"The Tempter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... consciousness of the invisible world became evident; then, more than ever, he seemed to be battling with the wicked one. For his sermons ran on the eternal themes of the darkness of evil, the craft of the tempter, the punishment of obliquity, and he justified the persistence with which he dwelt upon these painful subjects by an appeal to a general principle: 'The spirit of Elijah,' he said, 'must ever precede the spirit ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... seek God only a week, and that if I did not find him then I would quit. But as I walked through the front room, I noticed an old Methodist hymn-book lying on the stand. I opened it and as God would have it, my eyes fell on these lines: "And will you basely to the tempter yield?" Going to the kitchen where Mother was washing, I said, "Mother, there is a hymn in this book that ought to be torn out." She said, "Why, Mary?" After I had read the line to her she said, "Mary, can't you ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole
... gathered from what precedes that Hinduism has little room for the Devil[72]. Buddhism being essentially an ethical system recognizes the importance of the Tempter or Mara, but still Mara is not an evil spirit who has spoilt a good world. In Hinduism, whether pantheistic or polytheistic, there is even less disposition to personify evil in one figure, and most Indian religious systems are disposed to think ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... flew, and thanked me not, for haste: 'Twas hard, With no return such counsel to reward. My work is done, or much the greater part; She's now the tempter to ensnare his heart. He, whose firm faith no reason could remove, Will melt before that soft ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... was rendered necessary by the fall of man, so the first dark intimation of Him was given immediately after the fall. It is found in the sentence of punishment which was passed upon the tempter. Gen. iii. 14, 15. A correct understanding of it, however, can be obtained only after we have ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... Ulysses. But he gets grimly carried back for all that, and is taken into the house and put on his shelf and left there, because I still happen to have a body attached to my spirit, which, if not fed at the ordinary time, becomes a nuisance. Yet he is right; luncheon is a snare of the tempter, and I would perhaps try to sail by it like Ulysses if I had a biscuit in my pocket to comfort me, but there are the babies to be fed, and the Man of Wrath, and how can a respectable wife and mother sail ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... face of Eck, even in the thoughts of his own soul. He knew how powerful they had been in Rome. Even in his youth apparitions had tormented him; now they reappeared. From the dark shadows of his study the spectre of the tempter lifted its claw-like hand against his reason. Even while he was praying the Devil approached him in the form of the Redeemer, radiant as King of Heaven with the five wounds, as the ancient Church represented Him. But Luther knew that Christ appears to poor ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... Transgression of Adam, who had all mankind Foederally, yea, Naturally, in him, has involved this Infant in the guilt of it. And the poison of the old serpent, which infected Adam when he fell into his Transgression, by hearkening to the Tempter, has corrupted all mankind, and is a seed unto such diseases as this Infant is now laboring under. Lord, what are we, and what are our children, but ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Mexicans. The mere circumstance that Miramon is personally victorious, while the Liberals achieve occasional successes over their foes where he is not present, will be of much service to him. That "there is nothing so successful as success" is an idea as old as the day on which the Tempter of Man caused him to lose Paradise, and to the world's admission of it is to be attributed the decision of nearly every political contest which has distracted society. Miramon may have entered upon a career not unlike to that of Santa Aa, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... sins. He would turn his back upon her and go out of her chamber, his black height bowed like a penitent, and down to his study, and wrestle there upon his knees for hours with that earthly and natural love which he accounted as of the Tempter, yet might after all have been an angel, and of the Lord. And when Dorothy came weakly down-stairs at last, with the great black woman guarding her steps as if she were a baby, he found not in himself the power of stern counsel and reproof which he had ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... of Knowledge, and the Serpent, were the very things they are called,—and no other things. So of every other part of the Bible. The Temptation of our LORD was as matter of fact a transaction as one of His walks by the sea of Galilee. In what form the Tempter came to Him, hath not been revealed. After what fashion the Prince of the power of the air contrived the dazzling panorama "in a moment of time[490]," I do not pretend to understand. The literal sense of what has been ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... he took the Son up into a high mountain at the foot of which stretched a vast plain. Two rivers watered the fertile land. The hills were covered with flocks; vast cities could be seen, and here and there, so wide was the land, a barren desert. Then the Tempter pointed out the vast cities of Assyria, Nineveh, Babylon, Persepolis, Bactra, and the vast host of the Parthian king, even then marching against the Scythians. As they watched the great host of ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... The tempter saw his triumph. "I have a secret to communicate which it is best for you to keep snug. How mauny people do you wish me to see about it? Come, sir, there is no need of a lawyer; or, if you think so, tell him yourself. Now ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Comedie Humaine as the tempter and benefactor of Lucien de Rubempre, whom he loves with an intense devotion, and would exploit as a power and influence in the social, literary and political world. The deep-dyed criminal seems to live a life of pleasure, fashion and social rank in the person of this protege. ...
— Introduction to the Dramas of Balzac • Epiphanius Wilson and J. Walker McSpadden
... wedding and the christening, and in almost all the transactions of your lives. How then can you answer for yourselves, especially when your spirits may happen to be elevated, and your hearts glad? Oh! it is then, my friends, that the tempter approaches you, and probably implants in your unguarded hearts the germ of that accursed habit which has destroyed millions. How often have you heard it said of many men, even within the range of your own knowledge, 'Ah, he was an industrious, ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... as an exploded superstition of the Middle Ages. This inconsistency on the part of educated Christians is all the more incomprehensible and censurable, inasmuch as both dogmas in equal degree form an integral part of the Christian creed. The personal devil, as "Satan," "the Tempter," "the Destroyer," and so forth, undeniably plays a most important part in the New Testament, though not met with in the earlier portions of the Old. Our great reformer, Martin Luther himself, who "sent to the devil" so many antiquated dogmas, was unable ...
— Monism as Connecting Religion and Science • Ernst Haeckel
... into bread, and it demanded that He work the miracle for His own physical needs—a practice deemed most unworthy by all true occultists and mystics. "Turn this stone into bread, and eat" cried the voice of the Tempter. But Jesus resisted the temptation although He knew that by the power of His concentrated thought He had but first to mentally picture the stone as bread and then will that it be so materialized. The miraculous power which afterward turned water into wine, ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... than for Olivier to go and do likewise in his terrible condition;—in short, on one hand there were within his grasp, riches, pleasure, all manner of enjoyment; on the other, pitiless creditors, ruin, misery, and contempt. The tempter, moreover, offered to initiate his listener in his infallible method of getting rich. In his frame of mind Olivier yielded to the temptation, with the full determination, if not to get money by cheating at cards, at any rate to ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... that wished to alienate me from God," said she—"with the tempter, who at the approach of your footsteps wanted to fool my heart with fear, and persuade ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... golden cradle of the World; Four sparkling currents lav'd with wandering tides Their velvet avenues, and flowery sides; On sun-bright lawns unclad the Graces stray'd, And guiltless Cupids haunted every glade; 40 Till the fair Bride, forbidden shades among, Heard unalarm'd the Tempter's serpent-tongue; Eyed the sweet fruit, the mandate disobey'd, And her fond Lord with sweeter smiles betray'd. Conscious awhile with throbbing heart he strove, Spread his wide arms, and barter'd life for love!— Now rocks on rocks, in savage grandeur roll'd, Steep above steep, the ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... the tune of the well-known love-ditty under his breath, he raised his glass of wine to his lips and drained it off with a relish, while his honest face beamed with gayety and pleasure. Always the same story, I thought, moodily. Love, the tempter—Love, the destroyer—Love, the curse! Was there NO escape possible from this bewildering snare that thus caught and slew the souls ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... upon the assembling of the Legislature, in January, 1833, signs of disintegration were apparent among the Anti-Masons. Albert H. Tracy, despairing of success, began accepting interviews with Martin Van Buren, who sought to break anti-Masonry by conciliating its leaders. It was the voice of the tempter. Tracy listened and then became a missionary, inducing John Birdsall and other members of the Legislature to join him. Tracy had been an acknowledged leader. He was older, richer, and of larger experience than most of his associates, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... when he saw how great the divergence was. It was so great and the defilement so complete that he despaired of the possibility of getting cleansed. "Have you not tried before to perfect yourself and become better, and nothing has come of it?" whispered the voice of the tempter within. "What is the use of trying any more? Are you the only one?—All are alike, such is life," whispered the voice. But the free spiritual being, which alone is true, alone powerful, alone eternal, had already awakened in Nekhludoff, and he could not but believe it. Enormous though ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... transgression'; and there is no more mistaken and usually insincere excuse for going into foul places than the plea that it is best to know the evil and so choose the good. That knowledge comes surely and soon enough without our seeking it. But there is a fatal simplicity, open-eared, like Eve, to the Tempter's whisper, which believes the false promises of sin, and as Bunyan has taught us, is companion of sloth ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... to live like a gentleman and lady. There was plenty of everything and everything was fine.... But honest folk shook their heads when they marked their way of living. "From the Devil no good can come," they unanimously agreed. "Whence, except from the tempter of orthodox people, came this wealth? Where else could he have got such a lot of gold from? Why, on the very day that he got rich, did Basavriuk vanish ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... his voice was deep and sweetly resonant. "If I keep the money in charge I may not be proof against the temptation to use it for myself. As strong as my strong arms are my hates and loves, and for some reasons I would do almost anything to gain riches. I might not resist the tempter." ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... The tempter often works most successfully through those who are least suspected of being under his control. The possessors of talent and education are admired and honored, as if these qualities could atone for the absence of the fear of God, or entitle ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... man, passing one night under our roof, was able to deprive us of your love, to destroy with a phrase, a word, the happiness of a family! Oh, my dear Balthazar, did he make the sign of the cross? did you examine him? The Tempter alone could have had that flaming eye which sent forth the fire of Prometheus. Yes, none but the devil could have torn you from me. From that day you have been neither husband, nor father, nor master ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... secret enemies whom we must know, and we must stand on a ground, on which they cannot come, and from which we will conquer them. When Napoleon was allowed to approach me with the invitation, that I should follow him, that is, that I should become his medium, he was allowed in a like manner, as the tempter or devil in the 4th chapter of MATTHEW was allowed to tempt Jesus. Napoleon was one of the dragons or devils, who was permitted to do so for a great instruction to all rulers on the globe. There is not one, but there are many dragons or devils, leading each his sphere of infernal demons or ...
— Secret Enemies of True Republicanism • Andrew B. Smolnikar
... the inhabitants on earth! that now, While time was, our first parents had been warned The coming of their secret foe, and 'scaped, Haply so 'scaped his mortal snare: For now Satan, now first inflamed with rage, came down, The tempter ere the accuser of mankind, To wreak on innocent frail Man his loss Of that first battle, and his flight to Hell: Yet, not rejoicing in his speed, though bold Far off and fearless, nor with cause to boast, Begins ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... made Frank disinclined to join himself at present to the body of stanch abstainers. He would wait and see—he preferred moderation, it was more manly, more self-reliant. Ah, there was his grievous mistake. Self-reliant! yes, but that self was blinded, cheated by Satan; it was already on the tempter's side. So Frank put off, at any rate for the present, joining the abstainers. He was, however, very watchful over himself never openly to transgress. He loved Mary, and could not bear the thoughts of losing her, but in very deed he loved his own self-indulgence more. ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... brother Battista, now at discipline in his cell. The flesh, which he should have tamed, has raised, it appears, a bruised head for one last spite. My brother was bitten, and my brother fell into sin. Whether, as of old, the tempter was the woman, it is sure that, as of old, the eater was a man. I will not condemn you unheard, lest I incur reproach in my turn. But our order is in peril; the enemy is abroad, with Envy, Hatred, and Malice barking on their leashes. What can the poor sheep do but scatter ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... And I am not the man that would entice you to list, or gang with me, in contradiction to your duty at home, or your interest abroad: so (turning to MABEL) do not look on me as the tempter to evil, nor with distrust, as you do, kind sister as you are, and like my own Kate; but hear me coolly, and without prejudice, for it is his gude ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... assured, and set your hearts at rest; for although I have lived above myself for some time past, yet I can be content with rags and poverty, and bread and water, and will embrace them, rather than forfeit my good name, let who will be the tempter. And of this pray rest satisfied, and think better of Your dutiful DAUGHTER ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... whether ye love him." What means "to know"? "To make you know," for he knoweth already. With that kind of temptation whereby we are deceived and seduced, God tempteth no man. But undoubtedly in his deep and hidden judgment he abandons some. And when he hath abandoned them, the tempter finds his opportunity. For he finds in him no resistance against his power, but forthwith presents himself to him as his possessor, if God abandon him. Therefore, that he may not abandon us, do we say, "Lead us not into temptation." ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... life. As my hand stole mechanically down to caress it, it crept upon my knees and licked my face, as if it meant to tell me that there was one who understood; that I was not alone. And the love of the faithful little beast thawed the icicles in my heart. I picked it up in my arms and fled from the tempter; fled to where there were lights and men moving, if they cared less for me than I for them—anywhere so that I saw and ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... wonderful, though they were very expensive; but the circumstances under which he received them gave them a peculiar relish; and it was in regard to them that Bert fought and won the sharpest battle with the tempter of all his early boyhood. ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... footsteps as I go, And marking with each step a tomb? Why should the world for thee make room, And wait thy leisure and thy beck? Thou comest in the hope to hear Some word of comfort and of cheer. What can I say? I cannot give The counsel to do this and live; But rather, firmly to deny The tempter, though his power is strong, And, inaccessible to wrong, Still like a martyr live ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... controversy she prays that he will tell her. The old captain's brow again grows black. He leads her where the fading light falls upon her face, and, looking down into her eyes as tho' searching out the secrets of her soul, bids her mark well his words. The wife who bears herself becomingly never hears the tempter's tone or knows aught of any love but that of her rightful lord. Pure womanhood is a wondrous shield, more potent far than swords. If she has been approached by lawless libertine, he bids her, for the honor of ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... clergyman, "I am to speak of 'Home, sweet Home,' and of those that dwell there, the great multitude of the redeemed. It is a very holy place, there is no speck on the golden pavement, no evil to be found within the city. The tempter can never enter there, sin is unknown; all is very, very holy. And on the white robes of those who dwell there is no stain; pure and clean and spotless, bright and fair as light, are those robes of theirs. Nothing to soil them, nothing to spoil their beauty, ...
— Christie's Old Organ - Or, "Home, Sweet Home" • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... been half so good as my hindsight, I would never have left W——, but the tempter came in the form of an offer of a much larger salary from ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... that the interest of the mother is different from that of the man who sells liquor. Or suppose she is bringing up a daughter; she has a sacred right to protect that daughter from a libertine. Her interest is certainly different from that of the tempter.... We do not realize what an immense waste there is in denying woman entrance to political life. She ought to have free access to anything she is qualified to do and where she is not qualified ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... I have followed my Master, Christ, Through frailty and toils and tears, Through passions that still enticed; Through station that came unsought, To dazzle me, snare, betray; Through the baits the Tempter brought To lure me out of the way; Through the peril and greed of power (The bribe that he thought most sure); Through the name that hath made me cower, "The holy bishop of Tours!" Now, tired of life's poor show, Aweary of soul and sore, I am stretching ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... my daughter! grievous indeed; you have yielded to the tempter in your own person, caused the death of one man, you have led another astray, and have deceived him, when he claimed the reward of his iniquity; but all these are trifles compared to the offence upon the holy monk, which is the worst of sacrilege. ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... not of a saturnine and cold complexion; and, fearful and guarded as Miss was against rakes, I had some latent apprehension that the tempter might be at hand. But the play-house was the region of delight. Mrs. Jordan I had never seen, and to reject a lady's invitation was as cowardly as ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... and pray,' was Thy command, Lest, thoughtless, the disciples fall Beneath the tempter's bitter thrall; ...
— Hymns of the Greek Church - Translated with Introduction and Notes • John Brownlie
... other hand, the genius of Milton and Wordsworth seemed made to sympathise; and the former is never greater than standing on Niphates Mount with Satan, or upon the "hill of Paradise the highest" with Michael, or upon the "Specular Mount" with the Tempter and the Saviour; and the latter is always most himself beside Skiddaw or Helvellyn. Byron professes vast admiration for Lochnagar and the Alps; but the former is seen through the enchanting medium of distance and childish memory; and among the latter, his rhapsodies on Mont Blanc, and the cold ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... his master, and he whinnied loud and free, Turned his back upon the tempter, caracoled with coltish glee; Struck out with his heels behind him, smote that slave upon the nose, Kicked the bags until the bullion in a Danae ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various
... one flint-spark will shoot him aloft, scatter him as flaming ruin on all the winds: and you are, once and always, to withhold said spark. Perhaps, had AKAKIA not yet been written—But all lies ready there; one spark will do it, at any moment;—and there are unguarded moments, and the Tempter ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... had his encounters with the tempter. One day the devil transformed himself into a little blackbird, which fluttered about him, and sang so sweetly that he was nearly drawn away from his devotions and led into sin. By a higher power than his own he overcame the enemy. He stripped himself of his clothes, and, casting ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... talisman had her letters been. He thought on the years that were passed, on their last interview, when every word had graven itself upon his heart, on the devotedness of his orphan sister, the misery he had once occasioned; he thought on these things, and stood firm,—the tempter fled. He stood before them erect in youthful beauty, no inward stain bade him turn from those fond looks or shrink from the entwining arms of his young sister. And, oh, how blessed is it thus to meet! to feel that vanished years have not ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... his agitated eyes to heaven, "inflict not upon the bloodiest of our persecutors the unmitigated agony of my soul when I believed that all I had done and suffered for thee was at the instigation of a mocking fiend!—But I yielded not; I knelt down and wrestled with the tempter, while the scourge bit more fiercely into the flesh. My prayer was heard, and I went on in peace and joy toward ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... was acting only from a magnanimous desire to fit Lucy for her work, if, indeed, she was to be Arthur's wife—that in taking the mantle from her own shoulders, and wrapping it around her rival, she was doing a most amiable deed, when down in her inmost heart, where the tempter had put it, there was an unrecognized wish to see how the little dainty girl would shrink from the miserable abode, and recoil from the touch of the little, dirty hands which were sure to be laid upon her dress if the children were at home, and she waited a little ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... throat. It was Temptation, and old Falcone was the tempter. More than that was he—though how much more I did not dream, nor with what authority he acted there. He was the Mentor who showed me the road to freedom and to manhood; he showed me how at a blow I might shiver the chains that held ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... the wheel from the steersman and the command from the captain, but then, having driven the ship on the rocks, the mutineers get intoxicated, and lie down and sleep. Passion fulfils itself, and expires. The desire is satisfied, and it turns into a loathing. The tempter draws us to him, and then unveils the horrid face that lies beneath the mask. When the deed is done and cannot be undone, then comes satiety; then comes the reaction of the fierce excitement, the hot blood begins to flow more slowly; then rises up in the heart conscience; ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... nature became corrupted in consequence of sin. If man could sin, when just leaving the hands of God, his nature was then not perfect! Why did God permit him to sin, and his nature to become corrupt? Why did God allow him to be seduced, knowing well that he would be too weak to resist the tempter? Why did God create a Satan, a malicious spirit, a tempter? Why did not God, who was so desirous of doing good to mankind, why did He not annihilate, once for all, so many evil genii whose nature rendered them enemies ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... and seemed quite simple. She wondered that she had not thought of that. Yet she felt that the man she loved, in all his nobility and honesty, was playing the tempter to her, though he could not know it. Deeper and deeper she sank, yet ever more conscious that she was sinking. Before him she felt no longer as loving woman to loving man—she was beginning to feel as a guilty ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... by the feet of travellers skirts the edge, or, perhaps, runs by way of short cut through the middle of the field. The seed that falls there, left exposed on the surface, is picked up and devoured by birds. Behold in one picture God's gracious offer, man's self-destroying neglect, and the tempter's coveted opportunity! ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... name in literary history be so generally odious as that of the man whose character and writings we now propose to consider. The terms in which he is commonly described would seem to import that he was the Tempter, the Evil Principle, the discoverer of ambition and revenge, the original inventor of perjury, and that, before the publication of his fatal Prince, there had never been a hypocrite, a tyrant, or a traitor, a simulated virtue, or ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... did he waver. The tempter, whispering in his ear, told him that he could conceal his knowledge, advise Sloan to sell, take his chance with Joan, and let the sleeping dog lie, forever undiscovered. It told him that Sloan was admittedly rich beyond his needs, and that ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... tavern of Fleet Street, the most immortal of them all, Ben Jonson's Devil, has also utterly vanished. Its full title was The Devil and St. Dunstan, aptly represented by the sign depicting the saint holding the tempter by the nose, and its site, appropriately enough, was opposite St. Dunstan's Church, on the south side of Fleet Street and close to Temple-bar. One of Hogarth's illustrations to "Hudibras" gives a glimpse of the tavern, but on the wrong ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... as it seemed, close by his ear: 'Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you; pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you.' There was a deadly conflict going on in the boy's soul; and Martha's angry words were helping the tempter. He sat down despondently on the door-sill, and hid his face in his hands, while he listened to his sister's taunts against his want of spirit, and her fears that he would give up their home ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... to his delight, located the little ball four times out of five. He was grinning now and the eye of the tempter was gleaming. Schwalliger ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... a story of a vision. Mara, the great tempter, the spirit of evil, appears in the sky, urging Gautama to stop. He promises him a universal kingdom over the four great continents if he will but give up his enterprise. The tempter does not prevail, but from that time he followed Gautama as a shadow, hoping to seduce him ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... So the tempter whispers. Richard Wardour tries his strength on the boat. It moves: he has got it under control. He stops, and looks round. Beyond him is the open sea. Beneath him is the man who has robbed him of Clara. The shadow of the deadly thought grows and darkens ...
— The Frozen Deep • Wilkie Collins
... my good angel, Mary, for your hand it was which saved me from violating a solemn oath; but I now feel an assurance that I have broken the tempter's chains forever." I am happy to add that from this hour he gained a complete victory over the evil habit which well-nigh had proved his ruin; and in after years, when peace and prosperity again smiled upon them, he often called to mind the evening when his affectionate ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... remarked the tempter, "I do not care about doing things by halves. If I want to enjoy myself that way, I should prefer to go in my carriage, sit in my own box, and do the thing comfortably. Everything or nothing; that is ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... cell to be healed. Hellas carried fire in his bosom without burning his clothes. Elias spent seventy years in solitude on the borders of the Arabian desert near Antinoopolis. Apelles was a blacksmith near Achoris; he was tempted by the devil in the form of a beautiful woman, but he scorched the tempter's face with a red-hot iron. Dorotheus, who though a Theban had settled near Alexandria, mortified his flesh by trying to live without sleep. He never willingly lay down to rest, nor indeed ever slept till the weakness of the body sunk under the efforts of the spirit. Paul, who dwelt at Pherma, repeated ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... of prayer, the words which I had mechanically uttered, brought on one of those sudden and unaccountable revulsions of feeling which sometimes succeed the fiercest assaults of the tempter, as if our guardian angel had wrestled with the spirit of evil, and driven him away for the time. I remembered her to whom much was forgiven because she had loved much; and as I thought of that ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... mourned in wild and bitter grief, but woman's pride, at times her guardian angel, at others her destroyer, took up its stronghold in her heart. The tempter Conrad awoke its tones—with specious wile he recalled De Clairville's lofty ideas of name and birth—how proudly he spoke of his lady mother and the castled state of his father's hall. Was it not likely that, at the last, this pride had rallied its strength ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... When the tempter had thus spoken, methought his words were sweeter than honey, and I answered, "Alas, my lord, I am ashamed to appear before her face with such a proposal." Whereupon he straightway said, "Then do you write it to her; come, here ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... emaciated with fasts and vigils, but handsome like the monk playing the virginal in Giorgione's "Concert," and under his brown serge still the most stalwart fellow of the country all round? One has heard of men struggling with the tempter. Well, well, Father Domenico had struggled as hard as any of the Anchorites recorded by St. Jerome, and he had conquered. I never knew anything comparable to the angelic serenity of gentleness of this victorious ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... he could not eat, half starved, the deadly typhoid hovering over the wretched soldier, is it any wonder that as the tempter held the glass to his lips (the tempter being the Government he wuz fightin' for) the tempted yielded ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... succeeded yet? Warring against Ormuzd, Ahura Mazda, was Ahriman, Angra Mainyus, literally the being of an evil mind, the ill-conditioned being. He was labouring perpetually to spoil the good work of Ormuzd alike in nature and in man. He was the cause of the fall of man, the tempter, the author of misery and death; he was eternal and uncreate as Ormuzd was. But that, perhaps, was a corruption of the purer and older Zoroastrian creed. With it, if Ahriman were eternal in the past, he would not be eternal in the future. ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... At the right moment the tempter appeared. It rained on Saturday and Austin, his neighbor, came over to see him. They cracked walnuts and hickory-nuts in the loft while the rain pattered noisily on the board roof. Austin had a definite suggestion for Sunday that would break ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... with much seriousness, minuteness of detail, and lusciousness of description. Homer's heroes are all good cooks,—swift-footed Achilles, much-enduring Ulysses, and the rest of them. Read Milton's appetizing description of the feast which the Tempter set before ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... into the world of sin and death. Our Lord Himself places the whole argument of His teaching on marriage and the permissibility of divorce on Genesis ii. 24 (cf. St. Matt. xix. and St. Mark x.). In St. John viii. 44 our Lord clearly alludes to the Edenic narrative when He speaks of the tempter as a "manslayer ([Greek: anthropoktonos]) from the beginning." Still more remarkable is the argument of St. Paul in Romans v.; altogether based as it is on the historical verity of the account of the Fall; and other allusions are to be found in 1 Cor. xi. 8, in 2 Cor. xi. 3, in the Epistle to the ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... servant, who was passing through the hall with a note in her hand. From where she stood she had recognized the clear handwriting of the prescriptions which the new doctor wrote. Her demon of curiosity overcame her. The tempter was very near. ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... finally that wretch, wearied by so long a siege and vanquished by the constancy of a weak girl, withdrew and left her in peace. Which is indeed a good deal when we consider the following: One woman for twelve long years resisted the tempter, fortified by holy confession and communion. Another, although she resisted for a shorter time, showed even greater constancy; for the base and cruel seducer went so far as to aim a dagger against her breast twice; the third time he went beyond threats, and fear did not ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... you spend your spare moments. The tempter always hunts you out in small seasons like these; when you are not busy, he gets into your hearts, if he possibly can, in just such gaps. There he hides himself, planning all sorts of mischief Take ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... "The seat of saints, of seraphs, and of God, "Thrice welcome thou." The raptur'd babe replies, "Thanks to my God, who snatch'd me to the skies, "E'er vice triumphant had possess'd my heart, "E'er yet the tempter had beguil d my heart, "E'er yet on sin's base actions I was bent, "E'er yet I knew temptation's dire intent; "E'er yet the lash for horrid crimes I felt, "E'er vanity had led my way to guilt, "But, soon arriv'd at my celestial goal, "Full glories rush on my expanding soul." ...
— Religious and Moral Poems • Phillis Wheatley
... lingeringly, unwillingly. Time had taken to flashing past, too; Christmas was hardly celebrated before it was again at the door. Another ten years or so and he would be an old man, and it would in very truth be too late. The tempter voice—in this case also the voice of reason—said: now ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... never know it," the tempter whispered, "and it is worth something to see the girls in ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... Ste. Marie, unnecessarily, and the old man licked his withered lips. The tempter said: "My good Michel, would you care to receive ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... Goethe's completed Faust. The keynote is struck in the "Prologue in Heaven." Faust, so we hear, the daring idealist, the servant of God, is to be tempted by Mephisto, the despiser of reason, the materialistic scoffer. But we also hear, and we hear it from God's own lips, that the tempter will not succeed. God allows the devil free play, because he knows that he will frustrate his own ends. Faust will be led astray—"man errs while he strives"; but he will not abandon his higher aspirations; through aberration ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... so many of the noblest attributes of humanity in the character of Burns. Both gifts are alike from heaven, and both alike tend heavenward. Therefore we lament to see genius soiled by earthly stain; therefore we lament to see virtue, where no genius is, fall before the tempter. But we, in our own clear natural perceptions, refuse the counsels of those who with the very breath of their warning would blight the wreath bound round the heads of the Muses' sons by a people's gratitude—who, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... other naughty boys would coax me into sin, I try to skwush the Tempter's voice 'at urges me within; An' when they's pie for supper, or cakes 'at 's big an' nice; I want to—but I do not pass my plate f'r them things twice! No, ruther let Starvation wipe me slowly out o' sight Than I should keep a-livin' on ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... corners, under the eye of the tythingmen. On each side of the entrance places were reserved where, on entering, the men could deposit their loaded guns under the care of an appointed guard. While the faithful pastor was warning his devout hearers against the wiles of the tempter within, the sentinel, stationed in the turret above, watched all approaches, to guard against surprisal ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... man any right to sport with the affections of a young woman, in any way whatever. Vanity is generally the tempter in this case; a desire to be regarded as being admired by the women; a very despicable species of vanity, but frequently greatly mischievous, notwithstanding. You do not, indeed, actually, in so many words, promise to marry; but the general ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... I had some art by which I could break the charm of the tempter's bowl, and with mailed hand lift out the long serpent of eternal despair, and shake out its coils, and cast it down, and crush it ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... times shared. Death—man's "last foe"—for him no terrors had, His blighted prospects did not make him sad. To leave his wife and babes he was resigned, And this while all deemed him of unsound mind. The tempter, true, his faith and feelings tried, But his suggestions met "God will provide." This simple text was strong enough to stay Each wavering thought that rose from ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... cause of darkness, murder man— Without inquiry murder, and yet call Their trade the trade of honour—high-soul'd honour— Yet honour shall accord in act with falsehood. Oh, that proud man should e'er descend to play The tempter's part, and lure men to their ruin! Deceit and honour badly ...
— Andre • William Dunlap
... for God. I have succumbed to the lusts of the flesh, and have listened to the voice of the devil. I come not to cry aloud unto you, 'A woman tempted me and I fell!' I blame no one but myself. The voice of the tempter spoke to me in devious ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... Jesus said to the tempter: "Man does not live by bread alone." Do any of you suppose that Jesus meant to inform the devil that man needs other kinds of food in addition, such as meats, and fruits, and vegetables? He had no such ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... voice was powerless in that trying moment. His head drooped upon his heaving breast, and he sighed heavily as, without speaking, he grasped Goisvintha by the hand. The object she had pleaded for was nearly attained;—he was fast sinking beneath the tempter's well-spread toils! ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... of impurity and insisting on staying, and on keeping pure, creates a lively disturbance. The tempter was aroused to his subtlest effort when Jesus appeared. There is no such demoniac activity recorded as when Jesus ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon
... That is where the tempter caught him. What power that would give him over the other Indians! What was Kla-quitch, with his painted sticks and bones, compared with him, if only he were the possessor of this marvel! He should need no ...
— The Penance of Magdalena & Other Tales of the California Missions • J. Smeaton Chase
... either side. Below the kirk it ran broad and shallow, with a bank of brushwood on one side and a meadow on the other, fringed with low bushes from behind which it was possible to drop a fly with some prospects of success, while in quite unprotected situations the Drumtochty fish laughed at the tempter, and departed with contemptuous whisks of the tail. Above the haughs was a little mill, where flax was once spun and its lade still remained, running between the Tochty and the steep banks down which the glen descended to the river. Opposite this mill the Tochty ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... bomb-dropping devices at Palm Beach, and imploring Carl, as the steadiest pilot in America, to join him. The dully noiseless room echoed the music of a steady motor carrying him out over a blue bay. Carl's own answer to the tempter vision was: "Rats! I can't very well leave the Touricar now, and I don't know as I've got my flying nerve back ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... Lord had in this manner thus graciously delivered me, and had set me down so sweetly in the faith of His Holy Gospel, and had given me such strong consolation and blessed evidence from heaven, touching my interest in His love through Christ, the tempter came upon me again, and that with a more grievous and dreadful temptation than before. And that was, "To sell and part with this most blessed Christ; to exchange Him for the things of life, for anything!" The temptation lay upon me for the space of a year, and did ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to hug his comrade in the extremity of his delight; but Dan was rather sullen, evidently ruminating on peril and mischance, wherein the tempter had no share, though participating in the profits of the adventure. Eventually, the stranger was placed under the patronage of Daniel Hardseg, who, to do him justice, was well affected towards the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... Fiend, well hoping now success, "This is thy thread! observe how short the span, And see how copious yonder Genius pours The bitter stream of woe." The Maiden saw Fearless. "Now gaze!" the tempter Fiend exclaim'd, And placed again the poniard in her hand, For SUPERSTITION, with sulphureal torch Stalk'd to the loom. "This, Damsel, is thy fate! The hour draws on—now drench the dagger deep! Now rush to happier worlds!" The Maid replied, "Or to prevent or change the will of Heaven, ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... natural law of sin and sickness, and if we just let ourselves go and sink into the trend of circumstances we shall go down and sink under the power of the tempter. But there is another law of spiritual life and of physical life in Christ Jesus to which we can rise and through which we can counterpoise and overcome the other law that bears us down. But to do this requires real spiritual energy and fixed purpose and a settled posture and habit of ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... sphere of earthly ambition. It consisted in an offer of unlimited human power. Satan would give to Jesus all the kingdoms of the world on the condition that Jesus should bow down and worship him. The force of the temptation consisted in the fact that Jesus expected some day to rule the world. The Tempter suggested that he himself possessed such power, and that if Jesus would submit to him he would attain the desired goal of universal rule. It was a temptation to doubt the power of God and to be disloyal to him, ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... the flesh was there, the shrinking and the shame; And the low voice of the Tempter like whispers to me came: "Why sit'st thou thus forlornly," the wicked murmur said, "Damp walls thy bower of beauty, cold earth ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... then. Virtuous people are generally content to resist temptation, but Wallace is apt to attack the tempter. I dare say it isn't wise, but that's the kind of ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... interfere in their behalf; and that the steadiness of this refusal has driven the Confederate envoy, Mr. Mason, to seek what he deems a more hospitable shore. The inducement of cotton for our idle looms and our famishing people has been a strong one to our statesmen as well as to our people, and the Tempter has been at their side. Despotism, like Slavery, is necessarily propagandist. It cannot bear the contagion, it cannot bear the moral rebuke, of neighboring freedom. The new French satrapy in Mexico needs some more congenial and some ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... simply stupid person, who cannot use his eyes and ears; all these may cry feebly to the world to do what it has never done since its creation—stand still awhile, that they may get their breaths. But the brave and honest gentleman—who believes that God is not the tempter and deceiver, but the father and the educator of man—he will not shrink, even though the pace may be at moments rapid, the path be at moments hid by mist; for he will believe that freedom and knowledge, as well as virtue, ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... the tempter again; "if you tell him now, very likely he will deprive you of your ride this ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... unto me in sorrow's hour When life seems dark and drear; I'll shield thee from the tempter's power; Dear child, ...
— The Mountain Spring And Other Poems • Nannie R. Glass
... also groweth up in every soul His brother Hoder, blind, the child of night; for blind At birth is evil always, like the young of bears, and night Its mantle, but the good of earth rejoice in light. The tempter, busy Loke, always ready stands To guide the blind one's murderous hand. The missile oft To Valhal's love is sent, to Balder's tender breast. Then Hate awakes and Violence upon its prey Springs forth; the hungry ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... the reality of religion in his life and the tender, most divine friendship of Jesus Christ. Then he hesitated; but only for a moment. He told her of his sins; of those days of doubt when he yielded to the tempter's power and how near he came to losing his soul. He could not finish it, but strode off alone. At last he ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... that evening, and he enjoyed a game of pinochle with his wife. He indignantly told the Tempter that he was content to do things in the good old fashioned way. The day after, he went to see the purchasing-agent of the Street Traction Company and they made plans for the secret purchase of lots along the Evanston Road. But as he drove to ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... (M8) The tempter was the devil—the antagonist of God—the evil power of the world—the principle of evil—a Satanic agency which Scripture, and all nations, in some form, have recognized. When rebellion against God began, we do not know; but it certainly existed when Adam was placed ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... counterworking of the enemy, but also with a great measure of delusion and error within the kingdom of light. Such is the course of things that every truth has its shadow; and the greatest truth is attended by the greatest shadow. Above all things take care that the tempter do not introduce his craft into the congregation of the faithful. There will be those for whom the simple gospel will not suffice. When a man has experienced the forgiveness of his sins, and has for a little while enjoyed the happiness of that mercy, it not unfrequently appears ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... reason," urged the tempter. "You get in my way, but I don't want to let you be sponged out. The devil of it is that if I get you a pardon—and I'm not sure that I can get it—you'll marry the girl. I might have you shipped to the Barbadoes as a slave with some of the others, ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... only secondarily; and since Pinney had gone upon his mission to Canada he was daily looking for this chance to happen. He must keep himself for that, and not because of them alone, but because those dearest to him had come tacitly to connect his resistance of the tempter with his zeal for the interests of his clients. With no more reasoned motives than these he had walked over the Northwick place, calling himself a fool for supposing that some virtue should enter into him out of the ground there, and yet finding a sort of relief, in the ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... him by an offence committed before he was born,—"I sought not to be born"—the answer, that toil is a good, being precluded by its authoritative representation as a punishment; in which mood he is confirmed by the entrance and reasonings of the Tempter, who identifies the Deity with Seva the Destroyer, hints at the dreadful visitation of the yet untasted death; when Adah, entering, takes him at first for an angel, and then recognizes him as a fiend. Her invocation to Eve, and comparison of the "heedless, harmless, wantonness of bliss" in Eden, ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... he had sought to make him feel as if he had merited heaven by his faithful ministry. 'But what have I that I have not received? Wherefore,[127] I give thanks to my God, through Jesus Christ, who hath been pleased to give me the victory; and I am persuaded that the tempter shall not again attack me, but that within a short time I shall, without any great pain of body or anguish of mind, exchange this mortal and miserable life for a blessed immortality through Jesus Christ.' During the hours which followed he lay quite still, ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... brethren. "I can of Mine own self do nothing," He said. John 5:30. Tempted and tried, He found His defense in the Holy Scriptures. When Satan came to tempt Him to sin, the Saviour said, "It is written." He clung to the sure defense. Again the tempter came. He was met with the word, "It is written again." The third time it was the same weapon of defense, "It ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... rough-and-tumble? Besides, rough work makes a fellow take his ease with all the more zest. A life on the ocean wave one week, with hard work, and a run on shore the next week, with just enough to do to prevent one wearyin'. That's the sort o' thing for you and me, Billy, eh boy?" exclaimed the tempter, growing garrulous in his cups, and giving his small victim a pat on the shoulder, which, although meant to be a facetious touch, ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... from men and driving them into swine. There are numerous passages of the Bible which speak of the Devil, the Devil and his angels, spirit of an unclean devil, dumb spirit, foul spirit, unclean spirit, evil spirit, witch, witchcraft, wizards, necromancers, satan, the tempter, prince of the power of the ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... affection for her husband; and it was the more piteous that in his present state he only regarded her as the tempter who had ruined his life—his false Duessa, who had led him away from Una. On one unhappy evening he had been almost maddened by her insisting on arguing with him; he called her a hag, declared she had been the death of his children, the death of that dear ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... held up as a moral scarecrow. Rather let me take warning myself, amend my life, abandon intemperance, which leads to all manner of wickedness, and suffer myself no more to be ensnared by the wiles and delusions of the tempter in the form of a fair woman. No—no—I will alter and ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... 'translating' old boots and shoes, her motherly instincts and efforts to keep her young brother Dick, the crossing-sweeper, honest, because mother had made them promise to be so when she died; the good-natured, agreeable, clever young thief Jenks, the tempter and beguiler of poor Dick; and, above all, the dear dog Scamp, with his knowing ways and soft brown eyes, are all as true to life and as touchingly set forth as any heart could desire, beguiling the reader into smiles and tears, and into ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... the glass, threw its contents on the floor and grasped Owen by the shoulder. His gaze met the tempter's, coldly. ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the speaker, "and so does Brother John. What he seeks to know is this: If in an unguarded moment he should hearken to the voice of the tempter, and so far forget his solemn vows as to partake of alcoholic, vinous, or fermented liquors, and be expelled therefor, would he thereby be wholly beyond the pale of the lodge, or would he by virtue of his second obligation taken this night, have another chance, ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... played His smiling children. Oh, a dream of joy Were those unclouded years, and, more than all, He had an interest in the world above. The big "Old Bible" lay upon the stand, And he was wont to read its sacred page And then to pray: "Our Father, bless the poor And save the tempted from the tempter's art, Save us from sin, and let us ever be United in Thy love, and may we meet, When life's last scenes are o'er, around the throne." Thus prayed he—thus lived he—years passed, And o'er the sunshine ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... merry, thoughtless idler who, to relieve the nothingness of his days, seeks the excitement of the wine-cup and the gaming-table. It is the sensual idler, whose licentious ear is open to the voice of the tempter as often as his track crosses the ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... discovered that what she had been reading on that first night was the thirteenth verse of the ninety-first Psalm. "Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the adder. The young lion and the dragon thou shalt trample under foot." To her the adder meant the snake, the tempter in the Garden of Eden, and hence sex. What she wanted to choke was her own insistent sex urge of which the child was the symbol and the result. On later occasions she had the same sort of hallucinations in connection with another child and on ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... heart, as that great mysterious one possesses it, the tempter-god and born rat-catcher of consciences, whose voice can descend into the nether-world of every soul, who neither speaks a word nor casts a glance in which there may not be some motive or touch of allurement, to whose perfection it pertains that he knows ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... been fostered by that petition of the Lord's Prayer, "Lead us not into Temptation," which, on the face of it, seems to support Nietzsche's extravagant reaction against Christianity. Yet surely the Church has misunderstood that petition. Jesus himself faced the Tempter, and it is evident that he could not have so lacked insight into the soul's secrets as to countenance the impossible notion of eliminating Temptation from the world. It was the power to meet the Tempter and yet not be led into Temptation—if this petition may be ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... lie, and say it was not our cousin; for Andrew was nothing akin to us; but I resisted the tempter, and said I could say nothing, but that I was heartily sorry,—'and I am sure, so is my sister,' I said, 'that you should have fixed your affections so unluckily.' Then I told him Andrew had no thoughts of marriage with Althea or any one; and I reminded him of the many rich and fair women who would ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... through centuries of persecution. And loudly and nobly, though it be but faint to human ears, is that echo uttered also by the aged woman who lies down by the wayside to die in the famine years,[143] because she prefers the bread of heaven to the bread of earth, and the faith taught by Patrick to the tempter's gold. By the emigrant, who, with broken heart bids a long farewell to the dear island home, to the old father, to the grey-haired mother, because his adherence to his faith tends not to further his temporal interest, and he must starve or ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... "True," assented the tempter, "if she wed where the colony law holds good. But we'll get round that by having the ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... while it occurs to the rebellious that things might have been made a trifle easier. For instance, if only one had to walk miles to meet the tempter, or if only he had the decency and dignity to demand that we meet him half way, instead of coming all the way himself and invading the privacy of our very homes. If only he would wear his horns and tail all the time, that we might know him on sight and realize what we are about when we ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington |
