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Sermon   /sˈərmən/   Listen
Sermon

noun
1.
An address of a religious nature (usually delivered during a church service).  Synonyms: discourse, preaching.
2.
A moralistic rebuke.  Synonym: preaching.



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"Sermon" Quotes from Famous Books



... Sabbath after his arrival in New York Oswald attended church. Not since that Northfield visit had this son of a clergyman heard a sermon ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee

... he was recalling these things to his memory, Frederick was really dreaming again. Suddenly he started up, cuffing Hans Fuellenberg furiously and saying: "I'll box your ears." Shortly afterward he was in the smoking-room delivering a crushing sermon for the third or fourth time, morally felling to the ground the man who had desecrated his sacred relation to Ingigerd. But the captain came in, and said they had to bury the stoker. There was a dead man on board. When Frederick stepped from the smoking-room, he saw the corpse lying in the ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann

... "good point;" while a day on the moors is very unlikely to end without something being said on the treatment of dogs. When crossing the fields together from church, the tenants of adjacent farms are apt to pass from criticisms on the sermon to criticisms on the weather, the crops, and the stock; and thence to slide into discussions on the various kinds of fodder and their feeding qualities. Hodge and Giles, after comparing notes over their respective pig-styes, show by their remarks that they have been ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer

... civilization, the focus of all that is comely in life. The ruddy shine of the stove is as beautiful as any sunset. A well-polished jug or spoon is as fair, as complete and beautiful, as any sonnet. The dish mop, properly rinsed and wrung and hung outside the back door to dry, is a whole sermon in itself. The stars never look so bright as they do from the kitchen door after the ice-box pan is emptied and the whole place is 'redd up,' as ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley

... within sight of God's house and often going there, suffered the one great defeat of his life, entailing such a bitter, life-long reaping as might well deter others from the folly of sowing wild oats. David's sin is a terrific sermon (like Lot's preaching in Sodom must have been), its ...
— The Chocolate Soldier - Heroism—The Lost Chord of Christianity • C. T. Studd

... This little sermon will go like a javelin to the heart of many a home. Madame Marneffes are to be seen in every sphere of social life, even at Court; for Valerie is a melancholy fact, modeled from the life in the smallest details. And, alas! the portrait will not cure any man of the folly of loving these ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... Bible this is yet more evident, it being a translation. Isaiah did not write the cadences of his prophecies, as we ordinary men of this country know them: Christ did not speak the cadences of the Parables or of the Sermon on the Mount, as we know them. These have been supplied by the translators. By all means let us study them and learn to delight in them; but Christ did not suffer for his cadences, still less for the cadences invented by Englishmen almost 1600 ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... reconstruct the broken and scattered annals of our planet. It would not be just to find fault with Dr. Trench's books for lacking a scientific treatment to which they make no pretension, but they may fairly be charged with smelling a little too much of the shop. There is a faint odor of the sermon-case about every page, and we learn to dread, sometimes to skip, the inevitable homily, as we do the moral at the end of an AEsopic fable. We enter our protest, not against Dr. Trench in particular, for his books have other and higher claims to our regard, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... drifted into the —— Parish Church last evening to hear the organ and the singing. I was pushed into a pew up in the front, and so could not escape until the end of the service. I could have wept when I heard the sermon; it was a dreadful medieval picture of Heaven and Hell, and a dreadful curse on all the German people as being ready for 'Hell.' ... The whole service was as artificial as one could imagine—so heartless and so soulless. It made me feel so ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton

... "Visto! have a taste." Heaven visits with a taste the wealthy fool, And needs no rod but Ripley with a rule. See! sportive Fate, to punish awkward pride, Bids Bubo build, and sends him such a guide. A standing sermon, at each year's expense, That never coxcomb reached magnificence! You show us, Rome was glorious, not profuse, And pompous buildings once were things of use. Yet shall, my lord, your just, your noble rules Fill half the land with imitating fools; Who random ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope

... were the sermons and addresses poured forth, all to the same end. To cite one: The Rev. Daniel Sharp of the Third Baptist Meeting House, Boston, delivered a sermon in 1828 on "The Tendency of Evil Speaking Against Rulers." It was considered so powerful an argument in favor of obedience that it was printed in pamphlet form (Beals, Homer & Co., Printers), and was widely distributed ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus

... hope, but Dora was driven into a corner. The Rector was in the habit of preaching a good methodical sermon, and usually finished up somewhere in the neighbourhood of the text from whence he started. He allowed himself to deviate, but he never turned his back upon his text and went for a vague ramble through scriptural meadows, as some have been heard to do. He deviated on this occasion ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman

... contain one long Sermon, or two of moderate length, on fine paper. The Volume to commence annually the last ...
— The National Preacher, Vol. 2 No. 7 Dec. 1827 • Aaron W. Leland and Elihu W. Baldwin

... the Fathah at her tomb. Next Friday the great Bairam begins and every Muslim eats a bit of meat at his richer neighbour's expense. It is the day on which the pilgrims go up the sacred mount near Mecca, to hear the sermon which terminates the Haj. Yesterday I went to call on pretty Mrs. Wilkinson, she is an Armenian of the Greek faith, and was gone to pray at the convent of Mar Girgis (St. George) to cure the pains a bad ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... language produced impressions that were enduring. He never wrote his sermons. He simply thought them out rigorously, and his mind worked so logically and in such definite lines that he could repeat on request a sermon, preached years before, in a form recognized by his ...
— A History of the McGuffey Readers • Henry H. Vail

... speculation, might easily be confounded with Plutus; and with this and many other good resolutions, we returned to the hospitable care of our friend Mr Morgan, at the Angel. Next day was Sunday, and very wet. We slipped across the street and heard a very good sermon in the morning, in a large handsome church, which was not quite so well filled as it ought to have been, and were kept close prisoners all day ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... missionaries, on visiting a pagan band, preached from those blessed words of the Saviour: "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." In his sermon he spoke about life's toils and burdens, and how all men had to work and labour. The men of the congregation were very angry at him; and at an indignation meeting which they held, they said, "Let him go to the squaws with that kind of ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young

... Gospel. But most of the well-to-do people, including the clergy, were prejudiced against Kingsley by his Radical views. On one occasion he had to face a painful scene in a London church, when the vicar who had invited him to preach rose after the sermon and formally protested against the views to which his congregation had been listening. Bishop Blomfield at first sided with the vicar; but in the end he did full justice to the sincerity and charity of Kingsley's views ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... beautiful and attractive, as well as majestic and impressive, in the teaching of our Lord. The Sermon on the Mount is a most pleasing specimen of His method of conveying instruction. Whilst He gives utterance to sentiments of exalted wisdom, He employs language so simple, and imagery so chaste and natural, that even a child takes a pleasure ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... not this miracle always wrought? When did a pulpit ever fail of a sermon, or a journal of a leading article, or a magazine of its stated essay? The fact might argue the very contrary of the appearance and convince the desperate purveyor that what he mistook for hopeless need was choice which mocked him with a myriad alternatives. ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells

... Ridge Cemetery, where it remained until the monument was completed. Bishop Simpson, one of the most eloquent men in the Methodist Church, and a devoted friend of Mr. Lincoln during his life, preached the funeral sermon. The services at Springfield were simple in the extreme, just as Mr. Lincoln would have wished. Steps were at once taken for the erection of the monument, which stands in Oak ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom

... gentleman ended his harangue. The people heard it, and approved the doctrine, and immediately practiced the contrary, just as if it had been a common sermon; for the auction opened, and they began to buy extravagantly. I found the good man had thoroughly studied my Almanac, and digested all I had dropped on these topics during the course of twenty-five ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... are inculcated. This is the case in Australia, and in Central Africa, where to be "uninitiated" is equivalent to being selfish.(1) Thus it seems not improbable that consolatory doctrines were expounded in the Eleusinia, and that this kind of sermon or exhortation was no less a survival from savagery than the daubing with clay, and the (Greek text omitted), ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang

... whither after a hurried course in theology, he proceeded as an army chaplain in 1780. During his connection with the army, which lasted until its disbandment in 1783, he won repute by lyrics written to encourage the soldiers, and by "a flaming political sermon," as he termed it, on the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... means 'in the midst of things' when referring to a sequence. It follows the genitive; e.g., dangui no nacaba ni 'in the midst of the sermon,' sore vo qijte, nacaba va vosore; nacaba va aqirete ita (145v) 'hearing that, he feared and was afraid,' that is to say 'he spent most of his ...
— Diego Collado's Grammar of the Japanese Language • Diego Collado

... a cool hundred thousand outweighs all my objections against pattern women—I could swallow a sermon every morning with the best grace in the world, and even were she as ugly as Hecate, I could worship at her feet, and wear the yoke for the sake of the ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... When he was only fourteen a copy of Henry Clay's speeches fell into his hands, and he learned most of them by heart, and what he learned from them interested him in history. Then a little later his stepmother was ill for some time, and Abe went to church every Sunday, and on his return repeated the sermon almost word for word to her. Again he loved to argue, and would take up some question he had asked of a stranger and go on with it when the latter returned to the Creek, perhaps months after the first visit. Mrs. Lincoln noted these things, and made up her mind that her stepson would be a great ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland

... the readers of the periodical. He states that the sermons had aroused much interest in England because of their authorship "by Lorenz Sterne, author of Tristram Shandy, abook in which a remarkable humor is exhibited." He mentions also that the sermon on the conscience had already been published in the novel, but is ignorant of its former and first appearance. Three years later, July 20, 1767,[17] the same periodical devotes a long critical review to the four-volume London edition of the sermons. The publisher's ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer

... order to the church, the Countess of Bedford being chief mourner. The funeral service was performed by the Dean of Peterborough; the prebendaries and choir of the Cathedral then sang an anthem, after which a sermon was preached by Wickham, Bishop of Lincoln. The officers having broken their staves and cast them into the vault, and the offerings appointed having been made to the Bishop and Dean and Chapter of Peterborough, the nobility and officers, ...
— The New Guide to Peterborough Cathedral • George S. Phillips

... Cavalier heard the brief sermon and the sentence, which seemed to him of all punishments the most futile. He had hoped to see his son-in-law sent to the Plantations for life; had been angry at the thought that he would escape the gallows; and for sole penalty the seducer was sentenced to forfeit less than a year's ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... seen raising to life the dead Drusiana, a lady of Ephesus who died just before the Apostle came to the city; he is also shown turning sticks and stones into gold and jewels, which he did in illustration of a sermon preached against riches. In a third medallion the Saint drinks harmlessly from a chalice of poison which has just killed two malefactors dead at his feet; and in a fourth the other John, the Baptist, is painted with a rope round ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker

... young man.—But here we are on the edge of town. I could, if I wanted to, preach a sermon capable of converting every heathen within sound of my voice. Once, at a camp-meeting, I did preach a sermon; and I tell you, the old people looked mighty sober, and the younger and more susceptible of my auditors ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake

... boys want a regular sermon," said he, "and if only I'd 'a' had the time—wal, I won't say what a torch-light procession of a sermon you'd have got, but I'll do ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels

... Chap. XI. Mr. Lewis draws attention to a passage in a sermon by S. Bernard containing an allusion to different ways of watering a garden similar to St. Teresa's well-known comparison. Mr. Lewis's quotation is incorrect, and I am not certain what sermon he may have had in view. Something to the point may be found ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila

... of Canterbury in his Easter sermon dwells upon the national necessity for prohibition during the war; a band of the Irish Guards, arriving in Dublin on a recruiting tour, is enthusiastically cheered; John E. Redmond reviews at Dublin 25,000 of the Irish National Volunteers; ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... the narration of which afforded Mabel quite as much delight as its accomplishment had afforded Minnie. It is just possible, indeed, that the consideration of their project occupied rather more of their attention on that day, at least, than the sermon did. Mabel had to take herself to task severely several times during the afternoon service, and Minnie, without thinking very much about it, found herself mixing up the Epistle to the Galatians with a homily to be delivered to the inhabitants of Hollowmell ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden

... morning she went to church with Grandmamma, drawn thither by two fat old black horses, who seemed to think it almost too much trouble to switch the flies off with their tails. Church was warm and the sermon was drowsy, so poor Lady Bird fell asleep, and tumbled over suddenly on to Grandmamma's lap. This distressed the old lady a good deal, for she was very particular about behavior in church. By way of punishment, Lota had to learn four verses of a hymn after dinner. ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... demon whisper'd, 'Visto! have a taste.' Heaven visits with a taste the wealthy fool, And needs no rod but Ripley[47] with a rule. See! sportive fate, to punish awkward pride, Bids Bubo[48] build, and sends him such a guide: 20 A standing sermon, at each year's expense, That ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope

... of all these illustrations," said the Minister, closing his sermon, "what can we conceive of God's providential love? It is a thought beyond conception, it is a light transcending vision. There is no object on earth or in heaven, that can well represent the truth of its wisdom, the touch of its tenderness, or the attraction of its ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee

... lives only by record, it is safe to assume from the extracts of the author's diary already quoted, that it lacked every quality of amusement, and was adapted only to those whom he described, in a sermon preached before the Governor and Council, as "verie Sharpe and early Ripe in their capacities." "Good Lessons" has the distinction of being the first American book to be composed, like many a modern publication, ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey

... for the thing leaked outrageously and blew out with every gust. The more part of the night we walked blindfold among sheets of rain, and day found us aimless on the mountains. Hard by we struck a hut on a burn-side, where we got a bite and a direction: and, a little before the end of the sermon, came to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... consistent with each other," takes the greatest pains to give him proofs of a frank, affectionate, and disinterested friendship. She is unremitting in her attentions to him, and, when he tries to speak to her of love, she brings him to a stop with a sermon delivered with the most winning sweetness, recalling to his memory his past faults, and endeavoring to undeceive him in regard to the world ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera

... her procession of guests into church; and they, in their best black gowns and bonnets, sat listening to the sermon, and looking about with decorous and ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... Middleton's usual quality as of Dekker's; homely and rough-cast as they are, there is a certain finish or thoroughness about them which is more like the careful realism of the former than the slovenly naturalism of the latter. The coarse commonplaces of the sermon on prostitution by which Bellafront is so readily and surprisingly reclaimed into respectability give sufficient and superfluous proof that Dekker had nothing of the severe and fiery inspiration which makes a great satirist or a great preacher; but when ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... Connecticut, regularly attended publick worship on the Lord's day with all his family: On the Sunday evening he always catechised his children and servants on the principles of religion, and what they heard the minister deliver from the pulpit. He had a negro man who never could remember a note of the sermon, though otherwise smart. At last his master peremptorily told him he would on Monday morning tie him up and flog him. Next Sunday evening, when interrogated, he had forgotten all: On Monday morning his master executes his threat so far, as to tie him up. The fellow then cried out, O master ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 3: New-England Sunday - Gleanings Chiefly From Old Newspapers Of Boston And Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks

... his skill, as masters of the game usually are; for the rest of his character he was a jester and a parcel poet, (qualities which by no means abated his natural conceit,) a jolly fellow, who, though a sound Protestant, loved a flagon of ale better than a long sermon, a stout man of his hands when need required, true to his master, and a little presuming on his interest ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... Exeter House when the Parliament was most predominant, for which Cromwell often rebuked him.—WOOD'S ATHENAE.] at Exeter House, [Essex-street in the Strand was built on the site of Exeter House.] where he made a very good sermon upon these words:— "That in the fulness of time God sent his Son, made of a woman," &c.; showing, that, by "made under the law," is meant the circumcision, which is solemnized this day. Dined at home in the garret, where ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... Bible, there is no discount on that. For fourteen years I was a careful student of its sacred pages. Every Sunday of that fourteen years, from 12 o'clock until 2, I used to walk the stone floor of my cell preaching a sermon with no audience but my dictionary and "The Life of the Prophet Jeremiah." I at first began my Bible studies and my sermons as a means to occupy my thoughts and keep my mind bright. It saved my life and reason. I need hardly say that I became ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... somewhat from this general definition, and that is not a criticism in the precise meaning of the word, but an article treating of the same subject and having my book in view. I mean the pamphlet of Mr. Troizky (published at Kazan), "A Sermon for the People." The author obviously accepts Christ's teaching in its true meaning. He says that the prohibition of resistance to evil by force means exactly what it does mean; and the same with the prohibition of swearing. He does not, as others do, deny the meaning of Christ's ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy

... the whole sermon to you beforehand, Major; but I don't mind telling you that it will deal with the vice of squabbling which I find rampant in small communities. I shan't, of course, mention you and Simpkins; or, for the matter ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham

... turning. Where ancient philosophy appealed through the lecturer at his desk, where Christianity sent its missionary to proclaim a faith, or set its priest to celebrate mass, or its minister to preach a sermon,—in place of these partial resources we now realize that every normal activity of humanity is to serve in building up man, and that "the true church of God ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam

... pertinaciously and solely applied to Jesus, by many Christian writers, because it is so applied by Peter in the 2 chap. of Acts, in his sermon to the Jews, just after he had received the full inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and of course must be considered as infallible. Nevertheless, these words of Moses are supposed by many learned men, both Jews and Christians, to be spoken of Joshua, whom Moses himself afterwards, at ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English

... that quaint old Bishop Latimer, who was afterwards burned at the stake, "having preached a sermon before King Henry VIII, which greatly displeased the monarch, was ordered to preach again on the next Sunday, and make apology for the offence given. The day came, and with it a crowded assembly anxious ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle

... and the humblest, there is a crisis in the formation of character, and in the bent of the disposition. It comes from many causes, and from some which on the surface are apparently even trivial. It may be a book, a speech, a sermon; a man or a woman; a great misfortune or a burst of prosperity. But the result is the same; a sudden revelation to ourselves of our secret purpose, and a recognition of our perhaps long shadowed, but ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... people, Hear this Sermon from the Mount: When a Bill is up for passage It is only votes that count; And you'd better watch the fellow On the legislative raft Who forever talks "retrenchment," And then casts a ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller

... whether she is fond of him," said the curate to himself, when he resolved to go to bed instead of beginning his sermon that night. "I shouldn't wonder if she is, for he is just the sort of man to make a girl ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope

... its proceedings were commenced at Avignon, by a solemn procession, which made the circuit of the principal streets of the town, singing penitential psalms, and halted on the hill of Notre Dame; where an inaugural sermon was delivered on a spot called Calvary, and supposed to represent that sacred place. The multitude, assembled by curiosity or a better feeling, was so great, that two of the missionaries found it expedient to address them at the same time from different stations. One of these was M. Guyon, ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes

... the 12th December 1886, I heard the late Canon Liddon preach a sermon in St. Paul's Cathedral, in which he classed Oliver Cromwell with Alexander the Sixth and with Richard the Third. I had taken my estimate of the great Protector's character largely from Carlyle's famous book, and you can judge with what feelings ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte

... blessings, I SHALL send her away. You know I told you, to begin with, that I wouldn't permit that. And I won't. Two or three times I have thought she was going to (preach, I mean), but so far she has always ended up with some ridiculous story about those Ladies' Aiders of hers; so the sermon gets sidetracked—luckily for her, ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter

... surprise as Mr Rumbold walked from his stall to the pulpit for the sermon. Generally he gave out the number of the short anthem which accompanied this manoeuvre, but today he made no such announcement. A discreet curtain hid the organist from the congregation, and veiled his gymnastics with the stops and his antic dancing on the pedals, and now when Mr Rumbold moved from ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... to a Clergyman, relating to his Sermon on the 30th Jan., by a Lover of Truth, 1746, the lay author (one Coade, I believe), inveighing against high churchmen, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 236, May 6, 1854 • Various

... Emancipatio; Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthuemer, 608 f.), or even a public proclamation before the assembled community, at least written documents invested with all legal formalities as practiced among civilized peoples. On Greek laws of this nature, see especially, Theophrast., in Stobaeus, Sermon., XLIV, 22. Very remarkable in Sparta. Schol. ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... had the altar in it, was veiled, and enclosed within what were called the Royal Gates, and these were only opened at times of celebrating the Holy Communion. This end was raised steps, and the Holy Scriptures and sermon were spoken to the people from the front of the Royal Gates. The pavement was of rich marble, and the ceiling, which was generally vaulted, was inlaid with coloured stones, making pictures in what is called Mosaic, because thus the stones were set by Moses in the High Priest's ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge

... as to whether the departed saints intercede for us. For the present I am only going to give a brief answer as I am considering publishing a sermon on the beloved angels in which I will respond more fully on ...
— An Open Letter on Translating • Gary Mann

... during the forty days of Interval between the Parliament of the Secluded Members and the Convention Parliament (March 16, 1659-60—April 25, 1660): Caution of Monk and the Council of State: Dr. Matthew Griffith and his Royalist Sermon, The Fear of God and the King: Griffith imprisoned for his Sermon, but forward Republicans checked or punished at the same time: Needham discharged from his Editorship and Milton from his Secretaryship: Resoluteness of Milton in his Republicanism: His Brief ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... afternoon service from where he lingered as distinctly as if he had been one of the congregation. Thus he was mentally conducted through the Psalms, through the first and second lessons, through the burst of fiddles and clarionets which announced the evening-hymn, and well into the sermon, before any signs of the waggon could be ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy

... body, called the Holy Synod, whose members were bishops and whose chief was a layman, all chosen by the tsar himself. No appointment to ecclesiastical office could henceforth be made without the approval of the Holy Synod; no sermon could be preached and no book could be published unless it had received the sanction of that august body. The authority which the tsar thereby obtained over the Russian Church was as complete and far-reaching as that which Henry VIII had acquired, two centuries earlier, over the Anglican Church. ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... on Sunday, the twenty-fourth of September. From that day Emily sickened. She caught cold at Branwell's funeral. On September the thirtieth she was in church listening to his funeral sermon. After that, she never crossed the threshold of the Parsonage till in December her dead body was carried over it, to lie beside her ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair

... are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees." And, although Clemence's lips syllabled no words, her thoughts were those of the most exalted devotion. She seemed wrapped about in a spell of dreamy silence, and the words of the sermon came faintly to an ear that was all unheeding. When it was over, and they rose to sing the last hymn, she sat abstractedly, "among them, but not of them." It needed the pressure of Ruth's light hand to rouse her, and she stood up ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... Science building, with its tower crowned by an ornamental open-work iron pyramid for wireless, and the segregated group of theological dormitories through whose windows earnest ringing young voices were sometimes heard at the practice of sermon-delivery, and the men's club where the billiard tables were doubtless decorously covered with their customary Sunday sheets of black oilcloth, and took intuitively the path which led along the ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... need be quoted from Mr Crome's papers. Sir Matthew Fell was duly coffined and laid into the earth, and his funeral sermon, preached by Mr Crome on the following Sunday, has been printed under the title of 'The Unsearchable Way; or, England's Danger and the Malicious Dealings of Antichrist', it being the Vicar's view, as ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James

... meeting," yet some of them, at least, looking at the cool shadowed wood as they passed, and thinking how pleasant it would be to hunt berries or birds' nests in those sylvan retreats instead of listening to a two hours' sermon, under imminent danger of perdition if they went to sleep,—for in such seductive guise did the Evil One tempt the souls of these youthful Puritans. Solemn of visage and garb were the groups, although ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch

... philosophizing party of the Church. This was that Cyril who had murdered Hypatia. Cyril was determined that the worship of the Virgin as the Mother of God should be recognized, Nestor was determined that it should not. In a sermon delivered in the metropolitan church at Constantinople, he vindicated the attributes of the Eternal, the Almighty God. "And can this God have a mother?" he exclaimed. In other sermons and writings, he set forth with more ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... you will deserve to be flayed for it." Things went from bad to worse, and I shortly found myself mentally taking the unfriended lady under my protection. My mind was wholly upon her. I forgot all about the sermon. Her embarrassment took stronger and stronger hold upon her; she got to snapping the lid of her smelling-bottle—it made a loud, sharp sound, but in her trouble she snapped and snapped away, unconscious of what she was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... in answer to a seditious pamphlet of Milton's, intituled Brief notes upon a late sermon titl'd The fear of God and the King, preach'd and since publish'd. By M. ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett

... motives in what she did, and in this she excelled many women who have been praised. Dear, indeed, she was to the hearts of her father and mother, and all who were more immediately concerned, and dear also to the world, which admired her heroic virtues. Another sermon which she preaches from this chapter is, that women should not be satisfied with less than the best. Even good actions and kind words are not enough; they must be the sincere expressions of good and ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope

... These gifts were solemnly dedicated at a stately service held on June 2nd, when, after the litany and an anthem, the special service was taken by the Archbishop of Canterbury at the altar, and after that Te Deum was sung. A sermon was preached by the Bishop of Durham, formerly Canon. The Archbishop and Bishops wore ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting

... better I did not. It would have put Charles out, and this would not have been pleasant for either you or me. I would not have you at Blackdeep now for worlds. The low fever has broken out, and to-day there were two funerals. Parson preached a sermon about it; it was a judgment from God. Perhaps it is, but why did it take your father three years ago? It is all a mystery, and it looks to me sometimes as if here on earth there were nothing but mystery. I have just heard that parson is down with ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford

... powerful black Moses who led the Negroes for a generation, and led them well. He was a Baptist preacher, and when he died, two thousand black people followed him to the grave; and now they preach his funeral sermon each year. His widow lives here,—a weazened, sharp-featured little woman, who curtsied quaintly as we greeted her. Further on lives Jack Delson, the most prosperous Negro farmer in the county. It is a joy to meet him,—a great broad-shouldered, handsome black man, intelligent and jovial. ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois

... while her brother, Benjamin Hoxie, on the other low seat opposite the window, was also thinking of the stranger's sermon. 'He said it was a valiant thing to do, to stop on here when all the neighbours have left. I didn't know Friends could do valiant things. I thought only soldiers were valiant. But if a scouting party really did come—if those English scouts suddenly appeared, then even a Quaker boy might have ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... Barnes, in a sermon in behalf of the American Home Missionary Society, preached in New York and in Philadelphia, says of that institution: "It cannot be denied, it need not be denied, that the form of Christianity which it seeks and expects to propagate, ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson

... this sermon hence for itself prepares:— "Then is there nothing vile thou mayst not do, Buffeted in a tumult of low cares, And treacheries of the old man 'gainst the new."— Lord, in my spirit let thy spirit move, Warning, ...
— A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul • George MacDonald

... Institute," which, in its initials has been said wittily to mean, "Zion's Children Multiply Incessantly;" and on Sunday morning to attend the beautiful service in St. Mark's Church, where Bishop Tuttle, of Missouri, preached a striking sermon from the text "A horse is counted but a vain thing to save a man;" and in the evening to participate in the grand missionary service in Salt Lake Theatre, where the congregation was led by a choir of sixty voices, and stirring addresses were made by Bishop Leonard of Salt Lake, Bishop Gailor of ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey

... discoursed on the text, "Such ought he to be, an undefiled high-priest." The Archbishop began a long harangue, "Fear and trembling have come upon me, the horror of great darkness." The Cardinal of Florence cut short the ill-timed sermon, demanding whether he accepted the pontificate. The Archbishop gave his assent; he took the name of Urban VI. Te Deum was intoned; he was lifted to the throne. The fugitives returned to Rome. Urban VI was crowned on Easter Day, in the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... Hill about a week when Jason came panting into the house late one afternoon. His father was writing a sermon in the sitting room. Jason tip-toed into the kitchen, where his mother was ...
— Benefits Forgot - A Story of Lincoln and Mother Love • Honore Willsie

... the grotto, which we had left untouched, and nothing could be more magnificent than this chapel lighted up, with its colonnades, portico, and altars. We had divine service here every Sunday. I had erected a sort of pulpit, from which I delivered a short sermon to my congregation, which I endeavoured to render as simple ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss

... own strictness of moral discipline. The very Catholic practice of profane swearing, in which his Majesty was so proficient, was prohibited on pain of severe punishment; and it was prescribed that a sermon should daily be preached in the camp.[1281] A good round oath none the less continued to be received by the soldiers, in all doubtful cases, as a sufficient proof of loyalty to Mother Church, nor did they cease because ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... with honour, and Mrs Meg had set her heart on his being a minister—picturing in her fond fancy the first sermon her dignified young parson would preach, as well as the long, useful, and honoured life he was to lead. But John, as she called him now, firmly declined the divinity school, saying he had had enough of books, ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... cauterization, or moxa, without a murmur or sign of pain. One remarkable thing about him was his extraordinary recognition of all the powers and elements of nature as related to man in one family under God. This was the origin of his famous short "sermon to the birds," which has been preserved. He talked to them and to all other animals as though he firmly believed that they could understand him, and could adore their Creator as well as he; though it is not probable that he supposed they would understand him precisely ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... have been une affectation. The Countess was so old, that her death could have surprised nobody, and her relatives had long looked upon her as being out of the world. A famous preacher pronounced the funeral sermon. In simple and touching words he described the peaceful passing away of the righteous, who had passed long years in calm preparation for a Christian end. "The angel of death found her," said the orator, "engaged in pious meditation and ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various

... nature. It no longer served him as a refuge from the din of a clamorous, or the hostility of a censorious world. It became a sort of fortress, from the secure position of which he was enabled to deal out annoyance and defiance to his foes. He had not now so much a story to tell as a sermon to preach; and with him, as with many others, to preach meant to denounce. His spirit for a time became captive to the prejudices and the heated feelings which had been aroused by the sense of the injustice with which he had been ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury

... amnesty. In the morning, the Duke, accompanied by a brilliant staff, and by a long procession of clergy in their gorgeous robes, paraded through the streets of the commercial capital, to offer up prayers and hear mass in the cathedral. The Bishop of Arras then began a sermon upon the blessings of mercy, with a running commentary upon the royal clemency about to be exhibited. In the very outset, however, of his discourse, he was seized with convulsions, which required his removal from the pulpit; an incident which was not considered of felicitous ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... visitor, the door opened at once upon the old-fashioned parlour,—a homely but pleasant room, with one wide but low cottage casement, beneath which stood the dark shining table that supported the large Bible in its green baize cover; the Concordance, and the last Sunday's sermon, in its jetty case. There by the fireplace stood the bachelor's round elbow-chair, with a needlework cushion at the back; a walnut-tree bureau, another table or two, half a dozen plain chairs, constituted the rest of the furniture, saving some two or three ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book V • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... Sabbath morning, through the still and frosty air, From Spurwink, Pool, and Black Point, called to sermon ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... not soon forget how in the warm summer days, at the noon recess, he was wont to sit in the shade of the house with his open Bible in his hand. Often we would overhear him, with painstaking repetition, studying a psalm of David, or some passage from the 'Sermon on the Mount.' I heard him in the pulpit once when he preached a warning discourse, his theme that of John the Baptist, 'Repent, and be baptized!' He was not a 'shouter' or a 'ranter,' but spoke and acted in a quiet, ...
— The American Missionary - Vol. 44, No. 3, March, 1890 • Various

... Literature than any preceding Century, so the generality of Mankind are capable of judging with such an Exactness as to avoid a Bad; not but, I confess, I think many of the Persons concern'd in the Controversy lately on foot, with relation to the Bishop of Bangor's Sermon, preach'd before His Majesty, deserve to be stigmatiz'd, as well for their indecent Heat, as for the Latitude taken with regard to the Holy Scriptures. And for the last Objection, I never knew that ...
— A Vindication of the Press • Daniel Defoe

... an unalloyed joy. Mrs. Howland and her niece had attended church, but to Kate the sermon was too long, and the singing too loud. The girl mentioned both in a listless way, at the same time saying that it was always like that except when the sermon was interesting, then it was too short ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter

... company of the natives in the wigwam of Cutshamoquin, the Sachem of Neponset, within the limits of Dorchester. His next attempt was made among the Indians of another place, "those of Dorchester mill not regarding any such thing." On the 28th of October he delivered a sermon before a large number assembled in the principal wigwam of a chief named Waban, situated four or five miles from Roxbury, on the south side of the Charles river, near Watertown mill, now in the township of Newton. The services were commenced with prayer, which, as Mr. ...
— John Eliot's First Indian Teacher and Interpreter Cockenoe-de-Long Island and The Story of His Career from the Early Records • William Wallace Tooker

... I neglected the opportunity of social prayer and thanksgiving, that we were again permitted to see each other. My ingratitude stares me in the face. Against Thee, O Lord, against Thee only, have I sinned.—My John is preaching his trial sermon. My husband and servant are hearing him; and I have been alone, praying for him, that he may neither go before, nor stay behind the call of God. I feel the Lord is present, and my heart goes out after Him.—I was called up a little after five to attend upon my daughter-in-law. A beautiful morning. ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth

... of her parents,—her fearlessness, her gay and sweet enjoyment of nature, her intercourse with the old people of the neighborhood, her sisterly conduct towards her "suitors,"—all seem painted from the life; but the death-bed scene seems borrowed from some sermon, and is not in ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... to overhear the lively Felix make this flippant remark, disagreed with it entirely, and preached a sermon to prove that good looks and crime were closely connected, and that both Judas Iscariot and Nero ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume

... Jabez was clerk to a Calcutta attorney at the time, in 1812, when Dr. Ryland preached in the Dutch Church, Austin Friars, the anniversary sermon on the occasion of the removal of the headquarters of the Society to London. Pausing in the midst of his discourse, after a reference to Carey, the preacher called on the vast congregation silently to pray for the conversion of Jabez Carey. The answer came next year in a letter ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... which was sufficiently apparent from the fact that the raid was timed to take place at an hour on Sunday morning when the whole of the little community, with the exception of two sentinels and a second herdsman, were assembled to hear a sermon from the "Sick-Comforter," Wylant. It was the first conflict between the Dutch and the natives; for Van Riebeck had been bidden, for various excellent reasons, to keep on good terms with the Hottentots, and to treat them kindly. But the murder of a white man was a ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold

... the Navy Estimates, without dealing in the slightest degree with the incriminated book. He had also seen the Grand Penitentiary, that tall old man, with fleshless, ascetic face, of whom he had previously caught a glimpse at the Boccanera mansion, and from whom he now only drew a long and severe sermon on the wickedness of young priests, whom the century had perverted and who wrote most abominable books. Finally, at the Vatican, he had seen the Cardinal Secretary, in some wise his Holiness's Minister of Foreign Affairs, the great power of the Holy See, whom he had hitherto been prevented ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... this affair, took me to the Oratoire, where this woman goes to sermon, for she is a Protestant. I saw her; she is not in the least attractive; she looks like a butcher's wife, extremely fat, horribly marked with the smallpox; she has feet and hands like a man's, she squints, ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac

... By mere outward forms and ceremonies, church-goings, psalm-singings, sermon-hearings? Not so. These are right and good; but they are dead works, which cannot take away sin, any more than could the gifts and sacrifices, the meats and drinks of the old Jewish law. Those, says St. Paul, could not make him that did the sacrifice perfect ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... ordained by God; all the others suffered death for their wilful, deliberate defiance of the laws and the magistrates of the land. As a specimen of the teaching of these cotton divines, I quote from this same admired sermon the following precious piece of information, viz.:—"Nor is it true that the fugitive slave is made an outlaw, and on that ground justifiable for bloody and murderous resistance of law. He is under the protection of law; and if any man injures ...
— A Letter to the Hon. Samuel Eliot, Representative in Congress From the City of Boston, In Reply to His Apology For Voting For the Fugitive Slave Bill. • Hancock

... Come to find out he was all used up 'cause there wasn't nothin' about him in it. He told me in confidence as he never got such a shock in all his life. He says he read the paper over nine times afore he was able to sense it, an' he says his last sermon was on hidin' your light under a bushel basket an' he had a copy all ready if Elijah had only come for it. He says he shall preach next Sunday on cryin' out unto you to get up, an' he shall take a copy to Elijah himself. I cheered him up all I could. I told him as a sermon preached ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner

... sentences prevents in a great measure too early an expectation of the end."—Campbell cor. "A eulogy or a philippic may be pronounced by an individual of one nation upon a subject of an other."—J. Q. Adams cor. "A French sermon is, for the most part, a warm animated exhortation."—Blair cor. "I do not envy those who think slavery no very pitiable lot."—Channing cor. "The auxiliary and the principal united constitute a tense."—Murray cor. "There are some verbs which are defective with ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... popular animadversion; and many, who could withstand the serious arguments of their fraternity, cannot placidly endure their ridicule. Satire has, indeed, often done more service to the cause of religion and morality than a sermon, since the remedy is agreeable, whilst it at the same time ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker

... rose, and putting his hand into his waistcoat, more suo, delivered his famous Sermon Upon The Connection Between Faith ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... that city, it seems, pretend much weakness and squeamishness of stomacke, which they say is so great that they are not able to continue in church while the mass is briefly hurried over, much lesse while a solemn high mass is sung and a sermon preached, unles they drinke a cup of hot chocolatte and eat a bit of sweetmeats to strengthen their stomackes. For this purpose it was much used by them to make their maids bring them to church, in the middle of mass or sermon, a cup of ...
— The Food of the Gods - A Popular Account of Cocoa • Brandon Head

... had been brought up, and showed the sincerity of his words by the regularity and respect with which he always had divine service performed on board the "Victory," whenever the weather permitted. After the service he had generally a few words with the chaplain on the subject of the sermon, either thanking him for its being a good one, or remarking that it was not so well adapted as usual to the crew. More than once, on such occasions, he took down a volume of sermons in his own cabin, with the page already ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... was adjourned to the log house which an old colored preacher had converted into a church. It was filled to its capacity and John stood in the doorway and heard the most remarkable sermon to which ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon

... During the first prayer, on that evening, my heart became softened and subdued, and when he gave out his text, from Matthew xi. chap., 28, and two following verses, I listened to him with rapt attention. It seemed almost that he understood my individual case. In the course of his sermon, he said:—'I presume there are few in this congregation who have not some burden of sorrow which they would gladly have removed. Shall I tell you how you may be released from this burden? Kneel humbly at the foot of the ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell

... Leyden under a different name, and with far less gorgeous surroundings. He took up his position in the council-chamber, in the presence of the stadholder and the leading members of the States-General, and pronounced a long Latin oration, in the manner, as it was said, of a monk delivering a sermon from the pulpit. He kept his eyes steadily fixed on the ceiling, never once looking at the men whom he was addressing, and speaking in a loud, nasal, dictatorial tone, not at all agreeable to the audience. He dwelt in ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... perhaps, about the horses; the jockey nothing of stores or buildings. Three people may occupy the same pew in a church; the one can tell you all about the music, the second the good points in the sermon, and the third the style and becomingness of the bonnets and dresses. Each one sees what he has in his own mind. A teacher describes Yosemite Valley to a geography class. Some of the children construct a mental picture ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry

... extraordinary scene of a household meeting together for domestic worship, which of course was never heard of in England. This little scene affords a charming opportunity for "buttering up" New England piety at the cheap expense of a libel upon the old country. He then is taken to hear a sermon, where for his special benefit, I suppose, the preacher expatiates on the glorious field of Bunker's Hill, foretells England's decline, and generously promises our countrymen a home in America when they are quite "used up." ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... had assembled, the priest ascended the pulpit, and preached a sermon full of the spirit of wisdom. The discourse was concerning the sanctity of the Holy Scriptures, and the conjunction of the Lord with both worlds, the spiritual and the natural, by means thereof. In the illustration in which he then was, he fully proved, that that holy ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg

... against pathetic, sentimental, and moralistic painting. Here color and line, the whole picture in fact, counts for little or nothing except to stir an emotion, usually of grief or pity or love, or to preach a sermon; the unity of form and content is sacrificed, the one becoming a mere means to the other. But, as we know, it is never the purpose of art merely to stir feeling; its purpose is to objectify feeling; if the art be painting, to put feeling ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker

... which the institutions of society tend, under the influence of education and religion; that the common brotherhood of man, mocked by the tyrants which feudalism produced, is yet to be drawn from the Sermon on the Mount; that the blood of a plebeian carpenter is as good as that of an aristocratic captain of artillery; that public burdens which bear heavily on the poor should also be shared equally by the rich; that all laws should be abolished ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... march along to church by himself, or with any of the children who were ready. There he sat very straight—well up the middle aisle—and, as I remember, always became very sleepy, and sometimes even took a little nap during the sermon. At that time, this drowsiness of my father's was something awful to me, inexplicable. I know it was very hard for me to keep awake, and frequently I did not; but why he, who to my mind could do everything right, without any effort, should sometimes be overcome, I could ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son



Words linked to "Sermon" :   baccalaureate, discourse, church service, kerugma, kerygma, address, homily, speech, sermonize, lecture, church, evangelism, talking to, preachment



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