"Sacrilege" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Courtney. He wasn't a polished society chap and he didn't know much about grammar, but he was as fine and honest and noble as any man who ever lived. But this is no time to discuss the qualifications of a man as big and grand as my husband. It—it seems like sacrilege. What I want to know is this: how old is ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... looking like Titania's bower in their delicate green coloring and bamboo furniture. The carpets were like untouched moss clinging fresh and sweet, to mother-rocks, and to Olive, it seemed almost like sacrilege to tread upon it. From the wide, deep windows was a view, such as would hold the most careless gazer in a moment of ecstasy, and after one quick cry of artistic appreciation, Olive stood mutely entranced. ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... nothing was done. Soufflot was making feeble efforts to complete Perrault's north front when the Revolution came to arrest his work. So lost to reverence and devoid of artistic sentiment were the official architects of this period, that a sacrilege worse than any wrought by revolutionists was perpetrated at the instance of the canons of Notre Dame. Louis XIV. had begun the vandalism by demolishing the beautiful old Gothic high altar and replacing it by a huge, ponderous ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... Thaddeus; "Heaven will requite this sacrilege." He thought on his mother, who lay beneath the ruins, and tore himself from the sight, whilst he added, "Farewell! forever farewell! thou beloved, revered Villanow, where I was reared in bliss and tenderness! I quit thee and my country ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... an attempt they regard as profane, and they denounce it as tyranny whenever it is sought to be enforced. They pretend that in all times the priesthood has been sacred, that its rights come from God himself, and that no government can, without sacrilege, or without outraging the Divinity, touch the property, the privileges, or the immunities which have been snatched from ignorance and credulity. Whenever the civil authority would touch the objects considered inviolable ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... Ananias and Sapphira was very peculiar. This example was made, not of avowed enemies, but avowed friends. Many expositors say that Ananias had made a vow to give his estate for the support of the Christian cause, and that sacrilege was the crime for which he was punished. He had, from corrupt motives, attempted to impose upon the Apostles in pretending to give all that he had to the church, while withholding a good share for himself. He had evidently instructed his wife to substantiate ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... Bonapartes to lack full validity. It is certain, however, that Fesch always maintained that the marriage could only be annulled by an act of arbitrary authority. For Napoleon's refusal to receive the communion on the morning of the coronation, lest he, being what he was, should be guilty of sacrilege ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... there. But now I felt almost certain that the ministers were holding a prayer-meeting, or conference, or something in "the front room, second story," so I went upstairs with a slow and solemn tread, feeling that the rustle of my pink silk was almost sacrilege. ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... haunted his soul. The clouds had risen at her coming, and he beheld a new-created world. What she was, he could not fancy, but he adored her. Her age, he durst not estimate; fearing to find her older than himself, and thinking sacrilege to couple that fair favour with the thought of mortal changes. As for her character, beauty to the young is always good. So the poor lad lingered late upon the terrace, stealing timid glances at the curtained window, sighing to the gold laburnums, rapt into the country ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... villain! Know that it is sacrilege for a common mortal to embrace one who has been kissed by his most illustrious Highness the ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... civilians—I mean "The British Officer." The few remarks which I am now going to make are founded on the universal opinion of all the Regular soldiers and Colonial and home-bred Volunteers I have met out here. I have hesitated to give this verdict before, because it seemed like rank heresy or a kind of sacrilege; but having asked every man I have come across, especially the Regular soldier, his estimate of this person, and always receiving the same emphatic reply, I feel I can now make my few remarks without being regarded as too hasty ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... elder absolved, reconciled, exhorted, imposed penance, blessed, and dismissed them. It was against this general "confession" that the opponents of "elders" protested, maintaining that it was a profanation of the sacrament of confession, almost a sacrilege, though this was quite a different thing. They even represented to the diocesan authorities that such confessions attained no good object, but actually to a large extent led to sin and temptation. Many of the brothers disliked going to the elder, and went against their own will because ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... any of the privileged class. In that case, the mean and despised condition of the delinquent, as compared with that of the person whose rights he has dared to invade, converts what might otherwise have scarcely been deemed a transgression at all into something little short of sacrilege. The thief is therefore knocked on the head at once, or strung up on a gallows; for that, too, seems to be one of the modes of public punishment for this species of crime in New Zealand. This severity is demanded by the necessity which is felt for upholding ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... wall of the room. "What a vulgar, insignificant chit one feels oneself without cap or powder!—without those ruffles, or those tippets, or those quilted petticoats! Mrs. Allison, may my maid come down to-morrow while we are at dinner and take the pattern of those ruffles? No—no! she sha'n't! Sacrilege! You pretty thing!" she said, addressing a figure—the figure of a girl in white with thin virginal arms and bust, who seemed to be coming out of the picture, almost to be already out of it and in the room. "Come and talk to me. Don't think ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Who could have resisted! You yourself were the prize of it. I sat alone in my room, planning a life, the very thought of which makes me shudder now, like a believer who had been tempted to an atrocious sacrilege. But I brooded ardently over its images. The only thing was that there seemed to be no air in it. And also I was afraid of your mother. I never knew mine. I've never known any kind of love. There is something in the mere word.... Of you, I was not afraid—forgive me for telling you ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... money intended for some private purse. The order however was obeyed; the two churches were stripped, and the lead was shipped to be sold in Holland. I hope every reader will rejoice that this cargo of sacrilege ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... evil and decided to take it from me, remove the bodies to another place and make a park of it. I was to be paid for it and could easily bribe the appraisers to fix a high price, but for a reason which will appear the decision gave me little joy. It was in vain that I protested against the sacrilege of disturbing the holy dead, although this was a powerful appeal, for in that land the dead are held in religious veneration. Temples are built in their honor and a separate priesthood maintained ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... away up the river towards the mountains. Poss and Binjie had long ago laid their dearest possessions at her feet, begging her to ride them—horses so precious that it had hitherto been deemed sacrilege to put a side-saddle on them. She had the divine gift of "hands," and all manner of excitable, pulling horses went quietly and smoothly under her management. Her English training had taught her to ride over jumps, and she ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... and there inside the building were remains of their cooking-places, with broken fragments of utensils. The walls, too, had suffered much from the effects of our bombardment from September 11 to 14, the church being in the line of fire directed on the bastions. Many, no doubt, would consider it a sacrilege to quarter English troops in this sacred edifice, but the exigencies of war required its use for this purpose, and of all the buildings occupied by us during our stay in Delhi, the church was found to be cleanest and best ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... husband—a sacrilege!" cried Frances, faithful to her pious traditions, and, clasping her hands together, she endeavored ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... government. You were the principal scene and theatre of the development of statesmanship that then occurred. You witnessed the incubation of the portentous birth. You remember when you were informed that the policy to secure the prosperity of Ireland and the content of Irishmen was a policy of sacrilege and confiscation. Gentlemen, when Ireland was placed under the wise and able administration of Lord Abercorn, Ireland was prosperous, and I may say content. But there happened at that time a very peculiar conjuncture in politics. The Civil War in America had just ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... day—a little, pale, frail corpse. Why, I would as soon have thought of entering her room without her permission as of burgling a church. I would sooner have committed that crime. I would certainly have done it if I had thought the state of her heart demanded the sacrilege. So at ten o'clock at night the door closed upon Florence, who had gently, and, as if reluctantly, backed up that fellow's recommendations; and she would wish me good night as if she were a cinquecento Italian lady saying good-bye ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... went gray,—gray as the face of a believer whose gods have been offered sacrilege. In the silence the shadow advanced to the doorway of the room itself; very real, paused there waiting, all-seeing, listening. "You mean you're leaving the ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... the author, pains were taken to expiate the sacrilege. Successive processions visited the spot. In one of these, five hundred students of the university, chosen from different colleges and belonging to the first families, bore lighted tapers, which they placed on the temporary altar erected in front of the image. The clergy, both ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... interference of accident or providence. They comforted themselves with the hope that the world would speedily fall back into its old ways, that Christ and the saints would defend the church against sacrilege, and that in the meantime there was no occasion for them to thrust themselves upon voluntary martyrdom.[383] But this position, natural as it was, became difficult to maintain when they were called upon not only themselves to consent to the changes, but to justify ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... this old society it would have been necessary to change the objects of public esteem and veneration, and to abolish the rights affirmed by a justice purely secular; they said: "Rome has conquered through her politics and her gods; any change in theology and public opinion would be folly and sacrilege. Rome, merciful toward conquered nations, though binding them in chains, spared their lives; slaves are the most fertile source of her wealth; freedom of the nations would be the negation of her rights and the ruin of her finances. Rome, in fact, enveloped in the pleasures and gorged with ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... belonging to St. Peter. If you presume to touch them, your conscience must answer for the sacrilege. For me, I dare not keep what I am not ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... simple-minded Indian inhabitants of the village by this sacrilege, and the great noise of the rejoicings, that they knew not which way to turn or flee, until they were seized by the brutal soldiers, and either killed or set to work with the negro slaves brought from the West ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... dirty, even ridiculous and degrading, not to say bestial. The woman who enjoys it, is, therefore, rather like a profaned altar, or, at least, like a divinity who has descended on to the earth. To give enjoyment to a woman is, therefore, like perpetrating a sacrilege, or at least like taking a liberty with a god. The feelings bequeathed to us by a long social civilization maintain themselves in spite of our rational and deliberate opinions. Reason tells us that there is nothing evil in sexual enjoyment, whether in man or woman, but an unconscious feeling directs ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... on years; to ages, ages yield; Abbots to Abbots, in a line, succeed: Religion's charter, their protecting shield, Till royal sacrilege their doom decreed. ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... and priest, by name Nicholas the Bird-Catcher, comes to confess her in prison. He abuses the sacrament to the point of hiding behind a piece of serge two priests who transcribed Joan of Arc's confession. Thus did the judges use sacrilege in order to be murderers. And an unfortunate idiot, who had had enough courage to render very great services to the king and the country, was condemned to be burned by forty-four French priests who immolated her ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... Arsaces as a god, and down to our day have given him so much honour that, in conferring the royal power, one of his race has been always preferred to any one else. And also in intestine quarrels, such as are common in that nation, every one avoids as sacrilege wounding any descendant of Arsaces, whether in arms or living ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... may have felt toward him in days gone, and gratefully as she always felt, this sudden attempt to carry by storm the very citadel of her affections was not alone a surprise, but seemed like sacrilege. The mystery and doubt that overhung the relations between her own father and mother—and which she felt keenly—had made her regard with awe any possible marriage of her own, investing the thought of it with a terrible sanctity, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... Why-Why. When he was but ten years old, his inquiring spirit showed itself in the following remarkable manner. He had always been informed that a serpent was the mother of his race, and that he must treat serpents with the greatest reverence. To kill one was sacrilege. In spite of this, he stole out unobserved and crushed a viper which had stung his little brother. He noticed that no harm ensued, and this encouraged him to commit a still more daring act. None ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... you displayed in your reception of the king," said La Fontaine, quietly, without suspicion that he was uttering a sacrilege. ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Divinity i' th' very Form on't, Had I been conscious I'd been near the Temple, Where this bright Relick of the glorious Martyr Had been enshrin'd, 't had spoil'd my soft Devotion. —'Tis Sacrilege to dally where it is; A rude, a saucy Treason to approach it With an unbended Knee: for Heav'ns sake, Madam, Let us not be profane in our Delights, Either withdraw, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... adored pretty women, but had always adored them at a distance. To him, woman was a divinity; he bowed at her shrine, but dared not presume to taste the nectar of her lips, or inhale the perfume of her sighs. He had always regarded such familiarity as a type of sacrilege. But now, seated tete-a-tete with that charming creature, and feasting his eyes upon her voluptuous beauty, his awe of the divinity merged into a ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... be placed at the bottom of a well, is a mystery which I cannot fathom. One of the officers of the church told me that at one time he and another kept watch in the church during the night, one of the chapels having shortly before been broken open and a sacrilege committed. At the dead of night, finding the time hang heavy on their hands, they took a crowbar and removed the slab and looked down into the abyss below; it was dark as the grave; whereupon they affixed a weight to the end of a long rope and lowered it down. At a very great ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... conversation, that I was engaged to her son. Think of Lady Lufton. But yet it was not that, Fanny. Had I thought that it was good for him, that he would not have repented, I would have braved anything—for his sake. Even your frown, for you would have frowned. You would have thought it sacrilege for me to marry Lord Lufton! You know ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... Life. Dr. Kippis and his "Biographia Britannica." Lord Barrington and the Hamburgh lottery. Character of King William. Folly of reburying the crown and robes of' Edward the First. "Dr. Johnson's notions of sacrilege—[N.) 264 ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... hand was poised a long and slender lance. As this Moor, mounted on a charger in whose raven hue not a white hair could be detected, dashed forward against Pacheco, both Christian and Moor breathed hard, and remained passive. Either nation felt it as a sacrilege to thwart the encounter of champions ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Although they had practiced an economy that was so severe as to be detrimental to both health and character, their principal had melted away, and their jewelry and plate, with the exception of heirlooms that could not be sold without a sense of sacrilege, had been quietly disposed of. The end of their resources was near, and they knew not what to do. Mara had tried to eke out their means by fancy-work, but she had no great aptitude for such tasks, and her education ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... in all the years had he imagined the sacrilege of making her his wife, until there came the farewell letter from his father in prison; that man used to reading the hearts of men, who saw the truth between the lines of his son's letters, and deliberately gave the woman both loved into ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... hindered from assisting at the mysteries than constrained thereto, and the more so in that it appears to be a consequence thereof to constrain them likewise to fulfil their Easter, which is expressly to give occasion for frightful sacrilege. They might be constrained to undergo instruction; but, so far as I can learn, that would hardly advance matters, and I think that we must be reduced to three things; one is, to oblige them to send their children to the schools, or, in default, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... here, where the best work of his preachers was to be done among populations not only churchless, but out of reach of church or ministry of whatever name, in those Southern States in which nine tenths of his penitents and converts were gained, his preachers were warned against the sacrilege of ministering to the craving converts the Christian ordinances of baptism and the holy supper, and bidden to send them to their own churches—when they had none. The wretched incumbents of the State parishes at the first sounds of war had scampered from the field like hirelings whose own ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... Sophia's young heart too easily gave way to the soft impression; she loved, she idolized this most base of mankind; she would have thought it a kind of sacrilege to have had any will in ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... discouragements, what melancholy apostasies are induced by the faltering steps of the man of genius! And yet it would be profanity to confound his errors in the same anathema, hurled against the base vices of meanness, the shameless effrontery of low crime! It would be sacrilege! If the acts of the poet have sometimes denied the spirit of his song, have not his songs still more powerfully denied his acts? May not the limited influence of his private actions have been far more than counterbalanced by the germs of creative virtues, scattered profusely through ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... strait is Bangor, a rather straggling town, with a cathedral that is not very old. We are told that its bishop once sold its peal of bells, and, going down to the shore to see them shipped away, was stricken blind as a punishment for the sacrilege. Of Bangor Castle, as it originally stood, but insignificant traces remain, but Lord Penrhyn has recently erected in the neighborhood the imposing castle of Penryhn, a massive pile of dark limestone, in which the endeavor is made to combine a Norman feudal castle ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... was in an uproar. Namgay Doola, men said, had gone forth in the night and with a sharp knife had cut off the tail of a cow belonging to the rabbit-faced villager who had betrayed him. It was sacrilege unspeakable against the holy cow. The state desired his blood, but he had retreated into his hut, barricaded the doors and windows with big stones, ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... thus it was quietly left to its natural tendency to sacred purposes. Like all institutions which bestow upon man the proper prerogative of God, and affect authority over religious and not civil opinions, the Amphictyonic council was not very efficient in good: even in its punishment of sacrilege, it was only dignified and powerful whenever the interests of the Delphic temple were at stake. Its most celebrated interference was with the town of Crissa, against which the Amphictyons decreed war B. C. 505; the territory of Crissa was ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... dare not Commit so great a sacrilege 'gainst virtue, She look'd not much unlike—though far, far short, Something, I see, appears—your pardon, madam— Her eyes would smile so, but her eyes could cozen; And so she would look sad; but yours is pity, ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... kept for this. One little light gold ring, with a cheap water sapphire in it, he selected from all that had been given him. He had worn it for functions, and would bear it in death, and have nothing about him else to tempt folk to sacrilege. The hearers understood, foolishly, from this that he knew his body would be translated after its first sepulture, and for this reason he had it cased in lead and solid stone that no one should seize or even see his ornaments ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... the janitor, years ago. Then we had a parson who named me the sextant. And Doctor Smith, he called me a virgin. And our young man, he says I'm the sacrilege." ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... own line, and a simple one. "If it was some vile slave or scoundrel African," he said, "no harm would have been done; but, by Jupiter Tonans, it's a Greek girl, who sings like a Muse, dances like a Grace, and spouts verses like Minerva. 'Twould be sacrilege to touch a hair of her head; and we forsooth are to let these cowardly dogs of magistrates entrap Fortunianus at Carthage ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... (holy mantle), and other venerated relics of the prophet Mohammed are preserved. To this place, on the 15th of Ramadan, the Sultan and leading dignitaries of the Empire repair to do homage to the holy relics, upon which it would be the highest sacrilege for Christian eyes to gaze. The hem of this holy mantle is reverently kissed by the Sultan and the few leading personages present, after which the spot thus brought in contact with human lips is carefully wiped with an embroidered napkin dipped ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... The cell was solitary the owner being then at mass in the chapel of the monastery. Murray laid down his death-like burden on the monk's bed. He then ventured (believing, as it was to restore so pure a being to life, it could not be sacrilege) to throw some of the holy water upon his cousin's face; and by means of a little chalice, which stood upon the altar, he poured some into her mouth. At last opening her eyes, she recognized the figure of her young kinsman leaning over her. The almost paralyzed Halbert stood at her feet. "Blessed ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... hills or mountains, was very famous among the Indians, who by common consent had made the adjacent territory neutral ground. Here they came and provided themselves with pipes, very necessary to the Indian's happiness. To apply the stone to any other use than that of pipe-making would have been sacrilege in the native's mind. From similarity in color, they even fancied it to have been made, at the great deluge, from the flesh of the ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... Kami became more remote, a feeling of awe began to pervade the rites more strongly than a sense of family affection, and the idea of residing and worshipping in the same place assumed a character of sacrilege. This may have been directly suggested by a pestilence which, decimating the nation, was interpreted as implying the need of greater purity. A replica of the sacred mirror was manufactured, and the grandson of ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... everything is in the greatest order; but to open her drawers and presses, and to look at all her dear jewels and trinkets in order to identify everything, and relieve her really excellent servants from all responsibility and anxiety, is like a sacrilege, and I feel as if my heart was being torn asunder! So many recollections of my childhood are brought back to me, and these dumb souvenirs which she wore and used, and which so painfully survive ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... futile singeing, for the last twenty years. I really did not dream that they would think I would flutter, even if I was an old-maid aunt. But Harry cried out that if I were going to marry Dr. Denbigh he would go away. He never would stay and be a witness to such sacrilege. "That OLD man!" he raved. And when I said I was not a young girl myself he got all the madder. Well, I allowed him to think I was going to marry Dr. Denbigh (I wonder what the doctor would say), ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... a violent trade; one cannot always Finish one's work by soft means; every trifle Must not be blackened into sacrilege. 110 If we should wait till you, in solemn council, With due deliberation had selected The smallest out of four-and-twenty evils, I'faith, we should wait long.— 'Dash! and through with it!'—That's the better watch-word. 115 Then ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Maintenon always had this general confession on her conscience; she scolded Bossuet for it as a sort of sacrilege, and the latter, who was only difficult and particular with simple folk, quoted historical examples in which soldiers, on the eve of battle, ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... silent, awkward, and embarrassed before the girl who had taken care of his room, and who cooked in the galley! What he had thoughtlessly considered a merely vulgar business intrigue against her stupid father, now to his extravagant fancy assumed the proportions of a sacrilege to herself. ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... him, and he gave him the poisoned cup with his own hands. This was not the only, or perhaps the worst, crime that Wang Mang perpetrated to gain the throne. Pressed for money to pay his troops, he committed the sacrilege of stripping the graves of the princes of the Han family of the jewels deposited in them. One more puppet prince was placed on the throne, but he was soon got rid of, and Wang Mang proclaimed himself emperor. He also decreed that the Han dynasty was extinct, ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... with awe, and awed by his good fortune he wondered how much more he might save before he was forced to leave his employment; and to have touched a penny of his savings would have seemed to him a sin near to sacrilege. Yet he did not hesitate for a single moment to send Henrietta Brown, whose address he had been able to obtain through the bank books, a diamond brooch which had cost twenty pounds. He omitted to ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... Captain Hamelin, the commander, would not permit it to be disturbed. On the contrary, he set up a new post with the plate affixed to it, and expressed the opinion that to remove an interesting memorial that for over a century had been spared by nature and by man, would be to commit a kind of sacrilege.* (* "Il eut pense commettre un sacrilege en gardant a son bord cette plaque respectee pendant pres de deux siecles par la nature et par les hommes qui pouvoient avant nous l'avoir observee." Peron, Voyage de Decouvertes 1 195.) Freycinet was not ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... minister's wife. This seemed like sacrilege. But Rhoda's clear, blue eyes were fixed upon Rebecca Mary; she had not heard ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... any supper," said Sam. "It would have been sacrilege, after that dinner of yours. Honestly, I don't know how to thank you, being so good to a stranger like me. When I come back next trip, I expect to have the Kid with me, and I want her to meet you, by George! She's a winner and a pippin, ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... assented, the unbelievers denied. The faithful held that the miracle had been wrought and the seamless raiment torn to pieces by the mob; some declared that they had seen the garments, and tried to keep them from the sacrilege but had been overpowered. The unfaithful laughed at the pretense, and defied the faithful to show any scrap of the cloth having the form of clothing. The pieces remained with the poor woman who had brought the cloth for the miracle; she ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... boarded the Fiona with the feeling that we were going to have a pleasant and comfortable time, and not with the fear that our setting of a leather-soled shoe upon the hallowed decks was in itself an act of sacrilege. We were no sooner aboard than Fuller set himself to play the host with a charm which was exceedingly attentive and neither fussy ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... chapel, they would think that Christianity was dead, and they would fall back to their former condition. I took the sin upon myself, and I said mass for them, knowing that it was no mass, and praying that God would forgive me, and that it might not be a sacrilege. I did not fall ill. I lived amongst them, and received their confessions and administered all the sacraments when they were required, for the space of a year and a half, during which I sent many appeals for help. But in my letters I did not explain what I was doing, for I intended to go to the ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... 1813. They were in good preservation; one was a female with her extensive wardrobe placed before her. The removal of those mummies from the place in which they were found can be viewed as little less than sacrilege. There they had been, perhaps for centuries, and there they ought to have been left. What has become of them I know not. One of them, it is said, was lost in the burning of the Cincinnati museum. The wardrobe of the female was given ...
— Rambles in the Mammoth Cave, during the Year 1844 - By a Visiter • Alexander Clark Bullitt
... of the solemn union between man and woman? In this sense, marriage is a sacrament. But sometimes, alas! it is almost a sacrilege. As for civil marriage, it is a formality. The importance given to it in our society is an idiotic thing which would have made the women of other times laugh. We owe this prejudice, like many others, to the bourgeois, to the mad performances of a lot of financiers which have been called the Revolution, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... was sufficiently intimate with the arrangements of the house to know which was Nell's room, and my next dash was thither. The door of the room was wide-open, but I paused in the opening when I reached it, with the feeling strong upon me that I should commit something very like sacrilege by entering. A single glance, however, sufficed to reveal that the shrine of innocent girlhood had already been violated, for it, too, like Mr Lestrange's, had been turned topsy-turvy by the savages. But Nell—where was she? Instinctively I ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... remains open, the window remains open; the house, the things retain their air of absolute confidence, of absolute security, against violations and sacrilege. Now two other sisters, who are very old, set a small table, put two covers, bring to Arrochkoa and to his friend a little supper, a loaf of bread, cheese, cake, grapes from the arbor. In arranging these things they have a youthful gaiety, a babble almost childish—and all this ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... can Consecrate. If a Deacon pretends to Consecrate the Elements at the Blessed Sacrament, not only is his act sacrilege and invalid, but even by the law of the land he is liable to a penalty ...
— The Church: Her Books and Her Sacraments • E. E. Holmes
... trust their souls to the mercy of heaven; but they had sworn by the sacred head of the Emperor himself; they had touched, in solemn ceremony, that august seat of majesty and wisdom; and the violation of their oath would expose them, to the temporal penalties of sacrilege ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... in silence (it seemed a sacrilege to break in on such a train of thought), until gradually her eyes lost their far-away expression, and, turning to me with a smile, she exclaimed: “How we ever had the courage to appear in the street dressed as we were is a mystery! Do you see ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... what epithet can there be given to him who, to preserve an authority unlawfully acquired, asssociates in his guilt a Supreme Pontiff, whom the multitude is accustomed to reverence as the representative of their God, but who, by this act of scandal and sacrilege, descends to a level with the most culpable of men? I have heard, not only in this city but in villages, where sincerity is more frequent than corruption, and where hypocrites are as little known as infidels, these ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... can be done! Twelve hundred leagues at the most. Look!" he said. "You are not an ignoramus like some I have met; nor if I read you right are you like others who not knowing that True Religion is True Wonder up with hands and cry, 'Blasphemy, Sacrilege and Contradiction!' Earth and water make an orb. Place ant on apple and see that orbs may be gone around! Travel far enough and east and west change names! Straight through, beneath ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... purpose of a sacrament is to give grace to the recipient; it follows that it would be useless to give the Sacrament to Snookums. To perform a sacrament or to receive it when one knows that it will be useless is sacrilege. And sacrilege is undesirable." ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the modesty and joyous humility of a pious Christian. She desired above all things the blessing of God and of the Church to rest upon this crown, whose possession had seemed to her until now a spoliation, a sacrilege, and about which her conscience so often reproached her. But when God's vicegerent, when the Holy Father of Christendom should himself have blessed her husband's crown, and should have made fast on Josephine's brow the imperial diadem, then all blame was removed, then the empress could hope that ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... just as a man may happen to have intercourse with a woman who is bound to another man by marriage, so may it happen that a man has intercourse with a woman who is bound to God by vow. Therefore sacrilege should be reckoned a species of lust, even as ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... Benjamin Franklin)—a life and portrait of Mahomet. Both are said to have been unexceptionable according to European ideas, but the whole Mussulman population (145,000 in number) considered their faith insulted and outraged by the publication, holding it sacrilege and idolatry to imagine and print any likeness whatever of so sacred ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... and the dignified Deacon Gould, and his equally dignified colleague, Deacon Drake, gazed very solemnly down upon the communion table, pursing up their mouths most decidedly, as if a sacrilege had already been committed by so astounding a proposition. Of course the duty fell upon Mr. Savage, the minister, to declare before all present that the demand of brother Manning, in behalf of his wife, was unreasonable, ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... born sought to obtain possession of the gourd for the sake of the fish. But Jaia, who often visited the mortal remains of his son, arrived when the brothers held the gourd in their hands. Frightened at being thus taken in the act both of sacrilege and robbery, they dropped the gourd, which broke, and took flight. From the broken gourd the sea rushed forth; the valley was filled, the immense plain which formed the universe was flooded, and only the mountains raised their heads above the water, ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... out of Rome on its way south. My mind was filled with suspicion. I was wondering vaguely whether the Marchesa Romanelli had been among the guests, for I recollected those words of Fra Pacifico that "the woman had committed sacrilege in the ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... shut up in Balder's Grove, where the sanctity of the temple would make it sacrilege for any one to approach her. Frithjof, however, braves the wrath of the god, and sails every night across the fjord to a stolen rendezvous with his beloved. The canto called "Frithjof's Happiness," ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... "It's a sacrilege," he cried. "I believe that nothing short of extermination will reclaim this unhappy land. They are calling down the vengeance of heaven ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... granted on that glorious day Which chased the clouds, and show'd the sun, When Hannibal o'er Italy Ran, as swift flames o'er pine-woods run, Or Eurus o'er Sicilia's sea. Henceforth, by fortune aiding toil, Rome's prowess grew: her fanes, laid waste By Punic sacrilege and spoil, Beheld at length their gods replaced. Then the false Libyan own'd his doom:— "Weak deer, the wolves' predestined prey, Blindly we rush on foes, from whom 'Twere triumph won to steal away. That race which, strong from Ilion's fires, Its ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... convent, carried off Editha, a nun, by force, and even committed violence on her person [m]. For this act of sacrilege he was reprimanded by Dunstan; and that he might reconcile himself to the church, he was obliged not to separate from his mistress, but to abstain from wearing his crown during seven years, and to deprive himself so long of that vain ornament [n]; punishment very unequal to ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... called to yourself, but really only, because satiated, you no longer desired her. Your faithfulness cunningly clothes itself in the mantle of godliness, nothing further. No, no, holy father of Christendom, I envy you not this virtue which has made you the murderer of God's noblest work. That is a sacrilege committed in the holy temple of nature. Go your way, and think yourself great in your bloodthirsty, murderous virtue! You will not convert me to it. Let me still remain a sinner—it at least will not lead me to murder the woman I love, and provide for her torment ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... my dear father's death, his confessor and friend, the Abbe Foucquet, took charge of all my mother's jewels for me. He said they would be safe with the ornaments of his own little church at Boulogne. He feared no sacrilege, and thought they would be most effectually hidden there, for no one would dream of looking for the Marny diamonds in the crypt of ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... at such a moment seemed sacrilege to her, for her up-bringing had been good. Her mother had once fainted in the church, but though the family's distress was great, they neither bore her out, nor signed to the kirk-officer to bring water. ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... estates to, rather than they who took them from, the clergy, were guilty of sacrilege." Then the people are the Church, and the clergy not; another part of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... the most dauntless of all the sons of Norway, he would have been prostrated with fear for the consequences of this terrible sacrilege. Could he longer escape the avenging anger of Balder? Summoning all his courage, he ran to the shore and immediately embarked in Ellida. Swiftly the dragon-ship skimmed the waves, while Helge paced up and down the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... into Rome and spread Christianity throughout the empire, they were inspired by an intense religious enthusiasm. They thought much less of the civil than of the religious consequence of magic, and sacrilege seemed much more terrible in their eyes ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... His own fifty years were as nothing to its wood. When the house behind it, which he now owned, was three hundred years of age instead of twelve, that tree might still be standing there, vast and hollow—for who would commit such sacrilege as to cut it down? A Forsyte might perhaps still be living in that house, to guard it jealously. And Jolyon would wonder what the house would look like coated with such age. Wistaria was already about its walls—the new look ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of the Divine wrath and vengeance. Yes, my brethren, the temple of the Lord has been profaned, and it will be razed to the ground. It has been the scene of abomination and impiety, and must be purified by fire. Theft, murder, sacrilege, and every other crime have been committed within its walls, and its destruction will follow. The ministers of Heaven's vengeance are even now hovering above it. Repent, therefore, ye who listen to me, and repent speedily; ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Torrigiani's death in Spain is worth repeating. A grandee employed him to model a Madonna, which he did with more than usual care, expecting a great reward. His pay, however, falling short of is expectation, in a fit of fury he knocked his statue to pieces. For this act of sacrilege, as it was deemed, to the work of his own brain and hand, Torrigiani was thrown into the dungeons of the Inquisition. There he starved himself to death in 1522 in order to escape the fate of being burned. This story helps to explain ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... which have been in her family for generations! What sacrilege!" cried the countess, in accents ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... George II it has served its turn as business premises for a bleacher and a calico-printer; it has been a wash-house, and is now a girls' school. One thing it has never been—of sufficient interest to Croydon to be rescued from sacrilege and neglect, and to take the place which is its due among historic national possessions. Perhaps one should be thankful that the palace of Cranmer, Whitgift and Laud is to-day in no rougher hands than the gentle ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... certain Jews had found him "purified in the temple, neither with multitude, nor with tumult." These ought to have been present and to have testified to these things. (c) He denied that he had committed any sacrilege. When he was seized in the temple he was in the very act of performing a portion of the worship prescribed by the Mosaic law. (d) The knowledge of those present "went no further than that they had heard him declare ...
— Bible Studies in the Life of Paul - Historical and Constructive • Henry T. Sell
... a blunder for which the Austrians will pay dearly in loss of international good-will. A century hence these shattered churches will be pointed out to visitors as the work of the modern Vandals, and lovers of art and beauty throughout the world will execrate the nation which permitted the sacrilege. They have destroyed glass and paintings and sculptures that were a joy to the whole world, they have undone the work of saints and heroes and masters, and they have gained no corresponding military advantage. In every city which has been subjected to air raids the inhabitants have been ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... Hobbima, Teniers (in his landscapes), Paul Potter, Canaletti, and the various Van-Somethings and Back-Somethings, more especially and malignantly those who had libelled the sea,' carried dismay into the hearts of collectors, and he was denounced as guilty of an art sacrilege scarcely more marvellous for its impiety than its daring. His opinions, however, have passed through a burning fiery furnace of criticism, and have survived the ordeal. Earnestness is half success; and the truth that was the substratum of that earnestness has accomplished ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... Sorrento; old, the middle-aged, the young; the rich, poor; male and female; old men, old women, boys, and children. At the head of this, and immediately in front of the door, was the very old woman who bad discovered his sacrilege, and had chased him through the cathedral. Now he had hoped that the old woman had forgotten him; but her appearance now was tenfold more terrible than ever. Here she was—a virago—with a great following, whom she was exciting by ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... know, she had a Lover that ador'd her, though even without hope; for though the thought of possessing Isabella, was the most ravishing that could be; yet he had a dread upon him, when he thought of it, for he could not hope to accomplish that, without Sacrilege; and he was a young Man, very Devout, and even bigotted in Religion; and would often question and debate within himself, that, if it were possible, he should come to be belov'd by this Fair Creature, and that it were possible for her, to grant all that Youth in Love could require, whether ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... measures which his own judgment condemned. It was characteristic of Charles X. and of the reactionaries around him that out of trifling matters they provoked more exasperation than a prudent Government would have aroused by changes of infinitely greater importance. Thus in a sacrilege-law which was introduced in 1825 they disgusted all reasonable men by attempting to revive the barbarous mediaeval punishment of amputation of the hand; and in a measure conferring some fractional rights upon the eldest son in cases of intestacy they alarmed the whole nation by ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... the entire room, yet it was an interesting and habitable place. Most of the Metz furniture had stood in the old homestead for several generations and so long as any piece served its purpose and continued to look respectable Aunt Maria would have considered it gross extravagance, even a sacrilege, to discard it for one of newer design. She was satisfied with her house, her brother Jacob was well pleased with the way she kept it—it never occurred to her that Phoebe might ever desire new things, and least of all did she dream that the girl sometimes spent ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... with the President's party. He told my sister that the speech so went home to the hearts of all those thousands of people that when it was ended it was as if the whole audience held its breath—there was not a hand lifted to applaud. One might as well applaud the Lord's Prayer—it would have been sacrilege. And they all felt it—down to the lowest. There was a long minute of reverent silence, no sound from all that great throng—it seems to me, an enemy, that it was the most perfect tribute that has ever been paid by ...
— The Perfect Tribute • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... was wonderfully alight. "And I said that I would have it cleaned. Why, the idea seems sacrilege! No, this feather shall never be cleaned from those precious stains, sweetheart. The white feather—and now it is scarlet with the blood of my hero. Ah, this scarlet feather shall be set in purest gold, and bordered with jewels. It ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... took things as they came. She could not bear the thought of sharing with the parsonage family even the least ardent and most prosaic of Jerrold's letters. But she never asked herself the reason. It seemed a positive sacrilege to leave his warm, life-pulsing letters up-stairs in a bureau drawer. It was only natural and right to carry them in her dress, and to sleep with them under her pillow. But Prudence did not wonder why. The days when Jerry came were tremulously ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... the live Sakai never abandons his native forest and to have a dead one for the purpose would be next to impossible, as he who attempted to carry away a corpse would expose himself to serious danger, there being no greater sacrilege, according to the idea of these bushmen, than that of touching a dead body or of digging up the ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... completely infatuated by her. Of course, in that land, the idea of a woman of her sect, of her standing, having anything to do with a Frank was looked upon as something appalling, something akin to sacrilege; and when they found that her father had got wind of it and that the fellow's life would not be safe if he remained within reach another day, they flew to the coast together, shipped for England, and were ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... who think I ought not to have translated Chaucer into English, out of a quite contrary notion: they suppose there is a certain veneration due to his old language; and that it is a little less than profanation and sacrilege to alter it. They are farther of opinion, that somewhat of his good sense will suffer in this transfusion, and much of the beauty of his thoughts will infallibly be lost, which appear with more grace in their old habit. Of this opinion was that excellent ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... this once and see what happens," answered Everett with a laugh. "Indeed, I'm ashamed of having shown you any impatience at all—to think of impatience in this heaven country of hospitality amounts to positive sacrilege. Shrive me—and then ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... companions, for vice has such an attraction for some minds that they cannot forego its pleasures, even at the utmost personal inconvenience. Such revels, at such a time of tempest, while the wrath of heaven is wreaked upon the trees, are nothing short of sacrilege, and I for one have always set my mind against irreverence. I shall do the world a service if I rid it of such an abandoned creature." So he called to a moor-hen, who was flying over from the Long Pond at a tremendous pace, being carried before the wind, and the moor-hen, ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... give you credit for the kindest of motives in sending the check, which I now return to you, with my compliments. We are not as poor as you suppose, and would almost deem it sacrilege to let another than ourselves provide for Katy so long as she is ours. And furthermore, that Mrs. Ryan's services will not be needed, so it is not worth her while to make a journey here ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... the Canyon is known all men unite in affirming that the greatest of all wonders, ancient or modern, is the Grand Canyon of Arizona. Some men say there are several Grand Canyons, but to the one who knows there is but one Grand Canyon. The use of the word to name any lesser gorge is a sacrilege ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... with baskets, sacks, picklocks, carts, cords, and ladders, and commenced to pick the locks of the wardrobes, coffers, and tabernacles. The holy man cast on them a look which would have destroyed three Christians. He threatened them with the penalties of sacrilege, both in this world and the next, he pointed out that their mere presence in the house of the God, whom they had crucified, called down the fire of heaven upon their heads. They listened with the calm of people for whom anathema, reprobation, malediction, and execration were their daily ...
— The Miracle Of The Great St. Nicolas - 1920 • Anatole France
... here and there fringed the coast line. At night, the scene changing constantly was enhanced in beauty by the clearness of the atmosphere and the brightness of the moon. We slept scarcely at all on board the Nugata Maru; it seemed almost sacrilege to miss an hour of the beautiful flying panorama which was being so ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... happiest pitch, without breaking. Its happiest pitch I say, because this is the only creation of its strenuous author in presence of which you are in presence of serenity. You may invoke the idea of ease at St. Peter's without a sense of sacrilege—which you can hardly do, if you are at all spiritually nervous, in Westminster Abbey or Notre Dame. The vast enclosed clearness has much to do with the idea. There are no shadows to speak of, no marked effects of shade; ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... Peggy, in her plain-sailing, breezy British way, have appreciated all the subtleties of his relations with Jeanne? She would ask pointed, probably barbed, questions about Jeanne. She would tear the whole romance to shreds. Jeanne stood too exquisite a symbol for him to permit the sacrilege of Peggy's ruthless vivisection. For vivisect she would, without shadow of doubt. His long and innocent familiarity with womankind in Durdlebury had led him instinctively to the conclusion formulated by ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... much to reverence taxes his powers until they are worn and impotent by the time he reaches manhood. Under Miss Hester's tutelage too many things became sacred to Fred Brent. It was wicked to cough in church, as it was a sacrilege to play with a hymn-book. His training was the apotheosis of the non-essential. But, after all, there is no rebel like Nature. She is ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... poete laissant a la morte sa dignite d'Ombre. Alceste a ete nitiee aux profonds mysteres de la mort; elle a vu l'invisible, elle a entendu l'ineffable; toute parole sortie de ses levres serait une divulgation sacrilege. Ce silence mysterieux la spiritualise et la rattache par un dernier lien ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... were his own much more; But wealth is crime enough to him that's poor, Who having spent the treasures of his crown, Condemns their luxury to feed his own. And yet this act, to varnish o'er the shame Of sacrilege, must bear devotion's name. No crime so bold, but would be understood A real, or at least a seeming good: Who fears not to do ill, yet fears the name, And, free from conscience, is a slave to fame. 130 Thus he the church at ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... GARIBALDI! Macaroni! You dare," I said "to mix that miserable Italian trash with good honest English cheese on such a day, when Italy is mobilising her millions of soldiers and sailors against us and our Allies. It's rank sacrilege." ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 9, 1914 • Various
... implanted in us. From a distance I looked back and saw by the light of the fired tents that the Fung were attacking the Arabs with whom I had travelled, I suppose because they thought them parties to the sacrilege. Afterwards I heard that they killed them every one, poor men, but I escaped, who unwittingly had ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... most universal ideas of the human race, duty should not only be the Pole star of the artist's own life, but its chastening purity should preside over all his conceptions. A profane or unchaste work of art is a sacrilege against the most High; an insult to those divine attributes in whose image that artist himself was made, and which he must constantly struggle to suggest or typify, that the work of his hand prove not a golden calf, an offence both to God and man. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... life like an angel, but as a woman, a human woman. I know nothing about you, and yet I know everything. You are the one woman God meant for me, you fill my life,—you glorify it. You mustn't think of marrying anybody else, it would be sacrilege if you did. Such a love as mine wasn't intended to be ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... ever sung, surely never have marriage bells rung for so strange a pair!" cried Robin, boldly. He had stopped them as they were passing into the church. "Lady," he asked, "do you love this man? For if you do not then you are on your way to commit sacrilege." ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... times a day, and observed it as religiously as ever monk did his devotion. Yesterday I burnt it. To me it seemed like sacrilege. ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... night wind that had begun to blow, for he could not rest where he was. When he returned, somewhat composed, he could hardly prevail with himself to lie down on his bed; for he could not help feeling as if she had lain upon it; and for him to lie there now would be something like sacrilege. However, weariness prevailed; and laying himself on the couch, dressed as he was, he ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... distracted; the People were forc'd with violent Hands to carry him home.... I will not mention his Name: He was reputed a Pious Man."—This is one of Cotton's "Remarkable Judgments of God, on Several Sorts of Offenders,"—and the next cases referred to are the Judgments on the "Abominable Sacrilege" of not paying ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... too, more grave than these, of sacrilege, and suchlike. One, which my man James told, was of a man who took an altar stone from an old church, to press cheeses with; but the cheeses ran blood; so they took it from that and put it in the laundry to bat the linen on. But at night, such a sound of batting was heard continually ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... been nothing in your heart to cry out against so vulgar a sacrilege, you might at least have remembered the sonnet he wrote who saw with such sorrow and scorn the letters of John Keats sold by public auction in London, and have understood at last the real ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... government in his hands, is the best and the only judge, in what capacities, with what privileges, and under what distinctions, his people are the best qualified to serve, and to act under him. A principle, which was carried so far by the imperial law, that it was determined to be the crime of sacrilege, even to doubt whether the prince had appointed ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... the horrible scenes of the Temple sacrificial rites seemed to focus in this final exhibition of greed, materialism and lack of spirituality. It seemed to be blasphemy and sacrilege of the most glaring type. And His very soul felt nauseated and outraged by the sight. His fingers twitched, and laying hold of a bundle of knotted cords which had been used by some cattle-driver to urge forward his herd, He rushed forward upon the horde of traffickers, whirling His instrument ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... beautified. The Satanical spirit of fanaticism rioted uncontrolled; and to use the words of a venerable Bishop[1], who saw his own cathedral defaced, "it is no other than tragical to relate the carriage of that furious sacrilege, whereof our eyes and ears were the sad witnesses, under the authority and presence of the sheriff. Lord! what work was here—what clattering of glasses—what beating down of walls—what tearing up ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... daughter, that would not suffer his banner to see dishonor. The Pope must kiss his wandering daughter, that henceforwards will be a lamb travelling back into the Christian fold. Potentates so great as these, when they speak words of love, do not speak in vain. All was forgiven; the sacrilege, the bloodshed, the flight and the scorn of St. Peter's keys; the pardons were made out, were signed, were sealed, and the chanceries ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... what next might happen, and I earnestly prayed, that if sacrilege was being committed, the vengeance of the gods might be averted from an ignoramus like me; notwithstanding the petitioner himself hailed from the other world. Perfect silence was preserved: Jarl and Samoa standing a little without the ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... and they ponder them among themselves. Upon that, the son of Prometheus soothes the daughter of Epimetheus with {these} gentle words, and says, "Either is my discernment fallacious, or the oracles are just, and advise no sacrilege. The earth is the great mother; I suspect that the stones in the body of the earth are the bones meant; these we are ordered to throw behind our backs." Although she, descended from Titan,[68] is moved by this interpretation of her husband, still her hope is involved in doubt; so much ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... Ganesh Lena; but in its place now stands a hideous figure of Bhairav aflame with red-lead, and nought remains to testify to the former presence of the shrine save the Buddhist T capital, the umbrellas and the flags which surmounted it. The eleventh cave bears traces of Jain sacrilege in the blue figure of the Tirthankar or hierach who sits cross-legged in the back wall and in the figure of Ambika on the right. But the most conspicuous example of the alteration of ancient monuments ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... so you see that I treat the priests well, go regularly to mass, and listen to it with all due seriousness and solemnity. But every one knows me, and how would it be for me, and for others, if I should go too far? Would not that be setting an example of hypocrisy, and committing a sacrilege?" The Pope did not insist upon it. This dread of committing sacrilege Napoleon referred to again at Saint Helena, in 1816: "Everything was done," he said then, "to persuade me to go in great pomp to communion ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... sight of the multitude, they had abused him to that degree, as to fall upon what he had dedicated, and in that way of abuse had pulled it down to the ground. They pretended, indeed, that they did it to affront him; but if any one consider the thing truly, they will find that they were guilty of sacrilege ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... cinder-sifter mingle in our games of chivalry." Irritated to frenzy, Martin drew his sword and hewed down the herald, who, in compliance with the general outcry, opposed his entry into the lists. An hundred swords were unsheathed to avenge what was in those days regarded as a crime only inferior to sacrilege or regicide. Waldeck, after defending himself like a lion, was seized, tried on the spot by the judges of the lists, and condemned, as the appropriate punishment for breaking the peace of his sovereign, and violating the sacred person of a herald-at-arms, to have ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... tomb, his head bared. The marble underfoot bore the imprint of many shoes and rubbers and hobnails, of all sizes and—mayhap—of all nations. He recollected, with a burn on his cheeks, a sacrilege of his raw and eager youth, some twelve years since; he had forgotten to take off his hat. Never would he forget the embarrassment of that moment when the attendant peremptorily bade him remove it. He, to have forgotten! He, who held Napoleon above ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... most beautiful creature in the world, and asked her brothers what it was. On being told that it was a bird that was occasionally eaten, she replied that it was a sin and a shame to eat such a beautiful bird, and added, that she would never marry any one but the king of the peacocks, and then such a sacrilege should be forbidden. "But, sister," said the king, greatly astonished, "where on earth can we find the king of the peacocks?" "That is your look-out," said the young princess; "all I can say is, that no one else shall become ...
— Bo-Peep Story Books • Anonymous
... ruin a monument. It is in vain to urge that this was only a stranger's stone, and that there were none to care. It was all the more an outrage, if there were no friends to protect it. We are glad to learn that there were people in the town who did what they could to prevent this sacrilege. ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... that, in order to conquer their obstinate resistance, it should happen one day that this same father, Fray Rodrigo, on passing through a thicket consecrated to their devils (where, as their rites said, it was sacrilege to cut or touch any branch—besides the great fear that they had conceived that if anyone should have the audacity to do so, or to take the least thing, he would surely die immediately), saw a tree covered with a certain fruit which they call pahos, [36] that resemble the excellent ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various
... have little or no influence on the religious conceptions of the merchants and the peasantry, the two classes are equally severe with regard to those acts which are regarded as crimes against the Deity. Hence acquittals in cases of sacrilege, blasphemy, and the like never occur unless the jury is in part ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... very few years ago they were not allowed to express themselves openly. Laws have been passed to suppress them, and dire penalties have been devised for their benefit. Laws against sacrilege, heresy and blasphemy still ornament our statute-books; but these invented crimes that were once punishable by death are now obsolete, or exist in rudimentary forms only, and manifest themselves in a refusal to invite the guilty party to our Four-o'Clock. This hot intent ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... thing which your husband's brother has proposed to you to do is a sacrilege and a profanation. I own to you freely that I look on what I have done toward thwarting your relative in this matter as an act of virtue. You cannot expect me to think it a serious obstacle to a union ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... sacerdotal order was established; thus that public worship was established; by degrees each community formed a body of tenets to be observed by the citizens; these were transmitted from race to race; held sacred out of reverence for their fathers; at length it was deemed sacrilege to doubt these pandects in any one particular; even the errors, that had crept into them with time, were beheld with reverential awe; he that ventured to reason upon them, was looked upon as an enemy to the commonwealth; as one whose impiety drew down upon them the vengeance of these adored ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... of your Southern sky Shall surely mean but grief and loss; Then tremble, as ye raise on high, In sacrilege, the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... the battles he had won. Had I been such, what hindered me to take The crown? nor had the exchange been yours to make. While you are living, I no right pretend; Wear it, and let it where you please descend. But from my love, 'tis sacrilege to part: There, there's my throne, in ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... that usually held the nourishment prepared for her grandmother. A little arrowroot, and a light potage, that contained bread, still remained. Although it was all that seemed to separate the girl from death, she hesitated about using it. There was an appearance of sacrilege, in her eyes, in the act of appropriating these things to herself. A moment's reflection, however, brought her to a truer state of mind, and then she felt it to be a duty to that dear parent herself, to ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... own happy expression, "to manufacture those snowy loaves of bread, those delicious tarts, those toothsome bon-bons. And then to own them all, to keep them in store, to watch over and guardedly exhibit. The thought of getting money for them was to me a sacrilege. Sell them? No indeed. Eat 'em—eat 'em, by tray loads and dray loads! It was a great wonder to me why the pale-faced baker in our town did not eat all his good things. This I determined to do when I became owner of such a grand establishment. Yes, sir. I would ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... into bed as hastily as possible, and the bed-clothes, wildly disordered, were gathered round his person. A face, with wet hair, looking very odd and childlike without his glasses, regarded him with the look of one who sees sacrilege done. A long flannel nightgown lay on the ground between the steaming bath and the bed, and a quantity of water lay about on the ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... disturbs the peace; in his rash pride he makes himself the interpreter of the Divine, and in His name demands the homage and the reverence of mankind; so far as may be, he sets himself in God's place; he should receive the punishment of sacrilege if he is not punished ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... ear which I had kissed so often. I put my hand to each little velvet shell to make certain that this sacrilege ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... friend of mine did of late, within less than this fortnight, tell unto another near friend of mine that he had of late heard much speaking thereof. What cannot these brethren say that can be so shameless to say thus? For of very truth, albeit that for a great robbery, or a heinous murder, or sacrilege in a church, with carrying away the pix with the Blessed Sacrament, or villainously casting it out, I caused sometimes such things to be done by some officers of the Marshalsea, or of some other prisons, with which ordering of them, and without any great hurt that afterwards ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... can point out four different types, namely the Sa@mhita or collection of verses (sam together, hita put), Brahma@nas, Ara@nyakas ("forest treatises") and the Upani@sads. All these literatures, both prose and verse, were looked upon as so holy that in early times it was thought almost a sacrilege to write them; they were therefore learnt by heart by the Brahmins from the mouth of their preceptors and were hence called s'ruti ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... whose remains have not been suffered to lie undisturbed in the tomb. John Wickliffe's bones were exhumed and burned, and Oliver Cromwell's body was taken up and beheaded. That the remains of the great Milton were subjected to such barbarous sacrilege is not so generally known. From an ancient London magazine, the Portland Transcript extracts an account of this outrage. When the old church of St. Giles, Cripplegate (the place of Milton's grave), was repaired about a hundred years ago, the great poet's coffin was ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various
... grievous indeed; you have yielded to the tempter in your own person, caused the death of one man, you have led another astray, and have deceived him, when he claimed the reward of his iniquity; but all these are trifles compared to the offence upon the holy monk, which is the worst of sacrilege. And what was his fault? that he cautioned you against a person, whose subsequent conduct has proved, that the worthy man was correct in ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat |
