"The Tempter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... any right to sport with the affections of a young woman, in any way whatever. Vanity is generally the tempter in this case; a desire to be regarded as being admired by the women; a very despicable species of vanity, but frequently greatly mischievous, notwithstanding. You do not, indeed, actually, in so many words, promise to marry; but the general tenor of your language and deportment ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... some art by which I could break the charm of the tempter's bowl, and with mailed hand lift out the long serpent of eternal despair, and shake out its coils, and cast it down, and ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... perhaps, runs by way of short cut through the middle of the field. The seed that falls there, left exposed on the surface, is picked up and devoured by birds. Behold in one picture God's gracious offer, man's self-destroying neglect, and the tempter's coveted opportunity! ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... excited and stood up as he paid loving tribute to the reality of religion in his life and the tender, most divine friendship of Jesus Christ. Then he hesitated; but only for a moment. He told her of his sins; of those days of doubt when he yielded to the tempter's power and how near he came to losing his soul. He could not finish it, but strode off alone. At last he came, ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... his voice was powerless in that trying moment. His head drooped upon his heaving breast, and he sighed heavily as, without speaking, he grasped Goisvintha by the hand. The object she had pleaded for was nearly attained;—he was fast sinking beneath the tempter's well-spread toils! ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... could sin, when just leaving the hands of God, his nature was then not perfect! Why did God permit him to sin, and his nature to become corrupt? Why did God allow him to be seduced, knowing well that he would be too weak to resist the tempter? Why did God create a Satan, a malicious spirit, a tempter? Why did not God, who was so desirous of doing good to mankind, why did He not annihilate, once for all, so many evil genii whose nature rendered ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... was thus considering, and being put to my plunge about it (for you must know, that as yet I had in this matter broken my mind to no man, only did hear and consider), the tempter came in with this delusion, That there was no way for me to know I had faith, but by trying to work some miracle; urging those scriptures that seem to look that way, for the enforcing and strengthening his temptation. Nay, one day, as I was between ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... a throbbing heart as the waiter passed down the room. The tempter was before her son offering the glass of wine, which he yet refused. She saw him start and look disconcerted as the waiter spoke to him, then wave the glass of wine aside. But he did ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... said, 'Learn, my lord, that we gentlemen of France devote ourselves to our sovereigns by sacrificing them our affections, as well as our fortunes and our lives; and whenever it may chance to happen that the tempter suggests one of those vile thoughts that set the heart on fire, we extinguish the flame, even if it has to be done by shedding our blood for the purpose. Thus it is that the honor of three is saved: our country's, our master's, and our own. It is thus that we act, your Grace; ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Egbert Crawford, Tombs lawyer, when he said to Aunt Synchy, "What more could I do, I should like to know?" meant to be understood as asserting that nothing more was in his power; but there was really in his heart the wish for aid in some higher crime to effect his purposes; and the tempter came! ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... began to fail him at night. So this was a Bible with large type, and a candle was placed on either side of it; and the Captain leaned his elbows on the table, and both his hands were tightly clasped upon his forehead,—tightly, as if to shut out the tempter, and force his ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... hesitated, while the tempter whispered that it would mean thirty or forty dollars for a few minutes' work, and that everyone would take it for granted he had been compelled to send it. Then abruptly he leaned back in his chair and shook his head. "I couldn't do it," he ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... said Mr. Pound, taking a limp, sprawling arm and lifting the culprit to his feet. "Tell me, who was the tempter who ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... presence every passing hour; What but Thy grace can foil the tempter's power? Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be? Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year - Edited by Katherine D. Blake and Georgia Alexander • Various
... furious down to be revenged on men, Woe to the inhabitants on earth! that now, While time was, our first parents had been warned The coming of their secret foe, and 'scaped, Haply so 'scaped his mortal snare: For now Satan, now first inflamed with rage, came down, The tempter ere the accuser of mankind, To wreak on innocent frail Man his loss Of that first battle, and his flight to Hell: Yet, not rejoicing in his speed, though bold Far off and fearless, nor with cause to boast, Begins his dire attempt; ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... led up of the Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an-hungred. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... with sound L.S.D., Ought to entice you!" He's scorn and derision all, Hydra, if true to his breed. We shall see! Just so a groom, with the bridle behind him, Tempts a free horse with some corn in a sieve. Will London's Hydra let "tentatives" blind him, Snap at the bait, and the tempter believe? Or will the "hero"—in form of Committee— Really prove wax for the Hydra to mould? Yes, there's the club, but it's rather a pity Hercules seems a bit feeble of hold. Tentative heroes may suit modern urgency, LUBBOCK may win where a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various
... gathered from what precedes that Hinduism has little room for the Devil[72]. Buddhism being essentially an ethical system recognizes the importance of the Tempter or Mara, but still Mara is not an evil spirit who has spoilt a good world. In Hinduism, whether pantheistic or polytheistic, there is even less disposition to personify evil in one figure, and most Indian religious systems are disposed to think of the ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... recognize even here no one worthy of bearing the name of gentleman: for it is in the name of King Charles II. that an emissary, whom I took for an honest man, came and laid an infamous snare for me. I have fallen into that snare; so much the worse for me. Now, you the tempter," said he to the king, "you the executor," said he to D'Artagnan; "remember what I am about to say to you; you have my body, you may kill it, and I advise you to do so, for you shall never have my ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... his fellow-countrymen only, but from some who believed themselves to be Italy's best friends abroad, came the prompting of the tempter: more power! Few ministers in a predicament of such vast difficulty would have resisted the evil fascination of those two words. Cavour heard them unmoved. He told his various counsellors that they counted too much on his influence, and were too distrustful of liberty. He had no confidence in dictatorships, ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... Convent of the Stigmata? A young man, tall, emaciated with fasts and vigils, but handsome like the monk playing the virginal in Giorgione's "Concert," and under his brown serge still the most stalwart fellow of the country all round? One has heard of men struggling with the tempter. Well, well, Father Domenico had struggled as hard as any of the Anchorites recorded by St. Jerome, and he had conquered. I never knew anything comparable to the angelic serenity of gentleness of this victorious soul. I don't like ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... on my arm, I was fool enough to think all this—all this peace, all this beauty of the ocean dawn, all this lulling of the breeze, all this music, this gentle smile, this tender touch, spelt love; and there came a voice from the tempter that I should tell her as much then and there. What hindered me, I know not. 'Twas not alone the thought of Ludar, or the remembrance of my own honour, or the fear of her contempt. Be it what it ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... naughty boys would coax me into sin, I try to skwush the Tempter's voice 'at urges me within; An' when they's pie for supper, or cakes 'at's big an' nice, I want to—but I do not pass my plate f'r them things twice! No, ruther let Starvation wipe me slowly out o' ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... The tempter often works most successfully through those who are least suspected of being under his control. The possessors of talent and education are admired and honored, as if these qualities could atone for the absence of the fear of God, or entitle men to ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... their behalf; and that the steadiness of this refusal has driven the Confederate envoy, Mr. Mason, to seek what he deems a more hospitable shore. The inducement of cotton for our idle looms and our famishing people has been a strong one to our statesmen as well as to our people, and the Tempter has been at their side. Despotism, like Slavery, is necessarily propagandist. It cannot bear the contagion, it cannot bear the moral rebuke, of neighboring freedom. The new French satrapy in Mexico needs some more congenial and some weaker neighbor than the United ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... some suggestion of the tempter? All the strong virile blood rushed through his veins, and he only made a feeble fight to subdue it. He did not really want to put ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... she laid aside her ornaments, and the tempter ever ready to take advantage, whispered to Agnes, "She suffers for her brother's sake, ...
— 'Our guy' - or, The elder brother • Mrs. E. E. Boyd
... confide this fact to me, but allowed me to discover it for myself. In the evening I went back to my grandmother's. I wanted Charley to accompany me, but he said that he thought he had better keep out of the way, or out of sight. This I have since found the Tempter—that great enemy of man—always does when he can. He does his best to hide the hook with which he angles for souls, as well as to conceal himself; and we may justly be suspicious of people who dare not come forward to explain their objects and ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... needna mind me o' that. She brought me up abune my station, and wi' knowledge mair than my fellowsbut, like the tempter of auld, wi' the knowledge of gude she taught me the knowledge ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... companion sitting on a carriage step in the main street while he went over to the postoffice. As soon as he was out of young Archer's presence the tempter who had been pulling at his elbow left him, and his thoughts flew back to ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... of my readers will exclaim. Perhaps he was; but even if you laugh at him, I think you will hardly despise him for his simple- mindedness, for who would not rather be such a one than the tempter, Tom Drift? ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... confidentially, "and would have made a good saving wife for a sober man with a little siller. She had a grip of doctrine, too. She was well versed in the fundamentals and would have made a good elder's wife. But, ay, man, the tempter comes in many a form, and it behoves us all ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... thought I could be saved; every body passed me by till you came. You built a home, a refuge for such poor wretches as I, and there I and many like me heard of Jesus; and here we are." "And I," said another, "was once a clerk in your store. I came to the city innocent, but I was betrayed by the tempter. I forgot my mother, and my mother's God. I went to the gaming table and the theatre, and at last I robbed your drawer. You might have justly cast me off; but you bore with me, you watched over me, you saved me. I am here through you this ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... was driven from Eden. Hence, he began to wander away from God, in spirit and purpose; the tempter had been admitted and man's heart grew very deceitful and desperately wicked. The command of God, however, as written in Genesis, 1st chap., 28th verse, was inviolable. The earth must be peopled; thus man continued to wander, and his heart ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... "Tush, father, the tempter would have been more wise than to reckon upon a faith which no ink and no parchment can render valid, if the Church absolve the compact. Thou understandest ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book II. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... of a vision. Mara, the great tempter, the spirit of evil, appears in the sky, urging Gautama to stop. He promises him a universal kingdom over the four great continents if he will but give up his enterprise. The tempter does not prevail, but from that time he followed Gautama as a shadow, hoping to seduce him from ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... and my strength, Shalt on the tempter tread, Shalt silence all my threatening guilt, And ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... "Alas—the tempter always makes himself beautiful in the eyes of the tempted! Sophia, we can yet save this unhappy child, but who knows how soon it may be too late!—You can still repair some of the wrong you have done, but you can only ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... of temptation to sin. But take the strongest and most pressing incitements to the corruptions of the heart, and the evil of our nature. Even of these must it not be said, that the temptation, and the tempter himself, may be turned into a worker for good, when that promise is brought forward, and brought home to the heart, "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above what ye are able, but will with the temptation ...
— The Church of England Magazine - Volume 10, No. 263, January 9, 1841 • Various
... infamous and continuous attack, would not yield; and finally that wretch, wearied by so long a siege and vanquished by the constancy of a weak girl, withdrew and left her in peace. Which is indeed a good deal when we consider the following: One woman for twelve long years resisted the tempter, fortified by holy confession and communion. Another, although she resisted for a shorter time, showed even greater constancy; for the base and cruel seducer went so far as to aim a dagger against her breast twice; the third time he went beyond ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... simple-minded girl, ignorant of the world and of life, and conscious only of her boundless love for this one glorious man, and to whom the memories of a less harmless past seemed like wicked dreams sent by the Tempter to molest her chastity. This self-deception, or rather retrogression of her instincts, led her into touches of mysticism. The story of little Sonia who had fallen in love with the ten-year-old Wilhelm at first sight, to die shortly afterward ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after he had fasted forty days and forty nights he was hungry. Then the tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread." But Jesus ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... came, and the birds twittered, and the stream ran proud and full, little sister Lizzie, bold and thoughtless, flushed with the passion of youth, bestowed herself on the tempter, and brought home a nameless child. Josie shivered and worked on, with the vision of schooldays all fled, with a face wan and tired,—worked until, on a summer's day, some one married another; then Josie crept to her mother like a ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... tossings which threatened to drive his soul like a broken vessel headlong on the rocks of despair, were bearing him nearer and nearer to the "haven where he would be." His vivid imagination, as we have seen, surrounded him with audible voices. He had heard, as he thought, the tempter bidding him "Sell Christ;" now he thought he heard God "with a great voice, as it were, over his shoulder behind him," saying, "Return unto Me, for I have redeemed thee;" and though he felt that the voice ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... sport for the million, and for nothing. I doubt on the other hand whether my young priest had thought of this. He had made himself a temple out of the very elements of his innocence, and his prayers followed each other too fast for the tempter to slip in a whisper. And so, as I say, I found a solider fact of human nature than ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... lest something should betray its existence to his wife. What would he not have given at the moment to have blotted out for ever the memory of thoughts too earnestly cherished on the evening before, when he was alone with the tempter? ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... indeed was the conflict going on within her. "For the sake of appearances you will have to undergo some penances; but I will take care that they shall be as light as possible, that your health may be in no way injured," he remarked; and with a treacherous smile the tempter ...
— The Last Look - A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition • W.H.G. Kingston
... the temptation of Jesus, in his reply to the tempter, he says, "Thou shalt not live by bread alone;" the whole force of the argument depending on the single ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... that the interest of the mother is different from that of the man who sells liquor. Or suppose she is bringing up a daughter; she has a sacred right to protect that daughter from a libertine. Her interest is certainly different from that of the tempter.... We do not realize what an immense waste there is in denying woman entrance to political life. She ought to have free access to anything she is qualified to do and where she is not qualified she will ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... love of wife and children strong in my breast. Alas! it has been stronger than my love for God. I have succumbed to the lusts of the flesh, and have listened to the voice of the devil. I come not to cry aloud unto you, 'A woman tempted me and I fell!' I blame no one but myself. The voice of the tempter spoke to me in ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... more violent counterworking of the enemy, but also with a great measure of delusion and error within the kingdom of light. Such is the course of things that every truth has its shadow; and the greatest truth is attended by the greatest shadow. Above all things take care that the tempter do not introduce his craft into the congregation of the faithful. There will be those for whom the simple gospel will not suffice. When a man has experienced the forgiveness of his sins, and has for a little while enjoyed the happiness of that mercy, it not unfrequently appears to ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... happier than you, with all your refined feelings and cultivated tastes," whispered the tempter ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... quite simple. She wondered that she had not thought of that. Yet she felt that the man she loved, in all his nobility and honesty, was playing the tempter to her, though he could not know it. Deeper and deeper she sank, yet ever more conscious that she was sinking. Before him she felt no longer as loving woman to loving man—she was beginning to feel as a ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... connecting link in some future disclosure he was doubly convinced, but it must come about by an established order of things; and the young lawyer thanked God that he was given sufficient strength to withstand the power of the tempter. ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... said Monthault, "would you stay at Oxford, like a tame lion in a chain, caressed by old women, and wondered at by spectacled fellows of colleges." Eustace paused. "I see, my brave fellow," resumed the tempter, "you are determined to be one of us. I know your heart, and can predict that the consciousness of positive disobedience will make you miserable. Go, then, in the hope that your uncle would not have restrained you. Are you not old enough to judge for yourself? They have ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... this only, if reason shall not wholly free me from the servitude of care. Let others boast of material goods; mine is the privilege of not needing these or stooping to their control. I will have but a temperate desire of things open to choice, as they are good and present, and the tempter shall find no hold for his hands by which to draw me astray. I will be content with any sojourn or any company, for there is none, howsoever perilous, which may not prove and strengthen the defences of my soul. For I have built an impregnable citadel whence, if only I am true to myself, ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... Ste. Marie, unnecessarily, and the old man licked his withered lips. The tempter said: "My good Michel, would you care to receive this trifling sum—a ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... which are put in practice by the Tempter, when he found Eve separated from her Husband, the many pleasing Images of Nature which are intermix'd in this part of the Story, with its gradual and regular Progress to the fatal Catastrophe, are so very remarkable ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... a famous passion-play popular in Southern India and Ceylon, which illustrates the Hindoo ideal of truthfulness at every risk or cost. Viswamitra, the tempter and accuser as represented in the Vedas, appears in the council of the gods, face to face with Indra. The question is raised by Indra, who is the most virtuous sovereign on earth. He asks, "What chief of mortals is there, who has never ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... old boots and shoes, her motherly instincts and efforts to keep her young brother Dick, the crossing-sweeper, honest, because mother had made them promise to be so when she died; the good-natured, agreeable, clever young thief Jenks, the tempter and beguiler of poor Dick; and, above all, the dear dog Scamp, with his knowing ways and soft brown eyes, are all as true to life and as touchingly set forth as any heart could desire, beguiling the reader ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... already at his bedside, in order to counteract by his specious arguments and gloomy prognostics any less violent and criminal decision at which his royal master might have arrived during the solitude and silence of the night; and ably did the tempter perform his task. An increase of devotion and respect was skilfully blended with an apparent anxiety and alarm, which flattered the self-esteem and vanity of Louis, at the same time that they renewed all the terrors ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... the city upon any occasion. Here are fleshly lusts which war against the soul, (1 Pet. ii. 11) temptation to sin, and to unbelief. There is a heart within that can conceive and bring forth sin, and needs no temptation, a heart within that can seduce temptation itself, but it follows the tempter and when to all that a foreign power is added, Oh then, who can stand? Christ himself was tempted, but Satan found nothing in him, and had nothing in him, but when Satan comes he finds all in us, and we are like powder to conceive flame. We can even tempt ourselves, as well as be tempted by another. ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... whilst enjoying a warm, comfortable bed, that, after all, half-crowns were very acceptable to the poor woman who received them. But he made up his mind to put an end, once and for all, to such suggestions from the tempter; and resolved accordingly that, if he got up late again, he would throw a guinea into the Cam. He did it too. The next time he rose late he walked down to the river, and threw a hard-earned guinea into the water. It was worth while, nevertheless; for he never had to punish himself ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... that prospects are more agreeable to me when framed and glazed, and I look at them through a window. It is yourselves I want to visit, not your verdure. Indeed, except a parenthesis of scarce all August, there has been no temptation to walk abroad; and the tempter himself would not have persuaded me, if I could, to have climbed that long-lost mountain whence he could show one even the Antipodes. It rained incessantly all June and all July; and now again we have ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... where mother and son were closeted. For one moment he was tempted to place his ear to the keyhole! But a blush covered his fat cheeks at the very thought of acting such a disgraceful part. Like a wise fellow, he did not give the tempter a second opportunity, but, seizing the hand of ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... and physically weak, the tempter came with the insidious suggestion that He use His extraordinary powers to provide food. Satan had chosen the most propitious time for his evil purpose. What will mortals not do, to what lengths have ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... problem. Job is given over into Satan's hand to be tempted; and though he shakes, he does not fall. Taking the temptation of Job for his model, Goethe has similarly exposed his Faust to trial, and with him the tempter succeeds. His hero falls from sin to sin, from crime to crime; he becomes a seducer, a murderer, a betrayer, following recklessly his evil angel wherever he chooses to lead him; and yet, with all this, he never wholly forfeits our sympathy. In ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... kirk it ran broad and shallow, with a bank of brushwood on one side and a meadow on the other, fringed with low bushes from behind which it was possible to drop a fly with some prospects of success, while in quite unprotected situations the Drumtochty fish laughed at the tempter, and departed with contemptuous whisks of the tail. Above the haughs was a little mill, where flax was once spun and its lade still remained, running between the Tochty and the steep banks down which the glen descended to the river. Opposite ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... my little lady," said the tempter. "You are right, Bridget; I was only trying you. I do not wish you to sin. You know I am the minister. I love you, and wish to see you a good ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... [94] but the primitive church was filled with a great number of persons of either sex, who had devoted themselves to the profession of perpetual chastity. [95] A few of these, among whom we may reckon the learned Origen, judged it the most prudent to disarm the tempter. [96] Some were insensible and some were invincible against the assaults of the flesh. Disdaining an ignominious flight, the virgins of the warm climate of Africa encountered the enemy in the closest engagement; they permitted ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... preacher of to-day has declared, that he could never believe the man who said he had never been tempted. For George Fairfax life had been crowded with temptations; and he had not made even the feeblest stand against the tempter. He had been an eminently fortunate man in all the trifles which make up the sum of a frivolous existence; and though his successes had been for the most part small social triumphs, they had not been the less agreeable. He had never felt the sting of failure until he stood in the Yorkshire ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... to the tempter: "Man does not live by bread alone." Do any of you suppose that Jesus meant to inform the devil that man needs other kinds of food in addition, such as meats, and fruits, and vegetables? He had no such thought. He did not mean to inform or instruct the devil by anything ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... pardon which he continued to assert, or to name the victorious name in which he, trusted. But his faith did not abandon him, though he lacked for a time the power of expressing it. "Say what you will," was his answer to the Tempter; "I know there is as much betwixt the two boards of this Book as can insure me forgiveness for my transgressions, and safety for my soul." As he spoke, the clock, which announced the lapse of the fatal hour, ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... contempt, on beholding the degradation of this splendidly endowed young man. He reminded him of a fallen angel, with his glorious plumage all soiled and polluted with the mire and corruption of earth. He never had had faith in his integrity; be believed him to be the tempter of Louis, the deceiver of Mittie, reckless and unprincipled where pleasure was concerned, but he did not believe him capable of such a daring transgression. Had he been alone, he would have released him, for his magnanimity and generosity ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... Philadelphia and put in command of West Point. He was sent there in August, 1780. He was a capable and brave man; he had the confidence of Washington, in spite of his defects of character, and moreover he had rendered important services. In an evil hour he lost his head and listened to the voice of the tempter, and having succeeded in getting himself put in charge of the stronghold of the Hudson, he secretly negotiated ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... prettiest eggs ever was," continued the tempter, "all blue and pink and green, and 'bout a million kinds. They're ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... noblest attributes of humanity in the character of Burns. Both gifts are alike from heaven, and both alike tend heavenward. Therefore we lament to see genius soiled by earthly stain; therefore we lament to see virtue, where no genius is, fall before the tempter. But we, in our own clear natural perceptions, refuse the counsels of those who with the very breath of their warning would blight the wreath bound round the heads of the Muses' sons by a people's gratitude—who, in affected zeal for religion and morality, have ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... lodging, and the last meal. What shall I do? Where shall I go? I tried to think. Must I starve? Surely there must be some door still open for honest willing endeavour, but where? What can I do? "Drink," said the Tempter; but to drink to drunkenness needs cash, and oblivion by liquor demands ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... talisman had her letters been. He thought on the years that were passed, on their last interview, when every word had graven itself upon his heart, on the devotedness of his orphan sister, the misery he had once occasioned; he thought on these things, and stood firm,—the tempter fled. He stood before them erect in youthful beauty, no inward stain bade him turn from those fond looks or shrink from the entwining arms of his young sister. And, oh, how blessed is it thus to meet! to feel that vanished years have not estranged us, distance ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... they were the spontaneous workings of the nature which God had bestowed upon him. But his will was free. He could turn his mind to God, or he could turn it to earth. He did the latter, and there was no harm in this. But he listened to the voice of the tempter; he fixed his mind on the forbidden fruit; he saw it was pleasant to the eye; he imagined it was good for food, and greatly to be desired to make one wise. Neither the possession of the intellect ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... plenty of everything, and everything was handsome. . . . But honest people shook their heads when they looked at their way of living. "From the Devil no good can come," they unanimously agreed. "Whence, except from the tempter of orthodox people, came this wealth? Where else could he get such a lot of gold? Why, on the very day that he got rich, did Basavriuk vanish as if into thin air?" Say, if you can, that people imagine things! In fact, a month had not passed, and no one would have recognized Petrus. ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... with the Lord of men * the sovran of men * the God of men * from the Tempter, the Demon * who tempteth in whisper the breasts of men * and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... assure you that at that moment my heart absolutely stood still. The tempter stood at my elbow and whispered, and I deliberately smothered the call of my conscience. I did what Joseph's brethren did, what brought Judas Iscariot to hopeless remorse. There was no doubt that the ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... of calipers at the centre of one of the little courts! But, whether from past experience or innate philosophy in the insect I know not, the pronged hooks, though coming together with a click once or twice at the near proximity of the tempter, failed in their opportunity, and the trap was soon seen carefully set again, flush with the ground at the mouth ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... So the tempter whispers. Richard Wardour tries his strength on the boat. It moves: he has got it under control. He stops, and looks round. Beyond him is the open sea. Beneath him is the man who has robbed him of Clara. The shadow of ...
— The Frozen Deep • Wilkie Collins
... held up as a moral scarecrow. Rather let me take warning myself, amend my life, abandon intemperance, which leads to all manner of wickedness, and suffer myself no more to be ensnared by the wiles and delusions of the tempter in the form of a fair woman. No—no—I will alter ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the tempter struck no more on that side. His fangs were not for the blighted lover. What, though, ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... therefore described him merely as 'a man of some literature.' Baretti complained to Malone that 'the story as told gave an unfair representation of him.' He had, he said, 'observed to Johnson that the petition lead us not into temptation ought rather to be addressed to the tempter of mankind than a benevolent Creator. "Pray, Sir," said Johnson, "do you know who was the author of the Lord's Prayer?" Baretti, who did not wish to get into any serious dispute and who appears to be an Infidel, by way of putting an end to the conversation, only ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... would give her peace forever," whispered the tempter. And the woman shuddered, and nearly let fall the bottle. She recovered herself, dropped half a dozen drops on a lozenge, and brought it to ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... the tempter's power. Not in appetite—he was no swine to swill for love of the draught. When he did yield he drained the cup scarce tasting its contents. But ah, the freedom from the sickness that tortured him, the weight that oppressed him! And ah, the exhilaration, ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... was weaving a subtle net around him, to lure him into the broad road which leadeth to destruction. He tried a hundred times to fight against the strange influence he felt upon him; but he did not fight with the right weapons, and therefore he failed. Had the tempter suggested to him that, as he was a young man, he should do as his fellow-clerks, or even Ashton did, and have his way in all things, he would have seen the temptation; but it came altogether in a different way. The evil ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... sophistry somewhere, but could not, for the life of me, detect it. I thought of the Tempter; I almost feared to listen to another word; but the daemon seemed so fair, so rational, and, above all, so confident of truth, that I could not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... who have bargained with Satan, offering the price of their own souls. When the Tempter came to the Saviour in the wilderness, he offered Him the glory and splendour of the world if Jesus would fall down and worship him. It is the same with us. Satan offers us this world instead of the world to come. He offers us our ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... girls, they held no parley with their consciences, or with the tempter; they did not even think of it. On the contrary, they were glad, every one, that the way was made so plain and so easy to them. Each of them had friends whom they especially desired to have know of the recent ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... overt offence, he had learnt only too well. Sometimes the mere omission of a man's name from a list of authors can mortify and injure. In our day the manipulation of such paragraphs has become a fine art; but you recall numerous illustrations. Alfred knew well enough how incessantly the tempter would be at his ear; he said to himself that in certain instances yielding would be no dishonour. He himself had many a time been mercilessly treated; in the very interest of the public it was good that certain men should suffer a snubbing, ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... narrow, precipitous path they approach the ruined chapel, and are united by a hand "as cold as that of death." Meanwhile, Don Francisco, Isidora's father, on his way home, spends the night at an inn, where a stranger insists on telling him "The Tale of Guzman." In this tale the tempter visits a father whose family is starving, but who resists the lure of wealth. Maturin portrays with extraordinary power the deterioration in the character of an old man Walberg, through the effects of poverty. At the close of the narration Don Francisco falls ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... confession. I never have been warned or told of these dangers and now it is too late. I am a young girl, eighteen years old, and have a lot of men friends because I am considered attractive, but none of them have ever said one word out of the way to me except this one and I yielded to the tempter. I know I have done wrong, and now am trying to atone for it by being awfully good. Now, what I want to know and want you to tell me is this, 'Can I ever marry a decent, respectable man without him knowing of this affair?' There is ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry
... faith, is refusing to give medicine till a patient begins to get well. It would be hard indeed, if Satan be allowed to have access to the soul from infancy, as soon as it begins to think, and we refuse to do what we can, or what promises well, towards gaining for it the protection of God against the Tempter. ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... So spake the Tempter, when the light Of sun and stars had left the sky; I listened, through the cloud and night, And beard, methought, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... resisting the tempter, but more faintly than yesterday, when Little came in, and spoke to him. Both he and Dan were amazed at his appearance on the scene at that particular moment. They ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... mendicant's bowl, he had indeed lifted his fan before his face, yet not quickly enough; and the penally of that fault had followed him a thousand leagues,—pursued after him even into the strange land to which he had come to hear the words of the Universal Teacher. Accursed beauty! surely framed by the Tempter of tempters, by Mara himself, for the perdition of the just! Wisely had Bhagavat warned his disciples: "O ye Cramanas, women are not to be looked upon! And if ye chance to meet women, ye must not suffer your eyes to dwell upon them; but, ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn
... slender fingers and oval palm. "There is evil enough in these long, sharp spatulae of yours," said she, "to ruin the world. You are worthy to be the inheritrix of all I know. These fingers would pick fruit off the forbidden tree for men to eat and die! The tempter only is needed, and he is never far off! Angelique des Meloises, I may one day teach you the grand secret; meantime I will show ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... it occurs to the rebellious that things might have been made a trifle easier. For instance, if only one had to walk miles to meet the tempter, or if only he had the decency and dignity to demand that we meet him half way, instead of coming all the way himself and invading the privacy of our very homes. If only he would wear his horns and tail all the time, that we might know him on sight and realize what we are about when we ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... may not invade and destroy my planting; may not violate and ruin the weak consciences." As seen in his epistle to the Corinthians, directed against the false apostles, and in that to the Thessalonians, such is his vigilant anxiety to guard them from the tempter that he sends them a special messenger, and he exultingly declares it is life to him to learn of ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... his death! Then would great Nature, o'er the soldier's heart Her power have all recovered; his seared soul With gushing tears enflooded, been restored; Mistaken Honour, false chivalric Pride, Flown with the Tempter;—life have been preserved,— And unendangered ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various
... he had merited heaven by his faithful ministry. 'But what have I that I have not received? Wherefore,[127] I give thanks to my God, through Jesus Christ, who hath been pleased to give me the victory; and I am persuaded that the tempter shall not again attack me, but that within a short time I shall, without any great pain of body or anguish of mind, exchange this mortal and miserable life for a blessed immortality through Jesus Christ.' During ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... rest; for although I have lived above myself for some time past, yet I can be content with rags and poverty, and bread and water, and will embrace them, rather than forfeit my good name, let who will be the tempter. And of this pray rest satisfied, and think better of ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... thoughts all innocence and trust and love, It almost seemed as if remorseless Time Had backward rolled his tide, and brought again The golden age, with all its peace and joy, And our first parents, ere the tempter came, Were taking sweet repose in paradise. But as one night they slept, a troubled dream Disturbed the prince. He dreamed he saw one come, As young and fair as sweet Yasodhara, But clad in widow's weeds, and in her arms A lifeless child, crying: ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... tune of the well-known love-ditty under his breath, he raised his glass of wine to his lips and drained it off with a relish, while his honest face beamed with gayety and pleasure. Always the same story, I thought, moodily. Love, the tempter—Love, the destroyer—Love, the curse! Was there NO escape possible from this bewildering snare that thus caught and slew the ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... one night under our roof, was able to deprive us of your love, to destroy with a phrase, a word, the happiness of a family! Oh, my dear Balthazar, did he make the sign of the cross? did you examine him? The Tempter alone could have had that flaming eye which sent forth the fire of Prometheus. Yes, none but the devil could have torn you from me. From that day you have been neither husband, nor father, nor ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... this priest had been the only one whom I have known to be lost through the auricular confession! But, alas! how few are those who have escaped the snares of the tempter compared with those who have perished! I have heard the confessions of more than 200 priests, and, to say the truth, as God knows it, I must declare that only twenty-one had not to weep over the secret or public ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... that the apostle would not exhort us to count temptations a joy if they were not for our good. The Bible tells us there is a tempter. 1 Thes. 3:5. We also learn from the sacred page that God does not tempt any man. Jas. 1:13. Matthew tells us that the devil is the tempter. Mat. 4:1. God permits Satan to try and tempt us as we learn from Job's experience. Satan can not tempt us beyond what God permits, and God will not permit him to tempt us beyond what we are able ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... But rest assured, he won't go. He cannot afford to return home empty-handed after his splendid promises to his countrymen and the world." Mr. Lloyd George insisted, however, and said, "But he will take his army away, too." "What!" exclaimed the tempter. "His army? Well, I only ..." but it would serve no useful purpose to quote ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... the seas between you; be ungrateful, be unforgiving; be all that is most repellent to your own gentler nature, rather than live under the same roof and breathe the same air with that man.'" So the tempter counseled. So, like a noisome exhalation from the father's grave, the father's influence rose and poisoned the mind of ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... had fallen from the wagon, and which Obed and I afterwards picked up, was a small cask of brandy. We were both of us very abstemious, or we should not have been the strong, hearty fellows we were. The cask, therefore, had not even been broached. The tempter, however, now came suggesting to me that I might soon forget all my miseries if I would but occasionally take a taste of the fire-water. I resisted him, however. I knew that if I once began I might go ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... Spirit came down upon Him in the form of the gentle dove. He had the wealth of worlds at His feet. The hosts of heaven had only to be summoned as His retinue. But all the pageantry of the world, all its dreams of carnal glory, had, for Him, no fascination. The Tempter, from a mountain-summit, showed Him a wide scene of "splendid misery;" but He spurned alike the thought and the adversary away! John and James would call down fire from heaven on a Samaritan village; He rebukes ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... empty drinking-flasks, and the wily, old Nor'-Wester was tempting the silly boy to take more by drinking his health with fresh bottles. But while Louis Laplante gulped down his rum, becoming drunker and more communicative, the tempter threw glass after glass over his shoulder and remained sober. The Nor'-Wester motioned me to keep behind the Frenchman and I heard his drunken lips mumbling ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... clergyman, "I am to speak of 'Home, sweet Home,' and of those that dwell there, the great multitude of the redeemed. It is a very holy place, there is no speck on the golden pavement, no evil to be found within the city. The tempter can never enter there, sin is unknown; all is very, very holy. And on the white robes of those who dwell there is no stain; pure and clean and spotless, bright and fair as light, are those robes of theirs. ...
— Christie's Old Organ - Or, "Home, Sweet Home" • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... The Tempter, I warrant you, thought these cates would go down without the recommendatory preface of a benediction. They are like to be short graces where the devil plays the host.—I am afraid the poet wants his usual decorum in this place. Was he thinking of the old Roman ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... six days: and the Tree of Life, and the Tree of Knowledge, and the Serpent, were the very things they are called,—and no other things. So of every other part of the Bible. The Temptation of our LORD was as matter of fact a transaction as one of His walks by the sea of Galilee. In what form the Tempter came to Him, hath not been revealed. After what fashion the Prince of the power of the air contrived the dazzling panorama "in a moment of time[490]," I do not pretend to understand. The literal ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... the angry bearing of the cardinal, in the scornful face of Eck, even in the thoughts of his own soul. He knew how powerful they had been in Rome. Even in his youth apparitions had tormented him; now they reappeared. From the dark shadows of his study the spectre of the tempter lifted its claw-like hand against his reason. Even while he was praying the Devil approached him in the form of the Redeemer, radiant as King of Heaven with the five wounds, as the ancient Church represented ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... her way—not one way suits them all— They have tastes in their sins as they have in their clothes, The tempter, of course, has to first study those. One needs to be flattered, another is bought; One yields to caresses, by frowns one is caught. One wants a bold master, another a slave, With one you must jest, with another be grave. ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... consider, how curious a creature man was made of God; to behold how much below, besides, and against that state and place, man acts and does in this state of sin and degeneracy. Man in his creation was made in the image of God (Gen 1:26), but man, by reason of his yielding to the tempter, hath made himself the very figure and image of the devil. Man by creation was made upright and sinless; but man by sin, hath made himself crooked and sinful (Eccl 7:29). Man by creation had all the faculties ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... marking with each step a tomb? Why should the world for thee make room, And wait thy leisure and thy beck? Thou comest in the hope to hear Some word of comfort and of cheer. What can I say? I cannot give The counsel to do this and live; But rather, firmly to deny The tempter, though his power is strong, And, inaccessible to wrong, Still like a martyr live ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... away somewhere in nooks and corners, under the eye of the tythingmen. On each side of the entrance places were reserved where, on entering, the men could deposit their loaded guns under the care of an appointed guard. While the faithful pastor was warning his devout hearers against the wiles of the tempter within, the sentinel, stationed in the turret above, watched all approaches, to guard against surprisal by an ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... expression which connotes the greatest joy gods or mortals can know—the joy of beholding one's own work and finding it good. He had, as she saw, returned to the cartoon of Clayton he had laid aside when the tempter came; and now it was finished. Its simple lines revealed Clayton's character, as the sufficient answer to all the charges the Telegraph might make against him. Edith leaned against the door and looked ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... that moment she remembered that he must have given it to her by mistake; and therefore she had no right to it. But again the voice of the tempter whispered, "He gave it, and how do you know that he did not intend to make you a present of it? Keep it; he will never know it, even if it should be a mistake; for he had too many such bills in that ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... his greatest poem. But their beauty dwelt with him; the memory of the embattled chivalry of Arthur and Charlemagne recurs to him when he is seeking for the topmost reach of human power and splendour that he may belittle it by the side of Satan's rebel host; and the specious handmaidens who served the Tempter's phantom banquet in the desert are described as lovely ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... light and joy of his home, yet his mother sometimes felt as if her heart was contracting with a spasm of agony, when she remembered that it was through that same geniality of disposition and wonderful fascination of manner, the tempter had woven his meshes for her husband, and that the qualities that made him so desirable at home, made him equally so to his jovial, careless, inexperienced companions. Fearful that the appetite for strong drink might have been transmitted to her child as a fatal legacy of sin, she ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... quarter an acre, and in eighty-acre tracts. A payment of one hundred dollars, then, would make a settler the owner of eighty acres in his own right. The prospect of actual ownership of a small tract made him far less ready to listen to the voice of the tempter in the form of the speculator, who had heretofore lured him to make larger purchases on credit than he could ever pay for by the labor ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... in the Comedie Humaine as the tempter and benefactor of Lucien de Rubempre, whom he loves with an intense devotion, and would exploit as a power and influence in the social, literary and political world. The deep-dyed criminal seems to live a life of pleasure, fashion and social rank ...
— Introduction to the Dramas of Balzac • Epiphanius Wilson and J. Walker McSpadden
... hungry the tempter said, "If thou be the Son of God command this stone that it be ...
— Child's Story of the Bible • Mary A. Lathbury
... no claim to the soul of the slave. He demands no spiritual service of him, he exacts no divine honors. With his own soul he is fully permitted to serve his own God. With this soul he may follow the solemn injunction of the Most High, "Servants, obey your masters;" or he may listen to the voice of the tempter, "Servants, fly from your masters." Those only who instigate him to violate the law of God, whether at the North or at the South, are the men who seek to deprive him of his rights and to exercise an ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... also borrowed to illustrate Bible truth. Hermes carrying the sheep was the Good Shepherd, Psyche discovering Cupid was the curiosity of Eve, Ulysses closing his ears to the Sirens was the Christian resisting the tempter. The pagan Orpheus charming the animals of the wood was finally adopted as a symbol, or perhaps an ideal likeness of Christ. Then followed more direct representation in classic form and manner, the Old Testament prefiguring ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... by virtue of not having resigned, had entered a restaurant of ill repute, had ordered champagne for an abandoned woman, and had no sense of sin when he awoke the next morning! The devil, in the language of orthodox theology, had led him there. He had fallen under the influence of the tempter of his youth, and all in him save the carnal had ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... whatever torments you: and will you let love do it? Love is the gentlest and kindest breath of God. Are you willing that the tempter should intercept it, and respire it polluted into your ear? Do not make me hesitate to pray to the Virgin for you, nor tremble lest she look down on you with a reproachful pity. To her alone, O Dante, dare I confide ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... to provide. Make haste, then, and provide clothing for them, lest they perish with cold. But if the care of so many trouble thee, be thou careful to serve our Lord alone.' Bonaventura, who tells the story, goes on, with the true spirit of a monkish historian, to state how, 'the tempter being vanquished, departed, and the holy man returned victorious to his cell.' The piteous human yearning that is underneath this wild tale, the sudden access of self-pity and anger, mixed with a strange attempt, ...
— Game and Playe of the Chesse - A Verbatim Reprint Of The First Edition, 1474 • Caxton
... taken into the house and put on his shelf and left there, because I still happen to have a body attached to my spirit, which, if not fed at the ordinary time, becomes a nuisance. Yet he is right; luncheon is a snare of the tempter, and I would perhaps try to sail by it like Ulysses if I had a biscuit in my pocket to comfort me, but there are the babies to be fed, and the Man of Wrath, and how can a respectable wife and mother sail ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... the boy argued with himself and coquetted with the tempter. Before the afternoon was over he felt (as he imagined) quite comfortable in his own mind over the affair. The rod was tied up again in its bag exactly as it had been before, and only wanted an opportunity to be returned to ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... may come when you Shall miss a mother's tender care, A sinfu' world to wander through, Wi' a' its stormy strife to share; Then mind my words, whare'er ye gang, Let fortune smile or thrawart be, Ne'er let the tempter lead ye wrang— If sae ye ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... so deadly to me. It is the absence of this instinct in you that makes you that strange monster called a Devil. It is the success with which you have diverted the attention of men from their real purpose, which in one degree or another is the same as mine, to yours, that has earned you the name of The Tempter. It is the fact that they are doing your will, or rather drifting with your want of will, instead of doing their own, that makes them the uncomfortable, false, restless, artificial, petulant, ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... to his congregation; and at other seasons, when he was about to apply to the sinner some searching and fearful text of scripture, he was tempted to withhold it, on the ground that it condemned himself also; but, withstanding the suggestion of the tempter, to use his own simile, he bowed himself, like Samson, to condemn sin wherever he found it, though he brought guilt and condemnation upon himself thereby, choosing rather to die with the Philistines than ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... words which I had mechanically uttered, brought on one of those sudden and unaccountable revulsions of feeling which sometimes succeed the fiercest assaults of the tempter, as if our guardian angel had wrestled with the spirit of evil, and driven him away for the time. I remembered her to whom much was forgiven because she had loved much; and as I thought of that Saviour—that man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, at whose feet she knelt—ay, even while ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... only fired him in order to reform him. Well, last week I sent one of Mac's old friends down to Willits purposely to call on him and invite him out 'for a time'; but Mac wouldn't drink with him. No, sir, he couldn't be tempted. On the contrary, he told the tempter that I had promised to give him back his job if he remained on the water wagon for one year; he was resolved to win back his job and ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... suddenly bereaved, mourned in wild and bitter grief, but woman's pride, at times her guardian angel, at others her destroyer, took up its stronghold in her heart. The tempter Conrad awoke its tones—with specious wile he recalled De Clairville's lofty ideas of name and birth—how proudly he spoke of his lady mother and the castled state of his father's hall. Was it not likely that, at the last, this pride had rallied its strength around him, and ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... that the typhus was indeed ebbing. For himself, as the price of silence, there was easy sailing under the flag of local patriotism, and with every success in prospect. Yet it was with sunken eyes that he turned to the tempter. ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... conflict with Himself. What had become of us had He listened to the tempter in the wilderness, or failed to accept the cup in the Garden of Gethsemane! How much we have the happiness of Christ in our hands! Alas! that His should be a ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... When the tempter sees that our heart is so firmly established in grace that we flee from sin as from a serpent, and that its very shadow, which is temptation, frightens us, he contents himself with disquieting us, seeing that he cannot make us yield ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... realizer of cent per cent; she drew him into details, she praised him, she admired. In his presence she seemed only to hear him; in his absence, musingly, she started from silence to exclaim on the acuteness of his genius and the accuracy of his figures. Soon the tempter at Mainwaring's heart gave signification to these praises, soon this adventurer became his most intimate friend. Scarcely knowing why, never ascribing the change to her sister, poor Susan wept, amazed at Mainwaring's transformation. No care now for the new ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... foul places than the plea that it is best to know the evil and so choose the good. That knowledge comes surely and soon enough without our seeking it. But there is a fatal simplicity, open-eared, like Eve, to the Tempter's whisper, which believes the false promises of sin, and as Bunyan has taught us, is ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... a low ebb, truly, if he counts on Injin friendship because he has sold fire-water to the young men!" answered le Bourdon, with a nice understanding of not only Indian nature, but of human nature. "We may like the sin, Margery, while we detest the tempter. I have never yet met with the man, pale-face or red-skin, who did not curse, in his sober moments, the hand that fed ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper |
