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Unction

noun
1.
Excessive but superficial compliments given with affected charm.  Synonyms: fulsomeness, smarm.
2.
Smug self-serving earnestness.  Synonyms: fulsomeness, oiliness, oleaginousness, smarminess, unctuousness.
3.
Semisolid preparation (usually containing a medicine) applied externally as a remedy or for soothing an irritation.  Synonyms: balm, ointment, salve, unguent.
4.
Anointing as part of a religious ceremony or healing ritual.  Synonym: inunction.



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"Unction" Quotes from Famous Books



... great pine; Here in this transitory life, for thee and me The blessed sacraments seven there be, Baptism, confirmation, with priesthood good, And the sacrament of God's precious flesh and blood, Marriage, the holy extreme unction, and penance; These seven be good to have in remembrance, Gracious sacraments of ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous

... culture oven and opened the door. He busied himself with something inside. Over his shoulder he said with unction: ...
— The Hate Disease • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... that night was a compliment to Mr. Bixby, uttered in soliloquy and with unction by one of our guests. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... was at the commencement. And, to say the truth, I am weary enough of waiting; though it is not my wish to be relieved by any expedition of Sir Arthur's, who, as I hinted to you before, does not appear to be in the least hurry, and whose unction for ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... healthful music: it is not madness That I have utter'd: bring me to the test, And I the matter will re-word; which madness Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace, Lay not that flattering unction to your soul That not your trespass, but my madness speaks: It will but skin and film the ulcerous place, Whilst rank corruption, mining all within, Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven; Repent what's past; avoid what is to come; And do not spread ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... worth preservation from their varied experience of life. They seemed to have flung away all the golden grain of practical wisdom, which they had enjoyed so many opportunities of harvesting, and most carefully to have stored their memories with the husks. They spoke with far more interest and unction of their morning's breakfast, or yesterday's, to-day's, or to-morrow's dinner, than of the shipwreck of forty or fifty years ago, and all the world's wonders which they had witnessed ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... taint of original sin and admitted him into the Christian community. Confirmation gave him full Church fellowship. Matrimony united husband and wife in holy bonds which might never be broken. Extreme Unction, the anointing with oil of one mortally ill, purified the soul and endowed it ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... features of a very Roman perfection. It was the face of a judge of the Supreme Court or the face of an ideal senator. His large grave eyes bathed us in a friendly regard; his full lips of an orator parted with leisurely and promising unction. I awaited courtly phrases, richly ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... with unction. "Can I tune your piano this morning?" His manner was most courteous, he smiled kindly, but he did not ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson

... regulate and civilize his dominions. He collected the national laws, and formed a code which remained in force until the English invasion, and was observed for many centuries after outside the Pale. The bards dwell with manifest unction on the "fruit and fatness" of the land in his time, and describe him as the noblest and most bountiful of all princes. Indeed, we can scarcely omit their account, since it cannot be denied that it pictures the costume of royalty ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... the young invalid was soon at the last extremity. The vice-cure of the palace (which, as is known, is a foundation), a member of the Augustin order (Monseigneur the Sacristan of the same order is the titular cure), had administered to her the sacrament of extreme unction, and had recited the prayer recommending her soul. Her last sigh was hourly expected. For the sake of enabling our readers to understand the prodigy about to be related, it is necessary to state that during the course of the malady the vice-cure had several times engaged the pious ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... light star of this dark group, Le Reve. Although always strongly anti-clerical, and at the last, as we shall see, a "Deicide" of the most uncompromising fanaticism, M. Zola here devoted himself to cathedral services and church ritual generally, and, as a climax, the administration of extreme unction to his innocent heroine. But, as too often happens in such cases, the saints were not grateful and the sinners were bored. L'Argent was at least in concatenation accordingly, seeing that the great financial swindle and "crash"[475] it ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... really know how to use time to the full. Our tendency is to alternate periods of extreme activity with intervals of complete prostration for recovery. Perhaps our grandparents knew better in a slower age the use of time. The old Marquise de Gramont, aged 93, after receiving Extreme Unction, asked for her knitting, for the poor. "Mais Madame la Marquise a ete administree, elle va mourir!" said the maid, who thought the occupation of dying sufficient for a lady of her age. "Ma chere, ce n'est pas une raison ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart

... remarked, at first with surprise, and afterward either with a sense of injustice or of enmity, the restraint he put upon himself, and the great partiality with which he treated me. My superior quickness excited his admiration; he held me up as an example, and laid the flattering unction to his soul that he was no tyrant; on the contrary, when people had but common sense, nobody was ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... The driver, with just unction, recounted the sad tale as he halted his horses on the bridge; and as his passengers looked down the rock-fretted brown torrent towards the fall, Isabel seized the occasion to shudder that ever she had set foot on that suspension-bridge ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... it, with real Methodist unction," answered Marcus, with his usual good humor. "Any way that will smash the decanters and get rid of ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer

... not suppress. Their prayers and exhortations were fervent, and marked by a simplicity which is not infrequently the richest eloquence. The soldiers behaved with entire propriety, and two exhorted them with pious unction, as children of one Father, ransomed by ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various

... Kensington church, and I suppose he is the very best chairman of a committee or of a public meeting of our own or any other time. A Parnellite once said he had the unctuousness of a retired grocer, but was contradicted by a more reverent English Radical, who said, 'No, he has the unction of grace,' whereas, the truth is, he has the platform ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey

... with paternal unction, "you have been taught—or should have been, ere this—that the healing miracles of our blessed Saviour belong to a dispensation long past. They were special signs from God, given at the time of establishing His Church ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... simple witness of the Word, and of the believer to the Word, that had praise of God. His preaching was not then much owned of God in fruit. Doubtless the Lord saw that he was not ready for reaping, and scarcely for sowing: there was yet too little prayer in preparation and too little unction in delivery, and so his labours were ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson

... intimation Grey received of this came to him late in the evening. He had been reading a novel which, whatever its other merits may have been, was not interesting, and it had sent him to sleep. He awoke to hear a well-known voice observe with some unction: 'Ah! M'yes. Leeches and hot fomentations.' This effectually banished sleep. If there were two things in the world that he loathed, they were leeches and hot fomentations, and the School doctor apparently regarded them ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse

... and said the prayer with much unction and piety. The prayer finished, M. Pirot was about to take up the pen to go on with the confession, when she said, "Pray let me submit to you one question which is troubling me. Yesterday you gave me great ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... that he would marry, as soon as his life was despaired of: accordingly, a few days before his death, he underwent the ceremony, and joined together those two sacraments, which, wise men say, should be the last we receive; for, if you observe, matrimony is placed after extreme unction in our catechism, as a kind of hint of the order of time in which they are to be taken. The old man then lay down, satisfied in the conscience of having, by this one act, paid his just debts, obliged a woman, who, he was told, had merit, and shewn a heroic resentment of the ill ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber

... Christ's coming, with its tidings of great joy, must be solemn. And the anniversary of a glorious birth, which, by traditionary impulse, made half the world glad, was to such believers like any other day in the calendar. Even the good Doctor pointed his Christmas prayer with no special unction. What, indeed, were anniversaries, or a yearly proclamation of peace and good-will to men, with those who, on every Sabbath morning, saw the heavens open above the sacred desk, and heard the golden promises expounded, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... in the Iliad?" Louise Roy looked archly and said defiantly, "Go on!" "Would you believe it, Chevalier, she replied 'Pierre Philibert!' Mere Christine fairly gasped, but Louise had to kiss the floor as a penance for pronouncing a gentleman's name with such unction." ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... the emulation of intellect and to the cultivation of proper self- interest—and vindicate to popular opinion, the claims of this most useful class, to the character of moral and rational beings, so that no flattering but injurious unction may be applied to film over the real turpitude of their offences—then, and then only, may it be safely asserted, that such descriptions as we have been considering, are the offspring of prudery or inflamed imagination, and have ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... them bathed in tears around her bed, she calmly said, "Do not weep for me, nor waste your time in fruitless prayers for my recovery, but pray rather for the salvation of my soul." [15] On receiving the extreme unction, she refused to have her feet exposed, as was usual on that occasion; a circumstance, which, occurring at a time when there can be no suspicion of affectation, is often noticed by Spanish writers, as a proof of that sensitive delicacy and decorum, which distinguished her through life. [16] At ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott

... not even threatening to appear. And accordingly the two essays add in no small degree, though somewhat after the fashion of an appendix or belated episode, to the charm of the book. They have an unction which never, as it so often does in the case of Mr Arnold's dangerous master and model Renan, degenerates into unctuosity; they are nobly serious, but without being in the least dull; they contain some exceedingly just and at the same time perfectly ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury

... point of the sword into a manifesto of peace and sound government".[1] This wise change of policy cut away the ground from under the feet of the English supporters of Louis. The friends of the young Henry could appeal to his innocence, to his sacred unction, and to his recognition by Holy Church. They offered a programme of limited monarchy, of the redress of grievances, of vested rights preserved, and of adhesion to the good old traditions that all Englishmen ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... the case of an award by the Dublin Society in 1763 to an Irish gentleman who raised 50 bushels of wheat from a single peck of seed! Harte was a parson, but apparently he did not bring the same unction into his agriculture as did the Rev. Robert Herrick to the husbandry of his Devonshire glebe, a century earlier. In Herrick's Thanksgiving to God ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... dome, resting on four great arches; and in size it would alone have been a church. In the centre of the mosaic pavement there was a flight of steps, down which we went, and saw a group in marble, representing the nativity of Christ, which, judging by the unction with which our guide talked about it, must have been of peculiar sanctity. I hate to leave this chapel and church, without being able to say any one thing that may reflect a portion of their beauty, or of the feeling which ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... way, and in this way only, I have been enabled to collect and verify the folklore included in this volume. There is an anecdote about the Irishman and the rabbit which a number of negroes have told to me with great unction, and which is both funny and characteristic, though I will not undertake to say that it has its origin with the blacks. One day an Irishman who had heard people talking about "mares' nests" was going along the big road—it is always the big road in contradistinction to neighborhood paths and by-paths, ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris

... forms and ceremonies, in voluntary humility and worship of angels, in using vain repetitions, and fancying he will be heard for his much speaking; he will try to find a substitute in intellect, and the worship of intellect and art and poetry, . . . but let no man lay that flattering unction to his soul. ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley

... garden property in all Persia without a family of guebres in charge of it. They are said to be far more honest and trustworthy than the Persians, who, as Shiite Mohammedans, consider themselves the holiest people on earth; or the Armenians, who hug the flattering unction of being Christians and not Mohammedans to their souls, and expect all Christendom to regard them benignly on that account. It is doubtless owing to this invaluable trait of their character, that the guebres have naturally drifted to their level of guardians ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... had waited for midnight with impatience, had heard mass immediately after the communion, had passed two hours in devout communication with God, and that his reason then became embarrassed. Madame de Saint-Simon told me afterward that he had received extreme unction; in fine that he had died ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various

... now, I mused; but ere I had enjoyed the thought, Khalid had placed his box at a little distance, and, standing there beside it, bottle in hand, delivered himself in a semi-solemn, semi-mocking manner of the following: 'This is the oil,' I remember him saying, 'with which I anoint thee—the extreme unction I apply to thy soul.' And he poured the contents of the bottle into the bottom drawer and over the box, and applied to it a match. The bottle was filled with kerosene, and in a jiffy the box was covered with the flame. Yes; and so quickly, so neatly it was done, that ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... sight of that father, the secret of whose insanity was known to us alone, now to be left sole guardian of those delicate beings, brought mute entreaties to her face, which fell upon my heart like sacred fire. Before receiving extreme unction she asked pardon of her servants if by a hasty word she had sometimes hurt them; she asked their prayers and commended each one, individually, to the count; she nobly confessed that during the last two months she had uttered complaints that were not Christian and might have shocked ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac

... have been a simple matter. For several days I was in a quandary, but my conscience at length conquered. I mustered up courage enough to speak to my employer. I chose for my time the hour after his return from church on Sunday. He had passed the plate with the unction of a saint. Men and women had looked at him and inwardly said: 'What a fine man Mr. Steel is; if there were only ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... Rowena's finger. I had never seen a marriage ceremony, and was at my wit's end to know what we were doing, thinking sometimes that it was a wedding, and sometimes that it might be something like extreme unction; when at last the elder said, "I ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick

... faculty to the state that is vulgarly called thick-tongued. Although a three-bottle man, Mr. Rotherham was far from being without his devout feelings, on occasions, discharging all the clerical functions with as much unction as the habits of the country, and the opinions of the day, ordinarily exacted of divines. He had even volunteered to read the prayers for the sick, as soon as he perceived that the patient's recollection had returned; but this kind offer ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... the Bible says that 'gifts are divers,' my friend. Well, my two boys will never be brilliant scholars, that is certain; but I hope, for that very reason, Alf may make the braver soldier and Ben the bolder sailor." And having laid this flattering unction to his soul, the old man felt no malice against our boy for outshining his ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... that would not have the same effect—that would be like reading a sermon, you know, which we good Presbyterians think has less unction than when spoken without book," replied the Duke. "Just speak as plainly and boldly to this lady, as you did to me the day before yesterday, and if you can gain her consent, I'll wad ye a plack, as we say in the north, that you get ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... of General Sherman, his family, who had been bred in the Catholic faith, called in a Catholic priest to administer extreme unction according to the ritual of that church. The New York "Times," of the date of February 13, made a very uncharitable allusion to this and intimated that it was done surreptitiously, without my knowledge. This was not true but the statement deeply wounded the ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... to contain herself, would give an ironical turn to her wrath, imitating Jenkins with his oily manner and his hand on his heart; then, puffing out her cheeks, she would say in a loud, deep voice full of lying unction: ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... been pretty decent of him, too, to hold off a little. Most parsons would have rushed in, hot foot, to administer extreme unction and be sure I was in a proper mood concerning Providence. Brenton has had the decency to wait a little. It was almighty decent, too. I knew him in my palmy days, when life was young. It's young for him still—Hold on, Olive; I'm not going to maunder!—and I had a natural dread of having him ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... to give her comfort. He could not forbear directing an admonishment to her stubborn spirit, and was obliged, for the sake of impressiveness, to speak it harshly; until he saw, that without sweetness of manner and unction of speech, he left her untouched; so he was driven back to the form of address better suited to his nature and habits; the end of which was that ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... sure enough of Kitty, at first, to dare risk telling her about that little mistake of hers. She is such an elusive person that I spend all my time in wooing her, and can never lay the flattering unction to my soul that she ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... vestment of the priesthood was put upon the martyr; one by one they were torn from him with curses. The crown of his head, where the tonsure had been cut, was defaced; the anointed head and hands were roughly scraped, to deprive them of the sacred unction. But the unction from the Holy ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt

... intellect or taste Shall bow the pillars of this temple chaste Of ugliness and unction. What is't they argue lengthily and late? The flame of patriot passion for the State ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 8, 1890 • Various

... composition of "Oedipus"; had Handel never merged the fame of his forgotten operas in the immortal music of his oratorios; had Milton been known only by the poems of his youth, we might with equal plausibility have laid that flattering unction to our heart. And yet how shallow would have been our optimism, how fallacious our attempt at consolation. There is no denying the fact that when a young Marcellus is shown by fate for one brief moment, and withdrawn before his springtime has bought forth the fruits of summer, we must bow ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds

... consulting lawyer. Usually her advice was sensible and judicious—nothing better could be done than to follow it; only her clients complained that she pronounced her sentences with too little tenderness, without granting any appeal. She was good, charitable, but lacked unction, and she had no sympathy with the illusions of others. A German poet, in making his New-Year offerings, wishes that the rich may be kind-hearted, that the poor may have bread, that the ladies may have pretty dresses, that the men may have patience, that ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez

... heaped the most extravagant praises. Afterwards, addressing Madame Bonaparte, he told her that she was united to the First Consul by the sacred bonds of a holy alliance. In this harangue, in which unction was singularly blended with gallantry, surely it was a departure from ecclesiastical propriety to speak of sacred bonds and holy alliance when every one knew that those bonds and that alliance existed only by a civil contract. ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... all his courage, all his peril, would but result in the patronage of a great man like Major Vickers. His heart, big with love, with self-denial, and with hopes of a fair future, would have this flattering unction laid to it. He had performed a prodigy of skill and daring, and for his reward he was to be made a servant to the creatures he had protected. Yet what more could a convict expect? Sylvia saw how deeply her unconscious hand had driven the iron, and ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... an increase of 75 per cent in seven years, or a duplication in ten. This instance, to which hundreds of others might be added from all parts of the country, shows how extreme is the illusion of those who lay the flattering unction to their souls, that serious crime is not now more prevalent than it was formerly, but only ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... Bolt with a world of unction. "I come from a part of the country where formality is unknown and where a minister—a minister of the gospel—enters into the hearts and the homes of men and of women by ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee

... of horrors how finished an allegory for old John Bunyan! With what religious unction he would have led his Christian traveller from that unknown city on the edge of the sands, across the Soul's Desert of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... been seen, different methods were used by various healers, and we must not omit a brief account of healing by unction. The very definite instructions laid down in the Epistle of James were evidently strictly carried out in the early church, but the first definite mention of anointing after that made by Mark and James is found in the writings of Tertullian (160-220). He speaks ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten

... it for a few months, with the firmness of an experienced philosopher, laying the flattering unction to his soul that, ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... him for the moment. He was swearing eloquently at his team in the pride of his heart at the honor of hauling the Chief Magistrate of the Nation. He swore both plain and ornamental oaths with equal unction. ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon

... side of the fire, with his back against a rock. He still wore the bewrinkled suit of store clothes which had become so hateful in Garth's sight; and the broad-brimmed hat was set at a rakish angle. He was in a jovial humour, judging from the thick unction of his speech; doubtless, though he seldom looked at her, in his own way he was seeking to charm his ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... Roman Catholic Church teaches that there are seven sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation, Confession, the Lord's Supper, Ordination, Marriage, and Extreme Unction. But five of these lack one or more of the essentials of ...
— An Explanation of Luther's Small Catechism • Joseph Stump

... for their own sakes, they could even now voyage amid the isles of the Pacific, and behold the glorious work wrought by the instrumentality of true Christian men of various branches of the one Church, and I believe that they would be compelled to acknowledge that an unction from on high is of more avail in saving souls alive than any mere official and external qualification, such as the Romish priesthood with its pretended apostolic succession claims. The means are best judged of by the result, and that ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston

... dead spit and image of your sister Eileen you are, with your nose always in a book; and you're like your mother, too, God rest her soul. (He crosses himself with pious unction and Mary also does so.) It's Nora and Tom has the high spirits in them like their father; and Billy, too,—if he is a lazy, shiftless divil—has the fightin' Carmody blood like me. You're a Cullen like your mother's people. They always ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill

... man as an undeveloped creature, and for this creature to lay the flattering unction to his soul that he was in special communication with the Infinite, and in possession of the secrets of the Creator, was something that in itself proved that man was as ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard

... amende; and so contynued till towards night. All this night she hath bene very syck, and doth rather appaire than amend. Her Confessor hath bene with her grace this morning, and hath done [all] that to his office apperteyneth, and even now is preparing to minister to her grace the sacrament of unction. At Hampton Court, this Wednesday mornyng, at viii ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various

... the stolid one. "But too leggy. Clancy'll eat him alive—eat him alive," he repeated with more unction than before. ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... friendly terms. The final scene of Wycherley's questionable career, some four years later, is given by Pope in a letter to his friend, Edward Blount. The old man, he says, joined the sacraments of marriage and extreme unction. By one he supposed himself to gain some advantage of his soul; by the other, he had the pleasure of saddling his hated heir and nephew with the jointure of his widow. When dying, he begged his wife to grant ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen

... country, where he has bitter adversaries as well as devoted friends, Mr. Wilson was regarded by many as a composite being made up of preacher, teacher, and politician. To these diverse elements they refer the fervor and unction, the dogmatic tone, and the practised shrewdness that marked his words and acts. Independent American opinion doubted his qualifications to be a leader. As a politician, they said, he had always followed the crowd. He had swum with the ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... impression, yet the same sermon at another time and place may deeply move an audience, and yield rich spiritual results. Physical condition may have some influence on a minister's delivery; but the chief element in the eloquence that awakens and converts sinners and strengthens Christians is the unction of the Holy Spirit. Our best power is the power ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

... clerk held the canopy over him, and two others stood upon the threshold, straight as candelabra, holding up lighted lanterns. A single window of the house was lighted up, the one behind which the dying Christian was awaiting Extreme Unction. Faint shadows flitted across the brightness of that pale yellow square on which was outlined the whole mysterious ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio

... with more unction now that we have personal proof of it in his public and private ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis

... sire a mortal foe to Rome; So Shadwell swore, nor should his vow be vain, That he till death true dulness would maintain; And, in his father's right, and realm's defence, Ne'er to have peace with wit, nor truce with sense. The king himself the sacred unction made, As king by office, and as priest by trade. In his sinister hand, instead of ball, He plac'd a mighty mug of potent ale; Love's kingdom to his right he did convey, At once his sceptre, and his rule of sway; Whose righteous lore the prince had practis'd young, And from whose ...
— English Satires • Various

... Clancy, with unction, "they set him to work his fine out with a gang from the parish prison clearing Ursulines Street. Around the corner was a saloon decorated genially with electric fans and cool merchandise. I made that me headquarters, ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry

... dear country, Mine eyes their vigils keep; For very love, beholding Thy happy name they weep. The mention of Thy glory Is unction to the breast, And medicine in sickness, And love, and life, ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock

... all but gone when the rite of extreme unction was completed, and they could only stand round her, Eberhard, Christina, Ursel, and the old Baroness, who had returned again, watching the last flutterings of the breath, the window thrown wide open that nothing might impede the passage of the soul ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... many Sacraments are there? A. There are seven Sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Holy Orders, and Matrimony. ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 2 (of 4) • Anonymous

... After the unction, when questioned on his belief according to the ordinary form, the little Prince responded audibly, "Credo"; and finally, he recited without error or hesitation the Lord's Prayer, the Hail ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... really good music. Their enthusiastic applause at the conclusion of the song was perfectly deafening. Captain Staunton then stepped forward and sang in true seamanlike style "The Bay of Biscay," the chorus of which was given with great unction and enjoyment by ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood

... not know what it is. I find no response of gladness in my heart." I trembled with fear to think of God and the judgement day. This continued from youth up to the age of forty. At this time I received from Christ the "Gift of the Holy Ghost", the "Unction", that which "leads unto all truth." There are many names for this; I call it the Bible name. "Hold fast the form of sound words." Before this I had never spoken a word for God or prayed in public. At ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation

... and vilest of this bad band Is that noun of gruesome sound, "Uplift," which the clan of Chadband Hold in reverence profound; Used for a dynamic function 'Tis a word devoid of guile, Only as connoting unction It excites ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various

... unction Anointing as part of a religious, ceremonial, or healing ritual. Ointment or oil. Something that serves to soothe; a balm. Affected or exaggerated earnestness, especially in choice and ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... only fair to give them the credit, that out of respect for the wishes of Urban VIII. they treated these compositions with extreme reserve, and while they made some expressions clearer they maintained the primitive unction in a large number of passages" (Baudot, The Roman Breviary, ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley

... earnestly in devotional exercises; and as he has mentioned in his Prayers and Meditations[1153], gave me 'Les Penses de Paschal', that I might not interrupt him. I preserve the book with reverence. His presenting it to me is marked upon it with his own hand, and I have found in it a truly divine unction. We went to church again in ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... child could deceive him. And, indeed, when a woman loves sincerely, in the kiss she gives there is a divine honey; it is as if a soul were breathed forth in the caress, a subtle flame of fire which brings warmth to the heart; the kiss that lacks this delicious unction is meagre and formal. The priest had felt the difference. He could fathom the depths that lie between the motherhood of the flesh and the motherhood of the heart. He gave the Marquise a keen, scrutinizing glance, then ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac

... the frightful scene, and cried aloud with fervent unction, "Let him go—forgive that ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... given in the last Essay was chiefly to assist the Reader in separating truth and sincerity from falsehood and affectation; presuming that if the unction of a devout heart be wanting everything else is of no avail. It was shewn that a current of just thought and feeling may flow under a surface of illustrative imagery so impure as to produce an effect the opposite of that which was intended. ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... draughtsman Raphael is perhaps outclassed by Bouguereau, Cabanel or Lefevre of our own time, and as a composer of either decorative or pictorial design he has had superiors. But the work of Raphael possesses the loving unction of real conviction and nothing to which he put his well trained hand failed of the baptism of genius. Through this mark, therefore, it will live forever. Nor should any work require more than this for continuous life. Each age ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore

... replied that "he thought he should like a hymn-book, but he knew he should like a squirt." A small cousin of mine, hearing his big brothers describe their experiences at a Public School, observed with unction, "If ever I have a fag of my own, I will stick pins into him." But now we are leaving childhood behind, and attaining to the riper joys of ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... submission to her director appear intolerable yoke; her dependence on her sister a positive degradation. The humiliations so freely embraced, and so long and dearly prized, seemed in her altered views, inconsistent with self-respect. The corporal penances hitherto lightened and sweetened by the unction of Divine love, now assumed their worst sharpness, and excited her strongest repugnance. Importunate scruples were added to temptation, and while thus violently assailed on many sides, she seemed not to receive light ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"

... off by the perspiratory Vessels, and assists more effectually to destroy the Insects and their Ovula, which give Rise to the Itch; but whether this Effect be true or not, I found it to answer another very good Purpose; which was to keep the Belly rather loose, while the Patient used the Unction; and by this Way it carried off those Humours, which ought to have passed off by the Skin; and for that Reason, when it had not that Effect, we joined some Lenitive ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro

... size, but a very plump, white mare; she was a good roadster and it was never necessary to touch her with the whip. Shake it in the stock and she would not forget it for the next two miles. The stable keeper told with much unction how two fellows hired her to go from Eastborough Centre to Montrose. On their way home they had drunk quite freely at the latter place, and thought they would touch the mare up with the whip; they were in an ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin

... The unction of that blessing called down upon his persecutor is truly Coleridgian. "Melton" is the Editor's rendering of Malta, where Coleridge was when he heard of John Wordsworth's drowning in 1805. He had then kept his bed for a fortnight, or ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett

... who wore a stole and administered all the rites of the extreme unction. After the vicar and the sacristan had gone, Manuel looked at his mother and saw her livid features, her drooping ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja

... one of the American students, seeing him alone, went up and began to talk to him. The pair were oddly contrasted: the American very neat in his black coat and pepper-and-salt trousers, thin and dried-up, with something of ecclesiastical unction already in his manner; and the Englishman in his loose tweed suit, ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... promised to return to dinner, walked back to his vicarage, meditating whether he should pass the morning in writing his next sermon, or in angling for trout, and had nearly decided in favour of the latter proposition, repeating to himself, with great unction, the lines ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock

... by a classic chaunt, of his reaching the pinnacle of depravity; this was the ne plus ultra of dramatic invention. Robbers and murderers began to be treated, after the Catholic fashion, with extreme unction; audiences were intoxicated with the new drop; sympathy became epidemic; everybody was bewildered and improved; and nobody went and threw themselves off the Monument with a copy of the baleful drama ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 30, 1841 • Various

... dissolved and converted into Christian matrimony. In Tigbauan and its villages, besides the baptism of many children and adults, there were introduced the holy sacraments of confession, communion, and extreme unction, the last of which they neither knew nor had ever heard of. Church-feasts were celebrated with vespers and solemn masses, particularly at Easter and in Holy Week. A large school was formed, containing the children of all ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson

... earlier year. In the year 1120 at the Althing, Thorgils was with difficulty dissuaded from breaking the peace as they stood, both parties, by the door of the Thingvalla church on St. Peter's Day. Thorgils' friend Bodvar had to use both arguments and unction to make him respect the sanctity of the Althing, of the Church, and of the Saint to whom the day belonged. Afterwards Thorgils said to his friend, "You are more pious ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker

... performed his religious duties regularly, but in a perfunctory manner. He was not, however, a hypocrite or a pharisee, but was simply indifferent to religious dogmas, and secretly averse to the society of priests. When he was dying, it was with great difficulty that he could be made to receive extreme unction. He died without pain, recommending to his brother, who was to succeed him, to observe the charter of French liberties, yet fearing that his blind bigotry would be the ruin of the family and the throne, as events ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... when the candles were laid down. The chrism consists in anointing the infant's forehead, breast, shoulders and middle of the back with holy oil, after which comes the service, when the forehead, eyes, nostrils, mouth, ears, breast, hands and feet are again anointed, but this time with the holy unction prepared once a year, on Monday in Holy Week, within the walls of the Kremlin, and consecrated by the metropolitan in the cathedral of the Annunciation on Holy Thursday. Then comes the concluding act, when the priest cuts ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various

... 1846, so few of the Nestorians knew how to pray, that religious meetings were for instruction rather than prayer; but now it was a delightful privilege to unite with them in pleading for the conversion of the world to Christ. Never were their petitions so full of unction as when offered for this object. In April, Miss Fiske's pupils, not satisfied with an extra meeting by themselves, though continued till near sunset, were induced to close it only by the promise of having ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary

... ordained four other sacraments, namely, confirmation, marriage, consecration of priests, and extreme unction. But Luther refuses to acknowledge any of these as a sacrament. Marriage, he says, in its sacramental aspect, was not an institution of the New Testament, nor was it connected with any especial promise of grace. It was but a holy moral ordinance of daily life, existing ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin

... such revenge. "I know all that," he would say, "but he killed my cousin." As a final resort, the faithful and believing missionaries concluded to call in the aid of heaven to assist them, and they prayed with Simon for hours, days and nights, in all of which he joined with fervor and unction; but he could not divest himself of the all-pervading idea that his cousin had been killed, and the sacred duty had devolved upon him to avenge his death. This belief had been born in him, and no religion of the white man could eradicate it. True to the creed of his ancestors, he got a double-barrelled ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau

... were confident, too, that they could hold the narrow opening indefinitely, else he would not have sent forth such intolerable taunts. He made his position a little easier and again laughed deep in his throat and with unction. He had never known Long Jim to be in finer form. Shif'less Sol was the acknowledged orator of the five, but tonight the cloak of inspiration was spread over the shoulders of Long ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... knew him to be a priest, and he saw by the last gleams of the fading twilight a white, august, worn face. The sight of a priest issuing from the beautiful cathedral of Saint-Etienne in Vienna, bearing the Extreme Unction to a dying person, determined the celebrated tragic author Werner to become a Catholic. Almost the same effect was produced upon the dreamer when he looked upon the man who had, all unknowing, given ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac

... as disclosed to us in these pages has been called joyless, by that sect of religious partisans whose peculiarity is to mistake boisterousness for unction. Was the life of Christ himself, then, so particularly joyful? Can the life of any man be joyful who sees and feels the tragic miseries and hardly less tragic follies of the earth? The old Preacher, when he considered ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley

... quiet voice, without unction; but it startled the girl—she stared in blank amazement. Her companion was evidently waiting for her to say something; seemed to expect an exclamation of joyous approval. She noticed that the gray eyes she so distrusted ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser

... was young and full of faith And other fads that youngsters cherish A cry rose as of one that saith With unction: "Help me or I perish!" 'Twas heard in all the land, and men The sound were each to each repeating. It made my heart beat faster then Than any heart can now ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... the flattering unction to our souls, that because by some possibility there may not be guilt, we can rightfully discharge as if there were no guilt." "It is sometimes urged against agreeing to indict, convict, or punish, that we have conscientious scruples ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker

... she merely an accessory, acting under his direction and guidance; and, now that she had placed oceans between her and the scene of their crime, nothing, she argued, could transpire to mar her triumph, and, laying this flattering unction to her soul, her ladyship prepared for her journey with a buoyancy of spirit that astonished ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... rabid she has been about the war. Well, the story is," she went on, with a certain unction, "that she has driven Chris to enlisting in the Foreign Legion, or something. Anyhow, he ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... Cubans are very particular indeed to preserve the aroma and fragrance of the cigars, by keeping them in wrappers of oiled and soft silks; it is, in fact, quite a sight to see with what ceremony some of these are produced at gentlemen's tables, with much unction, like the ushering in of old wine. My chapter on cigars would be incomplete did I fail to note the beautiful and courteous way in which all Cubans no matter of what position, whether the exquisite at the club, or the portero at the door, ask you ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... lamb signified the sacrament of the Eucharist, according to 1 Cor. 5:7: "Christ our Pasch is sacrificed." Therefore there should also have been some sacraments of the Old Law to foreshadow the other sacraments of the New Law, such as Confirmation, Extreme Unction, and ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... manner as is usual in corpses. The body being taken down from the cross was received in a fair large winding-sheet, and carried down from Calvary; the whole company attending as before to the stone of Unction. This is taken for the very place where the precious body of our Lord was annointed and prepared for the burial. Here they laid down their imaginary corpse; and casting over it several sweet powders and spices, ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... more useful things in this way than you could ever learn even from the best books and the most eloquent instructions. Faith and prayer should be the daily food of your soul. Faith, with its imperfect yet celestial light, will meet all the legitimate wants of your mind; and prayer, with its divine unction, ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi

... unction with which he pronounced this twaddle is beyond description. The pretence of conscientious feeling which he contrived to infuse into his sordid bargain-driving might have done honour to Moliere's Tartuffe. Seeing that he was determined to stick to his terms, I departed. I telegraphed ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... the scheme meant to him. He was a man who faced his responsibilities squarely. For the first time in his life he had tried the Cure seriously on himself—chance never having given him cause before—and it had failed. He had heard the Cure which he regarded as a divine unction termed a pestilential quackery; the words burned red-hot in his brain. He had heard it depreciated, with charming tact and courtesy, by a great authority on diseases of the skin. One short word, "no," had wiped out of existence his Napoleonic scheme for the Armies ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke

... I find no kind of hero more To be admired than men of true religion, Nothing more noble or more beautiful Than is the holy zeal of true devoutness; Just so I think there's naught more odious Than whited sepulchres of outward unction, Those barefaced charlatans, those hireling zealots, Whose sacrilegious, treacherous pretence Deceives at will, and with impunity Makes mockery of all that men hold sacred; Men who, enslaved to selfish interests, Make ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere

... alms to the convents and churches, he had had liturgies read in seven churches, had sent for priests with white beards, because they are the holiest men and have more earnestness in prayer, and had had masses read for all the saints and prayers for the last unction. But every thing was useless. The old wife had clung to the witches and magicians. There was not an enchanter to whom she had not gone for advice, even if he lived a week's journey off. As I said before, what wouldn't she have done! But it was vain, ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various

... joke about Scots' meanness appeals to Englishmen because Englishmen are mean themselves. No joke appeals to a man unless it releases some repressed wish of his own. No one expects a devout Roman Catholic to see the point of a joke about extreme unction. The professional comedian to be a success must know what the crowd repressions are. Dickens is a great humorist because he knew by intuition what the crowd would laugh at. And that brings me to the subject of ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill

... through Him. Is He the High Priest? They are priests unto God. Is He the Light of the World? They are, in their places, kindled and derived lights. Is He the Christ, the Messias, the Anointed? 'Ye have an unction from the Holy One,' and He hath anointed us in Him. So that it is no arrogance, though it may be a questionably wise form of expression, when we say that the object of Christ's coming is to make us all Christs, God's anointed, and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren



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