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Martyr   /mˈɑrtər/   Listen
Martyr

noun
1.
One who suffers for the sake of principle.  Synonym: sufferer.
2.
One who voluntarily suffers death as the penalty for refusing to renounce their religion.



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"Martyr" Quotes from Famous Books



... I distribute all my store To feed the cravings of the poor; Or give my body to the flame To gain a martyr's glorious name; ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams

... seek to have the eye of faith fixed and centred on Jesus now. It is that which alone can form a peaceful pillow in a dying hour, and enable us to rise superior to all its attendant terrors. Look at that scene in the Jehoshaphat valley! The proto-martyr Stephen has a pillow of thorns for his dying couch, showers of stones are hurled by infuriated murderers on his guiltless head, yet, nevertheless, he "fell asleep." What was the secret of that calmest of sunsets amid a blood-stained and storm-wreathed sky? The eye ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff

... both to the truth of that cause for which he suffered, and also testifying his gracious acceptance of his sufferings, and of the free-will-offering of his life, which he laid down for his sake. And as neither the violence nor flattery of enemies could prevail with this faithful confessor and martyr himself, to quit with one hair or hoof of what belonged to Christ, so he recommended to the poor scattered remnant which he left, as part of his dying counsel, to keep their ground, and not to quit nor forego one of these despised truths, which he was assured the Lord, when he ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery

... the dawn of a March morning when I got off a train at Gerbeviller, the little "Martyr City" that hides its desolation as it hid its existence in ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... man who for nearly six years had been a martyr to rheumatism say he would give a thousand pounds to have a ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke

... suggestive of a shriek of horror, that Miriam had noticed in the station. In her white peignoir, her golden hair streaming over her shoulders, and her hands flung wide apart with an appealing dramatic gesture, Evie was not unlike some vision of a youthful Christian martyr, in spite of the hair-brush in her hand. Miriam sat down sidewise on the edge of the couch, looking up at the child in pity. She felt that it was useless to let her ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King

... went on keeping things sealed up even from Winton. To Fiorsen, she managed to behave as usual, making material life easy and pleasant for him—playing for him, feeding him well, indulging his amorousness. It did not matter; she loved no one else. To count herself a martyr would be silly! Her malaise, successfully concealed, was deeper—of the spirit; the subtle utter discouragement of one who has done for herself, clipped her ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... a few times until he produced the polite postscript,—"Hope you'll be better soon." Then he retreated to the ledge, spread the bear-skin beside the door, and, rolling himself in a blanket, lit his pipe for his night-long vigil. But Rand, although a martyr, a philosopher, and a moralist, was young. In less than ten minutes the pipe dropped from his lips, and ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... us that 'one man in his time plays many parts.' Under what various aspects the Prince's character may have presented itself, in his younger days, I am not able to tell you. Since I have been here, he has played the part of a martyr to ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins

... a great seal, and wrote letters to the Pope, his mother, and brothers, exciting them against his father, and putting forth a manifesto declaring that he could not leave unpunished the death of "his foster-father, the glorious martyr St. Thomas of Canterbury, whose blood was ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... for the most part victorious. Meantime Coronado, guessing her sufferings, and suffering horribly himself with jealousy, talked much and sympathetically to her of Thurstane. So much did this man bear, and with such outward sweetness did he bear it, that one half longs to consider him a martyr and saint. Pity that his goodness should not bear dissection; that it should have no more life in it than a stuffed mannikin; that it should be just fit to ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... were shaken. Mrs. Jonas puffed and panted up the hill to learn if it were true. She found Mrs. Eben stitching for dear life on an "Irish Chain" quilt, while Sara was sewing the diamonds on another "Rising Star" with a martyr-like expression on her face. Sara hated patchwork above everything else, but Mrs. Eben was mistress up to a ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... the horrid din on deck, I made my way to the cabin. It was a place well named, being cabined, cribbed, confined, in quite an unprecedented degree. It was then and there that I first saw the subject of this sketch,—the Peptic Martyr. Unknowingly, I was face to face with my Man of Destiny. Shipmate, Philosopher, Martyr, Rhapsodist, Mentor, Bon-Vivant, Duespeptos,—these are but a few of the various disks which I came at last to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... was at once converted into matter of aggravation. Were the feelings which Huckaback then experienced, akin to that which often produces hatred of a person whom one has injured? May it be thus accounted for? That there is a secret satisfaction in the mere consciousness of being a sufferer—a martyr—and that, too, in the presence of a person whom one perceives to be aware that he has wantonly injured one; that one's bruised spirit is soothed by the sight of his remorse—by the consciousness that he is punishing himself infinitely ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... first sermon, preached before King Edward VI., we find the quaint martyr-bishop magnifying the paternal prudence for having suitably "married his sisters with five pounds, or twenty nobles, apiece;" but neither the editors of the sermon, nor the writers of several biographical notices of Latimer consulted by me, and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 185, May 14, 1853 • Various

... century, by degrees gave them an authority equal to that of the Old Testament Scriptures. The earliest canon consisted simply of these four books. They seem to have been universally accepted by the Western Church by the middle of the second century. About 152 A.D. Justin Martyr, in proving his positions, refers to the Memoirs of the Apostles compiled by Christ's apostles and those who associated with them, and during the same decade his pupil Tatian made his Diatessaron by ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent

... crucial question, and one bristling with difficulties, arose with regard to Church property. Upon none had the sufferings of the time fallen with more severity than on the Church and her clergy. She had shared the tribulations of the Royal Martyr, and the best tribute that could be paid to his memory was surely to secure that she should now feel the sunshine of a new dawn. If the history of these twenty years had proved anything, it had proved how faithfully the Church reflected the spirit of the English people, and how deeply their traditional ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... Falmouth and jabbin' her heel into the dust, like a person in a pet. First of all, when I spoke to her, she wouldn't tell what had annoyed her; but later on it turned out she had come expectin' to be made a martyr of, and everything was lookin' keenly that way until Sir John came and interfered, ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... thing; that, when a man prefers doing what is right, it is only because to do right gives him a higher satisfaction. It appears to me, on the contrary, to be a difference in the very heart and nature of things. The martyr goes to the stake, the patriot to the scaffold, not with a view to any future reward, to themselves, but because it is a glory to fling away their lives for truth and freedom. And so through all phases ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph

... that both were immensely gratified. But after the return to the country, matters seemed to go less and less well. During the year in which they had "loved and longed in secret," each had exalted the other to the position of a martyr and a saint. The intimacy of their engagement was rapidly revealing the fact that, after all, they were merely ordinary human beings, and the discovery was something of a shock to both. Austin had thought ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes

... A virgin martyr refusing to sacrifice a dove to Venus might have uttered her costly heresy in such a voice and with such a look; but the General met it suavely with a flourish of his wide-brimmed hat and a blandishing ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow

... have been happy and prosperous, with few cares to darken his doors. But the liquor, however good in itself, proved a treacherous friend, as it served him a scurvy trick in return for the affection he had shown to it, leaving him a martyr to the gout, which, while it held sway over him, soured his otherwise joyous and happy spirits. It made him occasionally seem harsh even to us, though he was in the main one of the kindest and most ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston

... single "pooh." The rising Artist has an infant design for some immense historical Fresco. He comes—I see him, as it were, coming to Boodels to confide in him. "I mean," says he, "to show Peter the Great in the right-hand corner, and Peter the Hermit in another, with Peter Martyr somewhere else, ... in fact, I see an immense historical subject of all the Celebrated Peters .... Then why not offer it to St. Peter's at Rome, and why not ...?" "Pooh!" says Boodels, and the artist perhaps goes off and drowns himself, or goes into business ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand

... we are indebted for her display when before Mr. Verner, and her lame account of the 'ghost.' You must recollect it. She got up the ghost tale to excuse her own terror; to throw the scent off Luke. The woman says her life, since, has been that of a martyr, ever fearing that suspicion might fall upon her son. She recognised him beyond doubt; and nearly died with the consternation. He glided off, never speaking to her, but the fear and consternation remained. ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... corporalis est; sed graviorum tantum ratione corporum incorporeus.' Tertullian,' Quid enim Deus nisi corpus?' And again, 'Quis negabit Deum esse corpus? Etsi Deus spiritus, spiritus etiam corpus est, sui generis in sua effigie. St. Justin Martyr, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... against it! The attempted suicide of Mrs. Critchlow sealed the fate of Federation and damned it for ever, in Constance's mind. Her hatred of the idea of it was intensified into violent animosity; insomuch that in the result she died a martyr to the cause of ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... few years after this that that pupil of Erasmus and his friends, King Henry the Eighth, who startled Europe by the way he not only received new ideas but acted upon them, swept away the shrines, burned our Lady of Walsingham and prosecuted "the holy blisful martyr" Thomas a Becket ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard

... of her brother; the circumstances of her wooing invested her name and her lot with a certain pleasing romance; she was a woman, she was loyal to her sense of duty, and she was, to a greater degree than most women, a martyr—herein, perhaps, lay the secret to the fascination Miss ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field

... ecstasies, a world whose infinite miseries were finer and in some inexplicable way sweeter than the purest gold of the daily life, whose joys—they were indeed but the merest remote glimpses of joy—were brighter than a dying martyr's vision of heaven. Her smiling face looked down upon him out of heaven, her careless pose was the living body of life. It was senseless, it was utterly foolish, but all that was best and richest in Mr. Polly's ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... to that excellent and faithful Votary of St. Peter, Lord Pipin, the most Christian King, took my Journey into France; where I fell into a mortal Distemper and remained some Time in the District of Paris, in the venerable Monastery of St. Denis the Martyr. And being now past Hopes of Recovery, methought I was one Day at Prayers in the Church of the same blessed Martyr, in a Place under the Bells: And that I saw standing before the great Altar our Master Peter; and that great Master of the Gentiles, our Master Paul; whom I knew ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman

... heart's-brother of Buckingham, the betrayer of Strafford, the doer to death of Eliot, the would-be baffler of free speech, the baffled hunter after the five members. To Brilliana he was simply the King, not even the whole hero and half-martyr King for whom she had held Loyalty House so sturdily, but simply the only man living graced with power to save the man she loved. She turned to him at once with a petulant ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... closed an eventful day. The first martyr-blood had reddened the streets of Boston, and the commencement of the downfall of British rule in America had set in. Said Daniel Webster, "From that moment we may date the severance of the British Empire. The ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... her by the hand; "and I think that no absolute danger need be apprehended. Now, Marion," I added, "let me ask forgiveness for having even for a moment wounded so noble a heart. You are truly as great a martyr as any of those whose sufferings the Church perpetuates ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... a martyr's palm. The universal sadness was reflected in his face. Little Frankie Adams was to go along wearing his old shoes, and Kitty Gowan, who had been figuring on a belated winter suit, had tearfully thrown a handful of samples in the fire and ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller

... lily flower; To its leaves and root infuse Heaven's sunshine, Heaven's dews. 'Tis a type, and 'tis a pledge, Of a crowning privilege. Careful as that lily flower, This Maid must keep her precious dower Live a sainted Maid, or die Martyr to virginity. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... WARREN, the first great martyr in the cause of independence, was born at Roxbury, Mass., June 11th, 1741, and was killed at the battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775. General Warren acted as a volunteer at the battle of Bunker Hill, serving as a private in the ranks in the redoubt ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... those who were affected. In general, however, there prevailed a want of confidence in their efficacy, and then the sacred rites had as little power in arresting the progress of this deeply-rooted malady as the prayers and holy services subsequently had at the altars of the greatly-revered martyr St. Vitus. We may therefore ascribe it to accident merely, and to a certain aversion to this demoniacal disease, which seemed to lie beyond the reach of human skill, that we meet with but few and imperfect ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker

... way, though," returned Ralph, determined to martyr his palate rather than own up to ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown

... forming over it, while Montalvo himself, still leaning sideways and forwards, watched her eyes with an amused and cynical expression. And over all, over the desolate snows and gabled roofs of the town behind; over the smooth blue ice, the martyr and the murderers; over the gay sledge and the fur-wrapped girl who sat within it, fell the calm light of the moon through a silence broken only by the beating of her heart, and now and again by the sigh of a frost-wind ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... after a sumptuous sort, through the exceeding liberality of kings, queens, bishops, noblemen and ladies of the land; but also large livings and great revenues bestowed upon them (the like whereof is not to be seen in any other region, as Peter Martyr did oft affirm) to the maintenance only of such convenient numbers of poor men's sons as the several stipends bestowed upon the said ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed

... who had a devil, and whose behests she had obeyed with such consummate sweetness that she had attained perfection; on which, so invariably do extremes meet, she had to be put to death and made a martyr; and if we want to know more about her, we can find it in the work that has been so elegantly written about her by the most illustrious Father Castiglione Sommasco. Again, there was the famous miracle ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler

... the phases of a blameless life She lingered round the threshold of the poor: Where brighter scenes less noble minds allure, Her's was the joy to move 'midst martyr-strife. ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning

... easy range of its sleeping batteries; and then he offered me a supper, which I accepted, and we made peace. In the morning he had become humanized, and he gave me breakfast and showed me the body of St. Stephen, which is kept here in great reverence (not the proto-martyr, but a Montenegrin of the same name). The saint lay in state in a magnificent coffin, as if embalmed, and in his hand was an old and time-yellowed embroidered handkerchief which looked as if it might have been there a century or two. Remembering a dear friend in the ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman

... held toward the women of his congregation, he must have found it well to resign his place to his successor, also a Nathaniel, Nathaniel Rogers, one of the row of "nine small children," still to be seen in the New England Primer, gazing upon the martyr, John Rogers, the famous preacher of Dedham, whose gifts of mind and soul made him a shining mark for persecution, and whose name is still ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... our land, whose sons have exhibited such heroism and devotion.—Many of these beggary are the sons and daughters of our soldiers—of our honored dead and heroic living. To the soldier who lies beneath the sod a martyr to his country's cause, their sufferings are unknown; but if in Heaven he can witness their penury, his soul must rest ill at peace and weep for those on earth. To the soldier, who is still alive ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams

... on my afternoon off, that's most unlucky." He talked all right but his legs were uncertain, and when he stood up he found the mantelpiece useful. "Rheumatism, I'm a martyr to it," ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley

... entertainment at his house there, when he had taken his glass too freely, and, being through his great complaisance too forward, in waiting on his guests at their departure, flushed as he was, he tumbled down stairs, and broke his neck, and so fell a martyr to jollity and civility.' ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber

... to destroy. She is, perhaps, the first to base a plea for indulgence on the great law of heredity; and when, at the end of her book, she goes to the village churchyard and visits the eternal resting-place of her heroes, the grass grows green alike over grave of tyrant and martyr; and she wonders how "any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck

... of Norwich had bartered His faith for a legate's commission; How Lyndhurst, afraid to be martyr'd, Had stooped to a base coalition; How Papists are cased from compassion By bigotry, stronger than steel; How burning would soon come in fashion, And how very bad ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... neighbours make their salves with pans and fires. Sometimes, she said, they came in such fearful forms as frightened her very much. At other times they spoke her fair, and promised her that she should never want if faithful, but if she told of them and their doings, they threatened to martyr her. She also boasted of her favour with the Queen of Elfland and the good friends she had at that court, notwithstanding that she was sometimes in disgrace there, and had not seen the queen for seven years. She said William Sympson is with the fairies, and that he lets her know when they ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... this, for further demonstration, that letter of that godly man, Pomponius Algerius, an Italian martyr; some of the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... the uncalled-for martyr, the last of the four devoted royal sufferers, was beheaded the following spring. For this murder there could not have been the shadow of a pretext. The virtues of this victim were sufficient to redeem ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 7 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... must go through." She had the look and tone of a martyr. "They chose me, you see, and I ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor

... in us," given by grace; the Barrister calls it "our own will," or "we ourselves." But why does not the Barrister reserve a part of his wrath for Dr. Priestley, according to whom a villain has superior claims on the divine justice as an innocent martyr to the grand machinery of Providence;—for Dr. Priestley, who turns the whole dictionary of human nature into verbs impersonal with a perpetual 'subauditur' of 'Deus' for their common nominative case;—which said 'Deus', however, is but another 'automaton', self-worked indeed, but yet ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... now rose to its first long flight of religious ecstasy. He saw that the Southerner's reverence for Law and Order would make his execution inevitable. His dark spirit shouted for joy. His own blood, if he could succeed in playing the role of martyr, would raise the Blood Feud to its highest power. No statesman, no leader, no poet, no seer could calm the spirit of the archaic beast in man, which this martyrdom would raise if skillfully played. He was sure he could play the ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon

... painted in mosaic, and the tombs as fresh and well preserved as if they were of yesterday. In the Celestins' church is a votive column to Francis II., which says, that it is one assurance of his being immortalized, to have had the martyr Mary Stuart for his wife. After this long digression, I return to the burial, which was a most vile thing. A long procession of flambeaux and friars; no plumes, trophies, banners, led horses, scutcheons, or ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole

... five counsellors of parliament arrested by the late king's orders, Du Bourg was the only martyr. By the others greater weakness was shown, or the judges were less willing to fulfil the cardinal's bloody injunctions.[801] La Porte was reprimanded for finding fault with the rigorous sentences of the "grand' chambre," and liberated on declaring those sentences ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... in 1831, of Godwin, who still figures, in advanced age, as a martyr in the cause of good letter-writing—'A bald, bushy browed, thick, hoary, hale little figure, with a very long blunt characterless nose—the whole visit the most unutterable stupidity.' Lord Althorp is 'a thick, large, broad-whiskered, farmer-looking man.' O'Connell, 'a well-doing country shopkeeper ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... also, sent word to me that she should like to see me, and when I called, she told me on what conditions I might obtain my pardon, and here they are. I must bring her a relic, a real, authentic relic, certified to be such by Our Holy Father, the Pope, of some virgin and martyr, and I am going mad ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... this which leads one to suffer for another! Nothing so kindles enthusiasm or awakens eloquence, or chimes poetic canto, or moves nations. The principle is the dominant one in our religion—Christ the Martyr, Christ the celestial Hero, Christ the Defender, Christ the Substitute. No new principle, for it was as old as human nature; but now on a grander, wider, higher, deeper, and more world-resounding scale! The shepherd boy as a champion for Israel with a sling toppled the giant ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage

... ALPHA}) In the light of the Augustinian dictum that "prayer is the surest proof of grace,"(315) it is safe to assume that St. Justin Martyr voiced our dogma when he put into the mouth of a venerable old man the words: "But thou pray above all that the gates of light may be opened unto thee; for no man is able to understand the words of the prophets [as ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle

... the Stranger [a] he sat awaiting the crown of a martyr; His sad face compassion begat in the heart of the dark eyed Winona. Oft she came to the teepee and spoke; she brought him the tongue of the bison, Sweet nuts from the hazel and oak, and flesh of the fawn and the mallard. Soft hanpa [b] she made for his feet and leggins of velvety fawn-skin,— ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon

... been generally ascribed to Euthalius, a deacon in Alexandria, who, in the year 458, set forth a copy of Paul's epistles stichometrically arranged; but Tregelles is inclined to the opinion that he borrowed the system from an earlier writer, Pamphilus the martyr. However this may be, the original conception doubtless came from the stichometry of Hebrew poetry. Hug (Sec. 44) and Tregelles (Horne's Introduct., vol. 4, chap. 4) give an example in Greek from a fragment ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows

... with the look of a martyr, and Jarber began to read with his back turned on the enemy more ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens

... anxiety to Vincent, and there were other sorrows no less poignant to be borne. Foreign missions had been established in Africa and Madagascar, and in the latter station no less than twenty-seven Mission Priests had lost their lives. Some, it is true, had died the martyr's death; but the work had not prospered. It was difficult to get news from far countries in those days, and there were often such long intervals between the death of one priest and the arrival of another that any good that ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes

... family (which is now supposed to be extinct) claim descent from Endymion Porter, the loyal and devoted adherent of King Charles the Martyr? ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various

... former great students, when reduced in health by excessive study, was entreated to abandon it, and in the scholastic language of the day, not to perdere substantiam propter accidentia. With a smile the martyr of study ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... handle rather cleverly, allow me to influence my hearers in the desired direction. It is easily understood that to the dear ladies in my audience I am not so much the sage, who has solved the mystery of the iron grate, as a great martyr of a righteous cause, which they do not quite understand. Shunning abstract discussions, they eagerly hang on every word of compassion and kindness, and respond with the same. Allowing them to love me ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev

... unlooked-for opposition, on the part of the subject of his pious labours. So long as the assault on his faith was distant and feeble, Middleton, who was no great proficient in polemics, submitted to its effects with the patience and humility of a martyr; but the moment the good father, who felt such concern in his future happiness, was tempted to improve his vantage ground by calling in the aid of some of the peculiar subtilties of his own creed, the young man was too good a soldier not to make head against the hot attack. He came to the contest, ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... parties were in such hereditary, long-continued, and intimate relations up to the time when one signed the other's death-warrant, that it was impossible to write the life of one without also writing that of the other. For his biographer John of Barneveld is the true patriot, the martyr, whose cause was that of religious and political freedom. For him Maurice is the ambitious soldier who hated his political rival, and never rested until this rival ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... the State of Muskegon. "Dodd has a big head," people used to say; but I was never so sure of his capacity. His luck, at least, was beyond doubt for long; his assiduity, always. He fought in that daily battle of money-grubbing, with a kind of sad-eyed loyalty like a martyr's; rose early, ate fast, came home dispirited and over-weary, even from success; grudged himself all pleasure, if his nature was capable of taking any, which I sometimes wondered; and laid out, upon some deal in wheat or corner in aluminium, the essence ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... bestowed the dedicated things upon the Baalim. But after the death of Jehoida, the priest, Joash was himself led into idolatry, and when Zechariah, the son of Jehoida, rebuked the people for turning from God, they stoned him to death by the order of King Joash. The last words of the dying martyr were: "The Lord look upon it and require it." This is strangely different from the last expression of Stephen, who "kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." Amaziah ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes

... to such insolence, was to impeach him in Parliament. The King enquired the character of the man; "O, sir," said my lord, "the most violent, hot, positive fellow in England; so extremely wilful, that I believe he would be heartily glad to be a martyr." The King answered, "Is it so? Then I am resolved to disappoint him"; and would never hear more of the matter; by which that ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... secretly encouraging the foreign powers to come to his aid. He was therefore brought to trial, and when it came to a final vote, he was, by a small majority, condemned to death. He mounted the scaffold on January 21, 1793, with the fortitude of a martyr. Nevertheless, one cannot but feel that through his earlier weakness and indecision he brought untold misery upon his own kingdom and upon Europe at large. The French people had not dreamed of a republic until his absolute incompetence ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... king of England could no more refuse obedience to the Holy See than a child could refuse obedience to his father. Even after his trial and condemnation another attempt was made to induce him to submit, but he refused, and on the 6th July he finished his career as a martyr for Rome.[32] ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... take [of fish] at Eastern Bann; the take at Sligo every quarter [of the year]; the Samer, which goes from the loughs of Erne to the sea—its eastern half, against Cenel-Conaill, is fruitful; its western part, towards Cenel-Cairbre, is unfruitful, through Patrick's word; Finn-glas, at the martyr-house of Druim-Cain, and Druim-Cruachni; the taking of his kingship from Laeghaire, from Cairbre, from Fiacha, from Maine; the grant of his kingship to Eoghan, to Conall, to Crimthann, to Conall Erball; the smiths making the bells—i.e., Mac Cecht, and Cuana, and Mac Tail; the ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various

... course was pointed out as a future leader, especially when his great military talents were observed at Marston Moor. From the memorable 2d of July he became the most marked and influential man in England. Hampden had offered up his life as a martyr, and Pym, the great lawyer and statesman, had died from exhaustion. Essex had won no victory commensurate with the public expectations, and Waller lost his army by desertions and indecisive measures. Both Essex ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... the office, and at noon home to dinner, and thence with my wife and Deb. to the King's House, to see "The Virgin Martyr," the first time it hath been acted a great while: and it is mighty pleasant; not that the play is worth much, but it is finely acted by Becke Marshall. But that which did please me beyond any thing in, the whole world was the wind-musique when the angel comes ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... that serial each month and feel like shaking that little simpleton!—she is just the kind of a sentimental hair-splitting little idiot that I used to be! Instead of getting at her husband's point of view and enjoying with him, at least sometimes, she insists on acting the martyr because he will not dawdle around ...
— Happiness and Marriage • Elizabeth (Jones) Towne

... continued to inquire, philosophically. 'Well, it may be: s'pose you're in for a Ministership, if you come out a martyr,' I replied, adding a Western wink which is given with both eyes. He very good-naturedly acknowledged that I had hit the mark, gave me his arm, said we must look in somewhere by the way-side and taste a small drop of Young American whiskey, which would have the effect ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton

... perhaps also from Wilson; and much in his subsequent travels from far higher men, especially Tintoret and Paul Veronese. I have myself heard him speaking with singular delight of the putting in of the beech leaves in the upper right-hand corner of Titian's Peter Martyr. I cannot in any of his works trace the slightest influence of Salvator; and I am not surprised at it, for though Salvator was a man of far higher powers than either Vandevelde or Claude, he was a willful and gross caricaturist. Turner would ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... round the forehead, their hair falling upon their shoulders. They were beautifully proportioned; their skin smooth and delicate, and their complexion of a clear agreeable brown. According to old Peter Martyr, the Spaniards, when they beheld them issuing forth from their green woods, almost imagined they beheld the fabled dryads, or native nymphs and fairies of the fountains, sung by the ancient poets. [5] When they came before Don Bartholomew, they knelt and gracefully presented him the green ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... same kind look of compassion in his eyes. He was fond of telling his fellow-artists that he had a "plastic" face,— and this quality served him well just now. He might have been a hero and martyr, from the peaceful and patient expression of his features, and he so impressed by his manner a lay-brother who presently entered to give him his evening meal, that he succeeded in ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... and humiliated, and how to stand upon their own basis, work spiritually for their own food without being dandled upon the soft lap of affection, or fed with the milk designed for babes. That also they be not deceived by the phantoms of self-wisdom; and that they martyr not in themselves the meek spirit of the lowly Jesus. Thus, while holding one in contemplation for an office of care and trust, they first prove him—the cause unknown to himself—to see how much he can bear, without exploding ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff

... the vain little darky, "but, golly, I couldn't let you chillens go off alone widout Chris to look after you. Dey was powerful like real fits, anyway. I used to get berry sick, too, chewin' up de soap to make de foam. Reckon dis nigger made a martyr of hisself just to come along and look out ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... of the day were gone through as usual, however; but when the children and the old man had gone to bed, Peggy made up her mind to make a martyr of herself, and to sit up for the young ladies, who had not been home all day, and with a piece of mending in her hands, which got on but slowly, she mused on her ill luck. Very tired and sleepy, and a little ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence

... kind-hearted squire congratulated Ivan Petrovitch on the birth of a son, who had made his appearance in the world, in the village of Pokrovskoe, on August 20, 1807, and was named Feodor, in honour of the holy martyr, Feodor the Strategist. Owing to her extreme weakness, Malanya Sergyeevna added only a few lines; but those few lines astonished Ivan Petrovitch: he was not aware that Marfa Timofeevna had taught his wife to read and ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff

... and warning, and Churchill himself alternately wore a look of importance and disappointment. No one ever made the slightest reference to his wise despatches. He had expected to be insulted, to be persecuted, to be a martyr for duty's sake, and, lo! he was treated always with courtesy, but his great work was ignored; he felt that they must see it, but then they might be too dull to notice its edge and weight. He now drew a certain consolation from his silent suffering, and strengthened himself ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... progress. But it would be unjust to close even here the bright catalogue of his services. It is, after all, not with the span of mortal life that the good achieved by a name immortal ends. The charm acts into the future—it is an auxiliary through all time; and the inspiring example of Byron, as a martyr of liberty, is for ever freshly embalmed in his glory as ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 474 - Vol. XVII. No. 474., Supplementary Number • Various

... which all these theories make shipwreck is the fact that we cannot abolish the reality of sin and leave the reality of {168} goodness intact. Saint and sinner, hero and coward, martyr and traitor, all, as we have seen, are reduced by Determinism to a common level where there is neither admiration nor censure, but at most a vague wonder at all the unnecessary suffering—for that at any rate remains real—involved in this profoundly ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer

... met, and his real cross borne. Perhaps as he went up on that hillside, which still overlooks the little village of Bethany, and looked at his past and at his future, the real spiritual conquest was attained; for he comes back again to Jerusalem on Thursday morning, not with the demeanor of a martyr but with the air of a conqueror; and when Pilate asks him if he is a king he answers him: "Thou hast ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody

... duly appraised, and in that book, if such a volume there be, we shall find that the divinest heroism is not that of the man who, holding life cheap, puts his back against a wall, and is shot by Government soldiers, assured that he will live ever afterwards as a martyr and saint: a diviner heroism is that of the poor printer, who, in dingy, smoky Rosoman Street, Clerkenwell, with forty years before him, determined to live through them, as far as he could, without a murmur, although there was to be no pleasure in them. A diviner heroism is this, but divinest ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford

... enough at the best of times—would gulp down the joke and make the best of it. He went back to his bench; but on second thoughts not to his work. 'Twould be on the safe side, anyway, to be not at home for an hour or two, in case the sailors came back to cry quits. Playing the lonely martyr, too, wasn't much fun with this mischief working inside of him and swelling his lungs like barm. He took a bite of bread and a sup of cider, blew out the candle, let himself forth into the street after a glance to make sure that all was ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... shall act wisely" refers to the administration of government, and is equivalent to: He shall rule wisely like his ancestor David. Stier is wrong in opposing the view, that the Messiah here presents himself as King. He says: "The King has here stepped behind the Prophet, Witness, Martyr, Saviour;" but in chap. liii. 12, the royal office surely comes out with sufficient distinctness. We must never forget that the different offices of Christ are intimately connected with one another by the unity of the person. The prosperity and success which the Servant ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg

... dowager's included, hid the pretty, light hair of our dear little friend, and was supported by a sort of heraldic comb and some orange-flowers; in short, you can not imagine anything more heavy or more ugly. Poor Giselle, loaded down with it, had red eyes, a face of misery, and the air of a martyr. For all this her grandmother scolded her sharply, which of course did not mend matters. 'Du reste', she seemed absorbed in prayer or thought during the ceremony, in which I took up the offerings, by ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)

... own fire-side, may she find duties enough, cares enough, troubles enough, thought enough, wisdom enough, to fit a martyr for the stake, a philosopher for life, or a ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... it unto us, That a Renowned Martyr at the Stake, seeing the Book of the REVELATION thrown by his no less Profane than Bloody Persecutors, to be Burn'd in the same Fire with himself, he cryed out, O Beata Apocalypsis; quam bene mecum agitur, qui tecum Comburar! ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather

... young Langdon, who was left in a condition neither dignified nor picturesque—a martyr to friendship and a victim to his own rather frivolous ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers

... of Vallandigham made him a martyr and brought him the Democratic nomination for Governor of Ohio*. His followers sought to make the issue of the campaign the acceptance or rejection of military despotism. In defense of his course Lincoln wrote two public letters in which he gave evidence of ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson

... stand, those halls of Zion, Conjubilant with song, And bright with many an angel, And all the martyr throng; The Prince is ever in them, The daylight is serene; The pastures of the Blessed Are ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... sense of strange plots and treasons swept over him. He ran back to the lobby. The doors had been bolted. He beat against them with his cane and his fists and his toes till a tall policeman persuaded him that home was better than a martyr's cell. ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill

... figure—and became firmly fixed there; and still without benefiting a member of that body, for no member was hired. The hilarity at the association's expense burst all bounds, now. There was no end to the fun which that poor martyr had to put ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... passages, the soul is expressly represented as distinct and different from the body:—"Fear not them which can kill the 'body,' but are not able to kill the 'soul.'" "Into thy hands I commit my 'spirit,'" said our Lord, just as his proto-martyr Stephen said, "Lord Jesus, receive my 'spirit.'" There are other passages still which affirm the separate existence of disembodied spirits: "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and 'the spirit,' shall return unto God who gave it." "A spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan

... justification in blessing the Duke and cursing the King—"unus et idem"—in the same breath. Who and what was he? and of what nature were his grievances? Was there any political significance in that strange mingling of curses and blessings? That his temper was not of martyr firmness was evident enough from the sudden change in the current of his thoughts brought about by the tingling of the horsewhip. All else was mystery. But the commonest knowledge of the English and colonial history of those days was sufficient ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various

... other parts of the country. To such, I put the question: "By courage can we not lessen misfortune? Yes! A thousand times yes! Courage turns ignoble agony into beautiful martyrdom. Its alchemy is universal. Is the stake a misfortune to the martyr? It is his dearest fortune. Is oppression, prejudice, or ignorance, a misfortune to the reformer? It is the very condition of his reform. Is misunderstanding, injustice, suspicion, or contempt a misfortune to the earnest man or woman anywhere who is trying to guide his life by a more ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... to draw attention to social anomalies, and social forms of injustice. Many of our novelists are really pamphleteers, reformers masquerading as story- tellers, earnest sociologists seeking to mend as well as to mirror life. The heroine, or rather martyr, of Miss Margaret Lee's story is a very noble and graciously Puritanic American girl, who is married at the age of eighteen to a man whom she insists on regarding as a hero. Her husband cannot live ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... and immortality. May all with whom he has been associated, and all who shall hereafter learn the history of his amiable character, of his serene, and exalted piety, his peaceful conscience, and his martyr death, be so impressed as to join themselves to the 'followers of the Cross,' and bear the same noble testimony to the excellence of our holy religion that our friend, ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless

... invalid. In the course of years his friends had learned to take his view of the matter, and he was at this time almost universally spoken of as "that poor Sir Henry Pierce whose life has been one long martyrdom." Poor Sir Henry was fortunate in the possession of a wife who really was a martyr—to him. Nobody had ever discovered whether Lady Pierce knew, or did not know, that her husband was quite as well as most people. There are many women with such secrets. Robin's parents were at present taking baths and drinking waters in Germany. They were ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens

... strong language, and desired to know if there was not a better landing place. Terrence assured him there was not, and complained that ducks never sought a "dacint place" for their habitation. Nothing but the glorious reflection that he was making himself a martyr for Morgianna's sake could have induced the officer to take the torches and wade to the low bushes, where he was instructed to make a light and wait until his companion rowed around the island and drove ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,

... thing remains. Oh, Love, Thou hast so seldom seen it on the earth, No name for it has ever sprung to birth; To give one's own life up one's love to prove, Not in the martyr's death, but in the dearth Of daily ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous

... rank of a demi-god. She absolutely refuses to see the clay feet of her idol. When all others forsake she clings to him, when all others frown she smiles on him, and when he dies she reveres his memory as that of a saint and a martyr. Young men of the present day are prone to disparage their womenkind; but a poor thing is the man, who in time of trouble has no woman to stand by him with cheering words and loving comfort. And so Madge Frettlby, true woman that she was, had nailed her colours to the mast. She refused surrender ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume

... passages extended for miles beyond the city walls. In these underground retreats, the followers of Christ buried their dead; and here also, when suspected and proscribed, they found a home. When the Lifegiver shall awaken those who have fought the good fight, many a martyr for Christ's sake will come forth ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White



Words linked to "Martyr" :   martyrise, St. Polycarp, St. Lawrence, kill, torment, St. Thomas a Becket, Saint Joan, Lawrence, William Tindale, victim, Laurentius, martyr operation, St. George, shaheed, Tindale, William Tyndale, William Tindal, Joan of Arc, St. Vitus, Thomas a Becket, Saint Polycarp, becket, Jeanne d'Arc, Tyndale, Saint Thomas a Becket, torture, George, Tindal, Saint George, Saint Edward the Martyr, excruciate, Polycarp, Saint Lawrence, Edward the Martyr, Vitus



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