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Acolyte   Listen
noun
Acolyte  n.  
1.
(Eccl.) One who has received the highest of the four minor orders in the Catholic church, being ordained to carry the wine and water and the lights at the Mass.
2.
One who attends; an assistant. "With such chiefs, and with James and John as acolytes."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Acolyte" Quotes from Famous Books



... store-closet. As they were sending to make the matter known in the village of Maki, and taking other measures, who should come up but the priest of the temple called Anrakuji, in the village of Iwahara, with an acolyte and a servant, who called out in a loud ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... of the minor Orders of the Church of Rome. An Acolyte's duties are to wait upon the Priests and Deacons, carrying the bread and wine, &c. In some of our churches a layman, called ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous

... system. On these computers, a user never had direct access to a computer, but had to submit his/her data and programs to a priest for execution. Results were returned days or even weeks later. See {acolyte}. ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... has brewed them up in that hell-drink, the remembrance of which is still rankling in my stomach. I thought I had swallowed the Devil himself, whom the old woman had been boiling down. It would be curious enough if the hideous decoction was the same as old Friar Bacon and his acolyte discovered by their science! One ingredient, however, one of those plants, I scarcely think the old lady can have put into her pot of Devil's elixir; for it is a rare plant, that does not grow ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... produced by some Oxford undergraduates. Oscar wrote for it a handful of sayings which he called "Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young." His epigrams were harmless enough; but in the same number there appeared a story entitled "The Priest and the Acolyte" which could hardly be defended. The mere fact that his work was printed in the same journal called forth a storm of condemnation though he had never seen the story before it was published nor had he anything to ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris

... his part served the Lady Eleanor as an acolyte tends the chapel of a saint, only she was further removed from him than a saint, by reason of her pale humanity. He soon perceived, as he watched her at banquet, tourney, or pageant, that she went to a revel as to ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless

... he felt that he was about to take part in a struggle for Patsy. It was to be a fight, not so much against danger from unscrupulous dandies like the Duke of Lyonesse and his acolyte, my Lord of Wargrove, as between Stair and himself. Louis de Raincy himself was "of as good blood as the King, only not so rich," as say the Spaniards. But this restless, stern-visaged Stair Garland, with his curious Viking ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett

... traditions of womanhood. One presents the Madonna brooding over the mystery of motherhood; the other, more confusedly, tells of the acolyte, the priestess, the clairvoyante of the unknown gods. This latter exists complete in herself, a personality as definite and as significant as a symbol. She is behind all the processes of art, though she rarely becomes a conscious artist, except in delicate and impassioned modes of living. ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor

... moment of Hetty's arrival, a burial service was just about to take place in this little chapel, and the procession was slowly approaching: the priest walking in front, lifting up a high gilt crucifix; a little white-robed acolyte carrying holy water in a silver basin; a few Sisters of Charity with their long black gowns and flapping white bonnets; behind these the weeping villagers, bearing the coffin on a rude sort of litter. As Hetty saw this procession, ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson

... seedy old messengers warming themselves at the lobby fire. On this occasion he was kept three hours in the waiting-room, and some of the younger clerks ventured to come and speak to him. At length Mr. Snape appeared, and desired the acolyte to follow him. Charley, supposing that he was again going to the awful Secretary, did so with a palpitating heart. But he was led in another direction into a large room, carrying his manuscript neatly rolled in his hand. Here Mr. Snape introduced him to five other occupants of the chamber; ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... representative found matters already in great confusion at the Prefecture. There had been a stampede of officials, scarcely any being at their posts, in such wise that he made his way to the Prefect's sanctum unannounced. There he found M. Pietri engaged with a confidential acolyte in destroying a large number of compromising papers, emptying boxes and pigeon-holes in swift succession, and piling their contents on an already huge fire, which was stirred incessantly in order that it might burn more swiftly. Pietri only paused in his task in order to write an order for Sala's ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... gone badly with Beppo. As it was, the real priest followed the bogus one so quickly that there was just time for the children to slip to their knees before Padre Ugo, who was short, fat, and breathless, entered, followed by an acolyte carrying the vessel ...
— The Italian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... his sacerdotal robes and commenced the ceremony, while the one-eyed sacristan held the book and an acolyte the hyssop and jar of holy water. The rest stood about him uncovered, and maintained such a profound silence that, in spite of his reading in a low tone, it was apparent that ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... dozens of dogs, setting them on the poor people; but went about hand in hand with his instructor in the best behaved way, and replied to the "Praised be Jesus Christ" of the people, with a pious "Forever and ever, Amen." He spent his pocket-money on the poor, and Sunday mornings served as acolyte without his old trick of mixing sulphur in the incense; instead of abusive words, he now uttered Latin sentences, and kissed the hands of elderly people in a most mannerly way; and all this was Father Peter's work. It was set down to ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai

... a pilgrimage, an adventure so naturally full of great, wonderful, far-off and holy things should breed such fantastic nonsense as all this; but remember at least the little acolyte of Rheims, whose father, in 1512, seeing him apt for religion, put him into a cassock and designed him for the Church, whereupon the youngling began to be as careless and devilish as Mercury, putting beeswax on the misericords, burning ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... interrupted the Jesuit, on seeing that his acolyte was going astray, "now your thesis would please the ladies; it would have the success of one of Monsieur ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... my tears to-night, And yet to-day I saw thee smiling. How Refer the cause?—Beloved, is it thou Or I, who makes me sad? The acolyte Amid the chanted joy and thankful rite May so fall flat, with pale insensate brow, On the altar-stair. I hear thy voice and vow, Perplexed, uncertain, since thou art out of sight, As he, in his swooning ears, the choir's amen. Beloved, dost thou love? or did I see all The glory ...
— Sonnets from the Portuguese • Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

... face towards the people, and sing the chant ITE MISSA EST. If ever he had seen himself celebrant it was as in the pictures of the mass in his child's massbook, in a church without worshippers, save for the angel of the sacrifice, at a bare altar, and served by an acolyte scarcely more boyish than himself. In vague sacrificial or sacramental acts alone his will seemed drawn to go forth to encounter reality; and it was partly the absence of an appointed rite which had always constrained him to inaction whether he had allowed silence to cover his anger or pride ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce

... wrought at his tomb, in the division above comes the translation of his remains; a long procession taking up the whole of the division, which is shorter than the others, however, being higher up towards the top of the arch. An acolyte bearing a cross, heads the procession, then two choristers; then priests bearing relics and books; long vestments they have, and stoles crossed underneath their girdles; then comes the reliquary ...
— The World of Romance - being Contributions to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856 • William Morris

... and daemons and demoniacal men, of the "azonic" and the "aquatic gods," daemons with fulgid eyes, and all the rest of the Platonic rhetoric, exalted a little under the African sun, sail before his eyes. The acolyte has mounted the tripod over the cave at Delphi; his heart dances, his sight is quickened. These guides speak of the gods with such depth and with such pictorial details, as if they had been bodily present ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... dearth of clergy caused by the Black Death, Wykeham, after the laying-on of hands by his old master, Bishop Edington, became an acolyte in the December of 1361, a sub-deacon in the March following, and priest in the June of 1362. A few years later, when Edington was laid to rest within his cathedral, a sharp controversy arose between the King and the Pope as to who should ...
— Winchester • Sidney Heath

... of the dingy old warehouse wax candles burn before an altar of brass. The priest, in a white robe with a huge gold cross worked on the back, chants the ritual. The people respond. The women kneel in the aisles, shrouding their heads in their shawls; a surpliced acolyte swings his censer; the heavy perfume of burning incense ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... alarmed at the approach of such a number of rustics, and inquired who they were. They held a songful colloquy with him; but he continued to refuse them admittance, until an angel again intervened, this time in the form of a tall acolyte from the sanctuary, accompanied by two little angelic choristers. He reassured Joseph, and invited the shepherds to enter and worship the Babe. They came up the aisle flourishing their be-ribboned crooks and singing in praise of the Child, ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various

... supporter, abettor, helpmeet, associate, coadjutor, confederate, deputy, aider, colleague, acolyte, adjuvant, collaborator, subsidiary, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... my only thought had been to serve Monsieur. From waking in the morning to sleep at night, my whole life was Monsieur's. Never was duty more cheerfully paid. Never did acolyte more throw his soul into his service than I into mine. Never did lover hate to be parted from his mistress more than I from Monsieur. The journey to Paris had been a journey ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle

... exactly similar; and the coincidence impressed him as strange. He looked again at the tombs; but the tombs explained nothing. Neither bore any personal name,—only the Buddhist kaimyo, or posthumous appellation. Then he determined to seek information at the temple. An acolyte stated, in reply to his questions, that the large tomb had been recently erected for the daughter of Iijima Heizayemon, the hatamoto of Ushigome; and that the small tomb next to it was that of her servant O-Yone, who had died of grief soon after ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... beneficiary, incumbent, chaplain, curate; deacon, deaconess; 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, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... ass; but for the sake of having heard you bray to such perfection, gossip, I count the trouble I have taken to look for him well bestowed, even though I have found him dead.' 'It's in a good hand, gossip,' said the other; 'if the abbot sings well, the acolyte is not much behind him.' So they returned disconsolate and hoarse to their village, where they told their friends, neighbours, and acquaintances what had befallen them in their search for the ass, each crying up the other's perfection in braying. ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... beside the market. The great brawny porters would tease him, and he would stop to give them cheek. One afternoon a giant lunged after him: the boy darted gracefully among the heaps of vegetables, still bearing aloft his tea-tray, like some young blue-buttoned acolyte fleeing before a false god. The giant rolled after him—when alas, the acolyte of the tea-tray slipped among the vegetables, and down came the tray. Then tears, and a roar of unfeeling mirth from the giants. Lilly felt they were going to make it up ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence

... Aggie. Hence it followed that Grizzie, in her turn that morning, was gathering to Cosmo's scythe, hanging her labour on that of the young laird with as devoted a heart as if he had been a priest at the high altar, and she his loving acolyte. I doubt if his lordship would have just then approached Cosmo, had he noted who the woman was that went stooping along behind the late heir of the land, now a labourer upon it for ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... to tobacco! Not I. Singular, the way you women misuse nouns. I am, rather, a chosen acolyte in the temple of Nicotiana. Daily, aye, thrice daily—well, call it six, then—do I make burnt offering. Now some use censers of clay, others employ censers of rare white earth finely carved and decked with silver and gold. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various

... appointed hour, Gobardhan came accompanied by his acolyte, with whom he sat down at the Chandimandab (a shrine of the goddess Durga, found in most Hindu houses, which serves for social gatherings). Jadu Babu and the bhadra-lok (gentle-folk) took their seats there too, while the underlings formed a respectful half-circle in front. Adjuring all to ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea

... he first appears as a pious boy, consecrated to priestly duties by a remarkable mother. His childhood was passed in the sacred tent of Shiloh, as an attendant, or servant, of the aged high-priest, or what would be called by the Catholic Church an acolyte. He belonged to the great tribe of Ephraim, being the son of Elkanah, of whom nothing is worthy of notice except that he was a polygamist. His mother Hannah (or Anna), however, was a Hebrew Saint Theresa, almost a Nazarite in her ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord

... she went with her mistress to the Observance to hear high mass, and when the priest, the deacon and the sub-deacon came out of the vestry to go to the high altar, she saw her hapless lover, who had not yet fulfilled his year of novitiate, acting as acolyte, carrying the two vessels covered with a silken cloth, and walking first with his eyes upon the ground. When Pauline saw him in such raiment as did rather increase than diminish his comeliness, she was so ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... sound of the study bell Essy came into the dining-room. Essy was the acolyte of Family Prayers. Though a Wesleyan she could not shirk the appointed ceremonial. It was Essy who took the Bible and Prayerbook from their place on the sideboard under the tea-urn and put them on the table, opening them where ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair

... hands outstretched, and his wife followed him. They looked even adoring, and again Jeffrey wondered, so droll was their excess of welcome, if he were going to be embraced. The boy, too, was radiant, and, like an acolyte at some ritual, more humbly though exquisitely proffered his own fit portion of worship. Jeffrey, it being the least he could offer, shook hands all ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown

... been because Enriquez, although a few years my senior, was much younger-looking, and with his demure deviltry of eye and his upper lip close shaven for this occasion, he suggested a depraved acolyte rather than a responsible member of a family. Consuelo had also confided to me that her father—possibly owing to some rumors of our previous escapade—had forbidden any further excursions with me alone. The innocent ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various

... thudding crash of a powerful mangonel, whose mighty beam, swinging high, hurled aloft the bulging wine-skin, the which, bursting in mid-air, deluged with water all below—prior and monk, acolyte and chorister; whereat from all Belsaye a shout went up, that swelled to peal on peal of mighty laughter, the while, in stumbling haste, the dripping Prior was borne by dripping monks back to Duke Ivo's mighty camp. And lo! from this great camp another sound arose, a roar of ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... we know that some of those who are involved here in too close an accusation for them to clear themselves have fled, we have sent this letter to you, beloved, by our acolyte; that your holiness, dear brothers, may be informed of this, and see fit to act more diligently and cautiously, lest the men of Manichaean error be able to find opportunity of hurting your people and of teaching these impious ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... The old gardener died quietly, happy in seeing all his family in the service of the Cathedral and the good old tradition of the Lunas continued without interruption. Thomas, the eldest son, remained in the garden, Esteban, after serving many years as acolyte and assistant to the sacristans, was Silenciario, and had been given the Wooden Staff and seven reals a day, the height of all his ambition; and as far as regarded the youngest, the good Senor Esteban had the firm conviction that ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... robe. An acolyte in a surplice humbly asked for a coal from the fire. The scent of the incense began to spread around. The footmen and the maid-servants came in from the ante-chamber and remained standing in a compact body at the door. The dog Roska, which, as a general rule, ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... the dead stands the high priest, Night, Robed in his shadowy stole; And beside him I kneel as his acolyte, To respond ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)

... best of his judgment, a good hour had passed since the false police inspector and his acolyte had left the room. They had simply drawn to the door behind them, not troubling to lock it, much to ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... for that night Did fond O-Shichi dare To set aflame her father's house, Hoping again to share The temple with her acolyte, Her lover-priest, who, spent With speechless passion for her face, ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice

... at last left the room Sir Charles turned his attention once more to his scapegrace nephew, who had viewed the details of the famous buck's toilet with the face of an acolyte assisting at ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the guests began to arrive. First and foremost appeared the Bishop and his Vicar-General, dignified and reverend figures both, though no two men could well be more unlike, his lordship being tall and attenuated, and his acolyte short and fat. Both churchmen's eyes were bright; but while the Bishop was pallid, his Vicar-General's countenance glowed with high health. Both were impassive, and gesticulated but little; both appeared to ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... himself rigged out for Rome. As a painter he might have earned his bread, for he wanted only diligence to excel; but when at Rome his mind was carried away by other things: he soon wrote home for money, saying that he had been converted to the Mother Church, that he was already an acolyte of the Jesuits, and that he was about to start with others to Palestine on a mission for converting Jews. He did go to Judea, but being unable to convert the Jews, was converted by them. He again wrote home, to say that Moses was the ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... existing state of things. We have the old disciplina arcani among us in as full force as in the primitive church, but with an all-important difference. The Christian fathers practised reserve for the sake of leading the acolyte the more surely to the fulness of truth. The modern economiser keeps back his opinions, or dissembles the grounds of them, for the sake of leaving his neighbours the more at their ease in the peaceful sloughs of prejudice and superstition and low ideals. We quote Saint Paul when he talked of making ...
— On Compromise • John Morley

... they stopped, and an acolyte appeared holding upright the large silver crucifix, followed by another boy in red and white, who bore ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... in the ruined church. It had been warm enough there during the day, but the fire that had gutted it had died like the young acolyte, like the aged sacristan, the venerable mother, the sweet young novice, the women who had sought shelter there in vain. Neither the dignity of age nor the sweetness of maidenhood nor the innocence of youth nor the ...
— And Thus He Came • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... cried out, "Ite in pace, catechumeni," "Depart in peace, catechumens;" and then the kiss of peace was passed round, and the people began to sing some psalms or hymns. While they were so engaged, the deacon received from the acolyte the sindon, or corporal, which was of the length of the altar, and perhaps of greater breadth, and spread it upon the sacred table. Next was placed on the sindon the oblata, that is, the small loaves, according ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... that should have cut the string of the basket in the train, opened it and cut the stalk of the moonflower, very carefully so that none of the seeds should be, and only a few were, lost. He crept into the house holding the stalk upright and steady as an acolyte carries a processional cross. ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit

... not only by all the people who dwell here but also by those who come in ships from far distant ports shines the sign of Our Lord." Of all that the head of the order of missioners said on this occasion this impressed little Willy most, and when the celebration was over the small acolyte went to Father Somazzo and said: "Father, the Apostolic Prefect said that the cross on the cathedral could be seen from all the ships that come into the harbor. From the cross can you ...
— The Shipwreck - A Story for the Young • Joseph Spillman

... William Forrester was an acolyte of Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, and therefore a teacher, in this case of a totally altered history—and Maya Wilson, girl student, evidently had a totally altered way of grading in mind—but what else would a worshipper of Venus, Goddess of Love, ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett

... so plain why," he commented. "You are so much more wonderful than your place gives you scope for. You are an individual, not an acolyte to swing a censer for another. Mr. Sohlberg is very interesting, but you can't be happy that way. It surprises ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... interest and moment. Indeed, this was hardly to be wondered at; for the priest, so far as I could understand his gabble, took the larger portion for read, after muttering the first words of the rubric. A little carven image of an acolyte—a weird boy who seemed to move by springs, whose hair had all the semblance of painted wood, and whose complexion was white and red like a clown's—did not make matters more intelligible by ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... represented to us by the Defensors of the "sacrosanct" Roman Church that Pope Simplicius, of blessed memory, bought a house at Rome[303] of Eufrasius the Acolyte, with all proper formalities, and that now the people of the Samaritan superstition, hardened in effrontery, allege that a synagogue of theirs was built on that site, and claim it accordingly; whereas the very style of building, say their opponents, shows that this was meant as a private house ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... restraining, nothing had occurred to wrong them. In my heart of hearts I worshipped the idea of womanhood. I thank Heaven, if ever I do thank for anything, that I still worship thus. Alas! how many have put on the acolyte's robe in the same temple, who have ere long cast dirt upon the statue of their divinity, then dragged her as defiled from her lofty pedestal, and left her lying dishonoured at its foot! Instead of feeding with holy oil the lamp of the higher instinct, ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... night. While passing through some wonderfully thronged and illuminated street, of which I cannot remember the name, I had turned aside to look at a statue of Jizo, before the entrance of a very small temple. The figure was that of a kozo, an acolyte—a beautiful boy; and its smile was a bit of divine realism. As I stood gazing, a young lad, perhaps ten years old, ran up beside me, joined his little hands before the image, bowed his head and prayed for a moment in silence. He had but just ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... late afternoon. When I return, behold! The goddess has waved her hand, and invisible minions—" he circled the air with his cigarette—"have transported her temple across the square. There she sits enthroned, waiting for her acolyte. How will that do?" He turned his radiant ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... Moorish stool before the Chesterfield, on the stool an inlaid Sheraton tray with china and a copper kettle droning over a lamp, and near it a cakestand in three storeys. And Leonora, manoeuvring her bangles, commenced the ritual of refection with Harry as acolyte. 'If he doesn't come—well, he doesn't come,' she thought of her husband, as she smiled interrogatively at Arthur Twemlow, holding a lump of ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett

... crowded. But throughout the year, one humble kind of procession might be met in the streets of Paris. A poor priest, in a worn surplice, reverently carries the Host under an old dirty canopy. A beadle plods along in front, with an acolyte to ring the bell, at the sound of which the passers-by kneel in the streets and cabs and coaches are stopped. Louis XV. once met the "Good God," as the eucharistic wafer was piously called, and earned a short-lived popularity by going down on his silken knees in the mud. All persons may follow the ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... is a four-sided basin with a pillar in the middle, on which rested a marble altar decorated with figures in relief. Beside the basin are rooms for religious purposes. These rooms are adorned with the gods of healing, AEsculapius with an acolyte holding a cock, the Dioscuri and their horses, the head of Serapis, and a headless ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott

... lighted altar, decked with flowers, the priests in gorgeous vestments, the acolyte with the swinging censer, and the intoned service in foreign tongue, were bewildering to me. My eyes wandered from the clergy to the benches upon which sat the rich and the great, then back to the poor, among whom ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

... his tippets and toggery, ambling and capering round poor me, and trying to drive the devil out of me with a broomful of holy water! That's a lovely idea of yours, auntie. Lubin shall come and be an acolyte, and we'll get Mr Buskin to be stage-manager, and you shall be the pew-opener. And then I'll empty the holy-water pot over dear Mr Sheepshanks' head when he's looking the other way. You are a genius, auntie, though you're ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour

... when Vincent, flatly refusing to allow any outsiders to be present, said his first Mass in a lonely little chapel in a wood near Bajet, beloved by him on account of its solitude and silence. There, entirely alone save for the acolyte and server required by the rubrics, and trembling at the thought of his own unworthiness, the newly made priest, celebrating the great Sacrifice for the first time, offered himself for life and death ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes

... the last fortnight," continued Lady Garnett, with some malice. "He succeeded Lord Overstock, as Mary's musical acolyte. In revenge, Lord Overstock wished to teach her baccarat, and Mr. Sylvester remonstrated. It was sublime! It was the one ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... memory of the Lost Prince was as the memory of a saint. It had been told that one of the early brothers, who was a decorator and a painter, had made a picture of him with a faint halo shining about his head. The young acolyte who had served there must have heard wonderful legends. But the monastery had been burned, and the young acolyte had in later years crossed the frontier and become the priest of a few mountaineers whose little church clung to the mountain side. He had worked hard and faithfully ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... The prefect and his acolyte were feeling somewhat abashed at their failure, when the concierge who had taken Mme. de Combray back to the Palais asked to speak to them. He told them that in the carriage the Marquise had offered him a large sum if he would take some letters to one of the prisoners. ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre

... was a little nervous at first, for, seeing that the church was dark and empty, she feared lest she had mistaken the time and place; but after ten minutes of painful suspense a bell in the church tower began to toll solemnly. Shortly thereafter an acolyte in black gown and white surplice appeared and lighted groups of candles on either side of the altar. A hushed stirring of feet in the choir-loft indicated that the service was to be accompanied by music. Some loiterers, attracted by the bell, ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser

... love. Indeed, had Isaura's heart been free to give away, love for Raoul de Vandemar would have seemed to her a profanation. He was never more priestly than when he was most tender. And the tenderness of Raoul towards her was that of some saint-like nature towards the acolyte whom it attracted upwards. He had once, just before Enguerrand's death, spoken to Isaura with a touching candour as to his own predilection for a monastic life. "The worldly avocations that open useful and honourable careers for others have no charm for me. I care not for riches ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... return, but he forced his way through a passage, stifling, low and laden with the breath of remote mortality like those in the depths of Egypt's pyramids. He came forth into a vast cathedral and stood before the high altar. As the acolyte swung the thurible and incense floated upward to the Cross, he, too, arose seraphic and alighted upon the very top of the dome. Below him stretched a maze of tortuous streets, thronged with men and women ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... head, accompanied by a disdainful snap of the fingers, the baron interrupted him. "Set to work, and don't give yourself the slightest uneasiness about that. You may do whatever you like, if you only succeed in unmasking this dear marquis, and Coralth, his worthy acolyte. Show me up in whatever light you choose. Who will you be in Valorsay's eyes? Why, Maumejan, one of my business agents, and I can always throw the blame on you." And as if to prove that he had divined even the details of the scheme devised by his young friend, ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... himself, Sergeant-Major Pumpherston graciously accepted the charger of cartridges which an obsequious acolyte was proffering, rammed it into the magazine, adjusted the sights, spread out his legs to an obtuse angle, ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... death seems ever to bring. The short, gasping confession had been made; the Bishop stood over the dying man, making the sign and speaking the words of absolution. A young priest from the Seminary and an acolyte had been found to assist at the solemn rite; and Madame Drucour, with Corinne and the faithful old servant, knelt at the farther end of the room, striving ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green

... new version of 'je me regrette!' With your knowledge of this precious world and its holy crew, I confess it seems farcical in the extreme that open-eyed you can venture another experiment on human nature. Some fine morning you will rub your eyes and find your acolyte non est; ditto, your silver ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... begins with the entry of the temple musicians. They carry copper bassoons ten feet long, so heavy that their bells have to rest on the shoulder of an acolyte. With deep, long-drawn blasts the monks proclaim the New Year, just as long ago the priests of Israel announced with trumpet notes the commencement of the year of jubilee. Then follow cymbals which clash in a slow, ringing ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin

... Willie, a sort of acolyte, manoeuvred the chair as directed. Reggie van Tuyl, who had been yawning in a hopeless sort of way, showed his first flicker ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse

... awaking from a dream. I asked for the water jug, which the Hermit hastened to bring. And looking through the door of the chapel, I saw on the altar a burning cresset flickering like the planet Mercury on a December morning. How often did I light such a cresset when a boy, I mused. Yes, I was an acolyte once. I swang the censer and drank deep of the incense fumes as I chanted in Syriac the service. And I remember when I made a mistake one day in reading the Epistle of Paul, the priest, who was of an irascible ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... understood better than I that this was setting a bad example to the acolyte who sat, likewise facing an easel, ten paces to my left; a very sportsmanlike figure of a painter indeed, in her short skirt and long coat of woodland brown, the fine brown of dead oak- leaves; a "devastating" selection of colour that!—being much the same shade ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington

... that time dangerous to repudiate, and to use the word citizen instead of monsieur. As soon as mass began to be celebrated after the Revolution, his mother took him with her to church. They were nearly the only persons in the church, and his mother bade him go and offer to act as acolyte to the priest. The boy went up timidly to the priest, and with a blush said, "Citizen, will you allow me to serve mass for you?" "What are you saying!" exclaimed his mother; "you should never use the ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... of carols has fallen into disuse the inhabitants are content with the priestly blessing only. To distribute this the priest of each parish starts off on Christmas morning with the candle-lighter and his tray, and an acolyte to wave the censer; he blesses the shops, he sprinkles holy water over the commodities, and then he does the same by the houses; the smell of incense perfumes the air, and the candle-lighter rattles his tray ostentatiously to show what a lot of ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... this pious zeal, Father Jose went forward in the van of Christian pioneers. On reaching Mexico, he obtained authority to establish the Mission of San Pablo. Like the good Junipero, accompanied only by an acolyte and muleteer, he unsaddled his mules in a dusky canyon, and rang his bell in the wilderness. The savages—a peaceful, inoffensive, and inferior race—presently flocked around him. The nearest military post was far away, which contributed much to ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte

... brandished his dagger; but his swift horse quickly carried him beyond any haphazard pursuit. He crossed the Navy-Yard bridge and rode into Maryland, being joined very soon by Herold. The assassin and his wretched acolyte came at midnight to Mrs. Surratt's tavern, and afterward pushed on through the moonlight to the house of an acquaintance of Booth, a surgeon named Mudd, who set Booth's leg and gave him a room, where he rested until evening, when Mudd ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay

... and she was in the church at sunrise listening for the music. But she heard and saw nothing until the priest had reached the middle of the Mass. The acolyte had rung the bell to prepare the people for the Elevation, and it was then that she heard a faint low sound that the light wire emitted when the saint touched her harp, and she noticed that it was the same saint that had played yesterday, the tall saint ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore

... a chapel is frequently selected—and this for two or three obvious reasons. The sanctity of the spot may be supposed to impress the neophyte; and if the police or any other undesirable people should suddenly come upon the officiating adepts and the expectant acolyte, a group on the roadside is not necessarily a criminal gathering—though I do not see why, in such times, our old American college definition of a "group" as a gathering of "three or more persons" should not ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... hung. Followed two girls in cloaks of shimmering pine-needles, and wearing wooden masks, dragging after them the carcasses of two white dogs, to "Clothe the Moon Witch!" they cried to the burly Erie acolyte who followed them, his heavy ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... him that the executioner came on the night of the martyrdom, and said that no execution had ever affected him as that one had done. Next to arrive was Isambard de la Pierre, a Dominican priest. He had been an acolyte of the Vice-Inquisitor, Lemaitre; he too, like Ladvenu, had shown sympathy with the sufferer, had given her advice during the trial, and had helped to soothe her last moments. De la Pierre states in his evidence regarding her supposed refusal ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower

... absorbed in watching Henri and Babette lead their little crippled friend away. After all, there was nothing to be said. The Cardinal was a free agent,—he had a perfect right to befriend a homeless boy and give him sustenance and protection if he chose. He would make, thought Madame, a perfect acolyte, and would look like a young angel in his little white surplice. And so the good woman, deciding in her own mind that such was the simple destiny for which the Cardinal intended him, smiled, murmured something deferential ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... others purple, others black, others golden coloured, and some changing their colours in the four seasons." In the reign of the Empress Kogyoku, witches and wizards betray the people into all sorts of extravagances; and a Korean acolyte has for friend a tiger which teaches him all manner of wonderful arts, among others that of healing any disease with a magic needle. Later on, these and cognate creations of credulity take their appropriate places ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... chop and make themselves comfortable. They highly approved of this plan, and grunted assent ecstatically; and just as the loads were stowed Holty's anatomy hove in sight with a bottle of rum under each arm, and one in each hand; while behind him came an acolyte, a fat, small boy, panting and puffing and doing his level best to keep up with his long-legged flying master. I gave my men some and put the rest in with my goods, and explained that I belonged to Hatton and Cookson's ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... object of his curiosity, fasten the packet with thread, and seal it with wax, clay, or other such substance. He would receive these, and enter the holy place (by this time the temple was complete, and the scene all ready), whither the givers should be summoned in order by a herald and an acolyte; he would learn the God's mind upon each, and return the packets with their seals intact and the answers attached, the God being ready to give a definite answer to any question ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... waiting to hear the hum Of wheels on the road that runs below, Of servants hurrying here and there, The voice in the courtyard, the step on the stair, Waiting for some one who doth not come! But letters there are, which the old man reads To the Curate, when he comes at night Word by word, as an acolyte Repeats his prayers and tells his beads; Letters full of the rolling sea, Full of a young man's joy to be Abroad in the world, alone and free; Full of adventures and wonderful scenes Of hunting the deer through forests ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... coasts, it had undermined and rafted-down the goodlier timber of the forest; and on these rough clearings it now set and tended primrose gardens, and planted woods of willow, and made a favourite of the silver birch. Through all these friendly features the path, its human acolyte, conducted our two wanderers downward—Otto before, still pausing at the more difficult passages to lend assistance; the Princess following. From time to time, when he turned to help her, her face would lighten upon his—her ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Sir," said Mr. Thurgood, coming briskly into the room, accompanied by a transitory acolyte bearing clothes. "Shall we try the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 4, 1914 • Various

... It is possible that the Liber Pontificalis refers to the office under the Latin synonym, when it says of Pope Victor (186—197) that he made sequentes cleros, a term—-sequens—-which Pope Gaius (283—293) uses in the sense of acolyte. While the office was well known in Rome, there is nothing to prove that it was also an order through which, as to-day, every candidate to the priesthood must pass. The contrary is a fact proved by many monumental inscriptions ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... Acolyte said, "is pleased at meeting the Prince of India. He was not aware he had a guest of such distinction in his capital. He desires to know the place of residence of his noble friend, that he may communicate with him, and ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... the temple a little boy who gave him a letter, whispered the name of the sender, and ran away in the dark. According to the subsequent testimony of an acolyte, the priest read the letter, restored it to its envelope, and placed it on the matting, beside his kneeling cushion. After remaining motionless for a long time, as if buried in thought, he sought his writing-box, wrote a letter himself, addressed it to ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn

... in the printed source, nor in a Spanish text of the play, to explain this. Perhaps (as may be guessed from the line "From their tender years go thither" in the previous scene) the character is an acolyte or novice priestess played by a child. She ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... up before I went to sleep," I replied, to avoid the possible embarrassment of her comments should I admit to having slept in the open air; and then John and a female acolyte came in with the long-desired material ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford

... ancient times in the ceremony of baptism, and they are called baptismal basins, by some foreign writers. This use is well illustrated by the very curious early Flemish painting in the Antwerp Gallery, representing the seven sacraments. The acolyte, standing near the font, bears such a dish, and a napkin. The proper use of these latten dishes was, as I believe, to serve as a laver, carried round at the close of the banquet in old times, as now at civic festivities. They often bear ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.22 • Various

... on steps of shining stairs Leading up the path of prayers. So one lesson from our looks, Must be this: to honour books, As a strange and mystic band Which she cannot understand; Scarce to touch them without fear, Never, but when I am near, As a priest, to temple-rite Leading in the acolyte. But when she has older grown, And can see a ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald

... tells you, as I don't doubt it will, what to do, address the wife of the acolyte, Sekleteia Burdalakov, but arrange it so that neither Grandmother, nor anyone at home, knows anything of it. A sum of three hundred roubles will be sufficient, I think, to provide for him for a whole year, perhaps two hundred and fifty would suffice. Will you put in a cloak and a warm vest ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov

... ACOLYTE. A term sometimes used to distinguish the smaller component of a double star. A subordinate officer in ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... wretchedness; Whose life on earth aspired to be One altar-smoke, so pure!—to win If not love like God's love for me, At least to keep his anger in; And all their striving turned to sin. Priest, doctor, hermit, monk grown white With prayer, the broken-hearted nun, The martyr, the wan acolyte, The incense-swinging child,—undone Before God fashioned star or sun! God, whom I praise; how could I praise, If such as I might understand, Make out and reckon on his ways, And bargain for his love, and stand, Paying a ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... Acolyte.—A word derived from the Greek, and used to designate one who serves the Priest in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. His chief duties are to arrange the elements on the Credence, to light the candles, ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller

... one else had ever come so near granting his self-love all that it demanded. Her sweet presence, always looking up to him, had been like the perpetual swinging of a censer perpetually giving the fragrant incense that his vanity craved. And now all this was changed. The gentle acolyte was gone, the censer no longer swung, and instead there was a keen critic armed with words as hard as stones. No, there was nothing strange in the fact that, when William Pressley finally turned his gaze on Ruth, he looked at her as if she had been a stranger whom he had ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks

... wish to be any better than we are. We do not wish to be elevated and improved. At midnight, away with such books! As for the literary pundits, the high priests of the Temple of Letters, it is interesting and helpful occasionally for an acolyte to swinge them a good hard one with an incense-burner, and cut and run, for a change, to something outside the rubrics. Midnight is the time when one can recall, with ribald delight, the names of all the Great Works which every ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson

... tablecloth of negroes' thumbs were more numerous and patent than ever, in such a light? Not in the least. For I myself had long since given up washing, as a laborious and unsatisfactory process, and was then cutting up cake tobacco with the rapture of an acolyte preparing the incense. If this was what was meant by getting lost on the Dogger, then the method, if only its magic could be formulated, would make the fortunes of the professional fakirs of happiness in the capitals of ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson

... eight hour was chiming from the tower of the old Gesu there issued from the monastery attacked to the church a priest accompanied by an acolyte bearing a large, plain cross and ringing a small bell. They moved in the direction of the mole or old fortress of the city. Soon a crowd followed—some bare-headed; others, especially the females, told their beads ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly

... had," added Captain Brand, "or at least a very near approach to one, for my ugly boatswain, Pedillo, had been bred up—as an acolyte—you comprehend—in the house of a rich old prelate of San Paulo Cathedral in Trinidad, to whom Pedillo, one fine morning, gave about ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise

... the sacred fire itself. And if at the time he paid the penalty exacted by the sordid unimaginative ones who temporarily rule the roast, he must ever after, one feels sure, have carried inside him some of the white gladness of the acolyte who, greatly privileged, has been permitted to swing a censer at the ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame

... he does not think of making a face, and it is quite tremendous. I don't think the Copt has any such ardours, but the scene this morning was all the more touching that no one was 'behaving him or herself' at all. A little acolyte peeped into the sacramental cup and swigged off the drops left in it with the most innocent air, and no one rebuked him, and the quite little children ran about in the sanctuary—up to seven they are privileged—and only they and the priests enter it. It is a pretty commentary on ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... back into her own appartement, and there, with a strange high excitement that was yet mystically calm, entered her little bedroom and lighted candles until not a shadow was left in all the white circumscribed space; then, standing in the illumination, like an acolyte who ministers to some secret rite, she slowly unburdened herself of her ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... outcasts; the hunted of all the brighter worlds, crowded onto Yaroto. But even here was there salvation for Ransome, the jinx-scarred acolyte, when tonight was the night of Bani-tai ... the night of expiation by the photo-memoried priests of ...
— Bride of the Dark One • Florence Verbell Brown

... is marred, I think, by the additions of a choir that gathers round the organist and without exception forgets like him time and place, and of a mother superior who sends the sacristan to remind those music-enthusiasts in the organ-gallery of the impatiently waiting priest and acolyte, &c. Men willingly allow themselves to be deceived, but care has to be taken that their credulity be not overtaxed. For if the intention is perceived, it fails in its object; as the German poet says:—"So fuehrt man Absicht ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... generally too late to change the course of events. Still less reliance can be placed on the action of the British Press, which falls a ready victim to the specious arguments advanced by some strategical pseudo-Imperialist in high position, or by some fervent acolyte who has learnt at the feet of his master the fatal and facile lesson of how an Empire, built up by statesmen, may be wrecked by the well-intentioned but mistaken measures recommended by specialists to ensure Imperial salvation. The managers of the London newspapers afford, ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... first, in order, as they thought, to set the men a good example, and as the men thought, not to have to stand waiting in the sun. At the tent door—for a tent was usually borrowed from somewhere to give decency and privacy to the rites—an acolyte dabbed a large yellow patch of iodine on the victim's arm. Moving into the superheated shrine, he assisted Sergt. Lyon to tick off his name on the nominal roll, and then approached the M.O. Some doctors were bland and cheerful, others ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison

... thought of rebellion. The habit of application had become deeply rooted. The pride born out of his first easy successes still had urged him to master any subject offered. But there was a change in his manner of studying as well as in his general attitude toward the school. Until then he had been an acolyte in sacred precincts. Now he turned gradually into a time-server doing his duty out of vanity and a desire to remain a public school pupil. Until then he had never felt that he had to study. Now fear ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman

... minutes passed in silence, when he returned and held the door open for the bishop of London, who entered, bearing the viaticum, as the last communion of the sick was then called, and attended by an acolyte, who bore a lighted taper before ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... heard that stentorian but childish voice before? Who was this road-breaker's acolyte, with his brazier, his ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay

... dispatched and considered. In consequence a proclamation was sent through all the wards of Paradise, calling on whatever person, archangel, seraph, cherub, or acolyte had found a threepenny-piece since midday of the tenth of August then instant, that the same person, archangel, seraph, cherub, or acolyte, should deliver the said threepenny-piece to Rhadamanthus at his Court, and should receive in return ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens

... whereof was of silver with facets of gold) and the other leading a white charger, whose coat was as soft and as shining as silk. And all the gear and furniture of this horse was of silver and of white samite embellished with silver. So from this you can see how nobly that young acolyte was provided with all that beseemed his future greatness. For, as you may have guessed, this youth was Launcelot, King Ban's son of Benwick, who shortly became the greatest ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle

... flame, Eloquent of her birthright. Tell his peace, And hers who at last found ease In white-arm'd Here, holy husbander Of purer fire than e'er To wife gave Kypris. Helen, and Thee sing In whom her beauties ring, Fair body of fair mind fair acolyte, Star of ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett

... the asylum of the society named in it, this diminutive and unknowing sinner should go through the farce of a supposititious admission into the Church of Christ. (Oh!) Yes! I say a farce, whether you regard the age of the acolyte or the indifferent proportion of water with which it would be performed. (Uproar, oh, oh! and some cheering from the Baptist section.) But I will not now further enter into these things," said Mr. Cutwater, who knew his cue perfectly well, "I can hold these opinions and still love my brethren ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins

... through which they suddenly disappeared, while a foal which was tied in a meadow took fright at the sight of the surplice and began to gallop round and round, kicking cut every now and then. The acolyte, in his red cassock, walked quickly, and the priest, with his head inclined toward one shoulder and his square biretta on his head, followed him, muttering some prayers; while last of all came La Rapet, bent almost double as if she wished to prostrate herself, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... and children in the choir were seized and tortured to disclose where the treasures of the abbey were concealed, and were also put to death with the prior and sub-prior. Turgar, an acolyte of ten years of age; a remarkably beautiful boy, stood by the side of the sub-prior as he was murdered and fearlessly confronted the Danes, and bade them put him to death with the holy father. The young Earl Sidroc, ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty

... harnessed team—the helmeted dragoon—the proud steed in all the trappings of battle! How faint were the pleadings of duty against such arguments. The Pere, too, designed me for a priest. The life of a "seminarist" in a convent was to be mine! I was to wear the red gown and the white cape of an "acolyte!"—to be taught how to swing a censer, or snuff the candles of the high altar—to be a train-bearer in a procession, or carry a relic in a glass-case! The hoarse bray of a trumpet that then rung ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... thin, melancholy warning tone, comes nearer, a lantern appears, the young men, the fathers, the women, the miscellaneous groups, seem, for half-a-second, to disappear like lights put out, they drop on their knees so instantly wherever they happen to be. A white-robed figure—an acolyte—passes; feebly shone upon by a lantern; the "young cure" follows, bearing the holy wafer,—a ghostly procession; and Chrysler takes off his hat, for he recognizes it as ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair

... as the Catamaran had fairly recovered her equilibrium, Snowball condescended to climb aboard. The ludicrous appearance of the negro, as he stood dripping upon the deck, might have excited laughter; but neither Ben Brace, nor his acolyte, nor the little Lalee, were in a mood for mirth. On the contrary, the curious incident that had just occurred was yet unexplained; and the awe with which it had inspired them still continued to hold all three in a sort of speechless control. Snowball ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... said Lord Evandale to his acolyte, "it strikes me that the wish you uttered just now is about to be realised. This man seems sure of ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier

... orb-ed sacrament confest Which sprinkles benediction through the dawn; And when the grave procession's ceased, The earth with due illustrious rite Blessed,—ere the frail fingers featly Of twilight, violet-cassocked acolyte, His sacerdotal stoles unvest— Sets, for high close of the mysterious feast, The sun in august exposition meetly Within the flaming monstrance of the West. O salutaris hostia, Quae coeli pandis ostium! Through breach-ed darkness' rampart, a Divine assaulter, art thou come! God whom ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson

... support an inn. But in their midst rose a well-to-do temple, where, according to the guidebook, good lodging was to be had. It may indeed be so. For our part we were not so much as granted entry. An acolyte, who parleyed with us through the darkness, reported the priest away on business, and refused to let us in on any terms. Several bystanders gathered during the interview, and had it not been for one of them we might have been there yet. From this man we elicited the information that ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell

... conventional volunteer boy first beheld such system in operation, and became inflamed with a sacred zeal to administer it, matters not. It was the function of the chief executioner to hold forth, and it was the function of the acolyte to dart at sleeping infants, yawning infants, restless infants, whimpering infants, and smooth their wretched faces; sometimes with one hand, as if he were anointing them for a whisker; sometimes with both hands, applied ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... earth upon his robe of white, Stood side by side with Hobbes and Locke, And, braced by many an acolyte, With Edwards standing on his rock, And all New England's men ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland

... robe came down the aisle, accompanied by a surpliced acolyte bearing a cup of oil. As the cardinal passed each kneeling person, he dipped his thumb into the oil and then, repeating a formula, made a sign of the cross with his thumb on the worshiper's forehead. A priest ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob

... Ste. Petronelle showed the way to the little side chapel, close to the noble apse. There, beneath the six altar-candles, a priest was hurrying through a mass in a rapid ill-pronounced manner, while, besides his acolyte, worshippers were very few. Only the light fell on the edges of a dark-green velvet cloak and silvered a grizzled head bowed in reverence, and Madame de Ste. Petronelle touched Sir Patrick and made him a ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge

... le Cadre appeared in elegant vestments, his eyes grave above a foot-long beard, and the mass began. The acolyte was very agile in a short red cassock, below which his naked legs, and bare feet showed. The people responded often through the mass, rising, sitting down, and kneeling obediently. Baufre sat on a chair in the vestibule ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... From such a plight Could you not spare One acolyte? I know a broken heart that went To serve you but as ornament. Alas! a ruby now you wear, ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington

... to leave for Kexholm at eight, which left us only an hour for a visit to the Konkamen, or Horse-Rock, distant a mile, in the woods. P. engaged as guide a long-haired acolyte, who informed us that he had formerly been a lithographer in St. Petersburg. We did not ascertain the cause of his retirement from the world: his features were too commonplace to suggest a romance. Through the mist, which still hung heavy on the lake, we plunged into ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

... as a pledge for that sum," said the ambassador, putting the ring into his pocket. The other looked chop-fallen, and Murray laughing at his retiring manners told the girl to put on her cloak and to pack off with her worthy acolyte. She did so directly, and with a low bow ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... Exhibit A in the Church's assets, and we pull it out every Sunday and give it an airing. But you are not permitted to try to smuggle it into this discussion, where it is irrelevant and would not feel at home. It is strictly religious furniture, like an acolyte, or a contribution-plate, or any of those things. It has never intruded into business; and Jewish persecution is not a religious passion, it is a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... morning, Easter Sunday, I was up before dawn, and had the happiness of hearing two Masses and receiving Holy Communion in the Sepulchre. I was the only person present besides the celebrant and the acolyte. During the day we walked round about Jerusalem, ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins

... better place. He could not say much to her in church, and she thought she would like to meet him suddenly face to face; then there would be no time for explanations, and he could not refuse to speak to her. Looking round she saw that Mass was in progress at one of the side altars. The acolyte had just changed the book from the left to the right, and the congregation of about a dozen had risen for the reading of the Gospel. She knew that her father was not among them. She must have known all the while that he was not in church. ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... considered indispensable to stifle the bearers, or even to elevate the burden on their shoulders; consequently it is easily taken up, and easily set down, and is carried through the streets without the distressing floundering and shuffling that we see at home. A dirty priest or two, and a dirtier acolyte or two, do not lend any especial grace to the proceedings; and I regard with personal animosity the bassoon, which is blown at intervals by the big-legged priest (it is always a big-legged priest who blows the bassoon), when his fellows ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... at evensong the newly elected boy bishop in pontifical vestments, with his boy clerks in copes, walked in procession, and after censing the altar of the Blessed Trinity returned and occupied dignitaries' stalls, and any evicted dignitary had to take the boy's place as thurifer or acolyte, the boy bishop giving the benediction. The next day (Holy Innocents) this youth preached and took the earlier part of the mass. These choir lads were trained to act mysteries and, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock

... letters for Teresa Panza to her husband and the Duchess; but, somehow, she did not seem to trust him, for she refused his offer. Instead she induced a young acolyte to write the epistles for her, paying him with the eggs which she was to have used for the ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... pretence of deep concern for humanity and the welfare of the mass-peoples committed to their charge; but the real moving power beneath has been class-interest—the interest of the great commercial class in each nation, with its acolyte and attendant, the military or aristocratic. It is this class, with its greeds and vanities and suspicions and jealousies, which is the cause of strife; the working-masses of the various nations have no desire to quarrel with each other. Nay, they are animated ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter

... beard was longer and grayer since we last saw him; but his cheeks were rosy, and his figure that of a Samson. His deacon and acolyte, who had come with him, had remained in the veranda, and were trying to make friends with the ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... prepared, and the priest turned round from the altar on which it was placed, to see who would be its safest bearer. Before any other could step forward, the young acolyte Tarcisius knelt at his feet. With his hands extended before him, ready to receive the sacred deposit, with a countenance beautiful in its lovely innocence as an angel's, he seemed to entreat for preference, and even to ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools

... various chiffres are also conventions for older forms. It is to be noted that these balls always occur on the left hand of the hieroglyphs, except in one case, the chiffre 1975 in the Palenque cross tablet, on which the left-hand acolyte stands. ...
— Studies in Central American Picture-Writing • Edward S. Holden

... Praesul.): "A bishop shall not be condemned save on the evidence of seventy-two witnesses; nor a cardinal priest of the Roman Church, unless there be sixty-four witnesses. Nor a cardinal deacon of the Roman Church, unless there be twenty-seven witnesses; nor a subdeacon, an acolyte, an exorcist, a reader or a doorkeeper without seven witnesses." Now the sin of one who is of higher dignity is more grievous, and consequently should be treated more severely. Therefore neither is the evidence of two or ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... Celestin!" said she to her acolyte. "What a little rascal of a grandfather we're going to have to ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About

... a heap of ashes; in front and behind this were ill-defined basin hollows. To beams in front of these were hung the almost globular paper lanterns already mentioned. When we had seen these lanterns, and were about to leave, the old bruja appeared, with her female acolyte. She was furious over the desecration of strangers entering the santocalli, without her presence. She was a striking figure; very small, with a wrinkled, shrewd and serious, but not unkind, face; her white hair was almost concealed by her rebozo, which was folded ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr

... and importance must be imported into the significance of that word—the sick-room became a shrine, served by two ageing priestesses and a naive acolyte. Everything was done to make Henry an invalid in the grand manner. His bed of agony became the pivot on which the household life flutteringly and soothingly revolved. No detail of delicate attention which the most ingenious assiduity could ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett

... around to the sacristy, had come out before the altar in his vestments, followed by a little white acolyte. A handful of women, probably the only "civil" inhabitants left, and some of the soldiers we had seen about the village, had entered the church and stood together between the rows of cots; and the service began. It was a sunless afternoon, and the picture was all in monastic shades of ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton

... just issued from the church going to administer the extreme unction to some dying person across the piazza. The parish priest went first, bearing the consecrated wafer in its vessel, and at his side an acolyte holding a yellow silk umbrella over the Eucharist; after them came a number of facchini in white robes and white hoods that hid their faces; their tapers burned sallow and lifeless in the new morning light; the bell ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells

... feeling Thrill'd thro' me, held me still, with vague expectant fear. Half turn'd from me, there stood beside the altar, Where incense-clouds nigh veiled him from my sight, A fair-haired priest—my quicken'd heart-beats falter! Or is he priest, or is he acolyte, Or layman devotee who prays ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand

... scientific things, I shall take them down to a sort of cellar where I give my lessons. The troublesome part is the pneumatic trough. It has to be emptied before it is carried downstairs and to be filled again afterwards. A day scholar, a zealous acolyte, hurries over his dinner and comes to lend me a hand an hour or two before the class begins. We ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... interview with Keith and the day following the interview with Wickersham. Mr. Rimmon called at Mrs. Lancaster's quite frequently of late. They had known each other a long time, almost ever since Mr. Rimmon had been an acolyte at his uncle Dr. Little's church, when the stout young man had first discovered the slim, straight figure and pretty face, with its blue eyes and rosy mouth, in one of the best pews, with a richly dressed lady beside her. He had soon learned that this was Miss Alice Yorke, the ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page

... of flesh and blood, was never discovered, for he seems to have kept his mother in ignorance of the whole affair. From that time onward his conduct changed. He grew pensive, mild, and charitable. He entered, as youthful acolyte, a neighbouring Convent of Salacian monks, and quickly distinguished himself for piety and the gift of miracles. In the short space of three years, or thereabouts, he had healed eight lepers, caused the clouds ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... loaded barges, covered for the night with huge squares of fringed straw mats, begin to nod and preen themselves like a covey of gigantic river birds. Sounds of prayer and of silver matin bells come from the temples, where priest and acolyte greet the Lord Buddha of a new day. From tiny chimneyless kitchens of a thousand homes thin blue feathers of smoke make slow upward progress, to be lost in the last echoes of the vanishing mist. Sparrows begin to chirp, first one, then ten, then thousands. Their voices have the clash and chime ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa

... laid his hands on his acolyte's head and murmured a few words over him; then the boy advanced and bent devoutly above the crystal. Almost immediately the globe was seen to cloud, as though suffused with milk; the cloud gradually faded and the boy began to speak in ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... propagandist, Jesuit, revivalist, field preacher. churchwarden, sidesman[obs3]; clerk, precentor[obs3], choir; almoner, suisse[Fr], verger, beadle, sexton, sacristan; acolyth[obs3], acolothyst[obs3], acolyte, altar boy; chorister. [Roman Catholic priesthood] Pope, Papa, pontiff, high priest, cardinal; ancient flamen[obs3], flamen[obs3]; confessor, penitentiary; spiritual director. cenobite, conventual, abbot, prior, monk, friar, lay brother, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... came to Heaven's door, To Peter's self or acolyte, The holy warder looking o'er, "'Tis 'Honest John!'" he said aright; And his pilgrim spirit passed within Because his walk ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard



Words linked to "Acolyte" :   man of the cloth, altar boy, holy order, thurifer, clergyman



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