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Ablution

noun
1.
The ritual washing of a priest's hands or of sacred vessels.



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"Ablution" Quotes from Famous Books



... was performing ablution, he found he had not sufficient water. When the hour of prayer came on, he stood like a goose on one foot. 'O Cogia Efendi,' said the people, 'why do you do so?' 'Because,' said the Cogia, 'this foot ...
— The Turkish Jester - or, The Pleasantries of Cogia Nasr Eddin Effendi • Nasreddin Hoca

... prison!" The words were no sooner out of his mouth, than there was a sudden start, and a general scramble in the dark for our respective garments. When we got dressed, we proceeded to the waters of the lake, in which we washed our face and hands, repeating prayers during the ablution. This to me was the most impressive and agreeable part of the whole station. The night, while we were in bed, or rather in torture, had become quite stormy, and the waves of the lake beat against the shore with the violence of an agitated sea. There was just sufficient moon ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton

... actually climbed into a bath, the more satisfactorily to emphasize its advantages. As he sat there, faithfully reproducing the various movements of the arms, universally, I suppose, employed in the process of ablution, the living picture which he presented, put an obviously severe strain upon the gravity of my companion. And when, in response to a daringly ingenuous thirst for intelligence on my part, he proceeded to demonstrate the comparative ease with which a left-handed bather, suffering from sciatica, ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates

... declined and returned to their own place, to rest from the great heat of the bath. So they took their ease there and ate and drank and passed that night in perfect solace and satisfaction, till morning dawned, when they arose from sleep and making their lesser ablution, prayed the dawn- prayer and drank the morning draught.[FN27] As soon as the sun had risen and the shops and markets opened, they arose and going forth from their place to the bazar opened their shop, which their servants had already furnished, after ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... means for ablution by a few bathing-troughs in their wash-room. An old man gave me quite an amusing description of the operation, thus: "The bathing department here is a wonderful institution. They will march a file of men into the wash-room, old and ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby

... grief with hers have share, One mourn a husband, one a son bewail! Then call upon my ghost with holy prayer, And pour ablution o'er their ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus

... knee inseam'd remain'd the scar; Which noted token of the woodland war When Euryclea found, the ablution ceased: Down dropp'd the leg, from her slack hand released; The mingled fluids from the base redound; The vase reclining floats the floor around! Smiles dew'd with tears the pleasing strife express'd Of grief and joy, alternate in her breast. Her fluttering words ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... them. Forthwith Despair— More keen that one of these was rotten— Moved me to seek some forest lair Where I might hide and dwell forgotten, Attired in skins, by berries stained, Absolved from brushes and ablution;— But, ere my sylvan haunt was gained, Fate gave me up ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... host allowed me to make a toilet in his back room behind the store. It consisted of a superficial ablution and the loan of a handkerchief. Mammy was not in. A neighbor of her sex and color offered me a chair in her house, but I sat ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden

... walks out. These he throws behind him one by one, carefully guarding against the least glance backwards, and at each cast he says, 'With these beans I ransom myself and mine.' The spirits of his ancestors follow him and gather the beans as they fall. Then, performing another ablution as he enters his house, he clashes cymbals of brass, or rather some household utensil of that metal, entreating the spirits to quit his roof. He then repeats nine times these words, 'Avaunt ye ancestral manes.' After this he looks behind, and is ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier

... was the custom in England, and everyone ought to be proud of belonging to so clean and respectable a country. She, therefore, insisted that Nos. 6 and 7 should retire up-stairs and perform the necessary ablution, or otherwise they would be turned out, and not allowed ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty

... motive may not seem to be very reasonable, still the result is of great advantage to those believers who occupy thirty-three days in taking the thirty-three baths, for otherwise the majority of them would never undergo any form of ablution. ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others

... or shortly after, bathing is but too frequently left off; the hands and face of the child are kept clean, and with this the nurse is satisfied; the daily ablution of the whole body, however, is still necessary, not only for the preservation of cleanliness, but because it promotes in a high degree ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.

... deck was usually flooded when the vessel had any speed on her, there were soon loud cries for mercy. When it was not prudent to adopt this plan, a bucket of water was thrown at the sleeper's head; this produced the idea of having to swim for it. I have often seen the culprit after an ablution of this character strike out on the deck until his hands or his head came in contact with something harder than either, and made ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman

... His face and hands must be washed, his hair and teeth brushed: many, indeed, will perform all over what Keats, thinking of the ocean eternally washing the land, has called a 'priestlike task of pure ablution'; but others, faithful to tradition and Saturday night, will dodge this as wasteful. Downstairs in summer is his hat; in winter, his hat, his overcoat, his muffler, and, if the weather compels, his galoshes and perhaps his ear-muffs or ear-bobs. Last thing of all, the Perfect Gentleman will ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren

... endowed trustees, of parks, gardens, and museums of art or science, as well as of baths and orchestras. Of music in particular he said: "I think sometimes could I only have music on my own terms; could I ... know where I could go whenever I wished the ablution and inundation of musical waves,—that were a bath and a medicine." It has been a long road from that sentence, written probably in the forties, to the Symphony Orchestra in this Hall, and to the new singing classes on the East Side of New ...
— Four American Leaders • Charles William Eliot

... removed by washing or bathing, they at last obstruct the pores and irritate the skin. It is apparently for this reason that, in the Eastern and warmer countries, where perspiration is very copious, ablution and bathing have assumed the rank and importance of religious observances. Those who are in the habit of using the flesh-brush daily are at first surprised at the quantity of white dry scurf which it brings off; and those who take a warm bath for half an hour at long intervals can not ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... getting a few mouthfuls, but they were not worth consideration. I myself whiled away the time by enjoying a wash at the pump and giving myself the luxury of a shave. I bought a small cake of coarse soap and never enjoyed an ablution so keenly as that al fresco wash, shave, shampoo, and brush-up at Sennelager. When I came back thoroughly refreshed I had changed my appearance so completely that I was scarcely recognised. Even the soldiers looked at me twice to make sure I was ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... John Bulls that keep up such a swashing and swabbing and spattering round all the water basins, one might think from the fuss they make about it that a bird never took a bath here before, and that they were the missionaries of ablution to the unwashed ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... Sunny was forced to an unwilling ablution, which, by strategy, he had hoped to escape. However, the ordeal was manfully borne, and his reward was quite worth his trouble. Vada promptly exclaimed when she saw his face emerge from the dirty towel, shining with grease off ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... in all directions, before chancing to descend to earth and breakfast; nor need we see the panther skulking from his lair to know that he has stopped to lick his paw and pass it over his face—the feline morning ablution. Each creature has a particular mode of resurrection after its hours of mimic death; and so I, on a bed of whatsoever it may be, yawn hideously and stretch my arms and grumble: O, Lord, how I hate to get up! Indeed, how variously ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... I see men and women descending the stone steps of the wharves on the opposite side of the Ohashigawa, all with little blue towels tucked into their girdles. They wash their faces and hands and rinse their mouths—the customary ablution preliminary to Shinto prayer. Then they turn their faces to the sunrise and clap their hands four times and pray. From the long high white bridge come other clappings, like echoes, and others again from far light graceful craft, curved like new moons—extraordinary ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn

... that unless he had approached her without desire, merely for the sake of propagating his species, he was not without sin: but in all cases it was requisite for him, before he entered the church, or communicated, to purge himself by prayer and ablution; and he ought not, even after using these precautions, to participate immediately of the sacred duties [u]. There are some other questions and replies still more indecent and more ridiculous [w]. And on the whole, it appears that Gregory and his missionary, if sympathy of manners have any influence, ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... gloating laugh, as he rubbed his hands together after the manner of one performing an ablution. "It means, John," he answered, in a voice of oily softness, "that at last I have caught you napping. The Eureka Paper Company is my company, and the pulp-wood that you held options on is my pulp-wood. I've been waiting a long ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx

... — N. cleanness, cleanliness &c adj.; purity; cleaning &c v.; purification, defecation &c v.; purgation, lustration^; detersion^, abstersion^; epuration^, mundation^; ablution, lavation^, colature^; disinfection &c v.; drainage, sewerage. lavatory, laundry, washhouse^; washerwoman, laundress, dhobi^, laundryman, washerman^; scavenger, dustman^, sweep; white wings brush ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... its dissolution, those compound masses upon the surface of the earth, however endued with hardness and solidity, are gradually impaired by the dissolution of some of their constituent parts, and by the separation of others which are thus exposed to the ablution of water. In like manner, by the resolution of the surrounding parts, the solid silex, which is supposed to be insoluble, is removed from its bed, and thus suffers new parts of the solid land to be exposed to those injuries of the ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton

... of person and garments renders them disagreeable inmates: in this rainy climate they are supportable out of doors. Though fond of bathing when they come to a stream in hot weather, and expert, even admirable swimmers, these people never take to the water for the purpose of ablution. In disposition they ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... at least not a Roman," observed an artist. "I never knew one of them to care about ablution. See him now! It is as if he were trying to wash off' the time-stains and earthly soil ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... their main points, to the same race two hundred years earlier. These writers describe the Scythians as a people coarse and gross in their habits, with large fleshy bodies, loose joints, soft swollen bellies, and scanty hair. They never washed themselves; their nearest approach to ablution was a vapor-bath, or the application of a paste to their bodies which left them glossy on its removal. They lived either in wagons, or in felt tents of a simple and rude construction; and subsisted on mare's milk and cheese, to which the boiled flesh of horses ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... as this I could not believe without the sensible and true avouch of mine own eyes, but there was the naked form, the splashing water, and the swimming dog. It was a circumstance well worth recording, for I am sure it is the first full bodied ablution he has indulged in since leaving Mount Olga, eighteen weeks to a day, and I am not at all sure that he bathed there. It was therefore with great pleasure that I recorded the unusual circumstance. When Jimmy left me grinning, and I had time to get ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... of a manufacturing district; and a third to a populous seaport. The weather was fine, and the two travellers ordered breakfast to be taken into an arbour in the garden, as well as the basins and towels necessary for ablution. The elder of the travellers appeared to be unequivocally foreign; you would have guessed him at once for a German. He wore, what was then very uncommon in this country, a loose, brown linen blouse, buttoned to the chin, with a leathern belt, into which ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... rested, was no longer dusty but was scrupulously clean. Following with her eyes as well as she could see into the further corners she saw that there the same reform had been effected. Even the walls and ceiling had been swept of the hanging cobwebs, and the floor was clean with the cleanliness of ablution. Still holding Harold's arm, she moved over towards her mother's coffin and knelt before it. Harold knelt with her; for a little while she remained still and silent, praying inwardly. Then she rose, and taking her great bunch of flowers placed ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker

... in eluding the grasp of her pursuer. But, alas! for Mrs. Mudge. In her impetuosity she lost her footing, and fell backward into a pail of water which had been brought up the night before and set in the entry for purposes of ablution. More wrathful than ever, Mrs. Mudge bounced into her room and sat down in her dripping garments in a very uncomfortable frame of mind. As for Paul, she felt a personal dislike for him, and was not sorry on some accounts to have him out of ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger

... had a very uncomfortable sensation when she heard him lock the door behind him. A prisoner, with such a jailer! With a quick movement of disgust, she rushed to the water-basin and washed her lips and her hands; but she felt that the stain was one no ablution could remove. The sense of degradation was so cruelly bitter, that it seemed to her as if she should die for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... recovered control of herself, held the teacup in an all but steady hand, and examined the room at her leisure. After ten minutes' absence, Redgrave rejoined them, now in ordinary dress; his face warm from rapid ablution, and his thin hair delicately disposed. He began talking in a bright, chatty vein. So Mrs. Rolfe had been playing at a concert; how he regretted not having been there! What had she played? Then, leaning forward with an air of kindness that verged ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... perhaps, but nothing worth speaking about; they had evidently been worn before, but were in excellent condition, beautifully clean, and altogether so inviting that I lost no time in exchanging them for my rags. This exchange, in addition to a pretty thorough ablution, made quite a new man of me; I felt actually comfortable once more, for the first time since leaving the Daphne on the occasion ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... immediately after nursing or feeding is not proper for bathing. An hour or two after a meal should be allowed to elapse. Neither should a bath ever be given in a cold room. Even in a warm atmosphere, care should be taken, both after and during the ablution, that the wet skin of the infant be not exposed to the air. Its body should be completely immersed; it should not be held up out of the water, nor, if it be old enough, allowed to stand or sit in the tub. It is well also to have a warm blanket in which to receive ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys

... neglecta vita mea."—A curious question might be raised, whether the monarch, in this injunction, was solely impressed with the feeling of his own unworthiness, or whether he had also in view, the mystic doctrine of the efficacy of water towards the ablution of sins. ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman

... given in the "Mithridates." It is uttered every morning by the tribes on the Issini, after a previous ablution in that river—Anghiume mame maro, mame orie, mame shikke e okkori, mame akaka, mame frembi, mame anguan e awnsan—O Anghiume! give rice, give yams, give gold, give aigris, give slaves, give riches, give (to be) strong ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham

... if some great calamity had happened; he was not sure but that he had slept a fortnight or more. He dressed with a sleepy, reckless haste, being but dimly conscious of the logic of the various processes of ablution which he underwent. He hurried up to Strand's room, but, as he had ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... hath washed his feet," he observed insolently, pointing out the evident fact. "Such penance and ablution he hath never before put upon himself since he came to Acadia! I will set it down in my dispatches to the king, for his majesty will take pleasure in such news:—'Father Vincent de Paris, on this blessed Paques day of the year 1645, hath washed ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... morning morrowed in sheen and shone, Nur al-Din awoke from deep sleep and found that she had brought water:[FN484] so they made the Ghusl-ablution, he and she, and he performed that which behoved him of prayer to his Lord, after which she set before him meat and drink, and he ate and drank. Then the damsel put her hand under her pillow and pulling out the girdle which she ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... firm believer in the hygiene of bathing, and cold baths, sea baths and shower baths were among his most constant practices. In those days scientific ablution was not very generally practised, and I am sure that in many places during his travels my father was looked upon as an amiable maniac ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens

... pilgrimages to Mecca. Jesus indeed submitted to the baptism of John, as He had suffered Himself to be circumcised; but circumcision and the washing with water ought to be abolished by the baptism of Christ, that baptism of the Spirit, that ablution of the soul, which is the salvation of mankind. Thus the forerunner said, 'I indeed baptise you with water unto repentance; but He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire

... me to the mast; certainly I cannot recall the scene with such steadiness of nerve as I beheld it with. Every now and then a small billow would burst upon the vessel's side, sending its liquid treasure across the deck, and more than one ablution of the kind was added to the fresh-water drenching bestowed by the clouds. Can you fancy the discomfort of such a situation? Then you were never at sea, or at least you left your imagination ashore; for I defy any person not ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth

... tug at the bell-pull. The boy advanced from the window, and as he did so Kenelm was struck with the grace of his bearing, and the improvement in his looks, now that he was without his hat, and rest and ablution had refreshed from heat and dust the delicate bloom of his complexion. There was no doubt about it that he was an exceedingly pretty boy, and if he lived to be a man would make many a lady's heart ache. It was with a certain ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... hell were denounced not so much upon bad men who committed crimes out of a wicked heart, as upon careless men who neglected priestly guidance and violated the ritual. The omission of a prayer or an ablution, the neglect of baptism or confession, a slight thrown upon a priest, a mental conception differing from the decree of the "Church," would condemn a man far more surely and deeply into the Egyptian, Hindu, Persian, Pharisaic, Papal, or Calvinistic hell than any amount of moral culpability ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... abroad and at home are then only known; then only loved; till at length the same priest reconducts the goddess, satiated with mortal intercourse, to her temple. [218] The chariot, with its curtain, and, if we may believe it, the goddess herself, then undergo ablution in a secret lake. This office is performed by slaves, whom the same lake instantly swallows up. Hence proceeds a mysterious horror; and a holy ignorance of what that can be, which is beheld only by those who are ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus

... heartily, and all fell to satisfying their lusts, and remained so occupied for a couple of hours, when the white slaves rose up from the handmaidens' breasts and the blackamoor dismounted from the Queen's bosom: then they went into the basin and, after performing the Ghusl, or complete ablution, donned their dresses and retired as they had done before. When King Shahryar saw this infamy of his wife and concubines he became as one distraught and he cried out, "Only in utter solitude can man ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... fresh; so that there were compensations on every side. The widow, her step-daughter, and the colleen before mentioned did all the work. They made my bed, what there was of it, they tended the fire with unflagging zeal, they brought water in very limited quantity for the purposes of ablution, they dried my boots and clothes with almost motherly care and tenderness when I came in out of the pouring rain. In fact, nobody could have been kinder or more attentive, and when Major Coghill was laid up by his accident their sympathy was ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker

... was turned upon him; the countrywoman herself seemed astonished. At length he raised his dripping head. This ablution had partly dispelled his drunkenness; he looked at us for a moment, then he turned to Genevieve, and ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur

... stream adjacent to a deep place. One side of which is open to the water, and into which the flock is crowded. The washers take their places in the water, where it is three or four feet deep, and the sheep are caught by others, and tossed to them, where they undergo ablution (an operation by the way, that they do not seem altogether to enjoy), to wash the dirt and gum from their fleeces. On such occasions, it is regarded as a lawful thing, a standing and ancient practical joke, to pitch any outsider, who may happen to indulge ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond

... (on Saturday, December 6th), I went straight to the Palace Hotel, and my first effort was to get a bath, for a continuous day and night run from New York of 3,367 miles, makes one who is accustomed to the use of plenty of water to look for a good ablution as the first refresher. The Palace Hotel claims to be the "model hotel of the world." Its architect visited the leading hotels of Europe so as to produce a hotel superior to any. As to size, it occupies a complete ...
— A start in life • C. F. Dowsett

... were again left to themselves, but this time they were not to remain seated under any tree—at least, not all the time. The father, before leaving, had enjoined upon both of them to take a bath; ablution having become very necessary on account of their having been so long cribbed up in the somewhat dirty pinnace. It would be also of service in promoting their restoration to health and strength. They went into the water, not together, but at some distance apart—Henry choosing to go down ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid

... against their course to Missolonghi, they again anchored between two of the numerous islets by which this part of the coast is lined; and here Lord Byron, as well for refreshment as ablution, found himself tempted into an indulgence which, it is not improbable, may have had some share in producing the fatal illness that followed. Having put off in a boat to a small rock at some distance, he sent back a messenger for the nankeen ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... Sir Ludwig. "I will ask him a few questions ere he return." And springing from his couch, he began forthwith to put on his usual morning dress of complete armor; and, after a hasty ablution, donned, not his cap of maintenance, but his helmet of battle. He ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... summoned the servants, who provided themselves with bamboos, and soon despatched the object which had occasioned the misunderstanding. The colonel then apologised to Newton, while he repaired to the bath, and in a few minutes returned, having undergone the necessary ablution after a mango feast. His dress was changed, and he offered the appearance of an upright gentlemanlike, hard-featured man, who had apparently gone through a great deal of service without his stamina having been ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... every morning thorough ablution of the body, beginning cautiously; that is to say, commencing with the neck one morning, then by degrees, morning after morning, sponging a larger surface, until the whole of the body be sponged. The chill at first must be taken off the water; gradually the ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse

... shrewd to hang Mason and Slidell. Literature, Southern, its abundance. Little Big Boosy River. Longinus recommends swearing, note (Fuseli did same thing). Long-sweetening recommended. Lord, inexpensive way of lending to. Lords, Southern, prove pur sang by ablution. Lost arts, one sorrowfully added to list of. Louis the Eleventh of France, some odd trees of his. Lowell, Mr. J.R., unaccountable silence of. Luther, Martin, his first appearance as Europa. Lyaeus. Lyttelton, Lord, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... satisfaction little understood by the people of Alencon. The world owes a great deal to persons who take such pains to please it. In this there is certainly some accomplishment of that most difficult precept of the Gospel about rendering good for evil. This freshness of ablution and all the other little cares harmonized charmingly with the blue eyes, the ivory teeth, and the blond person of ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac

... having, at the request of his followers, asked it of God, a red table immediately descended, in their sight, between two clouds, and was set before them; whereupon he rose up, and having made the ablution, prayed, and then took off the cloth which covered the table, saying, "In the name of God, the best ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... opinion is quite in advance of the annual cathartic cleansing. Some people may have acquired the habit of a monthly cathartic "cleansing"; others wash out once a week, and a few once a day: all of them act from their idea of cleanliness, as they would perform the ablution of their hands, face and body. There are some hygienic students who have adopted the idea of "cleansing" the bowels with warm water once or twice a week, which practice is quite in advance of the annual or monthly attention. All have reasons ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison

... angel of a nurse claimed her for purposes of ablution. I once more returned to Hafiz. Then Barbara put her head in ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke

... purification. Salt also was commonly used to sprinkle over the ground, and those who attended a funeral must free themselves from contamination by the use of salt.[28] Purification by water was habitual and in varied forms. The ancient emperors and priests actually performed the ablution of the people or made ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis

... not hold of such. Is that enough?" And Patrick answered, "That is not enough." Then Victor: "Likewise this thy God accords: The Dreadful Coming and the Day of Doom Thy land shall see not; for before that day Seven years, a great wave arched from out the deep, Ablution pure, shall sweep the isle and take Her children to its peace. Is that enough?" And Patrick answered, "That ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere

... "officers'" compartments; a train so packed that we three officers took turns on the one spare seat in an "other ranks" carriage? And then about 8 A.M. we landed at a well-known "all-change" siding, a spot of such vivid recollections that some one had pencilled in the ablution-house, "If the Huns ever take —— Camp and have to hold it they'll give up the war ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)

... contagious malady, is of sufficient weight to excuse the visits of the most intimate friends; and even the servants, who are despatched to make the decent inquiries, are not suffered to return home, till they have undergone the ceremony of a previous ablution. Yet this selfish and unmanly delicacy occasionally yields to the more imperious passion of avarice. The prospect of gain will urge a rich and gouty senator as far as Spoleto; every sentiment of arrogance and dignity is ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon

... star, would I were steadfast as thou art! Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night, And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like Nature's patient, sleepless eremite, The moving waters at their priest-like task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores—" ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys

... days we had no water but the hot and filthy fluid we carried in leathern skins; and even this nauseous decoction was so scanty and precious, that we could not afford to soothe the sun-burnt skin and refresh the exhausted frame by a timely ablution. ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc

... Jehanum,—that all Christians and Jews are nejis (unclean), and will go to Jehanum,—that it is not lawful to drink wine or eat pork,—that it is necessary to say prayers five times a day, and to make the ablution before each prayer, causing the water to run from the elbow to the fingers, not ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... ere the day wax bright and thou be in perplexed plight and perdition upon thy head alight!" Quoth he, "O my lady, I beseech thee of thy favour to bid me farewell with thine embracement;" and quoth she, "No harm in that."[FN56] So he embraced her and knew her carnally; after which he made the Ghusl-ablution; then, donning the dress of a white slave, he bade the syces saddle him a thoroughbred steed. Accordingly, they saddled him a courser and he mounted and farewelling his wife, rode forth the city at the last of the night, whilst all who saw ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... Strong ale was ablution— Small beer, persecution, A dram was MEMENTO MORI: But a full flowing bowl Was the saving his soul, And port ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... and say that God has imparted to the water a spiritual power, which through the water washes away sin. Nor [do we agree] with Scotus and the Barefooted monks [Minorites or Franciscan monks], who teach that, by the assistance of the divine will, Baptism washes away sins, and that this ablution occurs only through the will of God, and by no means through the Word or water. Of the baptism of children we hold that children ought to be baptized. For they belong to the promised redemption made through Christ, and the Church should administer ...
— The Smalcald Articles • Martin Luther

... is a splendid summary of the orthodox faith. All who would be saved must be washed in the Blood of the Lamb—a disgusting ablution! All who are not saved fall into the Fire. A blood-bath or a sulphur-bath is ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote

... of education, he bears on one shoulder a Musalla or prayer carpet of tanned leather, the article used throughout the Somali country; slung over the other is a Wesi or wicker bottle containing water for religious ablution. He is accompanied by some men who carry a little stock of town goods and drive a camel colt, which by the by they manage ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton

... the general store to this intrusion upon the half-civilization of the women, their pitiable little comforts and secret makeshifts. His disgust of his own indecision which brought him there naturally recoiled in the direction of his host and hostesses, and after a hurried ablution, a change of linen, and an attempt to remove the stains of travel from his clothes, he strode out impatiently into the open ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... of their religious rites. Two Mussulmen guided them to the place, which was about a mile distant. They came to a bare space of sandy ground, surrounded with trees; here they found the Mussulmen engaged in prostration and ablution. Each group as it arrived, was received with flourishes of musical instruments. Every one was clad in his best apparel. "Loose robes, with caps and turbans, striped and plain, red, blue, and black, were not unpleasingly ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... was bright. After the rains, there was a sense of ablution in the air, and the sun-rays looked like pure gold. So bright were they that they gave a beautiful radiance even to the sordid brick walls of our Calcutta lanes. Since early dawn to-day the wedding-pipes had been sounding, and at each ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore

... misfortunes of his race, and well knew that an inexcusable spirit of aggrandizement on the part of the Federal Government had in the first place roused the indignation of both negroes and red men, and provoked hostilities. After performing his ablution, the Indian stalked like a deer into the recesses of the forest, I having in the mean time, as a matter of policy, moved out of danger, for he was no doubt animated with feelings of dire revenge, and in a very different mood from that in which I have ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell

... traveling, as Miss Martineau seems disposed to admit, are exceedingly negligent; not to say dirty. To the best of my making out, the ladies, under most circumstances, are content with smearing their hands and faces in a very small quantity of water. So are the men; who superadd to that mode of ablution a hasty use of the common brush and comb. It is quite a practice, too, to wear but one cotton shirt a week, and three or four fine linen fronts. Anne reports that this is Mr. Q.'s course of proceeding; and my portrait-painting friend ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... suggestions." Au reste the article is not bad simply because it borrows—again Americanice—all its matter from my book. At the tail-end, however comes the normal sting: I am guilty of not explaining "Wuzu" (lesser ablution), "Ghusl" (greater ablution), and "Zakat" (legal alms which constitute a poor-rate), proving that the writer never read vol. iii. He confidently suggests replacing "Cafilah," "by the better known word Caravan," as if it were my speciality (as it is his) to hunt-out commonplaces: ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... the entire furniture of the cell. There was nothing else whatsoever in the room; neither the smallest fragment of a looking-glass, nor any means or preparation for ablution whatsoever. ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... called in popular language the Temple, or rather the inner quadrangle, were in fact the great place of divine worship. Here, under the open air, were celebrated the great public and national rites, the processions, the offerings, the sacrifices; here stood the great tank for ablution, and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... weak, let them every morning be bathed, after the completion of his morning's ablution, for fire minutes each time, with bay-salt and water, a small handful of bay-salt dissolved in a quart of rain water (with the chill of the water off in the winter, and of its proper temperature in the summer time); then let them be dried; after the drying, let the ankles he well rubbed ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse

... statutes. And yet who can now doubt that the calculations of Chalmers were in reality the true ones? In like manner, if it had been truly seen that the 'baths for the working classes' could have merely extended to the humbler inhabitants of our cities those advantages of ablution which the working men of our sea-coasts already possess, but of which—when turned of forty—not one out of a hundred among them ever avails himself, we would scarce have witnessed bath meetings, with Dukes in the chair; nor would ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... that kind—only blankets. Those men standing in a queue at its door are carrying their bedding. (Yes, quite so. When blankets are passed from regiment to regiment for months on end, in a camp where opportunities for ablution are not lavish, these ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... state of the blood; an irritable condition of the nervous system, prevailing at that particular time; and want of occupation. The treatment of "fidgets" consists of: sleeping in a well-ventilated apartment, with either window or door open; a thorough ablution of the whole body every morning, and a good washing with tepid water of the face, neck, chest, arms and hands every night; shunning hot and close rooms; taking plenty of out-door exercise; living on a bland, nourishing, but not rich diet; avoiding meat at ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... certainly does depend upon yourself whether you shall wash yourself daily. I do not wish to be personal, but I verily believe, O companion of my childhood! that, until you began to dabble in Hydropathy, you had not bestowed a sincere ablution upon your entire person since the epoch when, twenty years ago, we took our last plunge together, off Titcomb's wharf, in our native village. That in your well-furnished house there are no hydraulic privileges beyond pint water-pitchers, I know from ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various

... easance, where he entered and doing his occasion, came out into the chamber, whereupon the slave- girls brought him a basin of gold and an ewer of silver and poured water on his hands and he made the ablution. ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... of water, O Bharata, to the gods, the pitris, and the Brahmanas, in the tirthas called Kanya, Aswa, and Go and staying (as directed) in Kalakoti and the Vishaprastha hills, the Kauravas then, O king, reached Vahuda and performed their ablution in that stream. Proceeding next, O lord of earth, to the sacrificial region of the gods known by the name Prayaga, they bathed in the confluence of Ganga and Yamuna and residing there practised ascetic ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... enables us to trace its rise and progress.... The more rigid and heroic of the Christian anchorets dispensed with all clothing except a rug, or a few palm leaves round the loins. Most of them abstained from the use of water for ablution; nor did they usually wash or change the garments they had once put on; thus St. Anthony [the founder of this order] bequeathed to Athanasius a skin in which his sacred person had been wrapped ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith

... inquired into the cause of this ceremony, and was informed that it arose from a tradition among the people, and particularly among the women, that the impending calamities of the year were carried away by this ablution, and that blessings succeeded in their place. Hence this ceremony is annually renewed, and the ablution performed ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... period our first William is shown by Mr. Anstey, to have been in the habit of bestowing it both in his Norman and English dominions. The candidate for that honour was required to keep his vigils with great strictness, after a previous ablution from which the name of the order is derived, and which were together meant to indicate the moral purity required of him; as the motto "Tria juncta in uno" implied a peculiar devotion to the ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip

... temperature of the air is warm, but continually refreshed by a wholesome breeze from the sea; and where the sky is almost constantly serene. A kind of happy uniformity runs through the whole life of the Taheitans. They rise with the sun, and hasten to rivers and fountains to perform an ablution equally reviving and cleanly. They pass the morning at work, or walk about till the heat of the day increases, when they retreat to their dwellings, or repose under some tufted tree. There they amuse themselves with smoothing ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow

... said, will endure suffocation before he will blow the fire with his breath; the Indian places supreme perfection in besmearing himself with cow-dung; the Mussulman believes himself purified from all his sins by the ablution of his head and arms: the only question with him is, "whether the ceremony ought to begin at the elbow or at the points of his fingers;" but so great is the difference of opinion on this head, that if two Mahometans meet on a journey, and accost each other with brotherly affection, by the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various

... elaborate care bestowed on a family of children, everything studied that can tend to their personal comfort,—pure air, pure water, regular ablution, a dietary prescribed by art, and every precaution adopted that medical judgment and maternal love can dictate, for the well-being of the parents' hope; and find, in despite of all this care and vigilance, disease and death invading the guarded treasure. We turn to the foetor and darkness ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... time, the body of the husband was taken and washed in the river. The woman was also led to the Ganges for ablution, where she divested herself of all her ornaments. Her head was covered with a piece of silk, and a cloth was tied round her body, in which the priests ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... adventure at Lansmere. He put up at the principal inn—refreshed himself by a general ablution—and sate down with a good appetite to his ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... those of one trade or profession to marry with those of a different occupation, or to put their children to learn any other trade but that of their fathers. The Nayres, who are their nobles, if they chance to touch any of the common people, purify themselves by ablution, as was done by the Jews and Samaritans. The women among the Nayres axe common to all, but chiefly those, of the Bramin cast, so that no one knows his father, nor is any one bound to maintain the children. These Nayres are wonderfully expert in the use of their weapons, in which they begin ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... bath the devil is with her," and "All the earth is given to me as a place of prayer, and as pure, except the burial ground and the bath." (See, e.g., E.W. Lane, Arabian Society in the Middle Ages, 1883, pp. 179-183.) Although, therefore, the bath, or hammam, on grounds of ritual ablution, hygiene, and enjoyment speedily became universally popular in Islam among all classes and both sexes, Mohammed himself may be said to have ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... of the prison required that we should all rise at six, roll up the rugs, lay them at the heads of our beds, and sweep out the room. Weary and sore, I paced the prison while these things were done. Even the morning ablution was comfortless and distressing; a pocket-handkerchief serving but indifferently for ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie



Words linked to "Ablution" :   ritual, wash, washing, lavation



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