"Idolatry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... anything contrary to the interests of Alexius Comnenus? or, what would be scarce more atrocious, that I, the chosen friend and ally of the reverend Patriarch Zosimus, should meddle with anything bearing a relation, however remote, to heresy or idolatry?" ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... regular monks by the commissioners of Henry VIII. This fact has been noticed by most thoughtful historians, and has been considered to tell strongly in the tribunal of equity in favor of the Templars. Instead of these probable or possible crimes, we find nothing but monstrous charges of sorcery, idolatry, apostasy, and such like, instances of which we know are to be found in those strange times; but which it seems altogether unlikely would infect a large body whose fundamental principle was close adherence to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... large squares of gilded paper, this being supposed to be the only way in which gold can reach either gods or ancestors. One or two of the smaller temples were thronged by women of the poorest class, whose earnest faces were very touching. Idolatry is always pathetic. It is not, however, idol worship which sits like a nightmare on China, and crushes atheists, agnostics, and heathens alike, but ancestral worship, and the tyranny of the astrologers ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... actual contact" and not from books, says that "syndicalism repudiates and condemns the present industrial arrangement as unjust and criminal." Edward Hamond calls the labor contract "the sacred cow" of industrial idolatry and says that the aim of the I.W.W. is "the abolition of the wage system." And W. E. Trautmann affirms that "the industrial unionist holds that there can be no agreement with the employers of labor which the workers have to consider sacred and inviolable." In place ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... confess that the mass of the people still finds itself subject to the superstition inherited from our predecessors—the superstition which could be called genuinely Philippine, that which comes from the old belief in the nunu, in the asuang, the anito and all the spirits of the old idolatry preached before the implantation of Catholicism by ...
— The Legacy of Ignorantism • T.H. Pardo de Tavera
... face of Beatrice, and would sometimes spend a moment in examining the inanimate representation of it, and in instituting a comparison between it and the original; until one day forgetting in his idolatry of loveliness the respect due to old age, he snatched the pencil from the hand of Bernardo, and with singular ardour and impatience exclaimed—"Let me finish it!" Without uttering a word, the old man, awed by the vehemence of his manner, yielded up the pencil; and Spinello proceeded, as if in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 399, Supplementary Number • Various
... thy hand and make us free To crown the work thou hast designed. O, strike away the chains that bind Our souls to one idolatry! ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... to be able to say: "It was I that hatched the egg whence arose this phoenix; I did something for this marvel; I taught her English and music." She had boundless admiration for her queen, amounting actually to idolatry. The English profess that their sovereigns can do nothing amiss: "The king can do no wrong." Mlle. Moiseney was convinced that Mlle. Moriaz could neither do wrong nor make mistakes about anything. ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... of Kingsland," he said, "and I have done. Let me see how your love-dream ends. Ah! the old, old story. Surely I might have known. She is beautiful as the angels above, and as innocent, and she loves you with a mad abandon that is worse than idolatry—as only women ever love. And you? You are grand and noble, a milor Inglese, and you take her love—her crazy worship—as a demi-god might, with uplifted grace, as your birthright; and she is your pretty ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... reconciled to let her secret remain. The person, who had thus become the depositary of that secret was, as the reader may remember, Mrs. Elwood. The consciousness that this lady knew all, coupled as it was with the thought of the relation in which the latter stood to the object of her secret idolatry, had irresistibly drawn to her the yearning heart of the guileless maiden. She had longed for another interview, but dare not seek it; longed for some excuse for opening a communication with her, but could not find one. At length, ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... offer up prayers for her prosperity? I myself, who was not born within her walls, offer up prayers for her prosperity, that want may never visit her cottages, vice her palaces, and that the abomination of idolatry ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... society in these stone revelations of the remote history of the world, feel the vibration of the great human heart coming to him even from the bowels of Egypt's pyramids. There he has their family histories written on their tombstones by weeping relatives; their religion, with all its debasing idolatry, strong in death, exhibiting pleasantly the firmness of their faith; splendid sarcophagi tardily wrought from massive rock, yet perseveringly accomplished in the strong conviction that the dead would shake off the mummy bandages, discharge the natron from their pores, reclaim their scattered ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... idolatry; how, then, could she hate him? The emperor was her compatriot and the benefactor of her father. The Baron di Piombo was among those of Napoleon's devoted servants who had co-operated most effectually in the return ...
— Vendetta • Honore de Balzac
... Grimm was then at the climax of his fame, and the gods of his idolatry were Goethe and Emerson; but apparently he did not resemble them in soaring above the petty comforts and vexations of life. Any one inviting him to dine was likely to receive an answer asking how the dining-room ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... moral light—so to speak—of that laugh. Great loves mature and deepen under the action of sorrow and the necessity to forgive; yet it is a shrewdly bitter moment, when the heart of either man or woman first admits that the god of its idolatry has, after all, feet of but very common clay. Her head erect, her eyes moist, Mary turned to Julius March and asked him of the welfare of a certain labourer's family that had lately migrated from Newlands to Sandyfield. But Ormiston's voice broke in upon ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... witnessed so many frightful scenes. When the teacher afterwards told me that the people of this tribe had become converts only a year previous to our arrival, and that they had been living before that in the practice of the most bloody system of idolatry, I could not refrain from exclaiming, "What a convincing proof that ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... to send elephants to meet him, and entertain him in their palaces. But young India is not going that way. English freedom and English colleges have emancipated Hindu youth, and they look upon the cruel idolatry under which their fathers groaned as Colonel Olcott does on the Puritanism ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... she meant by it, bury it with me, For since I am Love's martyr, it might breed idolatry, If into other hands these relics came; As 'twas humility To afford to it all that a soul can do, So, 'tis some bravery, That, since you would have none of me, I bury ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... of course his good humour was not improved by the intelligence. He was in the habit of scolding her till she wept; he married seven months after her death, and, from all that is known of him, appears to have been a bad husband. I suspect that Laura paid dearly for her poet's idolatry. ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... be awake to the politicians who were using the peoples' reverence and near idolatry of Lincoln to push through anti-Negro legislation under the guise of carrying out his policies. Then putting behind her the prejudice and impatience with Lincoln which she had felt during his lifetime, she added, "If the administration of Abraham ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... her children, her heart was larger than her creed, and often overstepped the bounds assigned; but her theory was that human affections should be kept made up in labelled parcels, so much and no more to be allowed in each case. Favouritism was idolatry affectionate words were foolish condescensions to the flesh; while loving caresses savoured altogether ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... compensation by being in a continual state of vague enthusiasm about some one or other, invariably choosing for the god of her idolatry some young man who, for one reason or another, could not possibly respond in any way. Yet she was always very much admired, except by the objects of her own Platonic admiration. This gave a certain interest to her life; and her ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... with making the sign of the cross in a very conspicuous manner over the table. The gentry of Dover, who had been admitted as spectators of this banquet, were greatly scandalized at this deed. They regarded the gesture as an act of very wicked and vary dangerous idolatry. ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... have more meaning in this setting of beauty and romance. She thought of the old pagan gods. He was, indeed, suited to be their happy messenger. At that moment something within her more than loved him, worshipped him, felt for him an idolatry that had something in it of pain. A number of thoughts ran through her mind swiftly. One was this: "Can it be possible that he will die some day, that he will be dead?" And the awfulness, the unspeakable horror ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... of this grocery business they now devoted all their energies, and continued to conduct it for many succeeding years, without great success. Two sons were born to them, whom their mother loved to idolatry, although she had never passionately loved her husband; and she lavished upon them all her forethought and care. But the shop did not thrive, and the large dreams she had entertained of her sons' education and career became ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... confiding idolatry of any earthly object was swept away by the fall of her husband, and with the full energy of a decided and desolate spirit, she threw herself on the protection of an almighty Helper. She followed her husband ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... sacredness of speech, any more than sacredness of life, possible. Doubtless among the Jews circumcision was the symbol of their separation from the ethnic religions; and hence the jealousy with which their prophets looked upon any compromise with idolatry. Hatred of that, utter and intense, was the one essential negative pole of genuine Judaism, and circumcision was its ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... preface on education, called 'Parents and Children,' to my volume of plays beginning with Misalliance, there is a section headed 'Artist Idolatry,' which is really about Wilde. Dealing with 'the powers enjoyed by brilliant persons who are also connoisseurs in art,' I say, 'the influence they can exercise on young people who have been brought up in the darkness and wretchedness of a home without art, and in whom a natural bent ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... England several times attacked the island with their accustomed unsparing ferocity: particularly Cerdic, in 530, who replaced the slaughtered British by a colony of his own countrymen; and Ceadwalla of Murcia, who having seized it in 686, was so incensed at the idolatry of the inhabitants, that he resolved at first to extirpate them, and repeople the island with Christians! but at the intercession of bishop Wilfred, great numbers saved their lives ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon
... by which the Jewish nations claimed distinction, as the worshipers of Jehovah, and to be wholly recreant and reprobate. Convicted on such a charge those sign-seeking Pharisees and scribes understood that Jesus classed them as worse than the idolatrous heathen. The words "adultery" and "idolatry" are of related origin, each connoting the act of unfaithfulness and the turning away after false objects of ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... inscribed as "Shakespeare's rime, which he made at ye 'Mitre,' in Fleet Street." The balcony was set on flames during the Great Fire, and had to be pulled down. Here, in June, 1763, Boswell came by solemn appointment to meet Johnson, so long the god of his idolatry. They had first met at the shop of Davis, the actor and bookseller, and afterwards near an eating-house in Butcher Row. Boswell describes his feelings with delightful sincerity and self-complacency. "We had," ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... of it, Jonas. I'd believe in you, and you'd believe in me, and we'd be puttin' our trust in the creatur instid of the Creator, and the Creator is mighty jealous of our idols, and He would take us away fer idolatry." ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... which possesses the greatest poetical literature in the world this condition of affairs is at least odd. What makes it odder is that, occasionally, very occasionally, the average lettered man will have a fit of idolatry for a fine poet, buying his books in tens of thousands, and bestowing upon him immense riches. As with Tennyson. And what makes it odder still is that, after all, the average lettered man does not ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... newspapers of a considerable emigration from the Papal dominions, by rejoicing at this outcrowding of many, throughout the harlot's domain, from her sin and her plagues," and he even carried his hatred so far as to denounce the keeping of Christmas, which to him was nothing less than an act of idolatry. ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... pleasing to God who are at Antioch doth send me unto thy Highness, to advise thee that thou art to cease from thy importunities, and that thou abandon the siege of a city which the Lord in His divine mercy hath given up to them. The prince of the apostles did wrest that city from idolatry, and convert it to the faith of Christ. Ye had forcibly but unjustly taken possession of it. They who be moved by a right lawful anxiety for this heritage of their ancestors make their demand of thee that thou choose between divers offers: either give up the siege ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... moreover, that I possess those virtues and qualities which deserve prosperity; where and what are they? Then, seriously examining into my past conduct, I found too little good on which to pride myself; the chief part was a tissue of vanity, idolatry, and the mere exterior of virtue. Unworthy, therefore, as I am, let me suffer! If it be intended that men and gnats should destroy me, unjustly or otherwise, acknowledge in them the instruments of a divine ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... to make me see that the monkeys were enchantingly graceful and clever, and that a mother's blind idolatry could not be more ingeniously ridiculed; I held to the opinion that the conception was monstrous, and the indignation of the old academicians who demanded the expulsion of this intolerable work, seemed ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... sister were working for "Old Blue Nose," Aaron Grigsby, "Nat's" brother, was "paying attention" to Nancy Lincoln. They were soon married. Nancy was only eighteen. When she was nineteen Mrs. Aaron Grigsby died. Her love for Abe had almost amounted to idolatry. In some ways she resembled him. He, in turn, was deeply devoted ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... he answered. "Thou heardest my words in the Sanctuary, Ayesha, so let us make a pact. Thy religion I do not understand, but I understand my own, and not even for thy sake will I take part in what I hold to be idolatry." ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... of the audience had left the church, a priest proceeded to celebrate mass. A forward boy made a protesting remark; the priest struck him; the boy retaliated by throwing a stone which broke an image, and immediately the church was in an uproar. In a few moments not "a monument of idolatry" was left in the building. The news of these doings spread through the town, and the "rascal multitude" took up the work. There had been old quarrels between the town and the religious orders; and so early as 1543 a violent assault had been made ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... comely, as blooming as the gorse; once as free as the air, and as racy of the soil as new-cut peat, but suddenly grown stately, smooth, refined, proud, and reserved. They loved each other to the point of idolatry; and yet they parted ten days after marriage with these words of wroth and madness. Something had come between them. What was it? Another man? No. Another woman? Still no. What then? A ghost, an intangible, almost an invisible but very real and divorce-making co-respondent. ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... they impersonate an idea, or a principle, and address it in the language of adoration, as if it were a sentient being, possessing magical and mysterious powers. In the same manner, the rites and celebrations of ancient times are not necessarily all to be considered as idolatry, and denounced as inexcusably wicked and absurd. Our fathers set up an image in honor of liberty, to strengthen the influence of the love of liberty on the popular mind. It is possible that AEneas looked upon the subject in the same light, in erecting a public fireside ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... way in which the queen avoided speaking of Smerdis by turning the conversation again to religious topics. But fearing another lecture on the comparative merits of idolatry, human sacrifice, and monotheism, she manifested very little interest ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... Church of Rome, the absolute interpretation of Scripture; forbidding the people to examine whether she does it rightly or not. I thank God that I am a Protestant against such idolatry and ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... me may be Lying and idolatry; Poverty immoderate Give me not, nor riches great; Too great wealth or poverty Is not good, for either may 'Neath the ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... They pass slowly out, looking as if they had been almost blinded with a glimpse of the forbidden mysteries, and another batch crowds in to be similarly worked upon. We saw other forms and figures of worship too gross to speak of. Nothing yet seen can be called idolatry when compared with this, and I felt like giving up all hope of improvement in these people; but then when one sees the extent and character of the superstitions of the East he cannot help having doubts of the advancement or elevation of the species. There is, however, ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... no other way to be separated from idols and walk wholly with the Lord than Ephraim's way. Why are God's people joined to idols? Why are Christians half-hearted, conformed to this present evil age, given to covetousness, which is idolatry (Col. iii:5)? There is but one answer. Our hearts do not listen to that blessed voice, which delights to speak to those who belong to Him. Our eyes do not look upon Him in all His glory and beauty. We lose sight of Him who is altogether lovely. Our minds instead of being occupied ...
— The Lord of Glory - Meditations on the person, the work and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ • Arno Gaebelein
... of his commonest titles. Namdev's opinions varied at different times and perhaps in different moods: like most religious poets he cannot be judged by logic or theology. Sometimes he inveighs against idolatry—understood as an attempt to limit God to an image—but in other verses he sings the praises of Pandurang, the local deity, as the lord and creator of all. His great message is that God—by whatever name he is called—is everywhere and accessible to all, accessible without ceremonial ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... Lord wad hae letten stan' a' these years in a Christian land like Scotland sic monuments o' will worship and idolatry? Na, na, lassie, I couldna believe that, though your father should preach ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... that, as we are the product of events, events will continue to produce that which is in harmony with us.... You are too faint-hearted, and that's the truth of it. I advise you not to abandon yourself to idolatry too readily; you know what I mean. It fills me with remorse when I think how very far below such a position my ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... My Indians were also happy, and entertained towards me a respect and obedience bordering on idolatry. My brother gave me every assistance in my labours, and when near my beloved Anna I forgot all the toils and the contrarieties I had experienced. About this time a new source of hope sprung up, which augmented the happiness I enjoyed with her, and made her dearer to ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... remained in the great graves of those who died by the way. Against the little remnant, carrying on the fight to the very midst of Athens, Antiope herself had turned, all other thoughts transformed now into wild idolatry of her hero. Superstitious, or in real regret, the Athenians never forgot their tombs. As for Antiope, the conscience of her perfidy remained with her, adding the pang of remorse to her own desertion, when King Theseus, ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... deceased would say anything to them. They practice many simplicities like this in all their solemn ceremonies, of which we have spoken. So general is this that in the ordinances of good government in force, there is an article that orders the persecution of idolatry and aniterias." ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... of images is to the second commandment." To this Dennis gave the obvious and unanswerable retort that "when St. Paul was at Athens, the very source of dramatic poetry, he said a great deal publicly against the idolatry of the Athenians, but not one word against their stage. At Corinth he said as little against theirs. He quoted on one occasion an Athenian dramatic poet, and on others Aratus and Epimenides. He was educated in all the learning of the Grecians, and could not but have read their dramatic ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... Abenali was one of the sons, and though his conversion had at first been mere compliance with his father's will and the family interests, he had become sufficiently convinced of Christian truth not to take part with his own people in the final struggle. Still, however, the inbred abhorrence of idolatry had influenced his manner of worship, and when, after half a life-time, Granada had fallen, and the Inquisition had begun to take cognisance of new Christians from among the Moors as well as the Jews, there were not lacking ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... on rank of eager spectators, and heard the shout which greeted a fresh victim. He looked upward to the clear, blue sky, where soft, lovely clouds floated here and there, and he inhaled the sweet, elastic air. There was the usual offer of reprieve, pardon, life, at the cost of a single act of idolatry. There was heard at the same instant, the savage roar of the hungry lion, now kept near in waiting for his prey. There was the shout of triumph when that last offer was refused, calmly, contemptuously. Then he quickly found himself alone in the vast arena. Other victims had been there ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... enough if we may believe the philosophers, that the same cause will produce the same effect upon the rest of the world. All her pictures, therefore, like those of the painter who doated upon his mistress to such a degree as to introduce her face into every one of his works, contain the object of her idolatry, either prominently in the foreground, or so ingeniously placed in the background, as to be quite as well fitted to draw attention.—But it is time to follow her ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... between the good and the evil spirits—the powers of light and the powers of darkness. By leading Eve astray, Satan brought sin and death upon mankind. As the gods of the heathen, the demons are the founders and maintainers of idolatry; as the "powers of the air" they afflict mankind with pestilence and famine; as "unclean spirits" they cause ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... but "artificial" ... and for the true certificated milk of the word one must come along to such modern giants as Dreiser and Hergesheimer and Cabell. For these artists, each in his due place, we have only the most genial respect. But when the passion of our youth is impugned as "idolatry" we feel in our spirit an intense weariness. We feel the pacifism of the wise and secretive mind that remains tacit when its most perfect inward certainties are assailed. One does not argue, for ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... distant service among the heathen, with hearts more than glad, more than satisfied; and most glad, most satisfied, when most sad and most stripped, it may be, of earthly friends and treasures? Let us put all our treasures into His hand; then He will never need to take them from us on account of heart idolatry; and if in wisdom and love He remove them for a time, He will leave no vacuum, but Himself will fill the void, Himself wipe away ...
— A Ribband of Blue - And Other Bible Studies • J. Hudson Taylor
... converts, ardently joined him, and the two traversed the country far and wide, preaching the religion of the Christian God. Their success was great, their converts all giving up the worship of Confucius and renouncing idolatry. Some of them were arrested for destroying idols, among them Fung-Yun-san, but on the way to prison he converted the soldiers of his guard, who set him free and followed him as disciples. Many of the converts were seized with convulsions, some professed ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... "Their chief idolatry consisted in the worship of those of their ancestors who had most distinguished themselves by courage and genius, whom they regarded as deities * * * * They called them humalagar, which is the same as manes in the Latin * * * Even the aged died under this conceit, ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... edited, in some sense organized, by human effort; but the result is an encyclopaedia, a thesaurus, an anthology, a liturgy, a bible—not a God. It may, like the Vedas, the Hebrew Scriptures and the Koran, become an object of idolatry; but even its idolaters see in it only an emanation from God, not the God himself. All this argument may strike the reader as extremely nebulous, but I submit that the fault is not mine. It was not I who sought to demonstrate the reality of a ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... into the valley of fear and doubt. What she wanted of him was just what she had not—feeling, intense, varied feeling, so that, while she remained ice, she could paint as if she felt; and with a gifted woman's tact, and with the power of one loved almost to idolatry, she caused every chord of his soul, now in happy harmony, now in painful discord, to vibrate under her skilful touch. But such a life was very wearing, and he was failing under it. Moreover, he was ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... in poetry and in poets has visibly wox, to use Mr. Watson's word. It is always true that an original genius, like Browning, like Ibsen, like Wagner, must wait some time for public recognition, although these three all lived long enough to receive not only appreciation, but idolatry; but the "reading public" has no difficulty in recognizing immediately first-rate work, when it is produced in the familiar forms of art. In the Preface that preceded his printed lecture, Mr. Watson complained with some natural resentment, though with no petulance, that his poem, King Alfred, ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... creating an interest among many of his friends. He told many stirring experiences of the difficulties encountered in the missionary work, and gave affecting accounts of the persecution of the native Christians because of their turning from their idolatry and former beliefs. ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... of action and a man of fire. He had pored over treatises, penned fiery diatribes, leagued himself with the oppressed, watched the movement of revolt from superstition and idolatry with the keenest interest. He was in danger, like so many pioneers and so many reformers, of being carried away by his own vehemence. He saw the idolatry of the Mass, but he was losing sight of the worship which underlay that weight of ceremonial and observance. Like the people who witnessed ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... beauty and irresponsibility will never be known; but we know that at least one hopeless wooer committed suicide, and another, Francis Digby, Lord Bristol's handsome son, after years of unrequited idolatry, in his despair rushed away to seek and find death in the ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... more than love," he answered. "It was idolatry. God punished me for it. He was a hard God, ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... lieutenant, and all related to his own comforts. "Where is my steward to lie? where is my valet to sleep? where is my cow-pen? and where are my sheep to be?" We discovered when he had been one hour in our company, that his noble self was the god of his idolatry. As for the details of the ship and her crew, masts, rigging, stowage, provisions, the water she would carry, and how much she drew, they were subjects on which he ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... is something—possibly something very grave, certainly something that requires she should make use of artificial aids. She won't admit it publicly, because with her idolatry of her beauty, the feeling she is all made up of, she sees in such aids nothing but the humiliation and the disfigurement. She has used them in secret, but that is evidently not enough, for the affection she suffers from, apparently ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... gives them full Possession and Enjoyment of the inestimable Blessings of his Gospel. Who can doubt but that the Suggestion so forcibly press'd upon the Mind of Albert (when a Boy) that there was a Being superior to the Sun, Moon, and Stars (the Objects of African Idolatry) came from the Father of Lights, and was, with Respect to him, the First-Fruit of the Display of Gospel-Glory? His long and perilous Journey to the Coast of Guinea, where he was sold for a Slave, and so brought into a Christian Land; shall we consider this as the alone Effect of a ...
— A Narrative Of The Most Remarkable Particulars In The Life Of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, An African Prince, As Related By Himself • James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw
... of self-defense, but declared the war to be the struggle of two world views wrestling with each other. "Either German principles of right, freedom, honor and morality must be upheld, or Anglo-Saxon principles with their idolatry of Mammon must be victorious." He sent congratulations to Field Marshal von Hindenburg, to General Ludendorf and to the Crown Prince. Von Hindenburg assured the Kaiser of the unswerving loyalty until death of Germany's sons at the front, and concluded "May our old motto ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... of the loyalty of a clanswoman, the hero-worship of a maiden aunt, and the idolatry due to a god. No matter what he had asked of her, ridiculous or tragic, she would have done it and joyed to do it. Her passion, for it was nothing less, entirely filled her. It was a rich physical pleasure to make his bed or light his lamp for him when he was absent, to pull off his ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... gentleness of the friend with the dignity, courage, faith and manliness of the soldier. His public enemies, even the men who directed the fatal shot, never spoke or wrote of him without expressions of marked respect. Those whom he commanded loved him even to idolatry, and I, his associate and commander, fail in words adequate to express my opinion of his ...
— The Battle of Atlanta - and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc. • Grenville M. Dodge
... at the Dangerfield Station, where Lady Horsingham's emblazoned coach and fat horses were in waiting for us, "the Squire," who was here treated with a deference bordering on idolatry, got out too. He made an involuntary motion with his hand, as though he would have taken his hat off, and wished us "good-morning;" but his shyness got the better of him, and he disappeared from the platform, ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... Annunciation, a great festival, little brother, and that recollection has set me thinking. Look round you! Everywhere are savages—men gone mad with blood and terror. Death, famine, barbarity ride the world! Idolatry is still rampant: to this day men believe in wood-spirits, witches and the devil—and God, oh yes, men still believe in God! They bury their dead when the bodies should be burnt. They seek to drive away ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... Phrygia. It may be of interest to you for me to tell you something about the character of these people at the time Paul first visited them. Ancient history gives a very dark picture of this. What Paul said of Athens applied equally to Colosse: "The city was wholly given to idolatry." The lower classes, especially, were very ignorant, having no knowledge of God save that which the light ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... greatly interested Tamar. She said, that in the times of papal power, there had been a monastery there, and in that place a covenanter had been murdered; hence, it had been pulled down to the ground, and all the unholy timbers and symbols of idolatry burnt; "and still," she added, "to this day, uncanny objects are seen in that place, and wailings as of souls in woe have also been heard coming from thence; and I myself have heard them. Nay, so short a time ago as the night ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... and genius rest upon a conception of freedom which renders such a unity foreign and even repulsive to its temper. Whatever be the changes which lie before us, the worship of the State is the one form of idolatry into which the British people are least likely ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... as the sixteenth or seventeenth century, there is no chronological difficulty in supposing their contents to be inspired by Christian ideas. But the question rather is, would Portuguese Catholicism or corrupt Nestorianism have inspired poems denouncing idolatry and inculcating the purest theism? Scepticism on this point is permissible. I am inclined to think that the influence of Christianity as well as the much greater influence of Mohammedanism was mostly indirect. They imported little in the way of custom ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... how you managed to get such a collection of birds, including my meteor-bird," said Ella. "But Phyllis of Philistia is shocked at the bare recital of such a tale of idolatry. Are you not, Phyllis?" ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... of God, set forth to announce His mysteries to the idolaters and heathen, sent legitimately to the mountains of Mariveles to illumine its inhabitants with the light of the Catholic faith. They found those natives enveloped in the most barbarous idolatry, adoring the sun, the moon, the cayman, and other filthy animals. These people regarded certain old men, as corrupt and as deceived as the divinities whom they were serving, as the ministers of those ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... Sunni Barro, the last of that line, was obliged to flee from the country and Askia Mohammed usurped the throne. He began as a pious ruler and was, therefore, praised as "a brilliant light shining after great darkness; a savior who drew the servants of God from idolatry and the country from ruin."[201] He made pilgrimages to Mecca, scattered his funds in the holy places, rendered homage to the Khalif Abassid Motewekkel in Egypt, got in touch with the theologians and learned men of Cairo ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... and she is described in her nature as the spirit that formed and sustains the world, and is the author of all that is good, true, and great. Chaps. 7-9. (3.) Then follows a long historical discourse (interrupted in chaps. 13-15 by a copious discussion concerning the origin and nature of idolatry), in which the blessed effects of wisdom and the fear of God, and the unhappy consequences that come from the folly of idolatry are illustrated by the opposite fortunes of the righteous and the wicked of past ages, especially of the people ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... would have defaced all the worke there, had it not been for some townsmen, who entreated them to forbeare, they replienge that they had not been so well treated here at Oxford as they expected: many of them came into Christ Church to viewe the Church and paynted windowes, much admiringe at the idolatry thereof, and a certain Scot, beinge amongst them, saide that he marvaylled how the Schollers could goe for their bukes to these paynted idolatrous wyndoes." From a Scot of that time this utterance was not surprising: bukes had been substituted for paynted ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson
... associated with his name has become a title of distinction in itself; and some members of his circle enjoy, and have fairly earned, a peculiar advantage in this respect. In their capacity of satellites revolving round the sun of their idolatry, they attracted and reflected his light and heat. As humble companions of their Magnolia grandiflora, they did more than live with it[1]; they gathered and preserved the choicest of its flowers. Thanks to them, ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... this idolatry is exacted. The perpetual image of it is Lot's wife, who, looking backwards upon that from which she had escaped, was turned into a pillar of salt. Nature may or may not have a purpose, and exhibit designs for that purpose; she may or may not, in philosophical language, be teleological. ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... transaction. Stories, inconsistent with themselves, were all alike eagerly believed, and what evidence there might be for any one of them, the virtuous people, by whom they were repeated, neither cared nor knew. The public, in short, fell into a passion with their darling, and, ashamed of their past idolatry, nothing would satisfy them but knocking the divinity ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... of affection, from the irregularities and vanities, in which he continued to indulge, but the same hold kept of each other's hearts to the last. Her early letters to him breathe a passion little short of idolatry, and her devoted attentions beside his death-bed showed that the essential part ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... thoroughfare of life roared like the sea. And now, for the first time, his sorrow flung from him like a useless garment, he found himself alone among the Cumbrian mountains, and impelled in strong idolatry almost to kneel down and worship the divine beauty of the moon, and "stars that are the ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... friends, 410 Where one for substance, one for sign contends, Their contradicting terms she strives to join; Sign shall be substance, substance shall be sign. A real presence all her sons allow, And yet 'tis flat idolatry to bow, Because the Godhead's there they know not how. Her novices are taught that bread and wine Are but the visible and outward sign, Received by those who in communion join. But the inward grace, or the thing signified, 420 His blood and body, who to save us died; The faithful this ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... back to with blind veneration; thou thyself being to thyself flat, jejune, modern! What mystery lurks in this retroversion? or what half Januses[1] are we, that cannot look forward with the same idolatry with which we for ever revert! The mighty future is as nothing, being every thing! the past is every thing, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... 22:9), both to indicate the dignity which he had acquired through Christ, whereby man is made equal to an angel: wherefore the same text goes on: "I am thy fellow-servant and of thy brethren"; as also to exclude any occasion of idolatry, wherefore the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... another hand than your wife's, and in another place than your home. We have said words to one another this night which neither of us will lightly pardon, for we are not of the pardoning kind. I do not feel as I did: my anger has turned into sorrow; the idol of my idolatry is broken—my fair model of chivalry—and now I can only gather together the pieces. Even while I hated you I was loving you—this is the contradiction of a woman's heart—and I knew that love of me had made you mad. Whatever happens, I will always ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... excellency of woman. Blessed memory! Who does not remember that one form of the old-fashioned mother,—the law of whose life was love; one who was the divinity of our infancy, and the sacred presence in the shrine of our first earthly idolatry; one whose heart was ever green, though the snows of time had gathered in the boughs of her life-tree; one to whom we never grow old, but in the plumed troop or the grave council are children still; one who welcomed us coming, blessed us ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... was not subject to this idolatry. Could Moggs have read her mind, he might have known that success, as from the bootmaker against the gentleman, was by no means so hopeless an affair. What Polly liked was a nice young man, who would hold ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... Ka'abah. The dynastic name was Arkam, M. C. de Perceval's "Arcam," which he would identify with Rekem (Numbers xxxi. 8). The last Arkam fell before an army sent by Moses to purge the Holy Land (Al- Hijaz) of idolatry. Commentators on the Koran (chaps. vii.) call the Pharaoh of Moses Al-Walid and derive him from the Amalekites: we have lately ascertained that this Mene-Ptah was of the Shepherd-Kings and thus, according to the older Moslems, the Hyksos were of the seed of Imlik. (Pilgrimage ii. 116, and iii. 190.) ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... formerly accepted in Scotland was abolished to make way for the Calvinistic Book of Common Order. In the general assemblies of the reformed Church (December 1560-May 1561) decrees were issued for the destruction of the religious houses and of all signs of idolatry, and individuals were appointed to see that these decrees were put ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... again he turned speechless away, and then and there was born within him an idolatry for Gray that was carefully locked in his own breast, for your mountaineer openly worships, and then but shyly, the Almighty alone. Jason no longer wondered about the attitude of faculty and students of both sexes toward Gray, no longer at Mavis, but at Marjorie he kept on wondering ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... suggested by a desire to commune with deceased parents." ("The Worship of Ancestors—a plea for toleration.") But Dr. Hudson Taylor condemned bitterly this plea for toleration. "Ancestral worship," he said (it was at the Shanghai Missionary Conference of May, 1890), "Ancestral worship is idolatry from beginning to end, the whole of it, and everything connected with it." China's religion is idolatry, the Chinese are universally idolatrous, and the fate that befalls idolaters is carefully pointed out by Dr. Taylor:—"Their part is in ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... sermon delivered the evening before by the Rev. Reuben Tripple, the evangelical minister of Lebanon. It was a paean of the Scriptures accompanied by a crazy charge that the Roman Church forbade the reading of the Bible. It had a tirade also about the Scarlet Woman and Popish idolatry. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... until of late, their places of worship were not churches, but meeting-houses merely; and by the stout-hearted men who used to dwell in New England it would have been deemed a heresy near akin to idolatry itself, or at least savoring strongly of the damnable errors of the Romish Church, to hold that wood and stones, carved and fashioned by the hand of man, could be hallowed by an ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... which has been removed thither from our own shores! Now, alas! nowhere more than in some of the Australian settlements "are the works of the flesh manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... beauty threatened to be a fatal one. It brought her attention continuous admiration and flattery from those who cared nothing for her personally. She had received in childhood but little of the praise which love prompts, the tender, indulgent idolatry which, although dangerous indeed to one's best development, sometimes softens and humanizes, instead of ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... his back, with "thirty-four Chevaliers of the Holy Ghost" escorting; next "the Dauphin" (Boy of eleven, Louis XVI.'s. Father), and "Mesdames of France, with"—but even Geusau stops short. Protestants cannot enter that Chapel, without peril of idolatry; wherefore Geusau and Pupil kept strolling in the general (OEil-de-Boeuf),—and "the Dutch Ambassador approved of it," he for one. And here now is another point, slightly noticeable:—3. High mass over, his Majesty sails ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... centuries, of the Moors from Spain. He recalls his petition to the Pope, asking that learned Catholic doctors should be sent to instruct the Grand Khan in the true faith, and to convert populous cities that were perishing in Idolatry, to which his Holiness had vouchsafed no answer, after which ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... supreme hour, when realizing the adamantine limitations of human power, the "thus far, no farther" of relentless physiological, psychological and ethical statutes under which humanity lives, moves, has its being—our desperate souls break through the meshes of that pantheistic idolatry which kneels only to "Natural Laws"; and spring as suppliants to Him, who made Law possible. We take our portion of happiness and prosperity, and while it lasts we wander far, far away in the seductive land of philosophical ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... of it above the whisker tidemark, of course—registered horror at the thought. He had been cook and steward aboard Captain Kendrick's ships for many voyages and his feeling for his former skipper was close kin to idolatry. ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... before Christ, long after we know it was a received Zoroastrian tenet, and long after the Hebrews had been exposed to the whole tide and atmosphere of the triumphant Persian power. The unchangeable tenacity of the Medes and Persians is a proverb. How often the Hebrew people lapsed into idolatry, accepting Pagan gods, doctrines, and ritual, is notorious. And, in particular, how completely subject they were to Persian influence appears clearly in large parts of the Biblical history, especially in the Books ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... of whom 23,658,000 are in Bengal, and over 6,000,000 in Bombay, are either descendants of emigrating Asiatics, or Hindus converted to that faith. Their religion is a mixture of the doctrines of the Prophet and local idolatry; for they have been somewhat infected by the prevailing worship of the natives. The Parsees are an educated mercantile class, the great body of them being found in Bombay. They are fire-worshippers; and ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... life! my tears Fall scalding over thee; in vain, in vain; I press thee to my heart, whose hopes, and fears, Are all thine own; thou dost not feel the strain. Oh, thou dull image! wilt thou not reply To my fond prayers and wild idolatry? ...
— Poems • Frances Anne Butler
... Virginia? There's plenty idolatry elsewhere in America to keep you busy for a lifetime, and you can lead your Gentiles elsewhere than against your own kin. Turn your face westward, John Gib. I, too, can dream dreams and see visions, and it is borne in on me that your road is plain before you. Lead this great ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... idolatry from which that of rank preserves us, and perhaps it is the worst of any—that of office. The basest deity is a subordinate employee, and yet just now in civilised Governments it is the commonest. In France and all the best of the Continent it rules like a superstition. ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... Give up this idolatry of fashion or give up heaven. What would you do standing beside the Countess of Huntingdon, whose joy it was to build chapels for the poor; or with that Christian woman of Boston, who fed fifteen hundred children of the street, at Fanueil Hall, one New Year's Day, giving ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... sacrifice unto the Lord thy God at Gilgal." And Samuel said, "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... whether idolatry is more dangerous than atheism, if it is a greater crime not to believe in the Deity than to have unworthy opinions thereof: in that he is of Plutarch's opinion; he believes it is better to have no opinion than to have a bad opinion; but ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... caprice than the delicacy of my taste; but I am so often tired, disgusted and hurt with insipidity, affectation, and pride of mankind, that when I meet with a person "after my own heart," I positively feel what an orthodox Protestant would call a species of idolatry, which acts on my fancy like inspiration; and I can no more desist rhyming on the impulse, than an AEolian harp can refuse its tones to the streaming air. A distich or two would be the consequence, though the object which hit my fancy were gray-bearded-age; ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... The entire system of idolatry has been done away; together with several barbarous practices engrafted thereon. But this result is not so much to be ascribed to the missionaries, as to the civilizing effects of a long and constant intercourse with whites of all nations; to whom, for many years, Tahiti has been one ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... republican dignity; and with all their greatness, it is easy to detect through their writings, a lamentable propensity in their muse to play the parasite with the people. To their gratification of the public foible, the tragic poets no doubt owed some small part of that idolatry in which they were held by the Athenian multitude. Yet no sooner did the comic writers appear, ridiculing those very tragic poets, than they became still greater favourites with the people. Horace has transmitted to us the names of three of these comic poets, cotemporaries—Cratinus, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... in either case but SUPPOSES an unconditioned, that is, an impossible, entity, that he may deduce therefrom an explanation of such phenomena as he deems inconceivable on any other hypothesis. The mystery of God and reason! In order to render the object of his idolatry more and more RATIONAL, the believer despoils him successively of all the qualities which would make him REAL; and, after marvellous displays of logic and genius, the attributes of the Being par excellence are found to be the same as those of nihility. This evolution is ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... Baalism was not yet entirely destroyed. Then he was told of three other men, who would come after him—two kings and then another prophet, who each in turn would do his part, when at last the destruction of the great alien idolatry would be complete. Elijah's faithfulness had not failed, but his achievement was only a fragment of ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller
... threw away his fetishes after a hard struggle with all the past and present environment that bound him. Then at once his instinct was to make a better home for his family. He must get away from the heathen village, with its squalor, and impurity, and idolatry. It is true that environment does not regenerate the soul, but the renewed soul transforms the environment. Better conditions are evidence of the new life. On the contrary, when some fall back to heathenism, they fall into slovenly attire, ill-kept homes, and neglected ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen
... prostrated himself with clasped hands; but it was no longer God whom he implored; it was the angry ocean, the thunder. He sought to disarm the genius of evil. The lightning having one day struck, not far from him, a date-palm, he worshipped the tree. His perverted faith had at last terminated in idolatry. ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine
... Animals, Architecture, Army, Arms, Body, Canaan, Covenant, Diet and Dress, Disease and Death, Earth, Family, Genealogy, God, Heaven, Idolatry, Idols, Jesus Christ, Jews, Laws, Magistrates, Man, Marriage, Metals and Minerals, Ministers of Religion, Miracles, Occupations, Ordinances, Parables and Emblems, Persecution, Praise and Prayer, Prophecy, Providence, Redemption, ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... the Christian, will readily agree that the animism, the fetishism, and idolatry of the savage were man-made foolish beliefs. They can readily perceive that there was nothing supernatural, nothing revealed, in such beliefs; but they do not realize that to him, in his infantile development, the fetish and the idol were just as supernatural and superior as the modern conception ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... have an idol—the amassing of wealth is one of the worst species of idolatry—no idol more debasing than the worship of money. Whatever I engage in I must push inordinately; therefore should I be careful to choose that life which will be the most elevating in its character. To continue much longer overwhelmed by business cares and with most of my ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... dramatist's mental history can hardly be said to have arisen till our own generation. As regards many of the parallel passages, the ground has been pretty well cleared by the dispassionate scholarship brought to bear on them from Farmer onwards; though the idolatry of the Coleridgean school, as represented by Knight, did much to retard scientific conclusions on this ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... themselves, in my belief, and their observations of celestial phenomena led them to the discovery of the fact that eclipses of the great heavenly lights happened in a regular rotation of eighteen years and ten days. This discovery has been very useful in purging the idolatry from eclipses—as, had it not been for the Chaldaeans, perhaps the mother of the atheist might have offered him as an ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... take another example of our hypothesis from Shakspeare himself, who, of all authors, drew his portraits for all ages. With the whole sum of the idolatry which affects us at his name, the mass of readers peruse, without amusement, the characters formed on the extravagances of temporary fashion; and the Euphuist Don Armado, the pedant Holofernes, even Nym and Pistol, ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... triumphantly cite the story of the golden calf, in the 32d chapter of Exodus, to prove that this great lawgiver was an adept, and could make or unmake gold at his pleasure. It is recorded, that Moses was so wrath with the Israelites for their idolatry, "that he took the calf which they had made, and burned it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it." This, say the alchymists, he never ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... at her with a love that was almost awe, with an admiration that was almost idolatry, but the ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... it was idolatry; it was the most extraordinary passion I have ever known a man otherwise sane to be possessed by. You would have said that that creature with the black-and-white body and the terrific bowels of machinery had some sinister and magic power over him. ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... help noticing that Washington was a city full of beautiful girls. His idolatry of Miss Wilbur could not prevent him from admiring them as they streamed along the walk to church. He sometimes looked wistfully at this flood of sunny laughing life that moved by him so near and yet so completely out of his reach. He knew at such times that he had missed something sweet ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... left the succession to his son, Eadbald. This prince, seduced by a passion for his mother-in-law, deserted for some time the Christian faith, which permitted not these incestuous marriages: his whole people immediately returned with him to idolatry. Laurentius, the successor of Augustine, found the Christian worship wholly abandoned, and was prepared to return to France, in order to escape the mortification of preaching the gospel without fruit to ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... Divine power without any conscious feeling of its nature. Idols may have come in to give a definite idea of superior power, and the primitive faith or impression obtained by Revelation seems to have mingled with their idolatry without any sense of incongruity. (See Micah ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this, but for their ignorance who choose that circumstance to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted; and to justifie mine owne candor,—for I lov'd the man, and doe honor his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any. Hee was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent phantasie; brave notions and gentle expressions; wherein hee flow'd with that facility that sometime it was necessary he should be stop'd;—sufflaminandus erat, as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... the ancient poets; not unmindful that the blessed Paul himself, in those writings which are the food of our spirit, takes occasion to cite from more than one poet who knew not Christ. If you would urge the impurity and idolatry which deface so many pages of the ancients, let me answer you in full with a brief passage of the holy Augustine. "For," says he, "as the Egyptians had not only idols to be detested by Israelites, but also precious ornaments of gold and silver, to be carried off by them ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... gods were imported every season. The philosophers cultivated a discreet indifference to all religious questions. The prophets taught that the only salvation for the nation lay in the putting away of idolatry and the revival of faith in the ...
— Joy & Power • Henry van Dyke
... personal association with its most famous owner. He occupied a room in the tower, fitted up as a library. Over the door of this room may still, we believe, be read Montaigne's motto, "Que scai-je?" Votaries of Montaigne perform their pious pilgrimages to this shrine of their idolatry, year after year, century ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... with a bored sigh as a "silly superstition." They represented, with patches of gold and cataracts of purple, with stiff saints and angular angels, with ugly Madonnas and uglier babies, strange prayers and prostrations; so that she at first took his words for a protest against devotional idolatry—all the more that he had of late often come with her and with Mrs. Wix to morning church, a place of worship of Mrs. Wix's own choosing, where there was nothing of that sort; no haloes on heads, but only, during long sermons, beguiling backs of bonnets, and where, ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... girls were permitted to bewitch them and turn them from the faith of the Prophet. He pointed to young Selim, and demanded whether he were not already spellbound by the silken daughter of the Giaour to join in her idolatry. ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... seven planets. Beginning from the bottom they were black, orange, bright red, golden, pale yellow, dark blue and silver, representing respectively the colors of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus. Mercury, and the Moon. These marks may indicate the prevalence of idolatry and have led some to think the tower of Babel was intended to do honor to the ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... passions. Thus the Assyrians, the Medes, the Grecians, the Romans, successively fell victims to their lusts, and gave way to more virtuous successors. Even the Jews, the most enlightened people of their age, fell more than once through this same sin, which was coupled with idolatry, of which their seduction by the ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... among the men and women who had so persistently considered her as an intruder, and the old vigor and pride of her life would come back with it: the idolatry which had induced that infatuated man to overlook these stumbling blocks to his pride and impediments to his ambition would ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens |
