"Ritual" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... woman's voice, in accents soft and low, Trembling with pity, touched with pathos, read O'er his hallowed dust the ritual for the dead: ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... title, but the plan and a good deal of the incidental symbolism of the poem were suggested by Miss Jessie L. Weston's book on the Grail legend: From Ritual to Romance (Macmillan). Indeed, so deeply am I indebted, Miss Weston's book will elucidate the difficulties of the poem much better than my notes can do; and I recommend it (apart from the great interest ...
— The Waste Land • T. S. Eliot
... with the priest turning, bowing his head, spreading out his arms, making all the ritual gestures in haste while casting sidelong glances at the group. Gervaise and Coupeau, before the altar, were embarrassed, not knowing when they should kneel or rise or seat themselves, expecting some indication from ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... buried; the principal object of interest was the magnificent chancel, which has been described as "one Gallery of Light and Beauty," the whole structure being known as the Cathedral of the Peak. There was a fine monumental brass, with features engraved on it which throw light on the Church ritual of the day, to the memory of Bishop Pursglove, who was a native of Tideswell and founder of the local Grammar School, who surrendered his Priory of Gisburn to Henry VIII in 1540, but refused, in 1559, to take the Oath ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... often clarified by comparing it with that of some supposedly unrelated religion. Many a usage and conviction in ethnic cults supplies a suggestive parallel to something in our Bible. The development of theology or of ritual in some other religion throws light on similar developments in Christianity. The widespread sense of the Superhuman confirms our assurance of the reality of God. "To the philosopher," wrote Max Mueller, "the existence of God may seem to rest ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... the emanations of the human body, all the spontaneous manifestations of its activities, were mysterious and ominous to early man, pregnant with terror unless met with immense precautions and surrounded by careful ritual. The manifestations of sex were the least intelligible and the most spontaneous. Therefore the things of sex were those that most lent themselves to feelings of horror and awe, of impurity and ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... off pleasantly on the whole, though there loomed a storm as to the ritual of St. Kenelm's; but this chiefly was owing to the younger division of the company, when Valetta broke into an unnecessary inquiry why they did not have as many lights on the altar at St. Andrew's as at St. Kenelm's, and Fergus put her down with unceremoniously ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the spring and summer of 1838, a large scheme to give armed support to the republicans of Canada was secretly organized all along the northern boundary of the United States. It was a secret society of 'Hunters' Lodges,' with ritual, passwords, degrees. Each 'Lodge,' was an independent local body, but a band of organizers kept control of the whole series from New York to Detroit. The 'Hunters' are uniformly called 'brigands' and 'banditti' by the British regular officers who fought them, ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... Majesty the Cham, I could not go to visit the church above-mentioned, which is twenty days' journey distant.... I had been in treaty with the late King George, if he had lived, to translate the whole Latin ritual, that it might be sung throughout the extent of his territory; and whilst he was alive I used to celebrate mass in his church according to the Latin rite." The distance mentioned, twenty days' journey from Peking, suits quite well ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... leave" cut off whatever small chance existed of obtaining redress in England. The religious feelings of the people were outraged. The Governor directed the opening of the Old South Church in Boston for worship according to the English ritual. If the demand had been for the use of the building for a mass, or for a carriage-house for Juggernaut, it would ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... another who, finding the title of the day's service indicated only by the abbreviation Re., read the mass of the Requiem instead of the service of the Resurrection; or that of yet another, who being so illiterate as to be unable to pronounce readily the long words in his ritual always omitted them, and pronounced the word Jesus, which he said was much ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... Epitaph, Judge SWEENEY suddenly comes upon Father DEAN conversing with SMYTHE, the sexton, and Mr. BUMSTEAD. Bowing to these three, who, like himself, seem to find real luxury in open-air strolling on a bitter night in midwinter, he notices that his model, the Ritual Rector, is wearing a new hat, like Cardinal's, only black, and is immediately lost in wondering where he can obtain one ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... which they felt, with a true instinct, involved the restoration of the old Church of England, the church of their fathers and of the older among themselves, with its larger indulgence for the instincts of humanity, its wider comprehensiveness, and its more dignified and decorous ritual. ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... appointed ritual to the dessert. Came the wine and Snagsby placed the cigars and a little silver lamp ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... there remains a difficulty. Long before the age of toleration, when each state had an established religion, the people in general formed their habits of religious observance in connection with the State Church—its doctrines, its ritual, its buildings, and its sacred places. When disruption took place, the separatists formed themselves into societies on the original model, merely dropping the matters of disagreement. Fixity of creed and of ritual was still enacted; the only remedy for dissatisfaction on either subject ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... exception, appeared to him to have obtained the gift of tongues, inasmuch as they accurately replied to the matters in Latin, which were addressed to them by their exorcists, and which were not borrowed from the ritual, still less arranged by any preconcert; they frequently explained themselves in Latin—sometimes in entire periods, sometimes in broken sentences;" "that all or almost all of them were proved to have introvision (cognizance de l'interieur) ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... of the State, and every father in Al-Islam was made priest and pontiff in his own house, able unaided to marry himself, to circumcise (to baptise as it were) his children, to instruct them in the law and canonically to bury himself (vol. viii. 22). Ritual, properly so called, there was none; congregational prayers were merely those of the individual en masse, and the only admitted approach to a sacerdotal order were the Olema or scholars learned in the legistic and the Mullah or schoolmaster. By thus abolishing the priesthood ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... first big thing that looms in sight is the fact that this was the golden age of Christian faith. Everywhere the Cross, the symbol of salvation, met the eye. It was the age when men lived in one faith, used one ritual, professed one creed, accepted a common doctrine and moral standard and breathed a common religious atmosphere. Heresy was not wholly absent but it was the exception. Religion regarded then not as an accident or an incident of life but as a benign influence permeating the ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... to do so, had knelt upon the seats, whilst the others joined their hands, or repeatedly made the sign of the cross; and when the murmured prayers were followed by the Litanies of the ritual, every voice rose, an ardent desire for the remission of the man's sins and for his physical and spiritual cure winging its flight heavenward with each successive Kyrie eleison. Might his whole life, of which they knew nought, be forgiven him; might he enter, stranger ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... no reason to suppose that the kiva was a necessity in the ancient performance of the Tusayan ritual, and there are still performed many ceremonials as secret and as sacred as any others which occur in rooms used as dwellings or for the storage of corn. Thus, the Flute ceremony, one of the most complicated in Tusayan, is not, and according ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes
... much recitation by the priests, reading from the ritual of the Church, swinging of censers, singing by the chorus of male voices, chanting and intonation, and responses by the victims. There were frequent signs of the cross with bowing or kneeling. A ring was used, and afterwards two crowns ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... redoubled violence on the days of solemn festivals. So artfully were they framed and disposed throughout the year, that superstition always wore the appearance of pleasure, and often of virtue. Some of the most sacred festivals in the Roman ritual were destined to salute the new calends of January with vows of public and private felicity; to indulge the pious remembrance of the dead and living; to ascertain the inviolable bounds of property; to hail, on the return of spring, the genial ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... dead. She had placed candles on either side of the bed, and laid a cross on the poor child's breast. Drake was quite shocked when he saw this Papistical arrangement. But it afterwards came out that Mrs. Morley had been educated in a convent, and had imbibed certain notions of the Romish ritual for the dead that, her memory reviving, made her act thus, in spite of her openly confessed belief in the communion of the English Church. While she was thus sitting and weeping, Morley looked in. He was wild and haggard, but in his eyes glared ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... day forward, we were sworn cronies. The Fullah at once wrote down a favorite prayer in Arabic, requiring as my spiritual guide, that I should commit it to memory for constant and ready use. After a day or two, he examined me in the ritual; but, finding I was at fault after the first sentence, reproached me pathetically upon my negligence and exhorted me to repentance,—much to the edification of our interpreter, who was ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... attempted to make a survey of the whole of European 'Witchcraft', but have confined myself to an intensive study of the cult in Great Britain. In order, however, to obtain a clearer understanding of the ritual and beliefs I have had recourse to French and Flemish sources, as the cult appears to have been the same throughout Western Europe. The New England records are unfortunately not published in extenso; this is the more unfortunate as the extracts already given to the public ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... of butterflies or house-flies, and for this reason no one will kill them. On the other hand, in Westphalia the butterfly plays the part given to the scapegoat in other countries, and on St Peter's Day, in February, it is publicly expelled with rhyme and ritual. Elsewhere, as in Samoa—I do not know where I found all these facts—probably in The Golden Bough—the butterfly has been feared as a god, and to catch a butterfly was to run the risk of being struck dead. The moth, for all I know, may be the centre of as many ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... which Charles I. settled by nominating William Beale. Beale was originally a Trinity man, but had been for about a year Master of Jesus. He was a supporter of Laud; he embellished the Chapel, and introduced a more ornate ritual; under his influence St. John's seems to have been the only College at Cambridge which fully complied with Laud's instructions. Thus when the Puritans got the upper hand, Beale and his College were the subject ...
— St. John's College, Cambridge • Robert Forsyth Scott
... brought down from their sheds, and on the rollers for the launching he-goats were bound so that the keels slid blood-stained into the sea. This was the 'roller-reddening,' a custom bequeathed from their forefathers, though the old men of the place muttered darkly that the ritual had been departed from, and that in the great days it was the blood not of goats, but of captive foemen that had reddened the galleys and ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... which they have never been more distractingly mixed up with one another. Henry VII had saved money for twenty-five years. His three successors had spent it lavishly for fifty. Henry VIII had kept the Church Catholic in ritual while making it purely national in government. The Lord Protector Somerset had made it as Protestant as possible under Edward VI. Mary had done her best to bring it back to the Pope. Home affairs were full of doubts ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... thoughtful boy, of an emotional temperament which responded to every appeal of beauty, whether of form, color, sound, or ethics, Walter easily fell in with his uncle's designs for him, and rivaled him in the fervor of his devotion to the esthetic ritual ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... Vedic ritual. The prayers that a Brahmin now says three times a day are the same selections of Vedic verses as were used as prayer verses two or three thousand years ago. A little insight into the life of an ordinary Hindu of the present ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... is part of the ritual of business, as in other Oriental countries. Shop-keepers serve it to the customer before the argument starts. Recently, a New York barber got some valuable publicity because he regaled his customers with tea and music. It was "old stuff". The Arabian and Turkish barber shops ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... of the Order were set forth by Stephens in the secret ritual. "Open and public association having failed after a struggle of centuries to protect or advance the interest of labor, we have lawfully constituted this Assembly," and "in using this power of organized effort and cooperation, we but imitate the example of capital heretofore set in numberless ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... Beginning, and the Soul, deathless as God. When the duty which calls us now is happily done, if you choose to go with me, I will show you the sacred library of our priesthood; among others, the Book of the Dead, in which is the ritual to be observed by the soul after Death has despatched it on its journey to judgment. The ideas—God and the Immortal Soul—were borne to Mizraim over the desert, and by him to the banks of the Nile. ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... was done! They were one, never more to part until the coffin-lid closed over one or the other. They were kneeling together now, and the vicar was rapidly repeating some psalms and prayers. But Frank's mind was not with the ritual. He looked slantwise at the graceful, girlish figure by his side. Her hair hung beautifully over her white neck, and the reverent droop of her head was lovely to his eyes. So gentle, so humble, so good, so beautiful, and all his, his sworn life-companion for ever! A gush of tenderness ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... limited to the inner and private worship of the Supreme God, and to the eternal duties of morality, is the pure and simple religion of the Evangel, the true theism. The other, established in one country only, gives that country its own gods, its own tutelary patrons; it has its own dogmas and ritual, and all foreigners are deemed to be infidels. Such were all the ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... familiar with all the details of the ceremonial law. Certainly better to be familiar with the Apostles' Creed, than to know all about the building of the Temple. Better be able to repeat and understand the Lord's Prayer, than to have a clear knowledge of the elaborate ritual of the Temple service. Better understand the meaning of Christ's two Sacraments than to be able to tell all about the great ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding
... following a century-old ritual. Wolden was relieved of command and Ato was given ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... the service of this body. Sometimes the central body is narrow, as in the case of the more orthodox Protestant denominations; sometimes it is liberal, as in the case of the Unitarians and Universalists. [11] But always there is a distinctive form of organization, or type of ritual, or doctrine of belief, or spirit of association, which binds these separate churches into a single group; and always this distinctive feature is something which had its origin, and still finds its vitality, in ...
— A Statement: On the Future of This Church • John Haynes Holmes
... anxiety to assure one's own salvation. Some churches are empty, dead; they have no message for the people, no vision wherewith to inspire the young. They might with advantage close, and their clergy be employed upon some useful national service. Ritual and incantations are doubtless useful aids to religious worship and the necessary quietude of mind, but they are losing their hold over souls to whom religious life has become a matter of social service. These are of the order ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... "I know the ritual by heart, Steve. It's been in every show in the country for the last year, but I didn't know you had to go through it every time you went out-of-doors! Halves, number one all x, two all ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... of poet-scholars which lasted on into the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, though losing the higher sentiment which inspired it—the coronation of the poets with the laurel wreath. The origin of this system in the Middle Ages is obscure, and the ritual of the ceremony never became fixed. It was a public demonstration, an outward and visible expression of literary enthusiasm, and naturally its form was variable. Dante, for instance, seems to have understood it in the sense of a half-religious consecration; ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... days in circumstances of the utmost respectability; and shocked at the poverty of the display he had been glad to learn that a more Christian gift of tea, clothes, snuff, and tobacco was added outside the Church door when the ceremony was over. But even so its ritual had not attracted him: it had lost its human values, and seemed to have been kept in life ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... the outer office. It was his practice to sleep from nine-thirty until eleven, when "Bob" fetched him a glass of orange juice with a "spike" in it. This refreshing beverage filled him with new energy to tackle the issues of the day, and thereupon began a routine as fixed as some religious ritual. First, he smacked his lips, then he cleared his throat loudly several times, after which his chair creaked as he massaged his rheumatic leg. Promptly upon the count of twenty he emerged from the inner office, slamming the ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... of Roman form, With the grave ritual brought from England's shore, And with the simple faith which asks no more Than that the ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... skies in books, and books in skies, and in every orderly section of social life magic possibilities of vagrancy. But he was also a Cockney, a lover of limit, civic tradition, the uniform of all ritual. He liked exceptions, because, in every other instance, he would approve of the rule. He broke bounds with exquisite decorum. There was in all his excesses ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... good, in ritual trained, Pure from the bath, with thoughts restrained, Hasted those verses to repeat Which make the sacrifice complete. The hosts celestial came in view, And Rama to the cot withdrew, While a sweet sense of rapture stole Through the unequalled hero's soul. ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... 'O son of Kunti, Bharadwaja returned to his hermitage after performing the ritual duties of the day, and having collected the sacrificial fuel. And because his son had been slain, the sacrificial fires which used to welcome him everyday, did not on that day come forward to welcome ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... skill in conventionalising the human figure and other objects.[3] Tombs and temples, columns and obelisks are completely covered with graphic representations of peaceful home pursuits, warlike expeditions and battle scenes, and—though not till a late period—descriptions of ritual and mythological delineations of the supposed spirit-world which the soul has entered after death. These pictures, together with the hieroglyphic inscriptions—which are in themselves a series of pictures—not ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith
... Ashtoreth, of Marduk and of Ormuzd pass on the torch of their day to their successors who were Greeks and Romans. The Eleusinian mysteries, which at a later time were associated with a considerable amount of sensual, closely guarded ritual, were, in the Greek period, celebrated in the temple of Ceres in Eleusis. The origin of these sacred mysteries is lost in the shadow of profound antiquity. We know, only, that they were in the safekeeping ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various
... neglected to-day. Near her one of the older men, more rigid in his observances than the generality of Ahmed Ben Hassan's followers, was placidly absorbed in his devotions, prostrating himself and fulfilling his ritual with the sublime lack of self-consciousness of the ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... secret order or fraternity, with a ritual similar to other fraternal orders, its membership is open to any one of good character, and the local granges frequently hold "open" meetings to which all the people of the community are invited. The strength of the Grange as a community organization is largely due to two ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... perspective through the bronze portals, which you know, I suppose, are covered with relievos of the finest workmanship. These noble valves were thrown wide open, and we passed between to examine the alabaster fount in the baptistery, constructed after the primitive ritual, and exquisitely wrought. Many palm trees appear amongst the carved work, which seems to indicate the former connections of the Pisanese ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... from thence proceeded to the grave, near the opposite extremity of the cemetery, which was destined to be the final resting place of the aged patriot. The persons who composed the cortege having been formed in order round the grave, the sublime and solemn ritual of the Church of England was read in a feeling and impressive manner by the Very Reverend the Dean, the coffin being at the proper period of the service committed to the bosom of the earth in profound ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... ascetic, harsh and bigoted in the company of his equals whether clerical or lay, but with his flock tender and comprehending and patient. The only indulgence he accorded to his senses was in the forms and ceremonies of his ritual, the vestments and furniture of his church. His vicar was able to give him a free hand in the obscure squalor of Lima Street; the ecclesiastical battles he himself had to fight with bishops who were pained or with ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... Often-times, but not always, it is wise and long-sighted policy to presume in nations higher qualities than they have, and developments beyond what really exist. But as to religion, there can be no doubt, and no debate at all. To exterminate their filthy and bloody abominations of creed and of ritual practice, is the first step to any serious improvement of the Kandyan people: it is the conditio sine qua non of all regeneration for this demoralized race. And what we ought to have promised, all that in mere civil equity we had the right to promise; was—that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... "Washael," and afterwards to answer, "Drinkhael," to drain the cup in full measure, or to share it with one other, to kiss together when the cup was passed. The custom was commenced as I have shown you, and we observe this ritual yet, as well I know, in the rich ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... rostro. Aparecen por el fondo don Rafael, Mara, y tras ellos tres personas (que no hablan), Cirila, otra criada, el sacristn de la parroquia sin sotana, que trae un saco de damasco 345 rojo con ropas eclesisticas y varios objetos de culto envueltos en telas, crucifijo, candeleros, libro de ritual. Entran sin ser vistos en las habitaciones particulares de Len por la puerta lateral del foro. Mara permanece ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... went into the little boudoir it happened that Hyacinth was turning her back to him. It was usually a part of their ritual that she came to meet him. So this seemed ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... was a household service, the ritual of our feastings and mournings; and often it rehearsed for us the tales of many lands, or, best of all, the legends of our own. I see him, a silver-haired minstrel, touching melodious keys, playing and singing in the twilight, within sound of the rote of ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... to come Swift Wing said that it was her Medicine—when her hand was burned to the wrist in the dark ritual she had performed with the Medicine Man the night that Mitiahwe fought for her man; but Mitiahwe said it was her Medicine, the horseshoe, which brought one of Dingan's own people to the lodge—a little girl with Mitiahwe's eyes and form and her ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... combine with poetry and music in expressing the religious life of man. For the intellect alone is inadequate either to express that life as it exists, or to call it into existence where it does not exist. The tendency to ritual in our time is a tendency not to substitute aesthetic for spiritual life, though there is probably always a danger that such a substitution may be unconsciously made, but to express a religious life which cannot ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... and bishops specially connected with the church appeared upon a lower row. Then on the side walls were depicted such subjects as Justinian and Theodora among their courtiers, or the grant of the privileges of the church to its first founder from imperial patrons, with symbols of the old Hebraic ritual—Abel's lamb, the sacrifice of Isaac, Melchisedec's offering of bread and wine,—which were regarded as the types of Christian ceremonies. The baptistery was adorned with appropriate mosaics ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... commenced while he was in prison. He would admit none but those who, by a godly conversation, brought forth fruits meet for repentance, nor dared he to refuse any who were admitted to spiritual communion with the Redeemer. Every sect which celebrated the Lord's Supper, fenced the table round with ritual observances, except the Baptist church at Bedford, which stood preeminent for non-sectarianism. A singular proof of this is, that the catechism called Instruction of the Ignorant, written and published by Bunyan, is admirably ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... it was also with love; she was born to be a priestess of love's religion. She had waited for this hour—that she might take his hand, and lead him into the temple, and teach him the ritual. It was a ministry that she entered upon with the joy of all her being. "Ah, let me teach you how to love!" she would cry. "Ah, let me teach you how ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... Lilly's dresses had descended to her shoe tops and until the ritual came to have a distinctly ridiculous aspect, there took place the one pleasantry in which Lilly and her father ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... lofty figure in his words, and the vision of Scotland's lowly altars and thatched cathedrals rose before me. No man could mistake the ritual of which that ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... him to sit beside him, and tried to entertain him with conversation, but Febrer did not take his eyes off Almond Blossom, who, faithful to the ritual of such occasions, was seated in a chair in the center of the room, receiving the admiration of her suitors with the demeanor ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... upward as though seeking among the tiny, far-winking stars the words of some half-forgotten ritual, and her voice rose ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... reason to owe this faith unto history;" and that "they only had the advantage of a bold and noble faith, who lived before his coming; and, upon obscure prophecies, and mystical types, could raise a belief." Nor can contempt of the positive and ritual parts of religion be imputed to him, who doubts, whether a good man would refuse a poisoned eucharist; and "who would violate his own arm, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... materials. Craving for sympathy in artistic type. Evolution of tone-language. French writer of 1835. Prince of Waldthurn, in 1690. Spencer's theory. Controversy and answer. Music of primeval man and early civilizations. The Vedas. Hebrew scriptures. Basis of scientific laws. Church ritual. Folk-music. Influence of crusades. Modern music architect of its own fortunes. Present musical vocabulary and literature. Counsel of Pythagoras. What Plato taught. Euripides on song. Auerbach. Martin Luther. Napoleon Bonaparte. Bain and Dr. Marx. Shakespeare, in ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... regularly, which everybody was supposed to attend; but Elsie did not object. She is always interested in ritual. And the singing was often of negro spirituals, which she is collecting. She has a recording phonograph nowadays, that she takes around with her, to ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... these domestic matters very deeply as there were so many more important things to interest us both. He wanted to know all about you and our plans, and naturally I wanted to know all about the Fung and the ritual and traditions connected with the worship of Harmac, so that we were never dull for a single moment. In fact, I wish that we could have had longer together, for we became excellent friends. But whatever happens, I think ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... not the family place of worship. When Mrs. Wheeler and Marjory attended service, it was at St. Mark's, but Sylvia made her devotions at St. Jude's, a church famous in that district for its high Anglicanism and stately ritual. ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... good sermon from Dr. Battershall, at St. Peter's, on "Seeing Him who is invisible,"—the Apostle's definition of faith. We remained to Holy Communion. He is evidently fond of ritual, but there was nothing really objectionable. In the evening we all went to Judge Parker's, and Mrs. Parker, who had not left her room for some weeks, came down to see me, and is a very nice old lady; all the daughters ...
— The British Association's visit to Montreal, 1884: Letters • Clara Rayleigh
... pleased Pharaoh, the just and perfect, to depart to his everlasting habitation in Osiris. Make it known that this god is dead, and that I rule alone in Egypt. Send hither the priest of Osiris, that he may repeat the Ritual of Departing, and you, physicians, ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... Scott; and there was already a certain consciousness of artistic necessities and congruities which made me dimly aware that if you admit the glories of ecclesiastical architecture, it is only the asceticism of Puritan rebellion against art that can deny magnificence to ritual. I had occasionally, though rarely, been present at High Mass, and had felt a certain elevating influence, and if I had said to myself, "Religion is only a poem by which the soul is raised to the contemplation of the Eternal Mysteries," then I could have dreamed vaguely ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... plundering of their temples, magnificent statues were erected to their honour; priests were selected from among the most distinguished families of the city; sacrifices and victims, according to the Greek ritual, (if I may use that expression,) were offered up to them; in a word, nothing was omitted which could be thought conducive in any manner to appease and propitiate the angry goddesses. After this, the defence of the city was the next object of their care. Happily for the Carthaginians, ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... had gone past the dead letter, and revealed its spirit and its life. Suddenly he felt himself removed, as it were, to an almost impossible distance from the heaven into which, as he had complacently flattered himself, he should enter by the door of mere ritual observances, when the sad hour came for giving up the delightful things of this pleasant world. No wonder that Mr. Braxton was disturbed—no wonder that, in his first convictions touching those more interior truths, which made visible the sandy foundations whereon ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur
... time of the Upanishads, that is about 600 B.C., we trace three clear currents in Indian religion which have persisted until the present day. The first is ritual. This became extraordinarily complicated but retained its primitive and magical character. The object of an ancient Indian sacrifice was partly to please the gods but still more to coerce them by certain acts and formulae[6]. Secondly all Hindus ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... obsequiousness. He offered the overcoat to the old gentleman's arms with the same air. Then he held up the collar of the greatcoat with one hand and with the other reached under its skirts, and drew down the Captain's long day coat with little jerks, as if he were going through a ritual. ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... parallel between Buddhistic ritual, discipline, and costume, and those which especially claim the name of CATHOLIC in the Christian Church, has been often noticed; and though the parallel has never been elaborated as it might be, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... remain on any straight roadway for more than seconds. But now when he had a choice of turnings, he had a reason for each choice. He twisted and dodged about—once he almost ran into children playing a ritual game—but the sum total of his movements was steadily southward. Paras were turned out of the south gate. That gate, alone, would be the one where someone could go out with ...
— The Hate Disease • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... the gap although it was not yet morning. I heard a rattling and sometimes caught a flash from those golden dragons far away below me that are the triumph of the goldsmiths of Sirdoo and were given life by the ritual incantations of the conjurer Amargrarn. On the edge of the opposite cliff, too near I thought for safety, I saw the ivory palace of Singanee that mighty elephant-hunter; small lights appeared in windows, the ...
— Tales of Three Hemispheres • Lord Dunsany
... the mass, and auricular confessions. He turned the altars into communion tables, set up the singing of psalms in the service, caused the communion to be administered in both kinds to the laity, added the litany to the ritual, prepared a book of homilies for the clergy, invited learned men to settle in England, and magnificently endowed ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... in exchange. The ticket startled him, especially as he saw no notice on the walls that the management would not be responsible for articles not deposited in the cloakroom. Nobody inquired about his identity, and without further ritual he was asked to ascend towards regions whence came the faint sound of music. At the top of the stairs a young and handsome man, faultless alike in costume and in manners, suavely ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... relation to the Maya pantheon and to certain religious and domestic functions, admit of the conclusion, that these figures of gods embody the essential part of the religious conceptions of the Maya peoples in a tolerably complete form. For here we have the entire ritual year, the whole chronology with its mythological relations and all accessories. In addition to this, essentially the same figures recur in all three manuscripts. Their number is not especially large. There are about fifteen figures of gods in human form ...
— Representation of Deities of the Maya Manuscripts • Paul Schellhas
... other things, we believe ourselves the true followers of Christ, whose doctrine we seek to make our life as He made it His. We have several forms of ritual, but no form of creed, and our religious differences may be said to be aesthetic and temperamental rather than theological and essential. We have no denominations, for we fear in this, as in other matters, to give names to things lest we should cling to the ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... to the spot whence she had risen, and lay down. There was a kind of ritual in the act. It was not now a mere stricken, physical crouching as when she had turned away from Claude. It was something more significant. It was withdrawal from work, from life, from all the demands she had put forth ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... what was almost entirely lacking was practical religion. The Greek thinkers had created systems of philosophy and morals, but the traditional worship had degenerated into a mere spectacle. Even among the Jews the old religion had become a rigid temple ritual, which offered but little comfort and hope to the weak heart of man. In the eyes of the majority of the philosophers of the age every religion was only pernicious superstition, good enough for the masses, but scarcely worth consideration by the cultured. That Celsus ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... no more than an outward and visible separation unto God; the priests in the temple and the vessels of their ministry were said to be ceremonially "holy." But more is implied in the term as it occurs in the text and kindred passages than a mere ritual and external sanctity. It consists in the possession of that mind which was also in Christ Jesus, in the reinstatement in us of that image of God which was lost by the disobedience of the fall. You will remember numerous scriptures ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... reproach in its forgotten familiarity. Old incense, old litanies, old rites rushed back to him with the smell of the stagnant fragrance. He heard again from the farther depths of the dark interior the musical monotone of a rabbi reciting a ritual. The voice was young and low. Presently he heard the responses spoken in a woman's voice, so tender, so soft and so sad that he sensed instantly the meaning of the sympathy in the young priest's voice. ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... shrines as they approve; thus insuring their souls, as it were, at several different offices. Church architecture may be simplified, for it will require nothing but a card-basket. The clergyman will celebrate his solemn ritual, and will then look in that convenient receptacle for the names of his fellow-worshippers, as a fine lady, after her "reception," looks over the cards her footman hands her, to know which of her dear friends she has been welcoming. Religion, ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... fair, my fair-hair'd Mary, My life-time love, my own! The vows I heard, when my kindest dearie Was bound to me alone, By covenant true, and ritual holy, Gave happiness all but divine; Nor needed there more to transport me wholly, Than the friends ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... direction broke forth in another; and although they no longer went formally astray from a religion which did not suit their depravity, they, by many vain and mischievous fancies, fabricated a religion suited to their dispositions out of the ritual ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley
... all around the Course. He would stand behind them at the Tee and smile in a most calm and superior Manner while they sand-shuffled and shifted and jiggled and joggled and went through the whole calisthenic Ritual of St. Vitus. ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... of the barren tree of theology. Her theology, like the Judaism of the Master's day, has no prophets, no poets, no singers. And her priests, as in his time, have sunk into a fanatical observance of ritual and form." ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... on saying that 'by-and-by' they would make an end of their wild ritual, and throw down their enclosures, and at the same time they thronged to talk to him at the Mission station, and built a shed to serve for a school ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Constant reference is made to the opposition of these personages to the introduction of Christianity. In the light of recent investigation the cause of this antagonism is seen to lie in the fact that the traditions of Indian genesis and cosmogony and the ritual of initiation into the Society of the Mid[-e] constitute what is to them a religion, even more powerful and impressive than the Christian religion is to the average civilized man. This opposition still exists among the leading classes of a number of ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... through the Gospel," even to the Jews, is to contend for a position against all evidence. If from the Jews we turn to the Pagan thinkers, immortality is proclaimed by them long before the Jews have dreamed about it. The Egyptians, in their funeral ritual, went through the judgment of the soul before Osiris: "The resurrection of the dead to a second life had been a deep-rooted religious opinion among the Egyptians from the earliest times" ("Egyptian Mythology," Sharpe, p. 52), ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... maintaining it as an organised civilisation will or will not be solved. All the conditions are so completely new, our whole machinery of government so thoroughly presupposes a little aristocratic agricultural state, and our strong attachment to form and ritual so hampers all attempts at reorganisation, that the way in which we shall answer, if we do answer, the question of this sphinx, cannot as ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc
... that time, are reported to tell the same story. They say that the meaning of the church service whither they had accompanied their parents, and of the kneeling to pray, had been absolutely unintelligible, and a standing puzzle to them. The ritual touched no chord in their untaught natures that responded in unison. Very much of what we fondly look upon as a natural religious sentiment is ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... His ritual consisted in devoting one week to the cultivation of each of these virtues. He had no Sabbath, no preached Gospel, no Sacraments. But his creed, with its corresponding practice, certainly exerted a very powerful influence, and in many respects beneficial, ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... young printer was thrust down into the depths and made to wrestle with the powers of darkness; and in the remorse of soul that came over him he made a liturgy to be repeated night and morning, and at midday. There were many items in this ritual—all of which were corrected and amended from time to time in after-years. Here are a few paragraphs that represent the longings and trend of the lad's heart. His ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... are entirely master of astral matter, that earth cannot crush you, nor water drown you, etc. Those are, so to speak, very easy lessons. Those who belong to a Masonic body will recognise these ordeals as parts of the language they are familiar with in their Masonic ritual. ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant
... came in at the time appointed, and read the prayers. He also read, in the course of the service, the twenty-ninth chapter of Matthew, which narrates the closing scenes of our Saviour's life. This was, in fact, the regular lesson for the day, according to the Episcopal ritual, which assigns certain portions of Scripture to every day of the year. The king supposed that the bishop had purposely selected this passage, and he thanked him for it, as he said it seemed to him very appropriate to the occasion. "May it please your majesty," said the bishop, "it is the ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... often made by religious organisations, which depend so largely upon symbolism, is the terrible limiting of this symbolism to traditional ceremonies and venerable ritual. It has been said that religion is the only form of poetry accessible to the poor; and it is true in the sense that anything which hallows and quickens the most normal and simple experiences of lives divorced from intellectual and artistic influences is a very real and true kind of symbolism. ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... for her wealth and hated her for her pride, "And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her—that she died! "How shall the ritual, then, be read?—the requiem how be sung "By you—by yours, the evil eye,—by yours, the slanderous tongue "That did to death the innocence that ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... though it rely upon slight evidence, one has the feeling of walking on a firm road. But it must be "common sense"—it must be of the sort, that is, which is common to man various and general, and it is in this perhaps that history suffers most from the charlatanism and ritual common to ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... me that these were conventional modes by which the conversation was launched every day, like the preliminary moves in chess. We had another ritual for dinner: Miss Hicks then inquired if the colonel had taken his ride, and Flaherty played his game of golf. The next inevitable step was common to both meals. Colonel Escott would pour himself a glass of the vin ordinaire, a jug of which was set by every plate, and holding ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... drop of blood. From the summit of our mountain he hath promulgated his laws, traced in evident characters on the tables of nature. From the East to the West they will be understood without the aid of interpreters, comments, or miracles. Every other ritual will be torn in pieces at the appearance of that of reason. Reason dethrones both the Kings of the earth, and the Kings of heaven.—No monarch above, if we wish to ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... ceremony of 'The Blessing and the Curse' to be an institution of the promised land: representatives of the Blessing are to stand on one mountain and representatives of the Curse on the opposite slope, the whole ritual solemnly enforcing the sanctity of the Covenant. At present however the people are on the wilderness side of Jordan; accordingly Moses arranges a Rehearsal of this ceremony, on ground resembling the valley between Ebal and Gerizim. ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... man increase his demand upon the illimitable wealth of Power that offered itself on every hand to him. He tamed certain animals, he developed his primordially haphazard agriculture into a ritual, he added first one metal to his resources and then another, until he had copper and tin and iron and lead and gold and silver to supplement his stone, he hewed and carved wood, made pottery, paddled down his river until he came to the sea, discovered the wheel and made the first roads. But his ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... went to Church. The negroes sat in the gallery and listened with rapt attention to the service. They joined its ritual and its songs with their white folks in equal sincerity and ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... small center of population there is a Russian State Church. In America we have been accustomed to call these Greek Catholic Churches, but they are not. The ritual and creed are admittedly rather similar, but the church government, the architecture, the sacred pictures and symbols, and the cross, are all thoroughly Russian. Until the revolution, the Czar was the State head of the Church, and the Ecclesiastical ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... three bowls of food for the men. It smelled atrocious, and Brion tried not to taste or smell the sickening mixture while he ate it. He used his fingers, as did the other men, and did not talk while he ate. There was no way to tell if the silence was ritual or habit. It gave him a chance for a closer look at the ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... us about it. Many years ago, a band of Kazaks and their priests migrated across the frontier into Turkey because they were "Old Believers;" that is to say, they belonged to the sect which refused to accept the reforms of errors (which had crept into the service-books and ritual through the carelessness of copyists and ignorance of the proper forms) instituted by the Patriarch Nikon in the time of Peter the Great's father, after consulting the Greek Patriarchs and books. In earlier times, these Old Believers burned themselves by the ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... in the least disposed to become a convert. Once for all, Catholicism is incredible and that is sufficient, but there is much in its ritual which suits me. There is no such intrusion of the person of the minister as there is in the Church of England, and still worse amongst dissenters. In the Catholic service the priest is nothing; it is his office which is everything; he is a mere means of communication. The mass, in ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... it was the consciousness that those who had these formal, separate burials were men who came alive out of the fighting, and who, even after being stricken, had a chance for life and then lost it. Perhaps it was the small show of ceremony and ritual which marked each one—the firing squad, the clergyman in his robes, the tramping escort—that left so enduring an impress upon my mind. I did not try to analyze the reasons; but I know my companions ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... age, in 1809, was celebrated at Newstead by such festivities as his narrow means and society could furnish. Besides the ritual roasting of an ox, there was a ball, it seems, given on the occasion,—of which the only particular I could collect, from the old domestic who mentioned it, was, that Mr. Hanson, the agent of her lord, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... popular young man of the neighborhood. The rudiments of a classical education gained at a reputable academy in Sackville had not detracted from his qualities as a healthy, rollicking young farmer. The lodge had an imposing ritual of which I well remember one feature. At stated intervals a password which admitted a member of any one lodge to a meeting of any other was received from the central authority—in Maine, I believe. It was never to be pronounced except to secure ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... or agent. How could Carpenter have so far forgotten his own definition of health as to applaud the primitive ritualistic worship of the glories of the human body and the procession of the stars? That ritual was itself the symptom of the break-up of man's character into multiplicity, and the insubordination of specific organs. Surely when man has gained centrality of health, he will worship the unifying will which is dominant whenever health prevails. He will adore the spirit which ...
— Is civilization a disease? • Stanton Coit
... barren, the "New England spirit" prevailed in all its severity; and this spirit seemed to her a veritable cult, a sort of religion, wherein the Old Maid was the priestess, the Spinster the officiating devotee, the thing worshipped the Great Unbeautiful, and the ritual unremitting, unrelenting ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... to lay these phantoms he could acquire the reputation for holiness he so much desired. So he answered that the Holy Scriptures recognised the existence of ghosts by relating how the witch of Endor had made the shade of Samuel appear to Saul. He went on to say that the ritual of the Church possessed means of driving away all evil spirits, no matter how persistent they were, provided that he who undertook the task were pure in thought and deed, and that he hoped soon, by the help of God, to rid the convent of its nocturnal visitants, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... secrecy and ritual appeal to them. Within six months we shall have the whole race under our control ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... of the Trinity had its own peculiar rites; and, till the period of the revolution, the community were in the habit of printing their liturgy annually in latin. A very beautiful quarto volume, containing the ritual, was published at Caen, in 1622, by the order of Laurence de Budos, then abbess. It was probably from pride at a privilege of this nature, and from a confidence in their strength, that the nuns persisted in celebrating the ridiculous, or, it might almost be ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... perfumed chapel of a romantic idolatry but the cold clean empty meeting-house of ethical enthusiasms. The ladies lived on its outskirts, as it were, in cells that left the central fane undisturbed. The very position of the furniture had come to have a ritual significance: the sparse ornaments were the offerings of kindred intellects, the steel engravings by Raphael Morghen marked the Via Sacra of a European tour, and the black-walnut desk with its bronze inkstand modelled on the Pantheon was the altar ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... ground ceremonial chambers,—where they regularly and decorously met to worship by dance, recitation of ancient songs, telling of divine leadings and interpositions on their behalf, smoking, singing, prayer, and the observance of other ritual. Thus happy, contented and basking in the favor of Those Above, they dwelt, until suddenly a new and unfavorable element was injected into their hitherto peaceful life. The buffetings of nature they had become accustomed to, and they had kept their bodies ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... that I sojourned there a considerable time, that by learning the language I might inquire into the manners of the people. The inhabitants are Mahometans and Mamelukes, with a great number of Christians who follow the Greek ritual. It may be proper in this place to give some account of the Hexarchatus or commander of Damascus, who is subject to the lieutenant of Syria, which some call sorya. There is a very strong castle or fortress, which was built by a certain Etruscan or native of Florence in Tuscany, while he was ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... other narrower streets ran parallel to these main thoroughfares. On the east side (F) was a small 'citadel'—arx or templum—with ditch, rampart and bridge of its own (G, H); in this were a trench and some pits (K) which seemed by their contents to be connected with ritual and religion. Outside the whole (L, M) were two cemeteries, platforms of urns set curiously like the village itself, and also a little burning ghat.[43] The population of the village is necessarily doubtful. ...
— Ancient Town-Planning • F. Haverfield
... on the outside, and no less so within, for the nave was lofty with noble pillars on each side. I stood during the whole of the service as did many others, for the congregation was so great that it was impossible to accommodate all with seats. The ritual was performed in a very satisfactory manner, and was followed by an excellent sermon. I am ashamed to say that have forgot the text, but I remember a good deal of the discourse. The preacher said amongst ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... But that I may proceed the more regularly in this Affair, I design, upon the first Meeting of the said Club, to have my Mouth opened in form; intending to regulate my self in this Particular by a certain Ritual which I have by me, that contains all the Ceremonies which are practised at the opening of the Mouth of a Cardinal. I have likewise examined the forms which were used of old by Pythagoras, when ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... on the anvil of my brain And beat a metal out of pageantry. Figure and form I carry in my train To load the scaffolds of Eternity. Where the masters are Building star on star; Where, in solemn ritual, The great Dead Mathematical Wait and ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... this orifice, rises a funnelled mouthpiece built of pure cement. It might be the graceful neck of some Etruscan vase. When the cell is victualled and the egg laid, this mouthpiece is closed with a cement plug; and in this plug is set a little pebble, one alone, no more: the ritual never varies. This work of rustic architecture has naught to fear from the inclemency of the weather; it does not yield to the pressure of the fingers; it resists the knife that attempts to remove it without breaking it. Its nipple shape and the bits of gravel wherewith it ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... e.g., the chapter on ritual in Gerard-Varet's interesting book, L'Ignorance et l'Irreflexion, 1899, for a popular account of this ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... life," said the Judge, "is to be the organizer of a lodge without flub-dub, gold tassel uniforms, red tape ritual, a regiment of officers with high-sounding titles, a calisthenic drill of idiotic signs and grips, a goat, and members who call each other 'brother.' I would name the presiding officer 'it,' and its first by-law would provide ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... and unchallenged presupposition of the old view was that religion was a DOCTRINE, a body of supposed truths. It was in fact what we should now call Theology, and what the ancients called Mythology. Ritual was scarcely considered at all, and, when considered, it was held to be a form in which beliefs, already defined and fixed as dogma, found a natural mode of expression. This, it will be later shown, is a profound error or rather a most misleading half-truth. Creeds, doctrines, ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... in the absence of the clergy of the Anglican Church by justices of the peace, and even the officers in charge of military posts. Magistrates were still allowed to perform the marriage ceremony according to the ritual of the Church of England, when the services of a clergyman of that denomination were not available. Not until 1830 were more liberal provisions passed and the clergy of any recognised creed permitted to ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... gleam of sunset on wet leaves, in wild and headlong gipsy rhythms, in moonfire, shimmering stuffs and flashing spray, in the garish lights and odors of the Peninsula, in rain fallen upon flowering parterres, in the melancholy march of clouds, the golden pomp and ritual of the church, the pools and gardens and pavilions reared for its delight by the delicate Chinese soul, in earth's thousand scents and shells and colors. For Debussy has set these adventures before us in their fullness. Before he spoke, he had ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... list of these fraternities is quite impossible. Commonly, thirty-two are reckoned, but many have vanished or have been suppressed, and there are sub-orders innumerable. Each has a "rule" dating back to its founder, and a ritual which the members perform when they meet together in their convent (kh[a]nq[a]h, z[a]wiya, takya). This may consist simply in the repetition of sacred phrases, or it may be an elaborate performance, such as ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... think of the five Spanish emperors;—the Goths, the Moors;—all incidents, absorbed by the changeless Iberian spirit.... Even Spanish Christianity," he continued, smiling, "is far more Spanish than it is Christian. Our life is one vast ritual. Our religion is part of it, that is all. And so are the bull-fights that so shock the English and Americans,—are they any more brutal, though, than fox-hunting and prize-fights? And how full of tradition are they, our fiestas de toros; their ceremony reaches back ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... with house building in Tusayan are quite meager, but the various steps in the ritual, described in their proper connection in the following paragraphs, are well defined and definitely assigned to those who participate in the construction of ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... supply of vessels of one worthy to become the receptacle of the water to be used. It was on the Sabbath-Day, and the dedication to God of the wee creature who had so newly come among them was a fitting observance of the day. The solemn words of the ritual of the English Church, never before spoken in that primeval forest, must have awakened mysterious vibrations which linger yet and give to Roanoak Island that atmosphere of perpetual repose which envelops it. There must have come to those who witnessed ...
— The White Doe - The Fate of Virginia Dare • Sallie Southall Cotten
... of the Jews disseminated a knowledge of their religion, it likewise suggested the approaching dissolution of the Mosaic economy, as it was apparent that their present circumstances absolutely required another ritual. It could not be expected that individuals dwelling in distant countries could meet three times in the year at Jerusalem to celebrate the great festivals. The Israelites themselves had a presentiment of coming changes, and anxiously awaited the appearance of a Messiah. They were actuated ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... the ritual, obeyed. Paliser peered into the strawberry of her throat. It was deep as a well and he ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... incarnation has also become prevalent; the incarnations of Vishnu are innumerable. The opinion has also been spread that faith in a particular god is better than contemplation, ceremonial, or good works. A new ritual, instead of the Vedas, has come into use, these scriptures being the eighteen Puranas, composed between the eighth and sixteenth centuries. They contain theogonies, accounts of the creation, philosophical speculations, fragmentary history, and may be brought to support ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... given a pair of soft sandals, and a short suit, whose one redeeming feature in his eyes was a pocket into which he had thrust the automatic that he valued so much. It was more like a picture of Rome than anything else. Whatever the civilisation of the Thomahlians, their ritual in Watson's eyes smacked ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... Here Patricia waylaid her Knight on his way down from the library, taking her position on an upper step, which made their difference in height less apparent. The same ceremony was enacted each time in accord with the ritual she had taught him. After he passed her, she suddenly sprang up to her full stature, holding her arm high above her with the palm of ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... beggar and a stranger as it were in a foreign land. In 1246, however, the Pope having threatened excommunication, the King gave way, and Richard at once began to reform his diocese, to discipline his priests, and to restore the ritual of his cathedral, and indeed of all the churches in his diocese. He lived a life of severe asceticism, and gave so much in alms that he was always a beggar. Usurers were punished by excommunication, and Jews were forbidden to build new synagogues. It ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... sentiment, and other considerations, prevented him from acquiescing in the Christian verity. The ordinary paganism shocked him, both by its obscene and undignified myths, and by many features of its ritual. He devised non-natural interpretations of its sacred legends, he looked for a visible or tangible 'sign,' and he did not shrink from investigating the thaumaturgy of his age. His letter of inquiry is preserved in fragments by Eusebius, ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... at the outset to say clearly what is the aim of the present volume. The title is Ancient Art and Ritual, but the reader will find in it no general summary or even outline of the facts of either ancient art or ancient ritual. These facts are easily accessible in handbooks. The point of my title and the real gist of my argument lie perhaps in the word "and"—that is, in the intimate connection which I have tried to show exists between ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... of confusion into which ecclesiastical music had fallen, rendered it inevitable that some notice of so grave a scandal should be taken by the Fathers of the Tridentine Council in their deliberations on reform of ritual. It appears, therefore, that in their twenty-second session (September 17, 1562) they enjoined upon the Ordinaries to 'exclude from churches all such music as, whether through the organ or the singing, introduces anything of ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... and warriors of the great Iroquois Council, it was George Mansion who was chosen as special escort to the royal visitor—George Mansion and his ancient and honored father, who, hand-in-hand with the young prince, walked to and fro, chanting the impressive ritual of bestowing the title. Even Bismarck, the "Iron Chancellor" of Germany, heard of this young Indian warring for the welfare of his race, and sent a few kindly words, with his own photograph, from across seas to encourage the one ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... a Knight Templar in Rapier Commandery and was one of its past eminent commanders. He was a member of the Scottish Rite bodies in the Valley of Indianapolis in the early days and performed his work with a ritual perfection unsurpassed. He received the thirty-third and last degree as a merited honor for ...
— Spalding's Official Baseball Guide - 1913 • John B. Foster
... one-bow prayers, without call to prayer or repetition thereof by the devotee, who shall make in each two standings up and two inclinations and two prostrations, then sit up and testify and salute.' (Q.) 'What is the ritual of prayer for rain?' (A.) 'Two one-bow prayers, without call to prayer or repetition; then shall the devotee make the profession and salute. Moreover [the Imam] shall deliver an exhortation and (in place of the magnification, as in the two exhortations of the two ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... The oak leaves fall Like silent benedictions Closing Autumn's gorgeous ritual, And we, upborne by worship, Lift our eyes to the altar ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Marjorie Allen Seiffert
... her father did not go to church, Kate walked over to the chapel and heard mass. The contrast with Saint Mary Moorfields was great. The sermon disappointed her. It was little more than simple insistence on ritual duty. She reflected, however, that it was not addressed to her, but to those who had been brought up to believe. As she walked home a strange conflict arose in her. On the one hand were her imperious ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... first night we came to change sentinels—I felt embarrassed, as I do not know the ritual; but—there is nothing military about these things nowadays, all is abolished. The soldiers come to change sentinels, talk freely, laugh loudly. Instead of military traditions—like parole, pass-words, exchange of ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... resemble. Against whom does he rage? What Church is it whose sacred vessels, lamps, and ornaments he is pillaging, whose ritual he overthrows? Whose golden patens and silver chalices, sumptuous votive offerings and rich treasure, does he envy? Why, the man is a Lutheran all over. With what other cloak did our Nimrods[4] cover their brigandage, when they ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion |
