"Prayer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... moment the three stood silent. A hush came over them. Adam's head was bent, his forehead almost touching Phil's shoulder, a prayer trembling on his lips. Then with a sudden movement he led them to the portrait, and in an exultant tone, through which an unbidden sob fought its ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... to make the best of it, And now, by time and care, They tell us he can read a bit, And say an easy prayer. ...
— Kalli, the Esquimaux Christian - A Memoir • Thomas Boyles Murray
... torment would not let me go The angel of the Lord who sitteth at the gate. First heaven must needs so long revolve me round Outside thereof, as in my life it did, Since the good sighs I to the end postponed, Unless e'er that some prayer may bring me aid Which rises from a heart that ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... the entrance, leaving her on her knees, in silent prayer, with her hands clasped on her forehead, and leaning against the rugged wall of rock. Outside, the earth, enveloped in fire and uproar, seemed to have been given over to the fury ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... on to the Highway, we shall never get to our knees and thus never climb the hill. But if we are dissatisfied, if we are hungry, then we will find ourselves ascending. Don't hurry. Let God make you really hungry for the Highway; let Him really drive you to your knees in longing prayer. Mere sightseers won't get very far. "Ye shall find Me when ye shall search for ...
— The Calvary Road • Roy Hession
... little. The aged sisters looked white and worn, but they would not give up their posts. Their hearts were breaking, poor old things, but their grit was steadfast and indestructible. All the twelve days the mother had pined for the child, and the child for the mother, but both knew that the prayer of these longings could not be granted. When the mother was told—on the first day—that her disease was typhoid, she was frightened, and asked if there was danger that Helen could have contracted it ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... A somewhat heathenish prayer indeed, and far too full of human passion for one about to leave the human shores. But, then—well, it was Beatrice who prayed—Beatrice, who could realise no heaven beyond the limits of her passion, who still thought more of her love than of saving her own soul alive. Perhaps ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... was rather jolly, but when we got out and walked we felt like "Alone in London," or "Jessica's First Prayer," because Camberwell is a devastating region that makes you think of rickety attics with the wind whistling through them, or miserable cellars where forsaken children do wonders by pawning their relations' clothes and looking after the baby. It was a dampish night, and we walked on greasy ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... veil thy brow, Guardian of freedom, hither bend: The prayer of mercy meets thee now, ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... cruel bearing, she now became quite mild, threw up her eyes, went regularly to church every Sunday, and sighed deeply during the sermon. Day and night she was singing spiritual songs, and sent to Stargard to purchase prayer-books, all to make the world think that she had grown truly religious. Item, she sent her new maid, Anna Dorings by name, to Stargard, to purchase mercury for her from the apothecary; and when the maid handed the same to her, she heard her murmur as if to herself, while she locked up the ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... MS. by Aubrey, in the British Museum, he states that this was a prayer regularly used by people when they went to bed. Then Ody, in his Candle in the Dark, 1656, tells that it was frequently used by old people as a charm, and was repeated three times before going to bed. Launcelot ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... bitter, when the world haunts us as I felt this afternoon on leaving the superintendent, when men strike and starve, and others are hard and grasping—then He must shrink and grow small and suffer. There is happiness," she ended, breathing her belief as a prayer into the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... carried to execution, while on the scaffold, he asked to see the axe. He closely examined its bright, keen edge, and said, with a smile: "This is a sharp medicine, but a sound cure for all diseases." He then laid his head composedly on the block, moved his lips as if in prayer, and gave the ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... King Hezekiah[196] that he would not recover from his illness: "Set thine house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live." Nevertheless, God, moved with the prayer of this prince, revoked the sentence of death; and before the prophet had left the court of the king's house, God commanded him to return and tell the king that God would add yet ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... up between the Old and the New Testaments. It is a set of books, looking just like the other books of the Bible, with chapters and verses. Some of it is read in church as weekday lessons in the months of October and November, as you may see by looking at the Table of Lessons in any Prayer Book. Now, are all these books of "the Apocrypha" fabulous or spurious? No. Some of them are. The Second Book of Esdras (that is, Ezra) was not written by Ezra; The Book of Baruch (the companion of the ...
— Old Testament Legends - being stories out of some of the less-known apochryphal - books of the old testament • M. R. James
... poor wretch, my prayer is turned to sin! I say, "I love!" My mistress says "'Tis lust!" Thus most we lose where most we seek to win. Wit will make wicked what is ne'er so just. And yet I can supplant her false surmise. Lust is a fire that for an ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles - Delia - Diana • Samuel Daniel and Henry Constable
... attempt to describe the service in detail. There was a discouraging droop and quaver in the singing, and the mournful-looking deacon who passed the collection-plate seemed inured to disappointment. The prayer had in it a note of despairing appeal which fell like a cold hand upon one's living soul. It gave one the impression that this was indeed a miserable, dark, despairing world, which deserved to be wrathfully destroyed, ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... will probably be always richer in gold and silver than in grain. Utah farmers hope to change the climate of the east side of the basin by prayer, and point to the recent rise in the waters of the Great Salt Lake as a beginning of moister times. But Nevada's only hope, in the way of any considerable increase in agriculture, is from artesian wells. The experiment ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... sanitation were attempted. Offices were closed or dismissed early. Stenographers took dictation in masks. It was forbidden to crowd the street-cars. All places of public assembly were closed, churches no less than theaters and moving-picture shows. It was as illegal to hold prayer-meetings as dances. ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... constrained to admire and not to blame, far less to ridicule, his magnificent heroism. Yes; he never swerved, he never drew back; and, best of all, he did his work as a humble and earnest Christian, carrying it on by that strength and wisdom which he sought and obtained by prayer. ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... with this sad state of affairs, they are taught from the pulpit that God has made these divisions and it is the duty of every Christian to join and support them. But such is not the will of God; he has designed that his people should all be one, and in his prayer Jesus expresses the extent of this unity. "That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us." This certainly implies a wonderful and perfect unity. Many ...
— Sanctification • J. W. Byers
... retiredness, yet his love to music was such that he went usually twice every week, on certain appointed days, to the Cathedral Church in Salisbury, and at his return would say, 'That his time spent in prayer and Cathedral music elevated his soul, and was his heaven upon earth.' But before his return thence to Bemerton, he would usually sing and play his part at an appointed private music meeting; and, to justify this practice, he would often ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... the snowy slope of the shoulders and the quick rise and fall of the gently curving bosom. The beautiful face within the framing scarf was colorless with a great fear, save only the crimson lips, of which the bow was bent tremulously as she spoke her prayer. ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... made me weep—I who await you every morning. I will say nothing to you, however; I will not beg you. If the health of my grandfather seems to you so feeble as to demand your presence, I know no prayer would take you away from your duty. Nor would I make ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... he said was strange and repellent to her. But her forlorn passion, so long trampled on, cried within her; her pure heart was one prayer, one exquisite throb of pain ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Virginia, (afterward Governor)—"Was in favor of the commitment; he hoped that the designs of the respectable memorialists would not be stopped at the threshold, in order to preclude a fair discussion of the prayer of the memorial. With respect to the alarm that was apprehended, he conjectured there was none; but there might be just cause, if the memorial was not taken into consideration. He placed himself in the case of a slave, and said, that ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... 8, ("The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord; but the prayer of the upright is his delight,") expresses how provoking a thing the outward professions and sacrifices of wicked men, continuing in their wickedness; what an abomination that commonly called public repentance, or ecclesiastical holiness is, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... sacrificed everything. Give me four hours longer, and I make you master of all my gold, of all my wealth, of all that opulence of fortune I have so earnestly desired.' 'Agreed: you have been a good master, and I am willing to do something for you; I consent to your prayer.' I felt my strength return; and I exclaimed: 'Four hours are so little ... oh! Juba! ... Juba ... oh! Juba! give me yet four hours, and I renounce all my literary glory, all my works, everything that has placed ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... all his designs; Believe it (London), thy Miseries approach, they are like to be many, great, and grievous, and not to be diverted, unless thou seasonably crave Pardon of God for being Nurse to this present Rebellion, and speedily submit to thy Prince's Mercy; Which shall be the daily Prayer of ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... "I brought you my prayer-rug!" She displayed a small Persian rug, worn and faded, evidently a thing of great age, at which Speed uttered an exclamation. "I always carry it with me, and put it in front of my bed ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... there in solitude, to the glory of God and the edification of their sex. If you are minded to embrace so austere a life, contenting you with such sustenance as the wilderness yields, and wearing out your days in prayer and vigil, it may be that you shall make amends for the great sin you have committed, and live and die in the ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... made a fire, the other two dragged the boiling water upstairs; but Cilia carried more and was quicker about it than Friedrich. She felt all the inexhaustible strength of youth in her that is glad to be able to do something. How willingly she did it for that good boy. And she murmured a short prayer in a low voice every time she poured a bucketful into the tub that had been placed near the bed. She could not make the sign of the cross, as neither of her hands was at liberty, but she was sure the saints would hear ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... her ally, Mr. Brennan, the policeman on the beat, would come! But Mr. Brennan was guarding a Grand Street crossing until such time as the last straggling child should have safely passed the dangers of the horse-cars, and nothing came in answer to Leah's prayer but a push-cart laden with figs and dates and propelled by a tall man, long-coated and fur-capped. His first glance read the tableau, and in an instant he grasped Percival, shook him into animation, threw him through the big ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... ofttimes read in a month in the services of other churches. She has a liturgy which is the sum total of all that is good and grand in the ages past, and the constant and almost imperceptible influence of her most excellent system of public worship, as indicated in the Book of Common Prayer, silently but effectively issues, in moulding and mellowing good Christian character. She teaches not only through the prayer book, but by the yearly round of feast, festival and fast, of which, like a great panorama ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... had long been troubled both with fears lest after all he might lose the crown of Bohemia and with qualms of conscience as to the propriety of taking it even if he could get it. He wrestled much in prayer and devout meditation whether as anointed prince himself he were justified in meddling with the anointment of other princes. Ferdinand had been accepted, proclaimed, crowned. He artlessly sent to Prague to consult the Estates ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... her yet—I mean the new roomer, but my hope and my prayer is that she's a looker. I think she is because Carmen sniffed. Does our Carmen love the beautiful of her sex? She does—not! She's a singing-teacher, Madame Squallerina, Carmen called her, with the rare wit for which she is famed. Already moved in with her piano and ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... flags follow him, and, while he and his retinue kneel in prayer at FROBEN's coffin, are fastened ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... alive and well," cried Fred, eagerly. And he saw the poor fellow close his eyes and lie back, with his lips moving as if he were in prayer. ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... success in missionary efforts. Those will not make the best missionaries who are easily daunted by the first difficulty or opposition, but those whose strength is equal to waiting upon God, and who fight through all obstacles by prayer and faith. The spasmodic worker, frantic in zeal one month, and at freezing-point another, will be weary long before the station has been reached: while in the strength of Christ the weakest of us need not draw back, nor say, "I am not fit," yet nothing less ...
— The American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 10. October 1888 • Various
... or whether one may assume it to be a ceremonious appeal to their gods for better luck next time, I have not as yet made up my mind. The striker, meanwhile, raises both arms, the hands tightly clenched, towards the heavens, and utters what is probably a prayer, prepared expressly ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... victims, who filled the dismal cells with their heart-rending peals of wild laughter, that fall upon the heart like the loneliest knell—there were the apparently quiet, religious ones who addressed their Creator in ceaseless, meaningless prayer, crying for forgiveness and mercy, but there was no bright, pretty French child, who called for "Bijou" or her "revenge," and this discouraged Guy very much. Presently addressing the guide, who escorted him through these apartments of living ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... the goddess graciously to incline her head, in sign that, yet another year, Egypt shall be protected. And when the fervor of the crowd's united prayer is great enough, the head of the Goddess of Stone will bow. That ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... came to that of the officers of the ship. Here all was quiet, as well as dark. He next entered the galley and other compartments occupied by the artificers; here also all was dark, but not quiet, for several of the men were engaged in prayer, or repeating psalms in a full tone of voice, while others were protesting that if they should be fortunate enough to get once more ashore, no one should ever see them afloat again; but so loud was the creaking ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... the chaotic state of affairs, and arrived at Glencoe early the next morning. The burghers were called together, and the President, leaning out of the window of his railway carriage, asked them to join him in singing a psalm. He then offered up a fervent prayer for guidance, after which he addressed the burghers, reproaching them for their want of confidence in an all-powerful Providence, and exhorting them to take courage afresh and continue the struggle for the sake of their posterity, which one ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar
... lay stress on meditation. It is not merely commended as a useful exercise but by common consent it takes rank with sacrifice and prayer, or above them, as one of the great activities of the religious life, or even as its only true activity. It has the full approval of philosophy as well as of theology. In early Buddhism it takes the place of prayer and worship and though ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... in the cities where the 13th sojourned. But he kept in his box a little faded red book of quotations, filled with serious and religious thoughts, and he was particularly fond of two of these apothegms: the one, "A prayer is merely a wish turned Godward"; and the other, "A grave wherever found preaches a short and pithy sermon to the soul." He would quote them over and over again in his confidential moments, and, though he might pick out others as he turned the well-thumbed ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... walked thither alone, standing for several minutes by the three graves, with a sensation as if his father was demanding of him an account of the boy he had watched, and brought to his ancestral home, and cared for through his orphaned childhood. But for the prayer-book, the pledge that there had been peace at the last, how could he have ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Round the edge of this half circle he drew several hieroglyphics, not unlike the signs of the zodiac. He then stood up and uttered a long invocation, delivered so rapidly that it sounded like a single gigantic word in some uncouth guttural language. Having finished this prayer, if prayer it was, he pulled out the small bottle which he had produced before, and poured a couple of teaspoonfuls of clear transparent fluid into a phial, which he handed to me with an intimation that I should ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... hundreds present formed in line, three or four deep. At once there was total silence, disturbed only by the crackling of the fires or by the cry of a child; and with faces turned to the east, in attitudes of profound devotion, the wild but fervent followers of Mahomet repeated their evening prayer. The flickering red light of the fires illumined the bronze faces of the congregation, and as I stood before the front line of devotees, I tools off my cap in respect for their faith, and at the close of their prayer made my salaam to their venerable Faky (priest); he returned ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... came, and Chad turned away—he did not want anybody to see him cry. And this was no time for crying, for Chad's prayer back at the grave under the poplar flashed suddenly back ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... until called upon to repeat the Lord's Prayer; and, strange to say, at this critical juncture, his memory forsook him, and he was unable to utter a word of it: for the life of him he could not think of anything but "Now I lay me down to sleep"—and confused and annoyed he stood unable to ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... old cathedral bell Proclaimed the morning prayer, The white pavilions rose and fell ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... in a cloud; a workman is overcome by the heat originating in the sun; and so, perhaps, the end will come to him through his solitary struggle with the great powers of the universe that perpetually reach him, but remain forever beyond his reach. If I could put forth one protecting prayer that would cover all his years, it would be that through life he continue as wise as the ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen
... more. We know that the ancestor of every action is a thought. The poor mind does not seem to itself to be any thing unless it have an outside badge,—some Gentoo diet, or Quaker coat, or Calvinistic prayer-meeting, or philanthropic society, or a great donation, or a high office, or, any how, some wild contrasting action to testify that it is somewhat. The rich mind lies in the sun and sleeps, and is Nature. To think ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... hour in the morning, and took no siesta. If we doubted the depth of his religious earnestness, we may find a proof of it in his declaration, that the Papacy was unfavourable to his advance in piety; that it did not contribute to his salvation and to his attainment of Paradise; and that, but for prayer, the burden had been too heavy for him. The happiness of a fervent devotion, which often moved him to tears, was granted him to the end of his life. The people were excited to enthusiasm, when they saw him walking in procession, barefooted and bareheaded, ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... last, the little man folded his hands with a pious air, closed his eyes tight, bent his head reverently, and spoke his prayer: ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... fervent hope that the prosperity of the British Empire might long endure, as with it the welfare of Afghanistan was bound up. He had watched, he said, the progress of India under British rule, and he hoped that Afghanistan might flourish in like manner; and he ended with a prayer that the Almighty would preserve Her Majesty's troops in safety, honour, ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... their steps church-ward, the inhabitants must be a very devout race. From seven in the morning till dusk, the streets are rarely free from church-going ladies; many of them followed by Negro slaves carrying their kneeling-rugs and prayer-books. One of the greatest nuisances in Macao is the perpetual ringing or tolling of church-bells, day and night: as soon as one stops, another begins; and the sleep-killing ding-dong is kept up at a rate that, in the warm nights of summer, is enough ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... Common Prayer; together with an order for fasting for the averting of God's heavy visitation upon many places of this realm. The fast to be observed within the cities of London and Westminster and places adjacent, on Wednesday the twelfth of this instant ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Hands and Fingers, Various Forms of Hands, Care of the Handy Metric Table Happiness Defined Health Line Health and Beauty Height and Weight Height of Noted Structure Holidays, Legal, in Various States Horse's Prayer, The Horses, To Tell the Age of Housekeepers Should Remember, What ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... friends of the prisoners] being gone, we guarded them [the prisoners] as before to the church, and after prayer, gave them to Pocahuntas the King's Daughter, in regard of her father's kindness in sending her: after having well fed them, as all the time of their imprisonment, we gave them their bows, arrowes, or what else they had, and with ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... never prayed that this may be The little war that brought the great world peace; Undazzled with its glorious infamy, O pray with all your hearts that war may cease, And who knows but that God may hear the prayer. So it may come about next Christmas Day That we shall hear the happy children play Gladly aloud, unmindful of the dead, And watch the lovers go To the old woods to find the mistletoe. But this year, children, if you needs must play, Play very softly, underneath your breath; Be happy softly, ...
— The Silk-Hat Soldier - And Other Poems in War Time • Richard le Gallienne
... crying out wildly; Cherry was sobbing a prayer. Peter, without knowing that he spoke at all, was repeating over and over again the words: "Not Alix-my God!—it cannot be— she has never had ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... many lips besides thine have asked that question, querulously or entreatingly, many a time; but whether they asked it in vexation and rebellion of spirit, or humbly besought Heaven to answer, to neither murmur nor prayer did Heaven vouchsafe a response. Is it because we are so small, or, being small, are so inquisitive, that the Great Oracle of the blue remains so dumb ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray
... their renowned governor. The people of Antwerp, on their part, demanded William of Orange. The Prince, who was hereditary burgrave of the city, had at first declined the invitation of the magistracy. The Duchess united her request with the universal prayer of the inhabitants. Events meantime had been thickening, and suspicion increasing. Meghen had been in the city for several days, much to the disgust of the Reformers, by whom he was hated. Aremberg was expected ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... schoolhouse, and the cities with colleges. What sublime possibilities for a king at the head of such a nation! Oh, that the young prince might have a dream in the slumbers of the night and see God! Oh, for a vision, a prayer, and a gift, that will fit him for the glory-crested heights of privilege and power to which he has been advanced! Charles II. failed, and fell ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... her thus come back to her from the dead! With such a torrent of confused thoughts Zillah's mind was filled, until at length, in her deep gratitude to Heaven, she flung herself upon her knees and poured forth her soul in prayer. ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... solemnized in a manner the effect of which, to the unprejudiced foreigner, is partly burlesque and partly seriously impressive. From the early dawn of morning the church is thronged with Indians, who spend the day in fasting and prayer. At two in the afternoon a large image of the Saviour is brought from the sacristy and laid down in front of the altar. Immediately all the persons in the church rush forward with pieces of cotton to touch the wounds. This gives rise to a struggle, in which angry words and blows ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... adumbrating the coverlid of my bed, his spectacles dimmed with tears, and his long grey locks falling on each side, and shadowing his eyes. I was not frightened, but I was too weak to stir or speak. His prayer-book was in his hand, and he still remained on his knees. He had been praying for me. Supposing me still insensible, he broke ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... sixty-horse-power imagination, and it seems to me that music is a sort of—prayer; anyhow it's the only way I know of praying. Good music is divine language; it's what the angels speak, if there are any angels. Sometimes it seems to me that I can soar heavenward on the wings of—of melody and get close enough to make myself heard. ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... from touch and tone; No more their ears shall hear The war-whoop wild, or sad death moan, Or words of fervid prayer; But the deeds they did and plans they planned, And paths of blood they trod, Have blessed and brightened all this land And hallowed it ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... morning, as they stood bareheaded, listening to a prayer from the young chaplain, they heard the report of a gun, and soon after an Indian.... Lovewell ordered his men to lay down their packs and advance with extreme caution." Why this caution? "They met an Indian coming towards them through the dense trees and bushes. He ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... of hobnails clumping to church on a Sunday evening; those rustling maid-servants in their ribbons whom the young apprentices follow; those little regiments of schoolboys; those trim young maidens and staid matrons, marching with their glistening prayer-books, as the chapel bell chinks yonder (passing Ebenezer, very likely, where the congregation of umbrellas, great bonnets, and pattens, is by this time assembled under the flaring gas-lamps). Look at those! How many of them are hypocrites, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... wore onward swiftly, And my task was nearly done, And a prayer was ever in my heart That the ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... of anything to say. Can't you say something, Meg? Aren't there any prayers about the dying in the Prayer Book?—I ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... when thou readest this, little Paul, with thy father's eyes—dost thou know, I wonder, the meaning of that great love which to the twain who realize it becomes a sacrament—dost understand?—a sacrament holier even than a prayer. It was even so with thy father and me—dost thou—canst thou understand? If not yet, sometime thou wilt, and thou wilt then forgive thy ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... dressed in a simple stuff gown of darkest blue, with a prim little "old maid's" bonnet, as she called it, tied neatly under her rounded white chin—and carrying in her hand a much worn "Book of Common Prayer" which she held with a certain delicate reverence not often shown to holy things by the church-going women of the time. Weircombe Church had a small but musical chime of bells, presented to it by a former rector—and the silvery sweetness of the peal just now ringing was intensified ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... of the open road, but I wanted you to give ear to my obsequious query as to how's chances on gettin' a lift? I have learned that obsequiousness is best appreciated when it is backed up by prayer and ca'tridges." ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... dwellings, make the rugs essential household articles rather than luxuries. The hearth-rug, the bath-mat, the divan-cover, the sleeping-blanket, and the saddle-mat must be regarded as necessities. Religion also has its requirements, and the prayer rug, sometimes ornamented with the hands of the Prophet, is a part of every household equipment, whether of the nomadic Arab or the wealthy merchant. Each district and people have their own designs and methods of workmanship, and the rugs of ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... years later, I put my whole soul into a prayer for manatees, and again with success. During a few moments' interval of a tropical downpour, I stood on the same little bridge with Henry Fairfield Osborn. We had only half an hour left in the tropics; the steamer was on the point of sailing; what, in ten ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... altar the old man knelt in prayer while a group of staff officers stood at a distance, watching him in silence. The crash of bursting shrapnel came to them from outside and once a window was shattered and the little church was filled with ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... are always telling about their being 'reduced to a level with brutes,' and every Sabbath since I was a child, it seems to me, I have heard the prayer, 'Break every yoke!' Last Sabbath our minister, you remember, said, 'Abraham was a slave-holder, David a murderer, and Peter lied and swore.' Why, Uncle, these black people look like gentlemen and ladies! ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... New Religions The Growth Processes of the Human Soul Necessity for Phenomena Will Change of Atoms Our Limitations Final Race Experience Religious Performances Of Teachers Wise Use of Money Genius Thoughts Are Things Unfoldment Inventions Divine Healing Surplus Analysis of the Lord's Prayer Absurd Beliefs The Resurrection The Creator Retributive Justice The ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield
... MUEZZIN.] Friday, 7th.—This was the first morning that I heard the Ezan, or cry of the muezzin from the minaret, calling the faithful to prayer. I believe the invocation he makes, is something like the following:—"Come to prayer; come to the temple of salvation. Great God! there ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... long mirror so that the poor girl should see herself. Her eyes still had a light as of the soul flying heavenward. The Jewess' complexion was brilliant. Sparkling with tears unshed in the fervor of prayer, her eyelashes were like leaves after a summer shower, for the last time they shone with the sunshine of pure love. Her lips seemed to preserve an expression as of her last appeal to the angels, whose palm of martyrdom she had no doubt borrowed while placing ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... as Westminster Abbey. Some again (going to another and almost equally foolish extreme) ignore the coarse and comic in mediaevalism; and praise the pointed arch only for its utter purity and simplicity, as of a saint with his hands joined in prayer. Here, again, the uniqueness is missed. There are Renaissance things (such as the ethereal silvery drawings of Raphael), there are even pagan things (such as the Praying Boy) which express as fresh and austere a piety. None of ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... were lifted out of the quiet of a happy home and placed here, not so much by the act of our illustrious President as by the dispensation of a mysterious Providence. 'Way down in Skewdunk they held prayer-meetings when they heard that news, and a good many of them haven't stopped praying yet. But only last week, let me tell you, Deacon DRYASDUST wrote to General GRANT'S father, saying: 'JESSE, old boy, there's no use praying for that venerable porgy any longer; he's ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... you that haste to meet Your love's returning feet Must plead for every sweet Caress; But, day and night and day, Without a prayer to pray, I love ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... persuade themselves to submit. Under the figure there lurks a real thought, which, expressed in another form, admits of an easy application to ourselves. For do not we too accuse as well as excuse ourselves? And we call to our aid the rhetoric of prayer and preaching, which the mind silently employs while the struggle between the better and the worse is going on within us. And sometimes we are too hard upon ourselves, because we want to restore the balance which self-love has overthrown or disturbed; and then again we may ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... in religion, not for the dedication of all her energies to the lost and unreclaimed, who are sunk in the mire of the world, but for that peculiar life of the mystic who leaves the court of the outer things for the court of the mysteries, the inner things, who enters into prayer as into a dark shell filled with the vast and unceasing murmur of the voice which ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... women have to keep them well filled with firewood and supplied with water. They carry the wood, and almost everything else in large baskets, hung to the shoulders, like the Edinburgh fishwives. A man made a long loud prayer to Mulungu last night after ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... below her ken, in the course of her complicated development, as to seem negligible. Beginning with this negation, she had passed rapidly on to an attitude of universal scepticism, to which religion was merely a matter of taste, and prayer was a psychological phenomenon. She was not one to lend herself to the constructive dreams of men, or to attach herself to their theories. Her weariness of her father's academic plans presaged her disillusion in regard to Emmet's career, even if he had been what she first imagined him. ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... me, to come to me, and let me tell him the truth—for my sake to let me know, at least, that he lived, for then I should be sure that one day all would be well. But if there was any hearing, there was no answer. Charley did not come; the prayer seemed to vanish in the darkness; and my more self-possessed meditations never justified the hope of any such ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... that water rather aggravated than relieved their distress, grew clamorous for air, and repeated their insults to the guard, loading the suba and his governor with the most virulent reproach. From railing they had recourse to prayer, beseeching heaven to put an end to their misery. They now began to drop on all hands; but then a steam arose from the living and the dead, as pungent and volatile as spirit of hartshorn; so that all who could not approach ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... happened to his companion. About midnight a dense fog settled over the island, and the alarm and discomfiture of the Englishman became supreme. At one moment he was cursing Terrence, and the next offering prayer for his soul. Never did man pass a ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... Barbara, in her crib, was hidden by her mother standing at her side. The wife turned, glanced at her husband's wounded arm, and made a soft gesture for him to keep out of sight. The child was leaning against her mother, saying the last words of her own prayer. ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... earliest recollections—I cannot have been more than four years of age—is of carrying a dust-brush about the house as the choir-boy carried the golden cross every Sunday morning. I remember asking if I might say the "Lord's prayer" in this fascinating play; and my mother's reply: "If you say it reverently." When I was thirteen, I attended service, of my own volition and out of my own enthusiasm, every single day during the forty days of Lent; at the age of fifteen I was teaching Sunday-school. It was the Church of the ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... the Saturday forenoon another friend from Edinburgh found him in the same happy frame. As was his wont when with an old friend with whom he felt particularly at ease, he read or recited some favorite passages, repeating, on this occasion, with great emphasis, that noble prayer of John Knox,[1] which, he told his friend, it had been his frequent custom to repeat privately during the days of the Disruption. On the forenoon of Sunday last he worshipped in the Free Church at Portobello; and in the evening read a little work which had been put ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... he means is some bodily ailment or other. The hypothesis that the 'thorn in the flesh' was the sting of the animal nature inciting him to evil is altogether untenable, because such a thorn could never have been left when the prayer for its removal was earnestly presented; nor could it ever have been, when left, an occasion for glorifying. Manifestly it was no weakness removable by his own effort, no incapacity for service which in any manner approximated to being a fault, but purely and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... at the question. There was something at last that he could say without falsehood. "She sent a prayer for your forgiveness," he said. "She told me to tell you to think of her as little as might be; not to grieve for her too much, and to try to forget her, so that her sin also might ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... tombs in this church, but without any inscriptions. It has a very fine organ, which, at evening prayer, accompanied with ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... that led up home from the river, and they stopped to rest on a cliff that sank in a solid black wall straight under them. The sharp edge of a steep corn-field ran near, and, stripped of blade and tassel, the stalks and hooded ears looked in the coming dusk a little like monks at prayer. In the sunlight across the river the corn stood thin and frail. Over there a drought was on it; and when drifting thistle-plumes marked the noontide of the year, each yellow stalk had withered blades and an empty sheath. Everywhere a look of vague trouble lay upon ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... (* you profligate) an' bring him up," replied the father: "you to talk about prayin'! Them that 'ud catch you at a prayer ought to be showed for the world to wondher at: a man wid two heads an him would be a fool to him. Go along, I say, and do what ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... orders accordingly. And now the other two carriages were there, and so there was a noise and confusion at the door—very unseemly, as Mark felt it; and the gentlemen spoke in loud voices, and Mrs. Harold Smith declared that she had no Prayer-Book, and was much too tired to go in at present; she would go home and rest herself, she said. And two other ladies of the party did so also, leaving Miss Dunstable to go alone;—for which, however, she did not care one button. And then one of the party, who had a ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... the world just as feeble and as untaught as any other child that ever was born. No mother was ever more to her infant than Mary was to Jesus. She taught him all his first lessons. She gave him his first thoughts about God, and from her lips he learned the first lispings of prayer. Jewish mothers cared very tenderly for their children. They taught them with unwearying patience the words of God. One of the rabbis said, "God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers." This saying shows how sacred was the ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... Choir may sing appropriate Hymns: Veni Sancte Spiritus, Veni Creator, Magnificat, etc. After the recitation of the Creed, "The Lord's Prayer" and "Hail Mary" English Hymns ...
— The St. Gregory Hymnal and Catholic Choir Book • Various
... of the other sensorial powers; but as this excites the patient to the exertion of voluntary actions, for the purpose of obtaining the object of his pleasureable ideas, or avoiding the object of his painful ones, such as perpetual prayer, when it is of the religious kind, it belongs to the insanities described in Class III. 1. 2. 1, and is more properly termed ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... valleys since 1778, when he embarked for India. None of the family ever had cared to write or read long letters, their correspondence (if any) was short, without being sweet by any means. It might be a subject for prayer and hope that Duncan should be gone to a better world, without leaving hostages to fortune here; but sad it is to say that neither prayer nor hope produces any faith in the counsel ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... yourself must ultimately drink, how admirably might you not employ your people, and your treasure—the waste whereof is rearing to you a barbarian successor to prolong the bondage of Egypt. The Christian prayer of those called to rescue their suffering brethren is that, conforming yourself to the dictates of reason and humanity, you may live long to benefit mankind; and as you are more enlightened than your predecessors, so may you ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... threatened her former inviolable security. The ramparts of the spiritual life were shaken. Her prayers, that were once an ascension of flamed and winged powers carrying her to heaven, had become mere clamorous petitions, drawing down the things of heaven to earth. Night and morning the same passionate prayer for herself and her child, the same prayer for her husband, painful and perfunctory; but not always now the same sense of absolution, of supreme and intimate communion. It was as if a veil, opaque but intangible, were drawn ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... place of, nor apes religion, prayer is an essential part of our ceremonies. It is the aspiration of the soul toward the Absolute and Infinite Intelligence, which is the One Supreme Deity, most feebly and misunderstandingly characterized ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... to your health, my dear," sobbed Mrs. Speedy, especially affected by my gallantry in the matter of the third share; "and I'm sure we all dhrink to his health—Mr. Dodd of the picnics, no gentleman better known than him; and it's my prayer, dear, the good God may be long spared to see ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... may Faith admit that all The Good which we enjoy, from Heav'n descends; But, that from us ought should ascend to Heav'n So prevalent as to concern the Mind Of God high-blest, or to incline his Will, Hard to belief may seem; yet this will Prayer, Or one short Sigh of human Breath, up born Ev'n to the Seat of God. For since I sought By Pray'r th' offended Deity to appease; Kneel'd and before him humbled all my Heart, Methought I saw him placable and mild, Bending his ...
— Letters Concerning Poetical Translations - And Virgil's and Milton's Arts of Verse, &c. • William Benson
... sorts of prayer:—1. Public; 2. Domestic; 3. Solitary. Each has its peculiar uses and character. I think the church ought to publish and authorise a directory of forms for the latter two. Yet I fear the execution would ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... hast taken to thee a wife, being master in thy house, cast thine eyes on the one that gave thee birth and provided thee with all good things, as did thy mother. Let her not reproach thee, lest she lift up her hands to the God, and He hear her prayer.' ...
— The Instruction of Ptah-Hotep and the Instruction of Ke'Gemni - The Oldest Books in the World • Battiscombe G. Gunn
... you keep your engagement," said their friend the feeder of ducks, smiling. "Mr Gowan, I am delighted to find my prayer has not been vain. Let me introduce you to our friends here of the club. We look upon this as a home, where we are all perfectly at our ease; and we wish our visitors—our neophytes—to feel the same. Gentlemen, let me introduce my guest, Mr Frank Gowan. I ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... made much more tolerable, and man respects himself far more, when he takes his meals with a certain degree of order and state. There should be a sacred law in these matters; and, as consecrating the whole business, the preliminary prayer is a good and real ordinance. The advance of man from a savage and animal state may be as well measured by his mode and morality of dining, as by any other circumstance. At Mr. Fields's, soon after entering the house, I heard the brisk and ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... several dream-months at the North Pole before I was awakened at first cockcrow by the old woman kneeling on the earth floor before a lithograph of the Virgin surrounded by withered pine branches, wailing a singsong prayer. She left off at length with the information that her only hope of relief was to make a pilgrimage to the "Virgen de los Remedios," and ordered the girl to prepare coffee. I paid my bill of two reales and gave the girl one for herself, evidently the largest sum she had ever possessed, ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... second was Reyner the younger, a man without reproach, poor and accustomed to toil. He, too, came from Renen which is in the diocese of Munster. The third was called Gerard the cook, for he at the first was cook to the House, but afterward became the porter, a man fervent in deed, and devout in prayer, who was born at Deventer. All these knew Gerard Groote in the flesh, and often heard him preach the Word of God among the people. By these humble, simple-hearted, and devout little servants of Christ—these who did verily despise the world—was our House ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis
... the former abbess of the Convent of Bellecombe, in Auvergne, and a venerable priest, had been summoned before the Tribunal. They were absent scarcely three hours; they returned, condemned. Their execution was to take place that same day at sunset. They spent the time that remained, in prayer; and Dolores, kneeling beside them, ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... two boys knelt at the foot of the tree, while the old sailor in simple, uncouth speech, offered up a little prayer of humble thanks for the deliverance of the two ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely |
