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Priesthood   /prˈisthʊd/   Listen
Priesthood

noun
1.
The body of ordained religious practitioners.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Priesthood" Quotes from Famous Books



... 'Do thou listen to me, O Samvarta, I did go to Vrihaspati first, but desiring the patronage of Vasava, he did not wish to have me as his sacrificer. He said, 'Having secured the priesthood of the Immortals, I do not desire to act for mortals, and, I have been forbidden by Sakra (Indra) to officiate at Marutta's sacrifice, as he told me that Marutta having become lord of the earth, was always filled with a desire to rival him.' And ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... principle, and only after the subjugation of the land by Belisarius had Arianism in Italy been formally condemned. Of course it was protected by the warring Goths: Totila's victories had now once more extended religious tolerance over a great part of the country; the Arian priesthood re-entered their churches; and even in Rome the Greek garrison grew careless of the reviving heresy. Of these things did Decius speak, when the distressed lover sought his counsel. No one more liberal than ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing

... zeal for others. Dying myriads are around you. As a member of the Christian priesthood, it becomes you to rush in with your censer and incense between the living and the dead, "that the plague may ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff

... civic morality and purism. Voltaire and the Encyclopedists were bitterly attacked; Jean Jacques Rousseau was deified. The State should adopt his religious attitude, his universal church of nature. In that church, nature herself is the chief priest and there is no need of an infamous priesthood. Its ritual is virtue; its festivals the joy of a great people. Therefore let the Convention decree that the Cult of the Supreme Being be established, that the duty of every citizen is to practise virtue, to punish ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston

... before, beyond doubt, poetry and music, were mingled with meals. Famous minstrels sang the wonders of nature, the loves of the gods, and warlike deeds of man. Theirs was a kind of priesthood and it is probable that the divine Homer himself was sprung from one of those men favored by heaven. He would not have been so eminent had not his poetical ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin

... all through the letter; the taking hold of Jewish ideas for the purpose of lifting them into a loftier region, and transfiguring them into the expression of Christian truth. For example, we read in it: 'Ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation'; and again: 'Ye are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices.' These and other similar passages are instances of precisely the same transference of Jewish ideas as I find, in accordance with many ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... explains the old proverb that "extremes meet," the materialistic doctor and the cure of Nemours were soon friends. The old man loved backgammon, a favorite game of the priesthood, and the Abbe Chaperon played it with about as much skill as he himself. The game was the first tie between them. Then Minoret was charitable, and the abbe was the Fenelon of the Gatinais. Both had had a wide and varied education; the man of God was ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac

... Lord George Gordon, and the Kilmarnock weavers, yet I think you must have heard of Dr. M'Gill, one of the clergymen of Ayr, and his heretical book. God help him, poor man! Though he is one of the worthiest, as well as one of the ablest of the whole priesthood of the Kirk of Scotland, in every sense of that ambiguous term, yet the poor Doctor and his numerous family are in imminent danger of being thrown out to the mercy of the winter-winds. The inclosed ballad on that business is, I confess, too local, ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... erected in 1884 by Archbishop Alemany as a seminary for young men who wished to study for the priesthood, but it was never very successful in this work. For awhile it remained empty, then was offered to the Dominican Sisters as a boarding-school. But as this undertaking did not pay, in 1891 Archbishop Riordan offered such ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James

... The mask of priesthood and the mace of kings, Lie trampled in the dust; for here, at last, Fraud, folly, error, all their emblems cast. Each envoy here unloads his weary hand Of some old idol from his native land. One flings a pagod on the mingled heap; One lays a crescent, one a cross to sleep; Swords, sceptres, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... only know for certain that genealogy very soon becomes important, and, therefore, that records are early kept, in a growing civilisation. "After Nehemiah's return from the captivity in Babylon, the priests at Jerusalem whose register was not found were as polluted put from the priesthood." Rome had her parish registers, which were kept in the temple of Saturn. But modern parish registers were "discovered" (like America) in 1497, when Cardinal Ximenes found it desirable to put on record the names of the godfathers and godmothers of baptised children. When these relations of ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang

... priesthood of Typee satisfied the affair with their consciences, I know not; but so it was, and Fayaway dispensation from this portion of the taboo was at length procured. Such an event I believe never before had occurred in the valley; but it was high time the islanders should be taught a little ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... diminish the strength of his convictions that the dogmas are radically absurd and immoral, or that the whole claim to authority is opposed to all rational progress. In the Manning articles he ends by accepting the issue as between the secular view and the claims of a priesthood to authority. In the last resort it is a question whether State or Church shall rule. He prefers the State, because it has more rational aims, uses more appropriate means, has abler rulers, produces verifiable results, and ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... Gathered strength, and light, and wisdom, All of Suomi saw and wondered. No one knew what name to give him; When the mother named him, Flower, Others named him, Son-of-Sorrow. When the virgin, Mariatta, Sought the priesthood to baptize him, Came an old man, Wirokannas, With a cup of holy water, Bringing to the babe his blessing; And the gray-beard spake as follows: "I shall not baptize a wizard, Shall not bless a black-magician ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.

... all Venice brave the wrath of our most Holy Church because the Senate is afraid of the Ten? Are the Ten more powerful than the Holy Father and all the priesthood and sacraments of the Church? Marco, my beloved, how shall I save thee?" "Carina, these things are not coming upon Venice; thou dost not understand the law ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... Catholic priest. In this order of men he was willing to repose confidence. He knew that the French Catholics were not satisfied with their situation under the provincial government; but especially the priesthood. Feeling no apprehension for his own safety from treachery, he proceeded to a learned and reverend father of the church, to whom he communicated frankly who he was, and what was his object. Burr was master of the Latin language, and had an imperfect knowledge of the French. The ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... supply of food does not furnish them sufficient nutrition. Northern India is the so-termed "famine district," and the famine of one year is said to have destroyed over four millions of people; pestilence is always threatening these natives, and besides, the demands for tribute of an enervated priesthood (who "toil not," alas! "neither do they spin") have to be met. So is it any wonder that poverty prevails and that sadness of countenance is ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck

... with his support; in all my elections he left his private retreat and hastened to escort me in all my entries upon office—though for years he had ceased to show his friends these attentions,—and on the day when the priests are accustomed to nominate those they think to be worthiest of the priesthood he always gave me his nomination. Even in his last illness, when he was afraid lest he should be appointed one of the commission of five who were being appointed on the decree of the Senate to lessen public expenditure, he chose me, young as I am—though he had a number of friends still surviving ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger

... grandeur in the recompense of working out his defeated instincts through the ambitious medium of his noble art. Had not Pharaohs chosen it to proclaim their longings for immortality, Caesars their passion for pomp and luxury, and the priesthood to symbolize their conceptions of the heavenly mansions? His dreams were on a grand scale; such, after all, are the best possessions of youth. Had he but been free, or mated with a nature akin to his own, he would have felt himself as truly the heir of creation as any young man that lived. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... insult to a citizen's wife as she was quietly walking home through the Cheap. Her husband and brother, who were nearer at hand than he guessed, avenged the outrage with such good wills that this disgrace to the priesthood was left dead on the ground. When such things happened, and discourses like Beale's were heard, it was not surprising that Ambrose's faith in the clergy as guides received ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... into his spine until the head was severed. Then there arose a loud shout of triumph. The offering to the fetish was the signal for the most enthusiastic rejoicing, and the shouts of adulation were deafening. The people, ground down by a crafty priesthood, and steeped in the most degrading superstitions, looked upon the wholesale butchery that followed without a shudder. King, courtiers and slaves seemed seized with an insatiable desire for blood, and as one head fell after another, the cries of the victims drowned by the ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... believed to be of divine origin, and that some of the attributes of divinity still clung to him; he was therefore not only a monarch who wielded absolute power, and whose will was law, but he was also the head of the priesthood. Taking these two facts in conjunction, Escombe, with the extreme assurance of youth, and perhaps not attaching quite enough importance to the fact that the sun was the deity whose worship had been especially inculcated and carefully ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood

... name was on all tongues; ovations were made to him; he was almost a king in their eyes. His sister, Lucretia Mortera, had borne to her husband a large family, of whom but three survived—a youth named after his uncle Eugenio, and then being educated for the priesthood; Celestino, a boy of eleven years; and Virginia, a girl of eight. The little home in which they resided in quiet retirement had been given to the widow for as long as she chose to occupy it by a friend of her late husband, as a token of respect to his memory. Eugenio Noele, ashamed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various

... Side, my Paper has not in it a single Word of News, a Reflection in Politics, nor a Stroak of Party; so on the other, there are no Fashionable Touches of Infidelity, no obscene Ideas, no Satyrs upon Priesthood, Marriage, and the like popular Topics of Ridicule; no private Scandal, nor any Thing that may tend to the Defamation of particular Persons, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... eighteen, his father gave his sanction to his entering the priesthood; he thought him too delicate, however, to lead the life of a country pastor, and desired him, before he made up his mind as to his vocation, to accept a position offered him as tutor in a ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer

... numbers of copies of the liturgies, or handbooks of worship, of funeral solemnities, and other rituals, which have been diligently translated. And we have a sufficient body of the literature written and used by the priesthood. ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR

... in 1725, died probably in 1803; his father an actor, his mother a shoemaker's daughter; educated for the priesthood; expelled in disgrace from the seminary; entered the Venetian military service, and began a career of intrigue and adventure as chronicled in his memoirs; wandered to almost every quarter of Europe, living by his wits as journalist, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various

... of Mercy. This law is found in the instructions concerning the priesthood and the sacrifices. Through these were seen; (a) the need of an atonement for the sinner's guilt; (b) the need of inward cleansing on the part of all; (c) the redemption of the forfeited life of the sinner by another life being substituted ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell

... invention of the first deities, it gave them a much more concrete form than they had previously presented, and played a large part in the establishment of the foundations upon which all religious ritual was subsequently built up, and in the initiation of a priesthood to administer the rites which were suggested by ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith

... penetrate even to the imperial crown. Disgusted by the despotism exercised by the clergy of Belgium, Joseph commenced his reign by measures that at once roused a desperate spirit of hostility in the priesthood, and soon spread among the bigoted mass of the people, who were wholly subservient to their will. Miscalculating his own power, and undervaluing that of the priests, the emperor issued decrees and edicts with a ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... a time, long years ago, when the spheres of action and learning were separate and distinct; when laymen dealt hard blows and left letters to the priesthood. That was to some extent the case when our oldest universities were founded. But the separation daily narrows. It has been said that the true university of our days is a collection of books. What if a future philosopher shall say that the best university is a workshop? And yet ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... than disastrous, because their power has been deliberately used for ages past to keep the lower classes in a state of absolute ignorance, slaves of the grossest superstition, and mere puppets in the hands of the priesthood. Even well within the memory of living people it was thought a pity that women should be allowed to learn even to read and write,—safer to have them quite ignorant,—while the peasantry and the inferior ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street

... feature, by the long exercise of his holy profession. He, also, is deceived by the strange fire now laid upon the altar; and he alone among his brethren is excepted in the denunciation of the new apostle, as sealed and set apart by Heaven to the work of the ministry. Others of the priesthood stand full in front of the woman, striving to beat her down with brows of wrinkled iron, and whispering sternly and significantly among themselves as she unfolds her seditious doctrines, and grows warm ...
— Biographical Sketches - (From: "Fanshawe and Other Pieces") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... reads the Word of God may see that the Church of Rome has no such priesthood as she claims, nor power to forgive sins, as she professes to do. The whole supposition is based on a misunderstanding of the text, "Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam

... lioness) to corroborate and raise itself to that height, we have seen and suffered by these artifices; while, by close combinations among themselves, and swearing to their obedience, all the inferior priesthood, and church-officers, by ordination engagements and oaths of canonical obedience, a few have been able to impose their own laws and canons, upon a whole kingdom; yea, upon three kingdoms, it being an inconsiderable company, either of ministers or people ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various

... the flaring sign, and for his inn the name which it bore in the neighborhood, of "the cabaret of the Sergeant of Waterloo." He was a liberal, a classic, and a Bonapartist. He had subscribed for the Champ d'Asile. It was said in the village that he had studied for the priesthood. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... Metempsychosis, or continual transmigration of souls from one body into another. Pythagoras is supposed not to have originated this doctrine, but to have received it from the Egyptians, by whose priesthood there is little doubt that it was generally promulgated. Some writers have suggested that this transmigration was only taught by Pythagoras in a metaphorical sense; as, for instance, when he said that the souls of men were transferred to beasts, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... of clothing, and afterward to another room, very luxuriously furnished, in which they found not only a choice though evidently hastily provided meal, but likewise all their weapons, ammunition, and other belongings. While this was being done the remainder of the priesthood filed into the temple—where a vast congregation had assembled to take part in a specially arranged festival in honour of the full moon, to be accompanied by a sacrifice—to explain, as best they ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... recoiled,—suppose the mirthfulness of the incidents arising from reading the subscription-list—a mirthfulness bordering on the ludicrous—to have been recorded, and nothing more, a stranger would be inclined to believe, and pardonable in the belief, that the Irish and their priesthood were rather prone to be irreverent; but observe, under this exterior, the deep sources of feeling that lie hidden and wait but the wand of divination to be revealed. In a thousand similar ways are the actions and the motives of ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover

... to Jerusalem, it would soon be too much to go to Bethel, and so Dan must be provided for the north. The calves were symbols of Jehovah, not of other gods, as must be carefully noted. The making of them implied all that followed; for a god must have shrine and priesthood and sacrifice and festivals. The Levites refusing to serve, and probably losing their inheritance, fled to Judah, and a new priesthood was made 'from among all the people' (Rev. Ver.), The Feast of Tabernacles was retained ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... yet the former is not of the chosen family. He is a Canaanite. He is, unquestionably, greater than Abraham. Of his origin, his ancestry and his descendants, we have no account. He brought forth bread and wine. So did his antitype at the Last Supper. The priesthood of Melchizedek was before that of Aaron. Aaron was a Levite, and Levi paid tithes to Melchizedek in Abraham, his ancestor. And the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews argues most conclusively that since Melchizedek ...
— The Theology of Holiness • Dougan Clark

... aware that among the poorer classes of the town had arisen a certain hostility to the statue. The councillors suspected that the priesthood had been at work. The forces of reaction against the forces of progress! Very well! The councillors hurriedly decided that the best available site, on the whole, was that strip of waste ground where ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm

... there modified not so much in doctrine as by the creation of a powerful hierarchy, curiously analogous to the Roman Church. It is unknown in southern China and not much favoured by the educated classes in the north, but the Lamaist priesthood enjoys great authority in Tibet and Mongolia, and both the Ming and Ching dynasties did their best to conciliate it for political reasons. Lamaism has borrowed little from China and must be regarded as an invasion into northern Asia and even Europe[8] of late Indian religion and art, somewhat ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... faith is professed by one honoured individual, and that I have since travelled in Popish countries; but even for these very reasons I have seen Popery too closely to be friendly to its tenets. The bigotry of the laymen—the persevering arts of the priesthood—the perpetual intrigue for the extension of the forms without the spirit of religion—the usurpation of that Church over the consciences of men—and her impious pretensions to infallibility, are as inconsistent to my mind as they can seem to yours, ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... the injustice of the sweeping charge made against the whole body of the priesthood, I would be unfaithful to my purpose and my convictions if I concealed the acts and language of those among them, who interposed and unhappily exercised baneful influence on the abortive attempt of their unfortunate country. I shall only say further ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny

... beautiful season of his youthful bloom coincided with the most glorious epoch of the Athenian people. He held the rank of general as colleague with Pericles and Thucydides, and, when arrived at a more advanced age, was elected to the priesthood of a native hero. In his twenty-fifth year he began to exhibit tragedies; twenty times was he victorious; he often gained the second place, but never was he ranked so low as in the third. In this career he proceeded with increasing success till he had passed his ninetieth ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... nothing save the fact of my sex, and this charge is made only because Paula is setting forth to Jerusalem." And again: "Before I became intimate in the household of the saintly Paula, the whole city was loud in my praise, and nearly every one deemed me deserving of the highest honours of priesthood. But I know that my way to the kingdom of Heaven lies through good ...
— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard

... with a breastpin set, as I honestly believe, with genuine pearls, and appears habitually with a very smart cap, from under which her gray curls come out with an unmistakable expression, conveyed in the hieratic language of the feminine priesthood, to the effect that while there is life there is hope. And when I come to reflect on the many circumstances which go to the making of matrimonial happiness, I cannot help thinking that a personage ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... of morality can never take the place of adoration. The heart must be satisfied, as well as the conscience. Larvillire, a Director, of irreproachable character, felt this deficiency of their system, and saw how strong a hold the Catholic priesthood had upon the common people. The idea occurred to him of rivalling the churches by establishing regular meetings of moral men and women, to sing hymns of praise to the Almighty, "one and indivisible," and to listen to discourses and exhortations ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... dates from a much older period than the charitable institution of which it is now the home. It was the seat of a religious fraternity far back in the Middle Ages, and continued so till Henry VIII. turned all the priesthood of England out of doors, and put the most unscrupulous of his favorites into their vacant abodes. In many instances, the old monks had chosen the sites of their domiciles so well, and built them on such a broad system of beauty and convenience, that ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... social distinctions with their idolatry, and framed a convenient legend to account for their divine institution, the whole thing was a mere fiction, which had been invented with the view of adding to the power of an ambitious priesthood. But the missionaries of Tanjore asserted, further, that even if the legend of caste was a true one, and that caste had been a part of idolatry, still those who abandoned the worshipping of idols and superstitious rites were not therefore to be required to abandon ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot

... Little Rivers. Under the magic of water it completes the cycle of desert fecundity, from Scotch oats and Irish potatoes to the Arab's bread. Bananas I do not include. Never where the banana grows has there been art or literature, a good priesthood, unimpassioned law-makers, honest bankers, or a noble knighthood. It is just a little too warm. Here we can build a civilization which neither roasts us in summer nor freezes ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... divine, from Heaven supplied, "Mustafa is the true, the unerring guide, The purest, greatest Prophet!" Next him came Wise Abu Buker, of unblemished name; Then Omer taught the faith, unknown to guile, And made the world with vernal freshness smile; Then Othman brave th' imperial priesthood graced; All, led by him, the Prophet's faith embraced. The fourth was Ali; he, the spouse adored Of Fatima, then spread the saving word. Ali, of whom Mahommed spoke elate, "I am the city of knowledge—he my gate." Ali the blest. Whoever shall recline A supplicant at his all-powerful ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... crowded and enraptured audiences. Schubart's evil genius seemed asleep, but Schubart himself awoke it. He had borne a grudge against the clergy, ever since his banishment from Ludwigsburg; and he now employed the facilities of his journal for giving vent to it. He criticised the priesthood of Augsburg; speculated on their selfishness and cant, and took every opportunity of turning them and their proceedings into ridicule. The Jesuits especially, whom he regarded as a fallen body, he treated with extreme freedom; exposing their deceptions, ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... forgotten that by original constitution all Israel was a nation of priests; and he looks forward to the fulfilment at last of the ideal which so soon became impracticable, and possibly to the abrogation of his own order in the universal priesthood. He knew not what deep truths he sang. The end of Christ's coming, and of the deliverance which He works for us from the hand of our enemies, cannot be better stated than in these words. We are redeemed that we may be priests unto God. Our priestly service ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... more solemnly than ever. "It's not Gospel," said he. "It's mere human tradition. Why, for centuries there was a married priesthood even in the Latin Church. Dunstan's chief measures consisted in a fierce war on the married clergy. So did Hildebrand's—Gregory the Seventh, you know. The Church at Milan, sustained by the doctrines of the great Ambrose, always preferred a married clergy. The ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille

... Buddhist educations. In ancient Zend there were also castes. Among the Persians themselves, as they descended from their mountains to the conquest of other nations, there was properly only a military nobility. The priesthood was subjected to the royal power which represented the absolute power of actuality. Of the Persian kings, Cyrus attacked Western Asia; Cambyses, Africa; Darius and Xerxes, Europe; until the reaction of the spiritually higher nationality did not content itself with self-preservation, ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz

... established, the habit of deference is logically carried much farther than mere conjugal convenience would take it. Its natural outcome is the authority of the priest, not of the husband. That domination of the women of France by the priesthood which forms even now the chief peril of the republic—which is the strength of legitimism and imperialism and all other conspiracies against the liberty of the French people—is only the visible and inevitable result of this ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... happy means of preventing bloodshed. Although the New Zealander is so fond of war, and possesses such war-like manners, yet are these peacemakers held in the highest respect, although they do not hold any sacred function—indeed, no order of priesthood exists amongst the natives. I have never discovered any symptoms of religion in these people, except it consists in a great variety of absurd and superstitious ceremonies. Before I visited this island I used to imagine, from seeing so great a variety of carved figures which had ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle

... endured in great penance six year; and then Sir Launcelot took the habit of priesthood of the Bishop, and a twelvemonth he sang mass. And there was none of these other knights but they read in books, and holp for to sing mass, and rang bells, and did bodily all manner of service. And so their horses went where they would, for they took no regard of no worldly riches. For when ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory

... Father Jacques Marquette was born in the province of Champagne, eastern France. He came to Canada when he was twenty-nine years old, having already been prepared by the Jesuits for priesthood and missionary work since his seventeenth year. He spent nine years in Canada, and died at the age of thirty-eight. He has left an enduring memory for goodness, ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston

... there! for faith ye've said enough, And muckle mair than ye can mak to through; As for your Priesthood, I shall say but little, Corbies and Clergy, are a shot right kittle: But under favour o' your langer beard, Abuse o' Magistrates might weel be spar'd: To liken them to your auld-warld squad, I must needs say, comparisons are odd. In Ayr, wag-wits nae ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... worst come to the worst, he has his machines ready, which, if necessary, will miraculously rekindle the dead fire of Vesta. In this way, even though Julia should escape the sacrifice, the power of the priesthood would still ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... could the Bishop resist the enthusiasm. In fact, the condition of the Texans touched him on its religious side very keenly. For the fight was quite as much a fight for religious as for political freedom. Never in old Spain itself had priestcraft wielded a greater power than the Roman priesthood in Texas. They hated and feared an emigration of Americans, for they knew them to be men opposed to tyranny of all kinds, men who thought for themselves, and who would not be dictated to by monks and priests. It was, without doubt, the clerical element which had urged on the military element to ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr

... you imagine that citizen Schneider has not thrown off the absurd mummery of priesthood? If you were a little older you would go to prison for calling him Father Schneider—many a man has died for less;" and he pointed to a picture of a guillotine, which ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... been found by those who objected this to them, that there were some who, having celebrated mass for ten years, were still unable to read the sacramental service. We have also understood there are persons among them who, although not ordained, do take upon them the offices of priesthood, and, in contempt of God, celebrate the divine and sacred rites, and administer the sacraments, not only in sacred and dedicated places, but in those which are prophane and interdicted, and most wretchedly ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... when it has been performed by unconsecrated hands of dissenters: you do rebaptize all converts from those sects. So our church does not recognize the sacrament of marriage, when performed by any one outside of its own priesthood. I shall with true gladness of heart administer the holy sacrament of marriage to these two so strangely separated, and so strangely brought together. They have borne ten years of penance for whatever of sin had gone before: the church ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous

... all that population; there were two sections in which the most beautiful elements of our human nature were most touchingly manifest—the women and the priesthood, including in the latter denomination all the various brotherhoods and societies ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... and, on the completion of my studies, had indulged in the recreation of a tour on foot through Brittany, by way of innocently and agreeably occupying the leisure time then at my disposal, before I entered the priesthood. When I accosted your father I had lost my way, had been walking for many hours, and was glad of any rest that I could get for the night. It is unnecessary to pain you now, by reference to the events which followed my ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins

... scoffers of the priesthood; who mock at things divine, Who rail against the pulpit, and holy bread and wine; Sore from their cart-tail scourgings, and from the pillory lame, Rejoicing in their wretchedness, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... the true Church of Christ can be found the fruits of the redemption; only in her is the true priesthood of the Lord. The fruits of the redemption here on earth are truth and grace, and in the hereafter eternal salvation. The divine truth, as proclaimed by Christ, is alone contained in the holy Catholic Church; and through the co-operation of the Holy Ghost it ...
— The Excellence of the Rosary - Conferences for Devotions in Honor of the Blessed Virgin • M. J. Frings

... not pay a very great adoration, as sent by him to the world. These are supposed to preside over rain, crops, dreams, &c., and have various attributes, which it would require volumes to explain. The Chinese have no regular priesthood, supported by the government; it depends on voluntary contributions and endowments of the rich; it has its monasteries, where numbers of both sexes devote themselves to celibacy; but, in general, it seems, as a body, to have less influence than in most countries. In all rich families, there ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... government, if its prefect is simply tonsured. I cannot for the life of me see in what tonsured prelates are more laymen than they are priests. I admit that they neither follow the calling nor possess the virtues of the priesthood; but I maintain that they have the ideas, the interests, the passions of the ecclesiastical caste. They aim at the Cardinal's hat, when their ambition does not soar to the tiara. Singular laymen, truly, and well fitted to inspire confidence ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About

... spreading in western Europe in Augustine's time, and the monkist vows included "chastity". There followed a long struggle to force the whole priesthood to adopt a celibate life, and this finally succeeded so far as repeated decrees of the Church could effect it. Marriage was proper for the laity, but both the monastic and secular clergy aspired to a ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson

... have destroyed the clergy. Assertions of this sort, which those possessed uttered while in a state which may be compared with that of magnetic sleep, obtained general belief, and passed from mouth to mouth with wonderful additions. The priesthood were, on this account, so much the more zealous in their endeavors to anticipate every dangerous excitement of the people, as if the existing order of things could have been seriously threatened by such incoherent ravings. Their exertions were effectual, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... Occasionally men were manumitted in order that they might be ordained as clergymen. In the period following the pestilences of the fourteenth century the difficulty in recruiting the ranks of the priesthood made the practice more frequent The charters of manumission issued by the king to the insurgents of 1381 would have granted freedom on a large scale had they not been disowned and subsequently withdrawn. Still other ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney

... regaling her with his scholastic love, was a certain vicar of Azay-le-Ridel, a place later on most aptly named as Azay-le-Brule, and now Azay-le-Rideau, whose castle is one of the marvels of Touraine. Now this said period, when the women were not averse to the odour of the priesthood, is not so far distant as some may think, Monsieur D'Orgemont, son of the preceding bishop, still held the see of Paris, and the great quarrels of the Armagnacs had not finished. To tell the truth, this vicar did well to have his vicarage in that ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac

... populace, peopling the dense towns where the man of money thrives, while the labourer starves; want striding among the people in all its forms of terror; an ignorant and God-defying priesthood chuckling over the miseries of millions; a proud and merciless nobility adding wrong to wrong, and heaping insult upon robbery and fraud; royalty corrupt to the very heart; aristocracy rotten to the core; crime and want linked hand in hand, ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson

... nomad states. Everywhere has the class of ritualistic priests and lettered theosophists been preceded by a class of less-cultivated worshipers, who paid simple offerings of flesh and wine to the personified powers of the visible universe without the aid of a hereditary professional priesthood. Everywhere has the class of nobles and territorial chieftains been preceded by a humbler class of small peasant proprietors, who placed themselves under their protection and paid tribute or rent ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... develops the case against religion with the skill of a trained controversialist. Like the converted sinner in the ranks of the Salvation Army, Mr. McCabe carries special weight to the lines of rationalists and ethicists. For he was once a priest and lived in a monastery, and he left the priesthood and the monastery convinced of the worthlessness of both. He is, therefore, persona gratissima at the High Court of Reason. "The era of religious influence closes in bankruptcy," he informs us. He has no patience ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby

... one of the, authors of the revolution, and Duport, then minister of justice, guillotined. 29. Project to erect a monument upon the Pont-Neuf, representing the people as giants. The convention receives from all parts the letters of priesthood from the intruders. Decreed, that a municipal officer with a red bonnet shall inter the dead. Robespierre declaims against the eagerness with which they set about the work of destroying religion. A deputation of women ...
— Historical Epochs of the French Revolution • H. Goudemetz

... omnipotent in this world; man, thereby divine, can create as by a Fiat. Awake, arise! Speak forth what is in thee; what God has given thee, what the Devil shall not take away. Higher task than that of Priesthood was allotted to no man: wert thou but the meanest in that sacred Hierarchy, is it not honor enough therein to spend ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle

... had only intended her glories to be revealed to a favored few, and not to mankind at large. Blessed will be the day when all will appreciate their own powers and privileges, and no longer regard the oracles which emanate from a professional priesthood, whose dicta have so often tended to darken the simple counsels of truth! To set the question of pulsations in the zodial light, as well as in the tails of comets, at rest, only requires previously concerted observations, in places not very widely apart; for it is scarcely possible, that ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett

... conical in shape and the rim completely surrounded by a circlet of magnificent diamonds. This prince, the most illustrious of all the kings of Siam, spent many of the best years of his life in the priesthood as high priest of the kingdom. He was a profound scholar, not only in Oriental lore, but in many European tongues and in the sciences. In public he was rather reticent, but in the retirement of the social circle and among his European ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various

... found "the righteousness which is of God by faith," he grew hopeful, happy, and strong. Here is a living seed, but it is very small an awakened, exercised, conscientious, believing monk, is an imperceptible atom which superstitious multitudes, and despotic princes, and a persecuting priesthood will overlay and smother, as the heavy furrow covers the microscopic mustard-seed. But the living seed burst, and sprang, and pierced through all these coverings. How great it grew and how far it spread history tells to-day. We have ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... Moses had from his youth vast advantages. Brought up in the court of the greatest king of the world, in one of the greatest cities of the world, among the most learned priesthood in the world, he had learned, probably, all statesmanship, all religion, which man could teach him in those ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley

... also they are chiefly descended), they should be amongst the leading chivalries of Europe, in very fact they are, for political or social purposes, the most powerless gentry in existence. Acting in a corporate capacity, they can do nothing. The malignant planet of this low-born priesthood comes between them and the peasantry, eclipsing oftentimes the sunshine of their comprehensive beneficence, and always destroying their power to discountenance[20] evil-doers. Here is the sad excuse. But, for all that, ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... terms are, that during three successive days, every year, there shall be said for the peace of his soul a certain number of masses, —all to be done in the richest and costliest manner. In case of delinquency, the bequest passes to the Philharmonic Society of Milan; but the priesthood of the basilica so strictly regard the wishes of the deceased that they never say less than four masses over and above the prescribed number. [Footnote: After hearing these masses, curiosity led me to visit the Casa di Ricovero, in order to look at Soldini'a will, and there I had the pleasure ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... their history a receptive people. They have stood ready to welcome the good things which were offered to them, coming from whatever direction. They accepted eagerly the Chinese written language and the philosophy with which it came charged. They accepted Buddhism with its priesthood and dogma and ritual, and permitted it to crowd their native religion until it became a pitiful minority. They have in recent times accepted with a hearty impetuosity the civilization of western nations, and are absorbing ...
— Japan • David Murray

... Celts, therefore, learning constituted a kind of priesthood. These were his moral qualifications. His scientific attainments require a little longer consideration, as they form the chief object we have ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... first monastery for seven years. At the end of the third year he received the tonsure and was ordained to the priesthood by the name of Sergius. The profession was an important event in his inner life. He had previously experienced a great consolation and spiritual exaltation when receiving communion, and now when he himself officiated, ...
— Father Sergius • Leo Tolstoy

... look at the image of St. James in the cathedral, to whom the edifice is dedicated, because this miraculous figure, who had wrought so many miracles, had, strange to say, commenced letting his beard grow, much to the astonishment of all the priesthood and of the common people, and to the dismay of several knights who had been knighted at the altar of St. James, because in those days knights did not ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others

... unnamed, the undescribed object rises full in vision. The poet flings forth his melody, and to the gross ear it seems a mere tinkle of inanity. That is simply because the crowd who worship at the shrine of the Sminthean Apollo have been accustomed by an old-fashioned and ridiculously incompetent priesthood to look for an instant and mechanical relation between sound and sense. I would not exaggerate, sire; but the kind of poetry lately cultivated, not only at Delphi, but in ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse

... over them. I spent hours in wandering about and examining the many curious things which are to be seen in this church, including those of its famous treasury. It is truly surprising that, after so many revolutions, so many of these valuables have been preserved. The fidelity of the priesthood to their charge is surely deserving of some admiration, considering how many opportunities there must have been of making away with precious articles, after which no inquiry would probably have ever ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various

... and our mathematical investigations assure us on every hand, notwithstanding the cant of the more ignorant of the priesthood, that space, and therefore that bulk, is an important consideration in the eyes of the Almighty. The cycles in which the stars move are those best adapted for the evolution, without collision, of the greatest possible number of bodies. The forms of those bodies are accurately such as within ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe

... not how things will turn out between me and men of like spirit; but this, too, is not the least of my dislike, that this man has no priesthood or leadership over men, but thou hast always said that thou wouldest not wed me to a man who ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous

... having become impoverished, perhaps by the exactions perpetrated either by the Danes, or to bribe them away, retired from the world, and entered convents at Worcester. Wulstan, wishing to devote himself to the Church, sought the service of the Bishop, who ordained him to the priesthood. ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... another place, Why do not the rich Catholics endow foundations for the education of the priesthood? Why do you not permit them to do so? Why are all such bequests subject to the interference, the vexatious, arbitrary, peculating interference of the Orange ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... a man of family and fortune, who, having gone to Oxford with the usual views of such men, had become inoculated there with very High-Church principles, and had gone into orders influenced by a feeling of enthusiastic love for the priesthood. He was by no means an ascetic—such men, indeed, seldom are—nor was he a devotee. He was a man well able, and certainly willing, to do the work of a parish clergyman; and when he became one, he was efficacious in his profession. But it may perhaps be said of him, without ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... things of the body and of the mind are kept together in an inseparable connection. Hence it is, that Jesus touched infants, Matt, xviii. 2-6; Mark x. 13-16; and that he healed the sick by the touch: and that those who touched him were healed: hence also it is, that inaugurations into the priesthood are at this day effected by the laying on of hands. From these considerations it is evident, that the innocence of parents and the innocence of infants meet each other by the touch, especially of the hands, and thereby join themselves ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg

... performance of circumcision was at one time limited to the priesthood, who, in addition to the cleanliness that this operation imparted to that class, added the shaving of the whole body as a means of further purification. The nobility, royalty, and the higher warrior class seem to have adopted circumcision as well, either ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino

... which is frightfully irresponsible; if, on the other hand, he is left to such support as he can find in the prevailing spirit of manners, and the old traditionary veneration for his sacred character, he stands very much in the situation of a priesthood, which has great power or none at all, according to the condition of a country in moral and religious feeling, coupled with the more or less primitive state of manners. How, then, with any rational ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... into friendly relations with the Power outside themselves that might work to their undoing. Temples and shrines testified to man's devotion and stirred his emotions by their symbols and ceremonies. A special class of men was organized, a priesthood to mediate with the gods for mankind. Children were taught to respect and fear the higher powers, and their elders were often warned not to stir the anger of deity. As the human mind developed, impulse and emotion were supplemented by intellect. As man ruminated upon nature and human experience he ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe

... Viceroy Gorchakov to demand satisfaction for the blood that had been spilled. In the demonstrative funeral procession which followed the coffins of the victims the Jewish clergy, headed by Meisels, marched alongside of the Catholic priesthood. Many Jews attended the memorial services in the Catholic churches at which fiery patriotic speeches were delivered. Similar demonstrations of mourning were held in the synagogues. An appeal sent out broadcast ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... on his head, the Cossacks all bowed their heads and took off their caps. To no one lower than the king himself would they have shown respect at such an hour; but their daring fell before the Church of Christ, and they honoured their priesthood. The hetman and leaders agreed to release Pototzky, after having extracted from him a solemn oath to leave all the Christian churches unmolested, to forswear the ancient enmity, and to do no harm to the Cossack forces. One leader alone would not consent to such a peace. It was Taras. He tore ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... first place, I do not wish to disgrace the World; and, in the second, I feel that I never should be done sneering, in the present instance, were I once to begin. Lamartine blames Voltaire for the use which he made of (ruse) misrepresentation, in his attacks on the priesthood; but our young students of Theology do not seem to be aware that in defense or what they fancy to be defense, of Christianity, there is anything wrong in such gentlemanly peccadillos as the deliberate perversion of an author's text—to ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... service, either in the military or otherwise. The Dominicans have gradually changed those rules. The students of that college, to the number of about fifty who are supported there annually, are all or nearly all destined for the priesthood. Consequently they study philosophy and theology in the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various

... world affords abundant evidence that, in the dawn of civilization, most nations endeavoured to fix and to perpetuate ideas by painting the figures of the objects that produced them. The Egyptian priesthood recorded the mysteries of their religion in graphic emblems of this kind; and the Mexicans, on the first arrival of the Spaniards, informed their prince Montezuma of what was passing by painting their ideas on a roll of cloth. There is no way so natural as this of expressing, and conveying ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... it must be remembered, the stern and unnatural ideals of compulsory celibacy cherished by the Western Church never completely penetrated; the clergy of the Eastern Church are married, though the marriage must take place before they enter the priesthood, and they could not sympathize with the anti-sexual tone of the marriage regulations laid down by the celibate clergy of ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... blasphemous error of these early ages to expect that the Almighty, whenever he was called upon, would work a miracle in favour of a person unjustly accused. The priesthood, in condemning the duel, did not condemn the principle on which it was founded. They still encouraged the popular belief of Divine interference in all the disputes or differences that might arise among nations or individuals. It was the very same principle ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... village when the holy molar was brought here in the sixteenth century for safe-keeping. The small temple wherein it was deposited was beautified and enlarged, and finally the priesthood made the place their principal seat, and the Kandyan kings later made the city their stronghold and capital ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield

... word that the sacred fire was gone out in the Grandissime temple (counting-room), that Delilahs in duplicate were carrying off the holy treasures, and that the uncircumcised and unclean—even an f.m.c.—was about to be inducted into the Grandissime priesthood. ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... necessary to a priest than to a king, wherefore it is written (Malachi 2:7): "The lips of the priest shall keep knowledge, and they shall seek the law at his mouth," and (Osee 4:6): "Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will reject thee, that thou shalt not do the office of priesthood to Me." Now the king is commanded to learn knowledge of the Law (Deut. 17:18, 19). Much more therefore should the Law have commanded the priests ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... their numbers: for they mustered strong in the capital: they had great influence there; and the average of intellect and knowledge was higher among them than among their order generally. We should probably overrate their numerical strength, if we were to estimate them at a tenth part of the priesthood. Yet it will scarcely be denied that there were among them as many men of distinguished eloquence and learning as could be found in the other nine tenths. Among the laity who conformed to the established ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... in the village of Mazerny, dependency of the duchy of Rethel, was the son of a serge weaver; brought up in the country, he nevertheless pursued his studies and succeeded to the priesthood. At the seminary, where he lived with much regularity, he devoted himself to ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier

... thought, were wont to materialize in the form of great black dogs, and unfortunate animals of this type, if they evinced such peculiarities as were likely to place them under suspicion, were taken forthwith to the Youdic by a member of the enlightened priesthood of the district, and were cast into its seething depths with all the ceremonies suitable to such ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

... as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King

... generally closed the sacrifice, and a fresh strewing of oak leaves reconsecrated the altar. It is remarkable that drinking—hard drinking—should have been practised by the priesthood in those remote periods, but as they were pagan heathens any animadversions can be made in safety. I cannot digress upon it. White bulls were sacrificed, and it is a singular coincidence (too striking to be the effect of chance) that white bulls ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various

... route through Chihuahua, and through Texas, where he noted the vast droves of wild horses, and the herds of peccaries. He was much impressed by the strange mixture of new world savagery and old world feudalism in the provinces through which he passed. A nobility and a priesthood which survived unchanged from the middle ages held sway over serfs and made war upon savages. The Apache and Comanche raided on the outlying settlements; the mixed bloods, and the "tame" Indians on the great ranches and in the hamlets were in a state of ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt

... to his native land, with the hope that he might there live a life of retirement and of simple Christian obedience. But this might not be: on the occasion of Augustine's visit to Hippo in 391, the bishop of that city persuaded him to receive ordination to the priesthood and to remain with him as an adviser; and four years later he was consecrated as colleague or coadjutor in the episcopate. Thus he entered on a busy public life of thirty-five years, which called for the exercise of all his powers as a Christian, a metaphysician, a man ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... College, the first college which existed in the University, Merton proposed not only to erect a building in which the lads who studied might be boarded and placed under supervision, but to train them with a view to learning for its own sake, and not to prepare them for the priesthood. The eagerness to learn things difficult was accompanied by a desire to increase popular knowledge. For the first time since the Chronicle came to an end, which was soon after the accession of Henry ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner

... he was tempted to despond. But every work has its season; and now for some time past that difficulty had been gradually lessening; various zealous men, some of noble birth, others of extensive acquirements, had entered the Congregation; and our friend Willis, who at this time had received the priesthood, was not the last of these accessions, though domiciled at a distance from London. And now the reader knows much more about the Passionists than did Reding at the time that he made his way ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman

... Mr. Cragg were only that—a simple, unlettered countryman, as I thought him—I should know how to win his confidence. But, do you know, sir, he is well educated and intelligent. Once he studied for the priesthood or ministry, ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)

... cities, whose ruins still astonish travelers. The land, except that owned by the priests, belonged to the king, who was supreme and unlimited in power. The people were divided into castes, the highest being priests, and the lowest husbandmen. The kings were hereditary, but belonged to the priesthood, and their duties and labors were arduous. The priests were the real governing body, and were treated with the most respectful homage. They were councilors of the king, judges of the land, and guardians of all great interests. The soldiers were also numerous, ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... a good thing? If the very idea of a clergyman, was abominable, as your Church-destroyers ought to say, you ought to praise a man for being a bad one, and not acting out this same abominable idea of priesthood. Your very outcry against the sins of the clergy, shows that, even in your minds, a dim notion lies somewhere that a clergyman's vocation is, in itself, a divine, ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al



Words linked to "Priesthood" :   priest, rabbinate, profession, ministry, clergy



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