"Sacristan" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... both in itself and in its possessions—we pass, after distributing the necessary largesse to the sacristan, to a turnstile which admits, on payment of a lira, to the Chapel of the Princes and to Michelangelo's sacristy. Here is contrast, indeed: the sacristy, austere and classic, and the chapel a very exhibition building of floridity and coloured ornateness, ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... while the spectators below sang a cradle-song.{55} According to a recent writer the "rocking" is still continued in the Upper Innthal.{56} In the Tyrolese cathedral city of Brixen it was once performed every day between Christmas and Candlemas by the sacristan or boy-acolytes. That the proceedings had a tendency to be disorderly is shown by an eighteenth-century instruction to the sacristan: "Be sure to take a stick or a thong of ox-hide, for the ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... these phantoms, we find that, for the most part, they are young mothers, with the refined and gentle faces of Madonnas, who hold the plaintive little ones beneath their black veils and seek to comfort them. And the sorcerer, who plays the cymbals, is a kind old priest, or sacristan, who smiles paternally. If he makes all this noise, in a rhythm which in itself is full of joy, it is to mark the gladness of Easter morn, to celebrate the resurrection of Christ—and a little, too, no doubt, to distract ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... sacristan dusting the sacred properties with a feather brush, and giving each shrine a business-like nod as he passed, was as a long-lost brother; they had hearts of aggressive tenderness for the young girls and old women who stepped ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... up the south aisle and came to the anteroom of the treasury. Its door was open. They entered what had once been a tower of the old palace. The door of the treasury was also open. They went in and found the sacristan and a woman. She held the turquoise cup in ...
— The Turquoise Cup, and, The Desert • Arthur Cosslett Smith
... death. Just at that moment the whole choir burst forth with a 'Requiescat in pace,' that shook the vaults of the cathedral. Don Manuel sank senseless on the pavement. He was found there early the next morning by the sacristan, and conveyed to his home. When sufficiently recovered, he sent for a friar and made a full confession of all ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... crowbars and pickaxes, and proceed immediately to the crypt, where no doubt could exist as to the noises at that moment, as the yellings, scamperings and scramblings were loud enough in all conscience. The sacristan came out from the body of the church and suggested another exorcism to the reverend father, who answered that he preferred the pickaxe, and, turning to beckon to his workmen, found they had fled. Nowise ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... heretofore, namely: that they and their curates shall not keep back the Holy Sacrament from us and ours for the sake of money. Still, it is our purpose that, whatever from ancient times has been assigned in each canon to the pastor or sacristan, it shall continue to him and yield him a fair support; but if any one in the collection thereof is dealt with severely and dangerously, it shall concern the civil authority, so that the common man be not overmatched. ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... and law began That still at dawn the sacristan, Who duly pulls the heavy bell, 340 Five and forty beads must tell Between each stroke—a warning knell, Which not a soul can choose but hear From Bratha Head ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... gay for grief, Made peals from half a hundred campaniles To ring a wedding in. The seven bells Of Santo Pietro, from the nones to noon, Boomed with bronze throats the happy tidings out; Till the great tenor, overswelled with sound, Cracked itself dumb. Thereat the sacristan, Leading his swinked ringers down the stairs, Came blinking into sunlight—all his keys Jingling their little peal about his belt— Whom, as he tarried, locking up the porch, A foreign signor, browned with southern suns, Turbaned and slippered, as the Muslims use, ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... were vesting in the sacristy. Enormous chests lined the walls of several rooms, and in those were stored gorgeous vestments, wonderfully beautiful in color and material, and enriched with gold and precious stones. Costly presents from kings and Spanish grandees were shown to me by the brother sacristan, who took an honest pride in exhibiting those blessed things. Magnificent society banners, used during processions on great festivals, were subjects of intense interest to the good brother. I saw lace albs there, with crotchet work marvellously ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... miracles at unseasonable times. A feather from the wing of the Angel of the Annunciation once escaped during a sermon in Saint Peter's and so tickled the noses of the congregation that they woke and sneezed with great vehemence three times each. It is related in the "Gesta Sanctorum" that a sacristan in the Canterbury cathedral surprised the head of Saint Dennis in the library. Reprimanded by its stern custodian, it explained that it was seeking a body of doctrine. This unseemly levity so raged the diocesan that the offender was publicly ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... pardonable desire to retort on those who hurt him, he was not naturally malignant, but really a most useful and serviceable being. His talents were many, and various. He could crochet most perfectly, and his coverlets were unrivalled in Lancia. He decked an altar, or dressed the images as well as any sacristan. He could upholster furniture, make wax flowers, paper walls, embroider with hair, and paint plates. And when any of his female friends wished to have her hair well dressed to go to some ball, Manuel Antonio gallantly went to the rescue, and did it as cleverly as the best hairdresser ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... across the court, where the sacristan had opened two of the crimson and green windows that now lighted the gilt altar as with sacrificial fire, and now drenched it with cool beryl tints that extinguished the flames, a low murmur became audible, swelling and rising upon the air, ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... chapel (of the Vydts family) contains the famous altar piece of the Adoration of the Lamb, by Hubert and Jan van Eyck, to study which is the chief object of a visit to Ghent. See it more than once, and examine it carefully. Ask the sacristan to let you sit before it for some time in quiet or he will hurry you on. You must observe it in close detail. Taking it in its entirety, then, the altar-piece, when opened, is a great mystical poem of the Eucharist and the Sacrifice of the Lamb, with the Christian ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... If, notwithstanding, you find the place good, you are the master; and, besides, I must be just—speaking of the notary—if there's something against, there's also something for him. He is as miserly as a dog, hard as an ass, bigoted as a sacristan, it is true; but he is as honest as one can be. He gives small wages, but he pays like a man. The food is bad. In fine, it is a house where one must work like a horse, but where there is no risk of a young girl's reputation. Louise was ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... come out after matins. When he arrived he found the door, through which he had come, built up and a new one opened in another place. The porter asked who he was and what he wanted, and he answered, 'I am the sacristan who a few hours ago went out, and now returning find all changed.' He gave too the names of the Abbot and of the Prior, and wondered much that the porter still would not let him in, and seemed not to remember these names. At last he was led to the Abbot, but they did not know one another, so that ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... choir is an elaborate Roman doorway, and preserved in the Chapter Room are five paintings depicting the "Chaste Susanne." A remarkable collection of reliques is shown by the sacristan, ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... day, "Mr." McGillivray, as the old style of address ran, more will be said later. The figure next in prominence to him in Bell's recollections was the old sacristan, Robbie Benzie. For many years he acted as "clerk" at the altar, continuing to carry out his duties when well advanced in years. During the week he carried on his trade of weaver; on Sundays he was at his post betimes, carrying a lantern with him, from which ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... which she had acquired in the ultra-religious environment in which she had lived since her conversion and her recent baptism, completed the resemblance. And you can imagine whether worldly curiosity was rampant around that ex-odalisque turned fervent Catholic, as she entered the room, escorted by a sacristan-like figure with a livid face and spectacles, Maitre Le Merquier, Deputy for Lyon, Hemerlingue's man of business, who attended the baroness when the baron was "slightly indisposed," as ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... months. They lived in the cells of an old monastery at Valdemosa, away up on the mountainside overlooking the sea. Here where the roses bloomed the whole year through, surrounded by groves of orange-trees, shut in by vines and flowers, with no society save that of the sacristan and an aged woman servant, she nursed the death-stricken man ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... the church, or a baptism, or confession. Some days he would be called away to other barrios to hear a last confession; but the distance or the weather never daunted him, and he would tuck his gown well up, and, followed by a sacristan, ride merrily away. On his return a cup of pasty chocolate would await him. Padre Pedro used to make a certain egg-fizz which was a refreshing drink of a long afternoon. The eggs were lashed into a froth by means of a bamboo brush twisted or rolled between ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... man hastened out of the room to fetch the prelate, who was waiting in the viridarium with two deacons, an exorcist, and a sacristan ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... leaving, he carefully saw to his private affairs, arranged for the support of his wife and family, and entrusted the office of sacristan, which he held, to a young and worthy clerk to ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... eyes, sunk in fat, were fixed upon the ikon stand. He saw the long familiar figures of the saints, the verger Matvey puffing out his cheeks and blowing out the candles, the darkened candle stands, the threadbare carpet, the sacristan Lopuhov running impulsively from the altar and carrying the holy bread to the churchwarden.... All these things he had seen for years, and seen over and over again like the five fingers of his hand.... There was only one thing, however, ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... world-wide occasions, such as a king's birthday or a ball at the Hotel de Ville, was such music on the card. When he flung the door to, it had closed with a spring lock, and for the last quarter of an hour three gens-d'arme, commanded by the sacristan of the tower, had been thundering thereat. He waited only to finish the last notes of the wild Orcadian chant, and opened the door. He was seized by the collar, dragged down the stair into the street, and through a crowd of wondering faces—poor unconscious ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... quite evening; there was a lantern held over his head; voices were muttering curiously and angrily; bending over him were two priests, a sacristan of the church, and his own father. His little wallet lay by him on ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... church of Santa Sabina a curious legend has gathered. The sacristan, a Dominican friar of the neighbouring convent, is in the habit of telling the visitors that the devil one day, while St. Dominic was kneeling on the pavement as usual, hurled the huge stone in question, with his utmost force, against the head of the saint; but, strange to ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... done their work in all that country, as we learned when we entered the little barbed-wire enclosure of the cemetery where the Kid and his fellows were buried. There are no headstones in this cemetery, and no sacristan holds its records. Again Garrett had to search in the salt grass and greasewood. "Here is the place," said he, at length. "We buried them all in a row. The first grave is the Kid's, and next to him is Bowdre, and ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... and primroses colouring all the brown earth. They went into the little chapel together. It smelt of incense after the ceremonies of the morning. The mournful black had been removed. There were flowers on a side-table, and the sacristan was setting the candlesticks on the fair white cloth which he had just laid along the altar. The scents in the woods at home had been thin and faint by these. Standing with his hat in his hand at the threshold of the ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... within, daintiest bit of architectural fancy. Whilst we were revelling in the contrast afforded by the intense glow of the stained glass and the pure white marble—the interior being one of the loveliest, if least spacious, in France—the sacristan's wife came up and said that if we waited a few minutes longer we ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... of a sacristan, and a student of the clerical academy, returning home from shooting, walked all the time by the path in the water-side meadow. His fingers were numb and his face was burning with the wind. It seemed to him that the cold that had suddenly ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... rewarded by a large piece of toast for breakfast. Handsome lads of sixteen were chosen for acolytes, the torch-bearers were selected from the smallest boys, the office of censer was filled by John Norton, and he was also the chief sacristan, and had charge of the altar plate and linen and the vestments. He spoke of the organ, and he depreciated the present instrument, and enlarged upon some technical details anent the latest modern improvements in ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... gone, the night came on, The Monks and the Friars they search'd till dawn; When the Sacristan saw, on crumpled claw, Come limping a poor little lame Jackdaw; No longer gay, as on yesterday; His feathers all seem'd to be turn'd the wrong way;— His pinions droop'd—he could hardly stand— His head was as bald as the palm of your hand; His eye so dim, so ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... time after this fracas, a personage of venerable appearance presented himself at Epinal, and applied for the post of sacristan and bell-ringer, at that time vacant. Though he squinted, his appearance was far from disagreeable, and he obtained the appointment without difficulty. His deportment in it was in all respects edifying; or if he evinced some ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... "One day," continued the sacristan, "Louis the Gentle, the son of Charlemagne, went hunting with all his retinue in this forest. They had with them a ...
— Harper's Young People, January 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... of an hour later the sacristan showed us into this granite jewel-case which contains the three marble gems called the tombs of Marguerite of Austria, Marguerite or Bourbon, and of Philibert ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... the sacristan of the church of St. Eulalie at Neuville d'Aumont told me, as we sat under the arbor of the White Horse, one fine summer evening, drinking a bottle of old wine to the health of the dead man, now very much at his ease, whom that very morning he had borne ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... Cornhill; and says, "he was after some chronicle buried at London, and after some chronicle buried at Glowcester"—but, oh! these incorrect chroniclers! when Alban Butler, in the "Lives of the Saints," v. xii., and Murray's "Handbook," and the Sacristan at Chur, all say Lucius was killed there, and I saw his tomb ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... up and dressed before the last, but found no one else awake when I went out—no one stirring in the house,—no one moving in the street. The Cathedral doors were shut fast, a thing I have never seen before since I remember. Get up early who will, Pere Laserques the sacristan is always up still earlier. He is a good old man, and I have often heard him say God's house should be open first of all houses, in case there might be any miserable ones about who had found no ...
— A Beleaguered City • Mrs. Oliphant
... and projects towards the east, and that the lines of the walls bend a little to the left from a line drawn across between the modern chapels. The floor of this basilica is about 2 ft. 9 in. below that of the present one. The mosaic pavement is well preserved nearly all over the surface; and the sacristan opens numerous trap-doors, and puts down tapers, to show the most interesting portions. The cills of two of the doors still remain 9 in. higher and much worn by traffic; the third was destroyed to place ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... the cut canvas began to bleed, and the blood remains there to this day, and may be seen by the curious in one of the parish churches of that city! They relate numerous cases in which the host when profaned has, when broken, sent forth blood. If a sacristan omits to light the lamp which burns at night before the eucharist, the lamp lights itself. There are innumerable persons in Spain who believe that he who is born on Good-Friday has a cross on the roof of his mouth, and the ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... this means, it invariably succeeded. I will give you a striking example, which will, I am sure, amuse you. You had been ill with bronchitis for several days, and we were all uneasy about you. One morning, in my duty as sacristan, I came to put back the keys of the Communion-grating. This was my work, and I was very pleased to have an opportunity of seeing you, though I took good care not to show it. One of the Sisters, full of ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... will tell you how many years, man and boy, he has summoned the devout to matins and to vespers with their resonant voices. If you have a fancy for such things, and some silver to spare, after leaving the bell tower the sacristan will show you the rich vestments, robes, and laces for priestly wear belonging to the church, not forgetting many saintly garments wrought in gold and studded with precious stones. Perhaps you will think, as we did, that such things are but tinsel before Him whom they ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... much better than an ajoupa, that is, a four-posted square with a sloping roof of leaves or light boards. The aisle had half a foot of dust in the dry season, and the same depth of mud during rain. "I asked the sacristan, who also filled the office of chanter, if he should chant the Introit, or begin simply with the Kyrie Eleson; but he replied that it was not their custom to chant a great deal, they were content with low mass, brief, and well hurried ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... pitiable ruins scattered about amid the beautiful order of the city. Here the clerk commended to me the art of the architect, who had already fitted up church and cupola for so undesirable an event, and had built them bomb-proof. The good sacristan then pointed out to me the ruins on all sides, and said doubtfully and laconically, "/The enemy ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... sung no one would be allowed in the ambulatory until after its completion. It was pouring live Belgian rain without; already the choristers in surplices were filing into the choir. Not a moment to be spared! The sacristan was a practical man. He hustled us into a side chapel, locked the heavy doors, and left us in company with the great picture of the brothers Hubert and Jan Van Eyck. A monk knelt in prayer outside, the rain clouds made the lighting obscure. We were hemmed in, but by ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... the Annunziata he drove us to the Church of Santa Giustina, where is a very famous and noble picture by Romanino. But as this paper has nothing in the world to do with art, I here dismiss that subject, and with a gross and idle delight follow the sacristan down under this church to the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... In the following Century a great many separate altarages were endowed; and in the year 1466, it was erected by James the Third, into a Collegiate Church, consisting of a provost, a curate, sixteen prebendaries, a sacristan, a minister of the choir, and four choristers. (Maitland's ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... and flickering in the golden August weather, and in his ears a sentence running, chiming, striking upon the word "gold"— "Ding-a-ding-a-dong! 'Taty-patch a gold mine—'taty-patch a gold mine!" The prosaic Mr Latter had set the chime ringing, as a dull sacristan might unloose the music of a belfry; but like a chime of faery it rippled and trilled, closing ever upon the deep note "gold," and echoed back as from a ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... the song of Demeter"—says the prize-poet, or the Interpreter, the Sacristan of the holy places—"the song of Demeter and her daughter Persephone, whom Aidoneus carried away by the consent of Zeus, as she played, apart from her mother, with the deep- bosomed daughters of the Ocean, gathering flowers in a meadow of soft grass—roses and the crocus and fair violets ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... his shadow, to have called him by his name, but the presence of his two unknown companions, and some diffidence in herself, restrained her until the opportunity was gone, and he disappeared, inveigled by the sacristan into making the regular tour of the building. She knew every word he would hear, every antiquity he would admire. She saw him in the choir turning over the splendid manuscript books of Holy Writ and of the Mass which were in use in the ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... preacher, reader, lecturer; capitular^; missionary, propagandist, Jesuit, revivalist, field preacher. churchwarden, sidesman^; clerk, precentor^, choir; almoner, suisse [Fr.], verger, beadle, sexton, sacristan; acolyth^, acolothyst^, acolyte, altar boy; chorister. [Roman Catholic priesthood] Pope, Papa, pontiff, high priest, cardinal; ancient flamen^, flamen^; confessor, penitentiary; spiritual director. cenobite, conventual, abbot, prior, monk, friar, lay brother, beadsman^, mendicant, pilgrim, palmer; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... recognized in the girl dressed as a bonne-a-toute-faire her protegee of Le Bon Pasteur, was naturally somewhat startled at this unexpected demonstration, and called aloud for the sacristan. ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... stranger knight, when asked for his alms at the offertory, reply sadly, that he had nothing to give. He beckoned to a squire, and sent him to present the poor stranger with a purse containing a hundred pounds, which the knight immediately offered on the altar. After the mass was over, the sacristan came to ask him if he knew bow large the sum was, or if he had given it by mistake, to which he replied, that he had offered it wittingly, since it was for no other end that the Duke had sent it to him. His ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Agere, As if your tithes we had not paid!" When this sapient reason reached The noble Mascarandonese, They stopped their hopeless pastor's fees, Nor paid for what he prayed or preached; He asked his sacristan the cause, Who told him wherefore and because. From that day forth when he would sing The Preface, he took care t'intone, Not in a smothered or weak way, "Tibi semper et ubique Gratias—Mascarandon!" If from love,—that god so blind,— ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... d'Ecouis avait eu de sa mere sans la connaitre et sans en etre reconnu une fille nommee Cecile. Il epousa ensuite en Lorraine cette meme Cecile qui etait aupres de la Duchesse de Bar . . . Il furent enterres dans le meme tombeau en 1512 a Ecouis.' An old sacristan used to supply curious visitors to the church with a leaflet detailing the narrative. The same story is attached to other parishes, and at Alincourt, a village between Amiens and Abbeville, the following lines are inscribed upon ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... the celebrant appeared. The multitude commenced to murmur impatiently; the knights exchanged words with each other in a low tone; and the archbishop sent one of his attendants to the sacristan to inquire why the ceremony did ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... himself, "there is always the risk of a mistake when we judge of people by appearances; but how startling is the truth of that commonplace remark when applied to the clergy! This Abbe Plomb looks like a scared sacristan; he goes about gaping at invisible crows, and he seems so ill at ease, so loutish, so awkward—and this is our learned man and devoted mystic, in love with his Cathedral! Certainly it is not safe to judge of an ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... Giovanni degli Agli, a Dead Christ, the story of the Magi with many figures, and a very beautiful Day of Judgment. Summoned, next, to the Certosa, he painted for the Acciaiuoli, who built that place, the panel of the high-altar, which was consumed by fire in our day by reason of the inadvertence of a sacristan of that monastery, who left the thurible full of fire hanging from the altar, wherefore the panel was burnt, and afterwards the altar was made by those monks, as it stands to-day, entirely of marble. In that same place, also, the same master ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari
... an old college friend of uncle Jacob's, was a Benedictine monk, and a man famous for his learning; as for me, I was at that time my uncle's chorister, clerk, and sacristan; I swept the church, chanted the prayers with my shrill treble, and swung the great copper incense-pot on Sundays and feasts; and I toiled over the Fathers for the other days ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in the sacristan; "they watch every door. Hark! hark! hark!" and as he spoke there came the sound of battering on ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... names is very common in French, e.g. from Mercier we have Mercerot, from Berger, i.e. Shepherd, a number of derivatives such as Bergerat, Bergeret, Bergerot, etc. Sanger and Sangster were not necessarily ecclesiastical Singers. Converse meant a lay-brother employed as a drudge in a monastery. Sacristan, the man in charge of the sacristy, from which we have Secretan, is contracted into Saxton and Sexton, a name now usually associated with grave-digging and bell-ringing, though the latter task ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... cardinals, who, kneeling, kissed his right hand. This is a ceremony which is always gone through with in the most formal, mechanical, business-like manner possible. Some palms, not in natural branches, but cut and wreathed in various strange, fantastic forms, lay on the altar. The Pope's chief sacristan took one of these, a deacon another, a sub-deacon a third, and knelt at the foot of the throne. His Holiness read prayers over them, sprinkled them with holy water, and incensed them three times. One of these is held beside the throne by the prince assistant ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... pennies which attendants have to pay on taking them. Not one of these collectors has officiated less than 11 years; three of them have been at the work for 27; and what is still better they discharge their duties, as the sacristan once told us, "free gracious." That is a philanthropic wrinkle for chapel keepers and other compounders of business and piety which we commend to special notice. The singers at St. Augustine's are ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... was interrupted by the Sacristan, who, in a voice almost inarticulate with anger, accused the Bohemian of having practised the most abominable arts of delusion among the younger brethren. He had added to their nightly meal cups of a heady and intoxicating cordial, of ten times the strength of the most ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... this was a true stroke of Jesuit policy, that, to instruct the Indians how to shoot, they would bring from Chile certain Jesuits who in the world had served as soldiers. One sees them brought from the frontiers of Araucania, and from the outposts of the trans-Andean towns, half sacristan, half sergeant, instant in prayer, and yet with a look about them like a serious bull terrier — a fitting kind of priest for a frontier town, and such as could alone be found ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... scarcely fear them at all. It is especially in the night that all these worthies, grave-diggers, flaxdressers, and ghosts, exercise their industry. It is in the night also the flaxdresser relates his lamentable stories. But he is no more than the sacristan addicted exclusively to the pleasure of inspiring his auditors with fear; he delights in raising a laugh; and is jocose and sentimental by turns, when he comes to speak of love and Hymen. He is the man ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... Father Burnley, granger, and Father Haworth, cellarer," pursued the monk; "and after them Father Dinkley, sacristan, and ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... eyes modestly cast down, he entered the chamber of his master, opened the curtains, lit the fire, and made all the necessary preparations for the toilet with the discreet demeanor and respectful gestures of a sacristan placing the sacred vessels on the altar for ...
— The Lost Child - 1894 • Francois Edouard Joachim Coppee
... us to the top of one of the towers, and showed us the five bells hanging in their loft. From above, the town was a tesselated pavement of roofs and gardens; the old line of rampart was plainly traceable; and the Sacristan pointed out to us, far across the plain, in a bit of gleaming sky between two clouds, the ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... him up and left him. At the expiration of three quarters of an hour, they again appeared, and conducted him to the house of the curate, where they sat down in conclave; the curate, who was a man stone blind, presiding, whilst the sacristan officiated as secretary. The surgeon having stated his accusation against the prisoner, namely, that he had detected him in the fact of selling a version of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, the curate proceeded to examine Victoriano, asking him his name and place of ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... was empty when I pushed past the leather hanging that covered the door, but the sacristan was lighting the candles for Benediction, so I went up to the bronze screen, the Cancello, that divides the public part from the part occupied by the Sisters, and ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... happened, moreover, that the sacristan had forgotten to wind up the great town clock. The agreement with the party first entering and making their way to the opposite end of the city, had been that at the striking of a certain hour after midnight ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... "The sacristan to the poor, 'Get away, all of you; the money for you has been given to us; don't ask for ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... of all the relics," said the sacristan, "is the handkerchief with which the blessed Santa Veronica wiped the sweat from the Savior's brow on the road to Calvary. This bears the ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... hemp-beater does not devote himself exclusively to frightening his hearers any more than the sacristan does; he likes to make them laugh, he is jocose and sentimental at need, when love and marriage are to be sung; he it is who collects and retains in his memory the most ancient ballads and transmits them to posterity. He it is, therefore, ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... for the first victim, and the lot fell on Marana, who was led forth in grand procession as the victim of the dragon. Pithyrian, in distraction, rushed into a Christian church, and fell before an image which attracted his attention, at the base of which was the real arm of a saint. The sacristan handed the holy relic to Pithyrian, who kissed it, and then restored it to the sacristan; but the servitor did not observe that a thumb was missing. Off ran Pithyrian with the thumb, and joined his ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... unite myself to the little group, and address some casual inquiries to its frank and overjoyous members—old Philipp Stroer himself, the hero of the day, deigned to take the picture from the hands of the sacristan, and to ciceronize for my especial edification. I trust his restored vision was not yet sufficiently acute to admit of his noting the smile which, in spite of my better will, stole over my face, as I contemplated the phenomenon of bad taste, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 394, October 17, 1829 • Various
... is our sacristan, is a little slow; she wants help, you are just the one to help her, and come ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... dedicated to the holy guardian angel (unless it be dedicated to the holy archangel, St. Michael, as is so fitting, as he was the first titular of that village). That church has its sacristy, with its cura and sacristan. There is a provisor, and some secular clergy with benefices are located in some of the islands of its jurisdiction. In that city the order of the great father St. Augustine has a convent, in which is venerated [an image ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... persisted, he was ceremoniously conducted to the shaft. He was lowered down by means of a rope, with a loaf and a vessel of water to strengthen him in the combat against the fiend which he proposed to wage. On the following morning the sacristan offered the rope anew to the sufferer. If he mounted to the surface again, they brought him back to the church, bearing the cross and chanting psalms. If he were not to be found, the sacristan closed the door and departed. In more modern times pilgrims to ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... in a low voice, two or three dirty choristers, in soiled surplices, were charting the prayers for the dead, with an absent and sullen air, round a plain deal coffin, followed only by a sobbing old man and a child, miserably clad. The beadle and the sacristan, very much displeased at being disturbed for so wretched a funeral, had not deigned to put on their liveries, but, yawning with impatience, waited for the end of the ceremony, so useless to the interests of the establishment. At length, a few ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... him a simple Capuchin, but in truth he is a prelate, and a prelate of great power; Bishop Nicodemus, to wit, prime councillor of the patriarch, and chief prompter of those measures that occasioned the civil war of 1841. A single sacristan walks behind him, his only retinue, and befitting his limited resources; but the Maronite prelate is recompensed by universal respect; his vanity is perpetually gratified, and, when he appears, Sheikh and ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... they came, dozens of them, and began to cross the meadow. 'And now,' sez I to myself, 'look out for larks.' But what happened? Why, when they came to the pole, the priest stood in front of it, and the sacristan rang the bell, and they all fell down on their knees. But they were saying their prayers, not doing obeisance to the hat. That's what they were doing. ...
— William Tell Told Again • P. G. Wodehouse
... was determined this time not to lose sight of my gentleman, without obtaining at least a clue to his extraordinary behaviour. As soon as the service as over, he prepared for his departure. Before he could quit the church, however, I crossed it unperceived by him, and walked straight up to the sacristan. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... at St. Nicodemus, sir. Or I should say sacristan. They call him sacristan instead of sexton because St. Nicodemus is High, as I daresay you know, sir, ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... run so fast again," ejaculated a very short and stout priest. "Faith, my legs seemed to grow under me, as our sacristan said after he had been ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... at four o'clock, Buvat found the whole house in commotion. The doctor had said that they must send for the viaticum. They had sent for the cure, and he had arrived, and, preceded by the sacristan and his little bell, he had without any preparation entered the sick room. Clarice received it with her hands joined, and her eyes turned toward heaven; but the impression produced on her was not the less terrible. Buvat heard singing, and thought ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... writing-schools for both boys and girls were organized, and the sexton of each parish was ordered to gather the children together once a week for instruction in the Catechism. In Sweden little was done before 1686, when Charles XI ordained that the sacristan of each parish should instruct the children in reading, while the religious instruction should be conducted by the clergy, and carried on by means of sermons, the Catechism, and a yearly public examination. The ability to read and a knowledge of the Catechism ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... of three quarters of an hour they again appeared, and conducted him to the house of the curate, where they sat down in conclave, the curate who was a man stone-blind being president, whilst the sacristan officiated as secretary. The surgeon having stated his accusation against the prisoner, namely, that he had detected him in the fact of selling a version of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, the curate proceeded ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... night and sound gently through the darkness, seized with a strange joy, awakened one could not tell why. All the peasants in the neighborhood declared that it was bewitched, and nobody except the priest and the sacristan would now go near the church tower. And they went because a poor girl was living there in grief and solitude and provided for secretly by those ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... great devotion of those early Christians, fervent in their love to the Great Mother of God. Whence we may believe that to satisfy their ardent desires he was continually applying himself to this task of so much glory to Mary and her blessed Son." But the sacristan of the church at Caulonia, to whom I applied for information regarding these local treasures, knew nothing about them, and his comments gave me the impression that he has relapsed into a somewhat pagan way of ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... efforts of the doctor of the Pontifical 'family,' and of her parents, the young invalid was soon at the last extremity. The vice-cure of the palace (which, as is known, is a foundation), a member of the Augustin order (Monseigneur the Sacristan of the same order is the titular cure), had administered to her the sacrament of extreme unction, and had recited the prayer recommending her soul. Her last sigh was hourly expected. For the sake of enabling our readers to understand the prodigy about to be related, it is ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... be captured by a painter is wonderful enough; but there seems to me something more extraordinary in the successful conquest of the difficulties which confront an artist of such ambition as this Dort carver. His triumph is even more striking than that of the sculptor in marble. The sacristan of Dort's Groote Kerk seems more eager to show a brass screen and a gold christening bowl than these astounding choir stalls; ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... we must pay the sacristan for showing them to us. We can ask him about them when we come ...
— Rollo on the Rhine • Jacob Abbott
... me. The first was shortly after my arrival in the country, at Aclan. While bathing in the river, suddenly a current came whose rapidity seized me and bore me beyond my depth. I was already lost and surrendered myself to the mercy of the water, for I could not swim. God inspired a sacristan who was there, who dived quickly into the water, followed me, and, catching hold of me, drew me ashore. The second was while prior of Ibahay, and when I was visiting the islands. While crossing to one, so fierce a storm struck me that ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... could not and would not go without her remaining Tintoret, and the others yielded to her at once, with that indulgent tenderness one shows to the wilfulness of a sick child. She and Margaret followed the sacristan. Ashe lingered behind in a passage of the church, surreptitiously reading an Italian newspaper. He had the ordinary cultivated pleasure in pictures; but this ardor which Kitty was throwing into her pursuit of Tintoret—the Wagner ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Basilio beside the corpse of his mother, a poor woman who had been driven to insanity by her husband's neglect and abuses on the part of the Civil Guard, her younger son having disappeared some time before in the convento, where he was a sacristan. Basilio, who is ignorant of Elias's identity, helps him to build a funeral pyre, on which his corpse and the madwoman's are ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... girls' minds you will find little dust but what is carried there by gusts from without. They seldom want sweeping; when they do, the broom should be taken from behind the house door, and the master should be the sacristan. ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... make it the most fitting background for herself. But while her presence perfected it for him, it was her guardian's absence that preoccupied Karen. Again, and comically, she reminded Gregory of the sacristan explaining to the sight-seer that the famous altar-piece had been temporarily removed and that he could not really judge the chapel without its culminating and consecrating object. "If only Tante were ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... excellent chance of five francs. The performance in question, of which the good San Carlo paid in the first instance the cost, was impressive certainly, but as a monstrous matter or a grim comedy may still be. The little sacristan, having secured his audience, whipped on a white tunic over his frock, lighted a couple of extra candles and proceeded to remove from above the altar, by means of a crank, a sort of sliding shutter, just as you may see a shop-boy do of ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... Santa Maria Nuova, where her confessor, Don Antonio Savello officiated. It so happened that one of the monks of his order, Don Ippolito, who subsequently played a part in the history of the saint, and who had been now residing ten years in the convent, was about this time appointed to the office of sacristan, although he had previously filled with distinction divers important functions in the monastery. He had accepted this appointment out of obedience and humility of spirit; but after a while the devil sorely tempted him to regret having done so; to repine ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... The sacristan's wife—an artistic expert—who led me about, showed me a special rarity. This was a many-cornered, well-planed blackboard covered with white numerals, which hung like a lamp in the middle of the building. Oh, how brilliantly does the spirit of invention manifest itself in the Protestant ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... fears—fears they were—for even the young and brave recoil in terror from death, when it assumes a form and hovers near in a detested shape. Having informed the youth that a messenger had been despatched to his father, the priest left Gilbert in charge of the sacristan, and proceeded on his daily errand of mercy through the neighborhood. By men like him, fervent, fearless, faithful, the rude Northern hordes were induced to abandon their idolatry, and embrace the faith of the Church of Rome. These noble missionaries slowly but surely ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... The sacristan was quickly found, however, and lost no time in disclosing the youthful Archangel, setting his divine foot on the head of his fallen adversary. It was an image of that greatest of future events, which ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... been a FESTA two days before, and the church still smelt of incense and of garlic. The little son of the sacristan was sweeping the nave, more for amusement than for cleanliness, sending great clouds of dust over the frescoes and the scattered worshippers. The sacristan himself had propped a ladder in the centre of the Deluge—which fills one of the nave spandrels—and was ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... clock high up has just struck. Scarcely even a sacristan makes a sound in the tranquil, clean and clear naves, as Pieter Neefs has represented them, with an inimitable feeling for their solitude and grandeur. It is raining and the light is fading. Shadows and gleams succeed each other upon the two triptychs in their thin framing ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... The sacristan lighted lamps in order to show me the Moorish chapels. Nothing but the precious materials of which these exquisite structures are composed could have saved them from the holy hands of the Inquisition, which intentionally ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... a humility and rancour that compensated for his lack of talent. The marquis, in entering on the campaign, had perceived immediately the advantage that might be derived from the co-operation of this insipid sacristan with the coarse, mercenary pen. After the February Revolution the articles in the "Gazette" contained fewer mistakes; ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... churches in our large towns. The celebrant, deacon and sub-deacon, acolytes with lights, the incense and the chanting all combine to one end, one act of worship." White is much exercised by the question whether a sacristan should wear the short or the long cotta. But he finally marries and settles down into ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... with respect to Francisco, when Hawkhurst made his appearance on deck, followed by his men, who dragged up six individuals who had escaped the massacre. These were the bishop; his niece; a Portuguese girl, her attendant; the supercargo of the vessel; a sacristan; and a servant of the ecclesiastic: they were hauled along the deck and placed in a row before the captain, who cast his eyes upon them in severe scrutiny. The bishop and his niece looked round, the one proudly meeting the eye of Cain, although he felt that his hour was come; the other carefully ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... As for myself, I could not sleep, on account of the odor of a basin of savory porridge which an old woman had at the side of her bed, and which I longed for amazingly. Being, therefore, anxious to creep near it, I raised my head and saw the sacristan take the cakes and dried figs from the sacred table, and going the round of the altars, put all that he could find into a bag. It occurred to me that it would be meritorious in me to follow his example, so I arose to secure the basin of porridge, fearing only that the priest ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... In the Life of St. Francis Xavier by Bartholi and Maffei the following circumstance is given: "It seems that a rat had invaded the sanctuary and gnawed the ornaments of the altar. The sacristan appealed to the saint thus: 'Father Francis! people say that you passed from this life in the vicinity of China; that you were a saint, that your body still remains entire and incorrupt at Goa. Now here am I your sacristan; and I ask is it consistent ...
— Japan • David Murray
... ejaculates, "Oh, mein Gott in Kimmel!" instead of "im Himmel" (heaven), becoming guilty of an unconscious alliteration, and confessing, according to the proverb in vino veritas, where his God really abides; "whose God is their belly." Künster,(Ger.) - Sacristan. ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... his own table; if any of his debtors found a beautiful horse, within a half hour it would be in the Captain's stable. All of this is true, but still when the Captain had his back turned they made fun of him and referred to him as Sacristan Tiago. ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... on the spot, and in a summary way. I shall call the sacristan and the acolyte in, make them push away the bed, and go in at that door, which I see has ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... of their kissing. Sorrow fell upon our turtle doves; and a rumour grew rife in the village that a certain Pole, all embroidered with gold, with moustaches, sabre, spurs, and pockets jingling like the bells of the bag with which our sacristan Taras goes through the church every day, had begun to frequent Korzh's house. Now, it is well known why a father has visitors when there is a black-browed daughter about. So, one day, Pidorka burst into tears, and caught the hand of her brother Ivas. "Ivas, my dear! Ivas, my love! fly to Peter, ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... into the Ripetta, and entered the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi. The Republican flag was flying at the door; the young sacristan said the fine musical service, which this church gave formerly on St. Philip's day in honor of Louis Philippe, would now be transferred to the Republican anniversary, the 25th of February. I looked at the monument Chateaubriand erected ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... individuals as fell under the suspicion of 'possession' in order to exorcise the spirit with prayers and holy water. Aretino has made a witty scene about this in the 'Cortegiana,' where one of the Vatican servants cheats a poor fisherman, and then hands him over to the sacristan of Saint Peter's to be cured of an imaginary possession by a ceremonious exorcism. Such proceedings must have been common enough in those days when witchcraft and demonology were elements with which rulers and lawgivers had ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... his countenance as penitent as that of a sacristan caught eating meat on a Friday; but he was inwardly laughing ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... the wicked, and the infinitude of result dependent seemingly on little things. A fool brings the last piece of news from Verona, and the dearest lives of its noble houses are lost; they might have been saved if the sacristan had not stumbled as he walked. Othello mislays his handkerchief, and there remains nothing for him but death. Hamlet gets hold of the wrong foil, and the rest is silence. Edmund's runner is a moment too late at the prison, and ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... where the bronze pine-cone is, on a wall between the arches of the portico on the outer side; and in this he counterfeited the manner of Giotto very well, receiving so much praise, above all because he portrayed therein a sacristan of S. Pietro lighting some lamps before the said figures with much promptness, that he was summoned with very great insistence to the Court of the Pope at Avignon, where he wrought so many pictures, in fresco and on panels, that he made his works correspond ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Volume 1, Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi • Giorgio Vasari
... awaited the procession. They heard a drum beating, and then beheld a silver cross. After this appeared two torches borne by the chanters, then the cure, with stole, surplice, cope, and biretta. Four altar-boys escorted him, a fifth carried the holy-water basin, and in the rear came the sacristan. He got up on the raised edge of the hole in which stood the poplar tree, adorned with tri-coloured ribbons. On the opposite side could be seen the mayor and his two deputies, Beljambe and Marescot; then the principal personages of the district, M. de Faverges, Vaucorbeil, ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... Roman Catholic Church, and none at all, I think, has so imperceptibly retired from the Church of England. For all the interest it excited, the secession of this extremely brilliant person might have been the secession of a sacristan or a pew-opener. He did not so much "go over to Rome" as sidle away from the ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... planted in the small cloister, of which the door on the farther side of the little soundless Rue de la Psalette, where nothing seems ever to pass, opens opposite to that of Mademoiselle Gamard. There is a very genial old sacristan, who introduced me to this cloister from the church. It is very small and solitary, and much mutilated; but it nestles with a kind of wasted friendliness beneath the big walls of the cathedral. Its lower arcades ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... ALUREDUS, OF BEVERLEY, was sacristan of the church of Beverley in the first half of the 12th century. He wrote, apparently about the year 1143, a chronicle entitled Annales sive Historia de gestis regum Britanniae, which begins with Brutus and carries the history of England down to 1129. This work was edited by ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... examined my heart, and I find I can only love her as a sister? Now, would n't that sound well? No, no; I'm a done man. Of course, she had no business to accept me unawares; but as she has done so, I must help her to keep up the grisly fraud of feminine reluctance; for, as the abbot sings, so must the sacristan respond. It is kismet. This is how all these unaccountable marriages are brought about; though, to be sure, I have the dubious satisfaction of knowing that the enterprise brings me a good many ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... Sacristan.—An old word derived from the Latin sacra, meaning sacred things, still retained to designate one who has charge of the Sacristy with all its contents, viz., the vestments and sacred vessels. The word has been corrupted into sexton which is ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller
... note In's velvet coat that could be got In glory did shine. There were all the peeres and barrons bold, Richly clad in silver and gold, Marched through the street so brave, No greater pompe a king could have. At this, the sacristan, etc. ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... gone, The night came on, The monks and the friars they searched till dawn; When the Sacristan saw, On crumpled claw, Come limping a poor little lame Jackdaw; No longer gay, As on yesterday; His feathers all seemed to be turned the wrong way; His pinions drooped, he could hardly stand, His head was as bald as the palm of your hand; His eye so dim, So wasted each limb, That, heedless ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... Sacristan, acolyte, player, or preacher, Each to his office, but who holds the key? Death, only Death—thou, the ultimate teacher Wilt ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... richly embroidered in gold. In this dress, the Condesa de ——- was laid in her coffin, thousands of dear friends crowding to view her beautiful costume de mort, and at length she was placed in her tomb, the key of which was intrusted to the sacristan. ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... you cannot have failed to be lucky in your collection, being so deserving and so beautiful." "Alas! Sir," replied Javotte in the most ingenuous fashion, "you must excuse me. I have just been counting it up with the Father Sacristan, and I have only made 65 livres 5 sous. Now, Mademoiselle Henriette made 90 livres a little time since; 'tis true she collected all through the forty hours'[265] service, and in a place where there was the finest ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... Captain Tiago? It is true his arrival was always heralded with music, he was given banquets by his debtors, and loaded with presents; but he was laughed at in secret, and called Sacristan Tiago. ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... celebration of the divine mysteries, condemning himself of a neglect in seeking the poor with sufficient care. He entertained great numbers of strangers both at Rome and in other countries, and had every day twelve at his own table whom his sacristan invited. He was most liberal in redeeming captives taken by the Lombards, for which he permitted the bishop of Fano to break and sell the sacred vessels,[20] and ordered the bishop of Messana to do the same.[21] He extended his charity to the heretics, whom he sought to gain ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... had been paid the night before, and the hour for the ceremony fixed. One of the women went forward towards the door of the vestry, where she was met by a National Guard, who told her with a superfluity of oaths that she must not go in, that the —— cure, the sacristan, and all the d—— fellows of the church were locked up, and that they would no longer have anything to do with patriots. Then the mother approached and said, "But who will bury my poor child if the cure ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... the holiday which we call Sementivae I came to the temple of Tellus at the invitation of the Sacristan (I was taught by my ancestors to call him Aeditumus but the modern purist tells me I must say Aedituus). There I found assembled C. Fundanius, my father-in-law, C. Agrius, a Roman Knight and a disciple of the Socratic school, and P. Agrasius, ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... vengeance equal to that of their general. Arriving at the village they found, to their great disappointment, that the murderers had fled, and that hardly any of the inhabitants remained. They found, however, hidden in the church, the clothes of some of the murdered guardsmen. The sacristan of the church was alleged by the inhabitants, who were narrowly examined, to have taken an active part in the slaughter, and the earl ordered him to be hung up at once to the knocker of his own door. The troops then rode up to the ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty |
