, we accompanied Dr. Harvey home to dinner, and met the Captain and Surgeon of one of the French whalers in port; both of whom appeared intelligent, and superior to the class usually met with in such employments. After dinner we all walked down to the lagoon, west ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... priests everything, the people nothing; fixed forms, instead of a free movement; dead creeds, instead of a living faith. The spirit of worldliness has entered the churches, and they try to serve God and Mammon; God on Sunday, and Mammon on the week days. The members of the churches are more devout and more religious, but not more moral or more humane, than many who are out of their body. And because they do not love man whom they have seen, they find it hard to love God, whom they have not seen. Their want ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... metropolis, a mighty city, with rivers to float the earth's commerce. The light of the sun and moon will be greatly increased, and yet this greatly intensified light will become at Jerusalem a shadow cast by the greater light of the presence of God. A devout Hebrew would associate this back with the light of the Presence-cloud in the Arabian barrens. While the devout Christian will likely, quickly think forward from that to the light that was one time ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... they came into a valley like Eden, nourished by a small river. On its banks—near a mud-walled, grass-thatched village—Cadman discovered a devout man of great learning, who rested on the path of a long pilgrimage. The devout man was approachable and spoke perfect English; so they asked him ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... at the window gave quite a cheerful appearance to the room. In the corner, under a cheap print of the Virgin Mary with the Child, a small night-light in a blue glass was always kept burning. It was a kind of illumination in honor of the Mother of God, through which the widow's devout nature found expression. Paolo always looked upon it as a very solemn show. When he said his prayers, the sweet, patient eyes in the picture seemed to watch him with a mild look that made him turn over and go to ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... the stage-woman's career as to that of the woman of fashion. All this was a vital part of that plan to which the mother had devoted herself. She attended the girl's health and good looks with a devout singleness of purpose that would have been admirable in a better cause. No race-horse on the eve of a Derby was groomed more carefully than this budding woman. In preparing her for masculine conquest the entire family took a hand. Her prospects, ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... the lettering in design and workmanship is the same as at Melrose. The references to the building operations, the poetical form of the composition, the manner in which the names are introduced, 'Callit was I,' and 'Ye callit,' and the devout expressions with which they close, make it clear that the inscriptions are the work of ...
— Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story
... of your imperial majesty; that the goodness of God and your kindness may not be altogether unproductive of good. But in doing this I discover the want of much, especially those exquisite books of scholastic learning which I possessed in my own country, through the industry of my good and most devout master, Egbert. I therefore entreat your Excellence to permit me to send into Britain some of our youths to procure those books which we so much desire, and thus transplant into France the flowers of Britain, that they may fructify and perfume, not only the garden ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... family of apothegms revealing the chief traits of the people who gave them birth. In these collective expressions of national mind, we can recognize—if so incomplete a characterization may be ventured—the indrawn meditativeness of the Hindu, the fiery imagination of the Arab, the devout and prudential understanding of the Hebrew, the aesthetic subtilty of the Greek, the legal breadth and sensual recklessness of the Roman, the martial frenzy of the Goth, the chivalric and dark pride of the Spaniard, the treacherous blood of the Italian, the mercurial vanity of the Frenchman, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... frank and open countenance of his guest, welcomed him with more than wonted hospitality. Louis Joseph Stanislaus Martin was the pilgrim's name. He was born on August 22, 1823, at Bordeaux, while his father, a brave and devout soldier, was captain in the garrison there. "God has predestined this little one for Himself," said the saintly Bishop of Bordeaux on the occasion of his baptism, and events have proved the truth of his words. From this town, by the banks of the ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... holiness, and when, at the resurrection, we awake satisfied with his likeness (Ps. 17: 15), we shall be perfected in holiness. This is simply saying that sanctification is progressive and not, like conversion, instantaneous. And yet we must admit the force of what a devout and thoughtful writer says as to the danger of regarding it as only a gradual growth. If a Christian looks upon himself as "a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season," he judges rightly. But to conclude therefore that ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... punctual in their attendance at Saint-Francois on Sundays and saints'-days, were on friendly terms with the beadle and the lowest ecclesiastical rank and file, commonly called in Paris le bas clerge, to whom the devout usually give little presents from time to time. Mme. Cantinet therefore knew Schmucke almost as well as Schmucke knew her. And Mme. Cantinet was afflicted with two sore troubles which enabled the lawyer to use her as a blind and involuntary agent. Cantinet junior, a stage-struck ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... this order, was appointed presiding missionary of California, and arrived July, 1769, erected a great cross on the coast, celebrated mass, and commenced his work. Like St. Francis, he was earnest, devout, pure, and self-sacrificing, blessed with wonderful magnetism. Once, while exhorting his hearers to repent, he scourged his own shoulders so unmercifully with a chain that his audience shuddered and wept; and one man, overcome by emotion, rushed ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... name of God, the Clement, the Merciful: Behold what says the Shekh, the judge, the learned man, the truthful, the noble, the devout, the very benevolent, the guest of God; who has acquitted himself of the visit to the holy places, to the honor of religion; who, in the course of his travels, has placed his confidence in the Lord of all creatures—Abou Abdallah Mohammed, ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... Though the property had been bought from the national domain under the Reign of Terror by the father of Mademoiselle Gamard, no one objected under the Restoration to the old maid's retaining it, because she took priests to board and was very devout; it may be that religious persons gave her credit for the intention of leaving the property ...
— The Vicar of Tours • Honore de Balzac
... of Gloucester a good many miscellaneous strains—some of a satirical, others of an amatory, and others again of a legendary and devout style—were produced. It was customary then for minstrels, at the instance of the clergy, to sing on Sundays devotional strains on the harp to the assembled multitudes. At public entertainments, during week-days, gay ditties were common. One of ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... luxurious ease, rusted in sloth; followed nothing but their caprice: the care of restraining their subjects was reposed in their deities; the instruction of the people was confided to their priests, who were commissioned to train them to obedience, to make them submissive, to render them devout, to teach them at an early age to tremble under the yoke of both the visible and ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... Sophocles is the most devout of the Greek tragedians, and reverence for the gods is constantly enjoined in his tragedies. One striking passage is where Antigone is asked if she had disobeyed the laws of the country, and replies, "Yes; for they ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... future with the image of the man she loved so dearly, and who was yet so far removed from her. Now she could not think of him without reflecting that her father's death had removed one very great obstacle to her marriage. She was by no means of a very devout or saintly character, but, on the other hand, she had a great deal of what is called heart, and to be heartless seemed to her almost worse than to be bad. In excuse of such very untheological doctrines it must be allowed that her ideas concerning wickedness in ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... interview, when I had been stiff and barely polite to this kind, indulgent man. At that moment, when all my life was opening its wings, I should have liked to cry out to him my repentance and to tell him of my devout gratitude. ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... gazing up from the deck at midnight into the boundless starlit depths overhead, in a rapture of devout wonder at that endless brightness and beauty—in some such a way now, the depth of this pure devotion quite smote upon him, and filled his heart with thanksgiving. Gracious God, who was he, weak and friendless creature, ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... which was subsequently repeated to others, thoroughly impressed the minds of the devout Israelites with the thought that at some future time there would be born of a woman of the Jewish people a holy child, and that in some way to them not understood this child would be the means of blessing all the families and nations of the earth. They expected ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford
... the age of sixty-eight, on the 1st of August, 1821, a devout Roman Catholic, her thoughts in her last years looking habitually through all disguises of convention up to ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... used with such expressions from a lady's tongue, the only two ladies I had known, Mrs. Campbell and my mother, being most devout and most particular women; and I suppose my amazement must have been depicted in my countenance, for Mrs. Ogilvy burst forth suddenly ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... came in while I was there, dipping their fingers in the holy water, and bending the knee, as they passed the shrines and chapels, until they reached the one which, apparently, they had selected as the particular altar for their devotions. Everybody seemed so devout, and in a frame of mind so suited to the day and place, that it really made me feel a little awkward not to be able to kneel down along with them. Unlike the worshippers in our own churches, each individual here seems to do his own individual acts of devotion, and I cannot but think it better ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of the existence of God is innate in man as a "natural opinion." We have already noticed the doctrine of {prolepsis} advanced by Epicurus, and the somewhat similar position assumed by Philo, and we are not surprised to find that this idea took a strong hold on the devout minds of the early Christians. Thus St. Justin Martyr states that "the appellation 'God' is not a name, but an opinion ({prosagoreuma}) planted in the nature of man of a thing that can hardly be explained,"[34] and makes one of his discussions conclude ...
— The Basis of Early Christian Theism • Lawrence Thomas Cole
... on this exultation another feeling as sincere—devout thankfulness that he had gone no further. He drew deep breaths of relief over his escape, but knew that he had not himself to thank. His friends, the little sprites, had done it, in return for the amusement he seemed to give them. They had stayed him in the nick of time, but not earlier; ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... will observe, is from a minister of Christ. It is from a bishop of a church. It is from one who prays our Lord's prayer, given alike to white and black. "After this manner, therefore, pray ye." "Our Father." This is from one who believes in the baptism at Pentecost, when devout men from every nation under heaven received the impartial benedictions of God. This from one who read the story of Peter and ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... in a sitting posture. How any adult corpse can be put into so small a space may well be an enigma to foreigners. In cases of pronounced rigor mortis the work of getting the body into the coffin is difficult even for the professional doshin-bozu. But the devout followers of Nichiren claim that after death their bodies will remain perfectly flexible; and the dead body of an uguisu, they affirm, likewise never stiffens, for this little bird is of their faith, and passes its ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... pilgrimage up the steepest portion of the ascent, in order to fulfil vows previously made, and to pay their homage to the holy mother of God. There was a waggery in our friend's eye, as he described the sufferings of the devout upon these occasions, which indicated an opinion that, however meritorious the act, and however efficacious in shortening the path to heaven, he himself entertained no desire to try it. This man ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... meaning which does not offend either piety or reason. We may therefore conclude that it was not men in an early stage of philosophic thought (as philosophy is now understood)—not men like Empedocles and Heraclitus, nor reasonably devout men like Eumaeus, the pious swineherd of the Odyssey—who evolved the blasphemous myths of Greece, of Egypt and of India. We must look elsewhere for an explanation. We must try to discover some actual and demonstrable and widely prevalent condition of ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... ages a belief indeed which is truly catholic, in the widest acceptation of the word. I am, by inquiry and conviction, as well as by inclination and feeling, a Christian; life would be intolerable to me if I were not so. "But," says Saint Evremont, "the most devout cannot always command their belief, nor the most impious their incredulity." I acknowledge with Sir Thomas Brown that, "as in philosophy, so in divinity, there are sturdy doubts and boisterous objections, wherewith ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... foothills. But the dunes were all vermilion, and I can't tell you what hue of red lay spread out deep and vivid on the Sangre de Cristo peaks,—a living, passionate, terrible blood-red. I'm not very devout, but I tell you candidly that I reined up my horse, took off my hat, and sat there gazing, with the queerest feelings, and saying, like the old Spaniards, 'Sangre de Cristo! ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... stolen from the daylight. At the main entrance of the mosques gather groups of men and women with sick children in their arms, waiting until the prayers are over and the worshippers file out; for the prayer-laden breath of the truly devout is powerful to exorcise the demons of disease, and the child over whom the breath of the worshipper has passed has fairer surety of recovery than can be gained from all the nostrums and charms of the Syed and ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... a devout person," said the friar, quietly. "Let my presence not offend you at your ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... Jesus. His mind seemed to be continually running on the thought that he should soon be with Jesus. We prayed, and made preparations for giving him the Lord's Supper. As soon as I put the sacramental bread into his hand, a flash of devout joy lighted up his face, and he lifted the bread reverently to his mouth. It was a very affecting sight to see this worthy old Christian taking the Sacrament for the last time. All his family were deeply moved. When we took leave of him he started as he took my wife's ...
— Old Daniel • Thomas Hodson
... are from the army and navy. Commodore Foote is there, a devout worshipper. Before coming to church he visited each gunboat of his fleet, called the crews together, read to them his general orders, that no unnecessary work should be done on the Sabbath, and enjoining upon the commanders ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... religiously inclined, and some very devout. All were desirous of religious ordinances. They would meet at the regular hour on the Sabbath, Robert Marshall holding what was called a religious teaching for the English, and Colin Douglass doing the same in Gaelic. The exercises consisted of praise, prayer and the reading ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... perhaps, the knowledge that did he wait, and come to her as an honest, devout lover, he must in honesty tell her all there was to know of his odd history and of his bastardy, and thus set up between them a barrier insurmountable. Better, he may have thought, to make from the ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... the odour, the genial and ecclesiastical atmosphere and the devout superstition that rendered those of Italy so strikingly soothing and pleasant; but they are huge piles, and can always be visited with pleasure. Notre Dame de Paris is a noble monument, and now that the place of the archbishop is destroyed, one is likely ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... lead his people on expeditions for plunder and violence, but he now seemed absorbed by one passion, zeal for God and his missionary. He set his subjects to building a house for Mr. Moffat, made him a present of cows, became a regular and devout worshiper, mourned heartily over his past life, and habitually studied the Word of God. He could not do enough for the man who had led ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... If there be any poems in the book that are capable of giving delight to persons of a more refined taste and polite education, perhaps they may be found in this part; but except they lay aside the humour of criticism, and enter into a devout frame, every ode here ...
— Hymns and Spiritual Songs • Isaac Watts
... of the United States. In the new Western States the religious movements fell behind the Western march of the immigrant. In the Canadian West from the very day that old Verandrye took his priest with him, from the time when the first Colonists brought a devout layman as their religious teacher with them, from the hour when the stalwart Provencher came, from the era when the self-denying West visited the Indian camps and Settlers' camp alike, from the time when the saintly ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... of Mary's character made itself powerfully felt in these solitary moments. She knew that while these strenuous days were on he could allow himself no personal aims. But the growing knowledge that he was approved by a soul so pure and so devout had both strung up all his powers and calmed the fevers of battle. He loved his cause the more because it was ever more clear to him that she passionately loved it too. And sensitive and depressed as he often was—the penalty of the optimist—her faith in ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... university courses in sociology and schools of philanthropy, devout readers of The Survey, The Chicago Public, The Masses, The New Republic, La Follette's, are going to advocate increasingly, their varied and sometimes contradictory causes, in films. These will generally be produced by heroic exertions ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... nineteen and twenty years of age, drew upon herself everybody's attention by her over-strained and unnatural manners. A great talker, with a memory crammed with maxims and precepts often without sense, but of which she loved to make a show, very devout, and so jealous of her husband that she did not conceal her vexation when he expressed his satisfaction at being seated at table opposite her sister, she laid herself open to much ridicule. Her husband was a giddy young fellow, who perhaps felt very deep affection ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... welcome poems which do not find their way to the heart. For this reason there is perhaps not more than a score of translations which have won their way from permanent hymnals to a permanent place in the affections of our devout fellow-countrymen. In this connection it is to be noted that we speak of translations, and not of suggestions such as, "Art thou weary," or "O, happy band of pilgrims," and many others, which have advanced into great favour, and are ...
— Hymns from the East - Being Centos and Suggestions from the Office Books of the - Holy Eastern Church • John Brownlie
... wife, 'This bird sits as quiet as a muni; let him go where he likes,' amused himself with laughing at its awkward attempts to walk. Then the swan suddenly spoke: 'O king, though in the form of a swan, I am a devout brahman; and since you have thus, without cause, ill-treated me while sitting quiet here, engaged in meditation, I lay my curse upon you, and you shall endure the pain of separation from your ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... with calm humility. By this time she was about thirty years old, all her children were dead, and her husband soon afterwards died also. The season of reflection had arrived for her, and she did reflect. She became very silent and very devout, never once letting matins or mass go unheeded by, and she gave away all her fine clothes. For fifteen years she led a quiet, grave, peaceful life, quarrelling with no one, giving way to all. If any one spoke ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... humiliate himself every day by giving in to his moods. This father had nothing which would have delighted him and nothing which he would have feared. He was a good man, this father, a good, kind, soft man, perhaps a very devout man, perhaps a saint, all these there no attributes which could win the boy over. He was bored by this father, who kept him prisoner here in this miserable hut of his, he was bored by him, and for him to answer every naughtiness with a smile, every insult with friendliness, ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... removed and placed with a Mr Ross, one of the ministers of the city churches, and to whom he formed some attachment, as he speaks of him with kindness, and describes him as a devout, clever little man of mild manners, good-natured, and painstaking. His third instructor was a serious, saturnine, kind young man, named Paterson, the son of a shoemaker, but a good scholar and a rigid Presbyterian. It is somewhat curious in the record which Byron has made of ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... that if Sterne had never written one line more than his picture of the mournful cottage, towards the conclusion of his fifth sermon, we might cheerfully indulge the devout hope that the recording angel, whom he once invoked, will have blotted out many ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... glad you feel so," said the latter, very quietly, and with a strictly impersonal manner. "Francia, who belonged to the old Bolognese masters of the sixteenth century, was one of the most devout of painters, and everybody who studies his work must love it. See how pure and sweet are his expressions! How simple his composition! What harmony is in his coloring! How beyond ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... learned and devout, Behind our hamlet on the eastern hill. Three sons she had, who went to find the world. They promised to return, but wandered still. The cities used them well, they won their way, Rich gifts they sent, to still their mother's sighs. Worn out with honors, and ...
— The Congo and Other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... cutting-machines. To enter too definitely into Mrs. Larrabbee's history, therefore, were merely to be crude, for she is not a lady to caricature. Her father had been a steamboat captain—once an honoured calling in the city of her nativity—a devout Presbyterian who believed in the most rigid simplicity. Few who remembered the gaucheries of Captain Corington's daughter on her first presentation to his family's friends could recognize her in the cosmopolitan Mrs. Larrabbee. Why, with New ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... accustomed to greet the return of the day, further, in such manner and at such time as in their respective localities and religious associations may be most convenient, to mark its recurrence by some public religious and devout thanksgiving to Almighty God for the blessings which have been bestowed upon us as a nation during the century of our existence, and humbly to invoke a continuance of His favor and of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... If their looks displeased him they had to sleep outside. This custom of locking the gates every evening was highly characteristic of the spirit of the town, which was a commingling of cowardice, egotism, routine, exclusiveness, and devout longing for a cloistered life. Plassans, when it had shut itself up, would say to itself, "I am at home," with the satisfaction of some pious bourgeois, who, assured of the safety of his cash-box, and certain that no noise will disturb him, duly says his prayers and ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... each differs as much from its original structure and tinting as the planet Jupiter would differ from its familiar countenance if Adams or Le Verrier could make it wear the florid face of Mars. This man,—and it is to be hoped he carries some devout and grateful thoughts to his work—sets Nature new lessons daily in artistry, and she works out the new ideals of his taste to their joint and equal admiration. He has got up a new pattern for the fern. She lets him guide her hand in the delicate operation, and she crimps, fringes, shades ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... beneath our feet, was a scene too awful and too majestic to be enjoyed. We could think only of the thin bubble-skin of earth between us and the everlasting lake of fire and brimstone, and of God to whom we prayed to save us. There were earnest and devout souls who there and then promised their pastors to give not their shaved tithes, but five-tenths of their all to the church, if only the Lord would let them live ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... himself became proficient in copying and illuminating. He could not spend an hour without study, or prayer, or writing, or some other holy occupation.[2] He transcribed, we are told, over three hundred copies of the Gospels or the Psalter—a magnification of a saint's powers by a devout biographer, but significant as it testifies to Columba's love of studious labours, and shows how highly these ascetics thought of work of this kind. On two occasions, being a man as well as a saint, he broke ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... picture, rather than picture itself. Sometimes you saw a range of red dots, which, after long looking, dawned on you as the roofs of houses,—shining streaks turned out to be most alluring rivulets, if traced with patience and a devout eye. Above all, they charmed the eye and the thought. Still, these pictures, it seems to me, cannot be considered fine works of Art, more than the mystical writing common to a certain class of minds in the United States can be called good writing. A great work of Art demands ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... sat With mother in the family pew and fumbled with my hat— How I would like to see it now the way I saw it then, The straight-backed pews, the pulpit high, the women and the men Dressed stiffly in their Sunday clothes and solemnly devout, Who closed their eyes when prayers were said and never looked about— That little church of Long Ago, it wasn't grand to see, But even as a little boy it meant ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... among the common people, the devout, and occasionally also among people of culture, this highest art is not divested of its mythical environment, which still persists, although in a more ideal form, yet it has followed and still follows the general ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... Quietism, without having taken up its defects—one who has found in TAULER or GUYON, or perhaps still more in FENELON, something to love, and has loved it without effort. We are certain that the work is one which will enjoy a very extensive popularity among all liberal-minded yet truly devout Christians. ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the Pillar of Fire by night, that was to guide them on their desolate perilous way. Was it not such? Can a man's soul, to this hour, get guidance by any other method than intrinsically by that same,—devout prostration of the earnest struggling soul before the Highest, the Giver of all Light; be such prayer a spoken, articulate, or be it a voiceless, inarticulate one? There is no other method. "Hypocrisy?" One begins to be weary of all that. They ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... carried away by the exuberance of his own eloquence when Dorothy and her captors entered, that he still kept on in a state of rapt ecstasy. His semi-mystical oration was a weird jumble of religion and lawlessness, devout exhortation, riot, plunder, prayer, and pillage. He extolled the virtues of the murderous Poundmaker and Big Bear. He said that Mistawasis and Chicastafasin, the chiefs, and some others, were feeble of heart and backsliders, for they had left their reserves to escape being drawn ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... fitting that we should pause and, staying the feeling of exultation that too naturally attends great deeds wrought by our countrymen in our country's cause, should reverently bow before the throne of divine grace and give devout praise to God, who holdeth the nations in the hollow of His hands and worketh upon them the marvels of His high will, and who has thus far vouchsafed to us the light of His face and led our brave soldiers and ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • William McKinley
... was the purchaser and owner of these sacred books. His almanacs were carefully interleaved and evidently were intended to be not only a record of the wisdom of the "Students in Physick and Astronomy," but also of events in the lives of devout owners. We find W. S. begins with fervor and fidelity to record daily interesting facts ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... with annoying iteration that his proceedings the night before had been of very unusual and doubtful character. When at last fully awake, he sought to appease the accusing voice by unwonted diligence in all his tasks, until the fat cook, a devout Baptist, took more than one occasion to say, "You'se in a promisin' frame, Jeff. Ef I'se ony shoah dat yer hole out long anuff ter get 'mersed, I'd hab hopes on yer, but, law! yer'll be a-fiddlin' de debil's tunes 'fo' de week is out. ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... ours to point out how thoroughly the nation must be saturated by the doctrines under discussion for such amazing utterances to be possible. If so-called Christians can think thus, the non-Christian majority must indeed be devout Emperor-worshippers and Japan-worshippers. Such the go-ahead portion of the nation undoubtedly is—the students, the army, the navy, the emigrants to Japan's new foreign possessions, all the more ardent spirits. The peasantry, ...
— The Invention of a New Religion • Basil Hall Chamberlain
... valley and his song, let us go on without any more poetry or parable to look our own selves full in the face and to ask our own hearts whether they are the hearts of really humble-minded and New Testament men or no. Dr. Newman, "that subtle, devout man," as Dr. Duncan calls him, says that "humility is one of the most difficult of virtues both to attain and to ascertain. It lies," he says, "close upon the heart itself, and its tests are exceedingly delicate and subtle. Its counterfeits ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... repentance, or the duty of commencing the Christian course,—to edification, or the encouragements to progressive Christian improvement,—and to the eucharistic service, as affording exercise for all the grateful and devout affections of the heart in every stage of its ...
— Hymns, Songs, and Fables, for Young People • Eliza Lee Follen
... It has three eyes. He is the only god in the firm that has three. "The well is covered by a fine canopy of stone supported by forty pillars," and around it you will find what you have already seen at almost every shrine you have visited in Benares, a mob of devout and eager pilgrims. The sacred water is being ladled out to them; with it comes to them the knowledge, clear, thrilling, absolute, that they are saved; and you can see by their faces that there is one happiness in this world which is supreme, and to which no other joy is comparable. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... worship, with its distinctive rites of the most indecent character, remained in practice up to, at least, 1740 in France, and 1780 in Italy. (See throughout the above work.) If Christians knew a little more about their creed they would be far less proud of it, and far less devout, than they are ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... the top of his head, his eyes, forehead, nose, and breast, to indicate the 108 different manifestations of Vishnu. If he forgets a single one of these gestures, all his worship is in vain. The same ceremony has to be repeated in the afternoon and evening, and in the intervals the devout Brahmin has other religious duties to perform in ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... enacted. On all such occasions the more victims the better. These victims were mostly captives taken in war, and wars were often entered into for the express purpose of procuring such victims. They were even made a subject of tribute. Devout people sometimes offered themselves or their children for the sacrifice. The number of victims, of course, varied from year to year, but it is possible that it counted up ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... until the aunt can bear it no longer, but leads him out, with no visible neck, and with his eyes going before him like a prawn's. This causes the sniggerers to regard flight as an eligible move, and I know which of them will go out first, because of the over-devout attention that he suddenly concentrates on the clergyman. In a little while, this hypocrite, with an elaborate demonstration of hushing his footsteps, and with a face generally expressive of having until now ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... both these questions. There was a rigid transactional probity, it seems to say; there was also a high tide of inspiration. About the artist himself many things come up for us—more than I can attempt in their order; for he was not, I think, to an attentive observer, the mere smooth and entire and devout spirit we at first are inclined to take him for. He has that about him which leads us to wonder if he may not, after all, play a proper part enough here as the patron of the money-changers. He is the delight ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... and Parliament I was Prester John. Devout was my intent; I haunted meetings, Used zealous greetings, Crept full of devotion; Smectymnuus won me first, then holy Nye prevail, (111) Then Captain Kiffin (112) slops me with John of Leyden's tail, Then ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... servants, to spare the others yet a little longer, and give them a last chance of repentance and amendment; or, if this could not be, and their utter extirpation was inevitable, that the habitations of the devout might be exempted from the general destruction—might be places of refuge, as Zoar was to Lot. He concluded by earnestly exhorting those around him to keep constant watch upon themselves; not to murmur at ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... he, the devout man of Leather,[3] Vansittart, now laying their Saint-heads together, Declare that these skittish young abominations Are clearly foretold in Chap. vi. Revelations— Nay, they verily think they could point out the one Which the Doctor's friend Death ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... I fell into the deepest misery. One day made me a widow and a beggar. I did not deny God, nor cast His gift of life away. I came to this desert, sought God and found Him here. My God requires no sacrifice of song and bell, only a devout heart. I do my penance, not by telling my beads, but by work. Men left me nothing in the world, and I formed a blooming garden from a desert wilderness. All deceived, robbed, and scorned me; the tribunal condemned me, my friends defrauded me, the Church ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... wound up by saying that she was disgusted with Spencervale church and she never meant to darken its door again, and she hoped a fearful judgment would come upon it. Then she sat down out of breath, and the minister, who hadn't heard a word she said, immediately remarked, in a very devout voice, 'amen! The Lord grant our dear sister's prayer!' You ought to hear father tell ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... how, in the middle ages, the temple of art almost grew into one with the temple of faith; to this fact may be traced the elevated and devout character of the chefs-d'oeuvre of those dim centuries. Thus the church became a sublime poem, where the glowing imagination of a tender faith lavished all its glories. That the Christian church then satisfied the heart with its mystic dogmas and symbolic representations, is ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... country is apparent. The Emperor, who is a god, the fountain of all virtue, honor, and authority, is now a prisoner at the court of Kioto, under the iron hand of the Tokugawa Shoguns. This state of impiety and irreverence can never be tolerated by the devout Shintoists. The Shogun must be dethroned and the Emperor raised to power. Here the line of arguments of the Shintoists meets with that of the scholars we have noted above. Thus both scholars and Shintoists ...
— The Constitutional Development of Japan 1863-1881 • Toyokichi Iyenaga
... was lately astonished by the remark of a cheerful cosmopolitan whom she proposed to introduce to a very rich man. She seemed to catch her breath as she spoke of his exceeding great riches in the tone of admiring awe which betrays the devout snob. The cosmopolitan listened pleasantly as Mrs. Grundy spoke with the air of proposing to him the greatest ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... laid upon the seat, And took it in my hand, and felt more near in fancy to her, finding it most sweet To think how very oft, low kneeling there, In her devout thoughts she had let me share, And set my graceless ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... bar, published in that year the, till then, inedited report of the French commission of 1831, together with a history of the science, under the title of "Isis Revelata; or, an Inquiry into the Origin, Progress, and present State of Animal Magnetism." Mr. Colquhoun was a devout believer, and his work was full of enthusiasm. It succeeded in awakening some interest upon a subject certainly very curious, but it made few or no converts. An interesting article, exposing the delusion, appeared in the same year in the "Foreign ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... Wednesday, February 21, the surface was terrible, and once more Scott expressed a devout hope that as they drew away from the land the conditions might get better; and that this improvement should come and come soon was all the more necessary because they were approaching a critical part of their ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... dedicated, to the Lord when about a month old. Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea, a small town about four miles from the city of Jerusalem, the Jewish capital, where the temple was. When he was about a month old, his mother Mary and her husband Joseph, who were devout Jews, brought him to the great city for the ceremony of the presentation in the temple. Now the temple was a great place of worship where many religious ceremonies were ...
— Rembrandt - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... announcing their presence before their God, then kneeling to offer prayers, one could not fail to realize the deep sincerity and faith expressed in face and manner, while they were oblivious to all else. No Christian was ever more devout and one may well doubt if any ever arose from prayer more uplifted than these. Who need believe they did not look beyond the imagery and commune with the ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... came, and, kneeling beside her, he implored a blessing on each member of the family individually, his mother alone being conspicuous by her absence. Then, rising from his devout posture, the little suppliant fixed a keenly triumphant look upon her face, saying, as he turned to climb ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... back from the pile of wood, the chief maintaining a position several feet to the fore, a lad behind him bearing a lighted torch. After many signs and presumably devout antics, one of the spearmen took the torch and lighted this contribution from a combined populace. As the thin column of smoke arose on the still, hot air, the vast crowd fell to the ground as one person, arising almost instantly to begin ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... father was a devout Friend, she discovered that he had the reputation of thinking for himself, following the "inner light" even when its leading differed from the considered judgment of his fellow Quakers. For this he ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz |
