"Alms" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... has gone, his flowing locks close shorn, His rings and soft apparel laid aside, All signs of rank and royalty cast off. Clothed in a yellow robe, simple and coarse, Through unknown streets from door to door he passed, Holding an alms-bowl forth for willing gifts. But when, won by his stateliness and grace, They brought their choicest stores, he gently said: "Not so, my friends, keep such for those who need— The sick and old; give me but common food." And when sufficient for the day was given, He took a way ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... in which he said: 'I will not go dishonored into my grave; I should be dishonored did I not advise the king to profit by the present moment, and declare war against France. Can your majesty wish that Austria should return your states to you as alms, if she were still generous enough to do so; or that Napoleon, if victorious, should disarm your soldiers like the militia of a free city?' But all these remonstrances, these supplications, nay, even the tears of the queen, were in vain. The ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... cross containing some relics; and our Lord was pleased to honor the emblem of His death, as well as the faith of these, His new faithful ones, for the locusts passed on without causing them any loss. The owner of the land gave, in gratitude, all its harvest as alms—which he was able to do, as he ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... the eastward of Onrust, and is half as large again as that island. It is planted with trees. The hospital on it is maintained by the voluntary alms of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... same minister stated, "he was in the Alms-house in Philadelphia, and was attracted to the bedside of a sick man, whom he found to be a happy Christian, having embraced the Gospel after he was brought, a stranger in a strange land, to that infirmary. ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... won't mind my slipping out for half a minute to the Alms House to leave a few gum-drops ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... fortune for himself. With the return of the Bourbons, he came back to France, and settled at Marseilles. He lived, however, very retired, and employed his large fortune solely for the poor, for distressed seamen, and for the clergy. Alms and masses were his only objects of expense. It may easily be believed, that he acquired no small degree of popularity among the lower classes and the clergy. But, strangely enough, when not at church, he spent his time with the most celebrated fencing-masters, and had acquired ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... sir," said the boy. "Would to God you had left me where you found me![Endnote: 4] It was not my fault that you took me from the alms-house. But it will be my fault if I ever eat another bit of your bread, or stay under your roof an ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Sisters of Nazareth is in a large brick building on the south side of the road. This was built in 1857 for the convent purposes. It is the mother-house of the Nazareth nuns, so that the numbers continually vary, many passing through for their noviciate. The nuns collect alms for the aged poor and children, and many of the poor are thus sustained. Besides this, there are a number of imbecile or paralytic children who live permanently in the convent. The charity is not confined ...
— Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... hundred steps when they saw two rough-looking individuals sitting on a stone begging for alms. ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... accustomed every morning to appear before his imperial lady, in winter, to see that her fires were burning; in summer, to distribute her alms. Steckel was from Tyrol, he had been a favorite servant of the empress; and being an upright and intelligent man, his word was known to have some weight with her. [Footnote: Thiebault, "Memoires de Vlugt Ans."] Stockel had been the ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... and save even more, I think. The clerical force is entirely native. There were but ten white men here before you came, including two Greeks. There are no beggars. Perhaps you noticed that no one was asking for alms ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... to come and see the Asiatic giant, or the mermen, or the two-headed baby. The old sailor who has been wrecked, or pretends to have been, is walking about with a harrowing picture of the scene painted on a board and is soliciting alms. The busybody is gossiping among little knots of people and telling, manufacturing, or magnifying the latest scandal, or the latest news from the frontier, from Antioch, from the racing-stables, the law-courts, or the palace. Perhaps Silius has ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... action may happen to be ordained to an evil end, as when a man gives an alms from vainglory; and conversely, an evil action may happen to be ordained to a good end, as a theft committed in order to give something to the poor. Therefore an action is not good or evil from ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... being the Domna,—[Domna, lady or mistress, in corrupt Latin. Hence her name of Julia Domna] the lady of the soldiers, the mother of the camp, and the lady philosopher among the sages. What she gave me in the way of love was but copper alms. She threw golden solidi of love into Geta's lap in lavish abundance. And her sister and her nieces, who often lived with us, treated me exactly as she did. They were distantly civil, or they shunned me; but my brother was their spoiled plaything. I was as incapable as Geta was master ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... brushed His garment's hem As the harmonies rushed Through each of them: Her lips could be heard In the creed and psalms, And their fingers neared At the giving of alms. ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... Church, the apostles themselves took care to receive the churches' goods, and to distribute to every one of their members as they had need, Acts iv. 34, 35; but in the increase of the church, the burden of this care of distributing alms increasing also, upon some complaints of the Greeks, that their widows were neglected, the office of deacons was erected, for better provision for the poor, Acts vi. 1-7; and because the churches are never like to want poor ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... the horses put to the carriages. And, in the meantime, Gourville gathered in his hat all that the weeping friends were able to throw into it of gold and silver—the last offering, the pious alms made to misfortune by poverty. The surintendant, dragged along by some, carried by others, was shut up in his carriage. Gourville took the reins, and mounted the box. Pellisson supported Madame Fouquet, who had fainted. Madame de Belliere had more strength, and was well paid for it; she ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... dream of your full Mermaid wine. Oh, we have water mix'd with claret lees, Brink apt to bring in drier heresies Than beer, good only for the sonnet's strain, With fustian metaphors to stuff the brain, So mix'd, that, given to the thirstiest one, 'Twill not prove alms, unless he have the stone. I think, with one draught man's invention fades: Two cups had quite spoil'd Homer's Iliades. 'Tis liquor that will find out Sutcliff's wit, Lie where he will, and make him write worse yet; Fill'd ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... paste, that he was to offer to the drawing flowers and fruit, and that he should continue doing this for six months. Thereafter he should in various ways, which they told him, entertain guests and give alms to the poor. ...
— Deccan Nursery Tales - or, Fairy Tales from the South • Charles Augustus Kincaid
... they may, for to fight and for to deceive that one that other. And therewithal they be so proud, that they know not how to be clothed; now long, now short, now strait, now large, now sworded, now daggered, and in all manner guises. They should be simple, meek and true, and full of alms- deeds, as Jesu was, in whom they trow; but they be all the contrary, and ever inclined to the evil, and to do evil. And they be so covetous, that, for a little silver, they sell their daughters, their ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... he is an old man of sixty, formerly a house-serf, belonging to the Counts Zavalin, by trade a carpenter. He has at one time been employed in a nail factory, has been turned off for drunkenness and idleness, and now lives upon his old wife, who begs for alms. He is thin and weak, with a mangy-looking little beard, speaks with a hissing sound, and after every word twitches the right side of his face and jerkily shrugs his right shoulder. The other, Ignat Ryabov, a sturdy, broad-shouldered peasant who never does anything ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... poisoned a supply of drugs left behind. On April 15 the Boston Gazette reported that "it is absolutely fact that the Doctors of the diabolical ministerial butcher when they evacuated Boston, intermixed and left 26 weight of Arsenick with the medicines which they left in the Alms House."[33] Then, a week later, on April 22, appeared a series of testimonials that had been made by Joseph Warren, Daniel Scott, and Frederick Ridgley at Watertown on April 3d "by order of the Director-General of the Continental Hospital." ...
— Drug Supplies in the American Revolution • George B. Griffenhagen
... had applied for help to the Jewish Board of Guardians, but red-tape rarely unwinds as quickly as hunger coils itself; moreover, Moses was an old offender in poverty at the Court of Charity. But there was one species of alms which Moses could not be denied, and the existence of which Esther could not conceal from him as she concealed that of the eleemosynary breakfasts at the school. For it was known to all men that soup and bread were to be had for the asking thrice a week at the Institution in Fashion Street, and ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... rejoice to show them honor and obedience, because we know it is so highly pleasing to the Divine Majesty and to all angels, and vexes all devils, and is, besides, the highest work which we can do, after the sublime divine worship comprehended in the previous commandments, so that giving of alms and every other good work toward our neighbor are not equal to this. For God has assigned this estate the highest place, yea, has set it up in His own stead, upon earth. This will and pleasure of God ought to be a sufficient reason and incentive ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... they belonged to the latter class, for when I was three weeks old, they dropped me upon the highway one fine morning near the great city of Boston, to which famous city belongs the honor of my birth! Well, I was picked up by some Samaritans, who wrapped me up in red flannel, and clapped me in the Alms House. Behold me, then, ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... vision and fairer play; Or let the hand of a just law shake him Till his ill-gained dollars shall roll away. Let no man dwell under a mountain of plunder, Let no man suffer with want and cold; We want right living, not mere alms-giving; We want just dividing of labour ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... forthwith set out upon the road, and took with him twenty knights. And as he went he did great good, and gave alms, feeding the poor and needy. And upon the way they found a leper, struggling in a quagmire, who cried out to them with a loud voice to help him for the love of God; and when Rodrigo heard this, he alighted from his beast and helped him, and placed him upon the beast before him, and ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... his little drum with curved sticks, his dance and music the convulsions and noises of a stupid beggar; and many, very many, blind;—who seem to have no home but the sidewalk, where you see them asleep at any time, day or night, waiting in darkness for alms ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... ceremonies. It seemed Sir Pitt Crawley, for the dignity of the house and family, had thought right to have about the place as many persons in black as could possibly be assembled. All the men and maids of the house, the old women of the Alms House, whom the elder Sir Pitt had cheated out of a great portion of their due, the parish clerk's family, and the special retainers of both Hall and Rectory were habited in sable; added to these, the undertaker's ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... which appeared almost insolent. Seated, or carelessly erect, her supple figure fell into lines of indolently provocative grace; and the warm, golden notes welling from her throat seemed to be flung broadcast and indifferently to her listeners, as alms are often flung, without interest, toward abstract poverty and not to the poor breathing ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... bestows the alms on the journey, is giving Philip directions how to strengthen the trace; and it is only when all is ready, and Philip, gathering up the reins, climbs upon the box, that he begins to draw something from his side ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... were great humorists and originals in their way. An elder of the kirk at Muthill used to manifest his humour and originality by his mode of collecting the alms. As he went round with the ladle, he reminded such members of the congregation as seemed backward in their duty, by giving them a poke with the "brod," and making, in an audible whisper, such remarks as these—"Wife at ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... not a mendicant (Bhikshu) simply because he asks others for alms; he who adopts the whole law is a Bhikshu, ...
— The Dhammapada • Unknown
... home late one afternoon when a poorly-dressed, sunburnt woman overtook me. She bore on her head a basket of bracken, and her appearance was such that in any other country I should have expected a demand for alms. Greeting me, however, cheerfully and politely, she at once entered into conversation. She had seen me at church on Sunday, and went on to speak of the pastor, with what esteem both Catholics and Protestants regarded ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... General Kleber. They sought to dissuade him from it, but without informing the French. On the 14th of June, as the general was walking in his garden with the architect of the army, Suleiman presented himself before him, pretending to ask alms, and struck him several times with his dagger. The architect was wounded in striving to defend Kleber. When the soldiers came hurrying up the general had already breathed his last. The assassin made no attempt ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... she stands alone, what nation Hath lacked an alms from English hands? What exiles from what stricken lands Have lacked the shelter of the station Where ...
— Poems and Ballads (Third Series) - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Valentia, one will find these human weeds almost Oriental in their apathy. Farther north, at Barcelona, they are given to fitful lapses into activity before the heat of the day. At Marseilles they are almost energetic, and are even known to take the trouble of asking the passer for alms. But eastward, beyond Toulon, they understand their business better, and do not even trouble to talk among themselves. The French worth-nothing is, in a word, worth less than any of his brothers—much less ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... and other charitable institutions. The examples are numerous. I remember one, a striking picture, by Bartolomeo Montagna, where the Virgin and Child are enthroned in the centre as usual. On her right the good St. Omobuono, dressed as a burgher, in a red gown and fur cap, gives alms to a poor beggar; on the left, St. Francis presents a celebrated friar of his Order, Bernardino da Feltri, the first founder of a mont-de-piete, who kneels, holding the emblem of his institution, a little green mountain with ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... the dutiful boy knew that the second cow would be of no service without the calf, he gave them both, with their calf, to the poor man. For these, on the following day, four kine were gifted to Saint Kiaranus by other folk as an alms, and these he gave to his mother as she was chiding him. Then he exhorted his mother in reasonable manner, and she was ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... most railways out of London, one may see Alms-Houses and Retreats (generally with a Wing or a Centre wanting, and ambitious of being much bigger than they are), some of which are newly-founded Institutions, and some old establishments transplanted. There is a tendency in these pieces of architecture to shoot upward unexpectedly, ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... For true is that word of the Psalm, "The workers of iniquity speak peace with their neighbors, but mischief is in their hearts," Ps 28, 3. For it is the nature of hypocrites that they are good in appearance, speak kindly to you, pretend to be humble, patient and charitable, give alms, etc.; and yet, all the while they ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... stowed away in Parliamentary Blue Books, and Parliamentary debates;—were to be sought for in pamphlets, in periodicals, and more especially in the Reports of the various Societies and Associations, which were appointed for dispensing the alms given with such free hand, to aid in saving the lives of the famishing people. Those Records will be found quoted and referred to in the course ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... see him such as years and grief have made him. He has come, young man, to counsel you not to follow in his track, if you wish to gain fortune and renown. That,' he continued, pointing to his own painting,'is true and conscientious art. Well, it leads to the alms-house. I see that you have the power to become a great artist. Change your place; be extravagant, capricious, unnatural, and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... arose upon Christmas Day And solemnly cleared his score: He called on the sick, to the needy gave alms, And ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... departure, the scrunched gravel of the drive crying out under the slowly turning wheels, the horse's lean thighs moving with ascetic deliberation away from the light into the obscurity of the open space bordered dimly by the pointed roofs and the feebly shining windows of the little alms-houses. The plaint of the gravel travelled slowly all round the drive. Between the lamps of the charitable gateway the slow cortege reappeared, lighted up for a moment, the short, thick man limping busily, with the horse's head held aloft in his fist, the lank animal walking in stiff and ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... carriage door. Mr. George got out, and then helped Mrs. Gray to descend. A half a dozen beggars, some lame, some blind, some old and paralytic, hovered about the steps, and held out tattered hats to Mrs. Gray, moaning all the time in piteous tones, and begging for alms. Mrs. Gray and Mr. George paid no attention to them, but passed directly on, followed by the children, through a door in a high wall, which led into a little court, and thence they passed into a sort of entrance hall, leading into a building. Philippe, ...
— Rollo in Naples • Jacob Abbott
... than ever Kirton was worth; however, he gave this good old grandmother a shilling, the other gentlemen likewise relieved her, commiserating her age, and her burden of so many helpless infants; not one of them discovering our hero in the old woman, who received their alms very thankfully, ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... of these alms-houses, Balthazar Zanches, was confectioner to Philip II. of Spain, with whom he came over to England, and was the first who exercised that art in this country. He became a Protestant, and died in 1602. It is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 290 - Volume X. No. 290. Saturday, December 29, 1827. • Various
... good time, when in the midst of their merriment, a beggar appeared in the hall. He was in rags, and carried the usual beggar's wallet for food or alms. He asked only that, out of the abundance on the table, his ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour. 2. And a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple; 3. Who, seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked an alms. 4. And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him, with John, said, Look on us. 5. And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... a Dorcas Society, as you and I well know, and one not unlike that in these pages; and you and I have lived through many discouraging, laughable, and beautiful experiences while we emulated the Bible Dorcas, that woman "full of good works and alms deeds." ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... him that we are to treat with God, as we have heard sufficiently above; for God does not look upon my cross even though I torture myself to death, but he looks upon Christ through whom my works are acceptable before God, which otherwise would not be worth an alms of a straw's value. Therefore Scripture calls Christ properly a precious corner stone which imparts its virtue to all who through faith are built upon it. So, also, St. Peter teaches us in this passage how Christ is the living ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... blackguard was wont to pray for alms from Mistress Oldfield; and that dear charitable creature (are not most actresses dear, charitable creatures?) would often waste her practical sympathy upon him. She despised the man, but, with that generosity so characteristic of her craft, was ever ready to relieve his necessities.[A] ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... that—would honor a queen. Therefore, to-morrow let us walk as lovers, hand in hand, among the rocks and beside the sea; your step upon the sands of my old Brittany will bless them anew to me! Give me this day of happiness; and that passing alms, unremembered, alas! by you, will be eternal riches ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... a certain priest who went forbiddingly about her court, where he was accorded a provisional courtesy, and who went also into many hovels, where pitiable wrecks of humankind received his alms ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... erected by the monks of St. Swithun for the poorer class of pilgrims, who here found food and shelter for the night. On their departure they repaired to the doors of the Prior's lodging—the three beautiful arches of which now form the entrance to the Deanery—where they were given alms and fragments of food to sustain ...
— Winchester • Sidney Heath
... what she said, I understood her meaning. When we get our food precariously as alms, we remember God the giver. But when we receive our food regularly at home, as a matter of course, we are apt to regard ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... alms and the pity that his venerable green frock coat invites, by wearing the red ribbon at his button-hole. This proves the utility of the Order of the Legion of Honor which has been contested too much in the past ten years, the new Knights ...
— A Street Of Paris And Its Inhabitant • Honore De Balzac
... beggar is a fish of as sorry aspect as may readily be scared up. Generally speaking, he is repulsive as to hat, abhorrent as to vesture, squalid of boot, and in tout ensemble unseemly and atrocious. His appeal for alms falls not more vexingly upon the ear than his offensive personality smites hard upon the eye. The touching effectiveness of his tale is ever neutralized by the uncomeliness of his raiment and the inartistic besmirchedness of his countenance. His pleading is like the pathos ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... him; haply Allah may unite me with him:" and quoth he, "Do even as thou wilt." So she rejoiced and, taking with her a thousand diners in gold, went out and visited the elders of the various faiths and gave alms in Ghanim's name.[FN133] Next day she walked to the merchants' bazar and disclosed her object to the Syndic and gave him money, saying, "Bestow this in charity to the stranger!" On the following Friday she fared to the bazar (with other ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... obtaining a revenue was by the breach of the very covenants which were meant to prevent extortion, peculation, and corruption? What sort of body is the India Company, which, coming to the verge of bankruptcy by the robbery of half the world, is afterwards to subsist upon the alms of peculation and bribery, to have its strength recruited by the violation of the covenants imposed upon its own servants? It is an odd sort of body to be so fed and so supported. This new constitution of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... This standing danger is drawing anxious attention, and we hear the old adage repeated: "There must be a religion for the people." There are men who wish to give the people a religion which they themselves do not possess, acting like a man who, at once poor and ostentatious, should give alms with counterfeit money. And what result do they attain? We must have a religion for the people, say the politicians, that they may secure the ends they have in view, and conduct at their own pleasure the herds at their ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... constant services were kept up, and the requiem mass was daily said, the dirges daily sung, and the alms bestowed on the crowd, who were by no means specially sorrowful or devout, but beguiled the time by watching jongleurs and mountebanks performing ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... could on one occasion trace the origin of a very remarkable dream to our having heard, in an obscure and half-conscious manner, during sleep, the noise of people in the streets, on All Souls'-night, invoking alms for the dead. Dr. Beattie knew a man in whom any kind of dream could be produced if his friends, gently addressing him, afforded the subject-matter for his ideas. Equally curious is the circumstance that dreams may be ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... aids,— All thine are thine for ever. Krishna waits To greet thee coming, 'companied by gods, Seated in heaven, from toils and conflicts saved. Son! there is golden fruit of noble deeds, Of prayer, alms, sacrifice. The most just Gods Keep thee thy place above the highest saints, Where thou shalt sit, divine, compassed about With royal souls in bliss, as Hari sits; Seeing Mandhata crowned, and Bhagirath, Daushyanti, Bharata, with all thy line. Now therefore wash ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... demanded and obtained. The excuse made for the notoriously unjust Halifax award was that we had obtained a large sum under false pretenses, and that an offset should be made. Pass around the hat, ask alms if you will, but don't acknowledge that we received this Geneva award under ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... begging his bread at the gate of the city he had won and lost, leaning upon the arm of the fair girl child who would not leave him, and stretching forth his hand to those that passed by, with a feeble prayer for alms, pathetic as Oedipus in the utter ruin of his life and fortune. A truer story tells how Pope Silverius, humble and gentle, and hated by Theodora, went up to the Pincian villa to answer the accusation of conspiring with the Goths, when he himself had opened the gates of ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... the diocese of Laon, where he died in 1229. His sister, taking leave of him at the gates of the monastery, took up her abode in a small hut about ten miles distant. Here she spent a long life in dire poverty and austerity. She would refuse all alms, working laboriously for her daily sustenance, and spending all the time that remained in prayer and contemplation. Miracles are said to have proved her power with God, both during her lifetime and after ...
— A Calendar of Scottish Saints • Michael Barrett
... beggar; and it was his custom, whenever he saw a beggar like himself, to share with that beggar the alms which had been given him. One day he saw a wretched old woman, and out of pity for her he gave her all the food he had begged that day. Then the old woman, who knew of the proclamation of the king, said to Juan, "You must tell the king, my boy, that you will fetch Dona Maria for him." Juan did ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... are but few! With all this thrift they thrive not. All the care Ingenious Parsimony takes, but just Saves the small inventory, bed and stool, Skillet, and old carved chest, from public sale. They live, and live without extorted alms from grudging hands: but other boast have none To soothe their honest pride that scorns to beg, Nor comfort else, but in their ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... with the memory of many a sixpence given to beggars of whom I knew nothing but that they had pale faces and thin waists. But it is not that kind of street beggary that is the worst beggars' trade. Home alms which it is their worst degradation to receive. Those scamps know well enough that you and your wisdom are worth nothing to them. They won't beg of you. They will beg of their sisters, and mothers, and wives, and children, ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... Unlike the coldly intellectual reformers and theorists of the present day, they did not consider the gaol and the workhouse as the only asylums for poverty. They were men of feeling and kindly impulse, not of abstract principles. They gave their cheerful alms to the mendicants, and spread a bounteous board for their neighbours. Fools that they were! How is it that they did not recognize the mendicant to be an impostor and a drone, or bethink them that the money with ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... to vote for them. Every now and then the ICONOCLAST reaches out and whacks one of them a fell blow upon his sconce, but, having tied up his head, he once again returns to his business of craving alms at the hands ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... while she remembers the outcast Jew, and the despised Nazarene, she forgets her own offspring? Where is thy heart, Roman, to suppose it? Have I not heard her, many a time, when I have been to solicit alms for some poor unfortunate of my tribe, run back upon the line of years, and speak of the wars of Valerian, of the day when she parted from her great husband, and her two sons, and of that dark day too ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... still survived, came forth to meet him, told him their history, and invited him to partake of some of their best fare. It was coarse barley bread, and the young duke, turning from it in disgust, carelessly bestowed a rich alms upon them, and eagerly pursued his sport. He had not ridden far before he roused a huge wild boar, and, in the encounter with it, he broke his sword, was thrown from his horse, and so severely injured, that his servants, on coming up, found him stretched ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... their coffins by the Count, long ere the morning broke, and on their desecrated graves he poured forth a flood of repentant tears. With the dawn of day he quitted the castle of Rheineck. It is said that he traversed the land in the garb of a lowly mendicant, subsisting on the alms of the charitable, and it is likewise told that he did penance at every holy shrine from Cologne to Rome, whither he was bound to obtain absolution for his sins. Years afterwards he was found dead at the ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... replied Bouchier. "In your lord ship's name, then, as vice-chamberlain, in which character I presented myself, I summoned together the dean and canons of the College of St. George, the usher of the black rod, the governor of the alms-knights, and the whole of the officers of the household, and acquainted them, in a set speech-which, I flatter myself, was quite equal to any that your lordship, with all your poetical talents, could have delivered—that the king's highness, being at Hampton Court with the two cardinals, ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... of money and plate, some of his own, some other men's, left me and a fellow-servant to keep the house, and himself in June went into Leicestershire. He was in that year feoffee collector for twelve poor alms-people living in Clement-Dane's Church-Yard; whose pensions I in his absence paid weekly, to his and the parish's great satisfaction. My master was no sooner gone down, but I bought a bass-viol, and got a master to instruct ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... committed sin. His possessions and kingdom are gone. Having slain them, our wrath has been pacified. But grief is stupefying me. O Dhananjaya, a perpetrated sin is expiated by auspicious acts, by publishing it wildly, by repentance, by alms-giving, by penances, by trips to tirthas after renunciation of everything, by constant meditation on the scriptures. Of all these, he that has practised renunciation is believed to be incapable of committing sins anew. The Srutis declare that he that practises renunciation escapes from birth and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... animal nature to destroy rather than to leave that by which others may profit. Even the pavement artist will destroy his work rather than allow some poor wretch to sit beside his pictures and collect an alms. And there is great joy in destroying that which men are too coarse to appreciate, in feeling that they have in their power that which, something tells them, belongs to a refinement they cannot attain. That was the keynote of the ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... was withdrawn, the lash fell upon his body. Next he was told to dance and then to sing and at last to pray. As he each time tried to obey, the whip was used upon him. The dance and the song were both very crude, but the prayer was the words that he had learned from the old lady at the alms-house. Those words Edwin felt were appropriate because Old Nick had knelt beside a chair when explaining what he wanted him to do, and he remembered that he had knelt thus at the old lady's knee. But before the list of terrible tortures was exhausted, Edwin could ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... following circumstance happened, which shows the extremities to which that great man was reduced, and gives a striking proof of his pious and benevolent disposition:—A beggar came to his little castle, and requested alms. His Queen informed him that they had only one small loaf remaining, which was insufficient for themselves and their friends, who were gone abroad in quest of food, though with little hopes of success. But the King replied, "Give ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... slight knowledge of human nature will not need to be told that the attendance of all was punctual. There was an anxious, expectant look on the faces of all— not even excepting the old lady. She knew that if her brother had made no provision for her, she must go to the alms-house, and against this her honest pride revolted. She was willing to live on anything, however little, if she might live independently, as she had hitherto done. To feel herself dependent on public charity would indeed have been a hard trial ...
— Herbert Carter's Legacy • Horatio Alger
... a story in Lockhart's Life of Scott of an ancient beggar-woman, who, whilst asking an alms of Sir Walter, described herself, in a lucky moment for her pocket, as 'an old struggler.' Scott made a note of the phrase in his diary, and thought it deserved to become classical. It certainly clings most tenaciously to the memory—so picturesquely does it ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... advanced and animated the said wondrous bridge for now five hundred years, and made it the chief wonder, according to Prince and Fuller, of this fair land of Devon: being first an inspired bridge, a soul-saving bridge, an alms-giving bridge, an educational bridge, a sentient bridge, and last, but not least, a dinner-giving bridge. All do not know how, when it began to be built some half mile higher up, hands invisible carried the stones down-stream each night to the present site; ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... shape of a wheel, to become some new awful monster of a pollard. As yet, however, it was going round; slowly, indeed, and with the gravity of age, but doing its work, and casting its loose drops in the alms-giving of a gentle rain upon a little plot of Master Rogers's garden, which was therefore full of moisture-loving flowers. This plot was divided from the mill-wheel by a small stream which carried away the surplus water, and was now ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... him, one iron chest. Plutus, the god of wealth, will joy to know His faithful steward in the shades below. He walk'd the streets, and wore a threadbare cloak; He din'd and supp'd at charge of other folk: And by his looks, had he held out his palms, He might be thought an object fit for alms. So, to the poor if he refus'd his pelf, He us'd 'em full as kindly as himself. Where'er he went, he never saw his betters; Lords, knights, and squires, were all his humble debtors; And under hand and seal, the Irish nation Were forc'd to own to him their obligation. ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... mass sung for the eternal rest of the colonel at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament. I sent out no invitations to it, I did not whisper a word of it to anybody; I went there alone. I knelt during the whole service and made many signs of the cross. I paid the priest double and distributed alms at the door, all in ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... interested that good lady was taken up, and Mr. Snow rose to speak upon it. He spoke of the reports he had heard concerning the bad treatment that the paupers, and especially those who were hopelessly insane, had received in the alms-house, enlarged upon the duties of humanity and Christianity, and expressed the conviction that the enlightened people of Sevenoaks should spend more money for the comfort of the unfortunate whom Heaven had thrown upon their charge, and particularly that they should institute ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... Upon alms, pity, good works, kindness, peacefulness, and complete disinterestedness of heart, he had little to add to the doctrine of the synagogue.[1] But he placed upon them an emphasis full of unction, which made the old maxims appear ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... at the George and then without delay proceeded to St Cross. I did not know before the nature of its hospital establishment, but I find that it is a veritable set of alms-houses. The church is a most curious specimen of the latest Norman. I never saw one so well marked before—Norman ornaments on pointed arches, pilasters detached with cushion capitals, and various signs: and it ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... bowling, shooting at butts, &c., the ancients sitting gravely by and looking on. All things were civil and without scandal. This church-ale is doubtless derived from the {Greek text: agapai}, or love-feast, mentioned in the New Testament. Mr. A. Wood assures me, that there were no alms-houses, at least they were very scarce before the Reformation; that over against Christ Church, Oxon, is one of the ancientest. In every church was a poor man's box, but I never remembered the use of it; nay, there was one at great inns, as I remember it was ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... seeking alms, one who was a thing of shreds and patches and broken shoes. His rags seemed to adhere to him by the power of cohesive friction rather than by any visible attachments; it might have been years since he had a hat that had a brim. It ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... lights of heaven. Why wanders he, the lonesome one; why waits he; why flies he not, the shadow, to the land of shades? Ah, he still hopes, he is a mendicant who begs for joy, who yet waits in the eleventh hour, that a merciful hand may give him an alms. ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... for the most cruelly mangled, and carrying them in triumph into their homes and to their frugal boards. Not one refugee was suffered to find his way to the city hall; and there was no need of any public distribution of alms.[1213] Within a few days twenty-three hundred families of French Protestants were gathered in the hospitable inclosure of Geneva. Besides those that subsequently returned to France, on the arrival of more propitious times, more than two hundred of these families yet remain, comprising ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... exhorted him to endeavor to be always ready, as opportunities presented themselves for small charities and kindnesses; these, as his father thought, are often more praiseworthy than donations to public objects, and the giving of alms to be seen of men, ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... kept indeed, In whatso we share with another's need Not that which we give, but what we share, For the gift without the giver is bare. Who bestows himself with his alms feeds three, Himself, his hungering neighbour and Me." —LOWELL, The Vision ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... by Angelo, an angel in the semblance of a page, first presented to Dorothea as a beggar-boy, to whom she gave alms.—Philip ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... rules follow numerous special ones, regarding the life of the disciple of Jina. The duty of sacrifice forces him, on entrance into the order, to give up his possessions and wander homeless in strange lands, alms-vessel in hand, and, if no other duty interferes, never to stay longer than one night in the same place. The rule of wounding nothing means that he must carry three articles with him, a straining cloth, for his drinking water, a broom, and a veil before his mouth, in order to avoid killing insects. ...
— On the Indian Sect of the Jainas • Johann George Buehler
... steward of the royal hospital which the discalced religious of our seraphic father St. Francis founded in the city of Manila, with royal expenditures and some alms, for the cure and healing of all these natives of all these Philipinas Islands which belong to your royal Majesty. I declare that although in this hospital we, three religious and myself, serve for the love of God our Lord—by our services saving ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various
... to death, in his absence, at the Assizes Court of La Drome, for having murdered five people, and was cast off by his own faction. For some time his wife, who was infirm and deformed, might be seen going from house to house asking alms for him, who had been for two months the arbiter of civil war and assassination. Then came a day when she ceased her quest, and was seen sitting, her head covered by a black rag: Pointu was dead, but it was never known where or how. In some corner, probably, in the crevice ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... you a solemn truth; then my responsibility ends. Your daughter's life rests literally in your hands; for unless you consent to furnish the money to pay for a surgical operation, which may restore her health, she will certainly die. I am indulging in no exaggeration to extort alms. In this letter is the certificate of a distinguished physician, corroborating my statement. If you, the author of her being, prefer to hasten her death, then your choice of an awful revenge must be settled between your hardened conscience and ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... was the only scheme likely to succeed, he consented. After the rajah had told him this, he was sauntering about in the gateway of the house, imitating the manners of a sowar, when he caught sight of the mendicant slowly approaching, asking alms of all he met. The man's little bleared eyes twinkled as he came up to Reginald, whom he ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... themselves permanently to his service, and two graves on the hill are said to be theirs. In the Pioneer for 5th August 1878, Pekin has a poem on a similar legend about the saint. Standing on his holy hill, one day Shekh Farid saw a packman pass and he begged for alms. The packman mocked him. Then the saint asked what his sacks contained. "Stones," was the answer. The Shekh said, "Sooth—they are but worthless stones." Whereupon all the sacks burst, and the contents, at one time different kinds of spices, fell ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... startled from her sleep by a frightful dream. She had seen her double. She had appeared to herself clothed in rags, turning with a shrivelled, withered hand the latch of her own shop-door, seeming to be at the threshold, yet at the same time seated in her armchair behind the counter. She was asking alms of herself, and heard herself speaking from the doorway and also from ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... is well understood to be like giving alms to the wealthy; but viewed in union with the others would show what a prominent place coals seem to have in the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 • Various
... time, gave rise to much abuse, like the alms bestowed on the Church during the Middle Ages. But in the beginning the motive was excellent. It was simply a wish to benefit others, arising from the conviction, felt more strongly in the presence of death than at any ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... There all day long the children play about it; and there the outcast, who has been stricken with some loathsome malady, and is not allowed to enter the dwellings of men, lays himself down begging an alms of the passers-by by day, and by night sheltering himself among the ashes which the heat of ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... looked at me earnestly, and mused a moment. 'All men are my sons,' quoth he then, very mildly; 'there is gold for thee! To him who begs once, alms are due; to him who begs twice, jails are open. Take the hint and molest me no more. Heaven bless thee!' With that he got into his coach, and drove off to the Vatican. His purse which he had left behind was well supplied. I was grateful and contented, and took my way to ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... of soul be with the queen! And pardon be with me though I speak truth. As I was going on peaceable men's wise Through your good town, desiring no man harm, A kind of shameful woman with thief's lips Spake somewhat to me over a thrust-out chin, Soliciting as I deemed an alms; which alms (Remembering what was writ of Magdalen) I gave no grudging but with pure good heart, When lo some scurril children that lurked near, Set there by Satan for my stumbling-stone, Fell hooting ...
— Chastelard, a Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... lulls asleep! the smiles of knaves Tent in my cheeks; and school-boys' tears take up The glasses of my sight! a beggar's tongue Make motion through my lips; and my arm'd knees, Who bow'd but in my stirrup, bend like his That hath receiv'd an alms!—I will not do't; Lest I surcease to honour mine own truth, And by my body's action teach my mind A most ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... several pictures; and so he did to many other friends; legacies, given rather to express his affection, than to make any addition to their estates: but unto the poor he was full of charity, and unto many others, who, by his constant and long continued bounty, might entitle themselves to be his alms-people: for all these he made provision, and so largely, as, having then six children living, might to some appear more than proportionable to his estate. I forbear to mention any more, lest the reader may think I trespass ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... their daily bread; but none who could not get well-paid work or find sufficient bread; and the abject element of ignorant, helpless, hopeless pauperism, looking for its existence to charity, and substituting alms-taking for independent labor, was unknown there. As for "visiting" among them, as technically understood and practiced by Englishwomen among their poorer neighbors, such a civility would have struck mine as simply incomprehensible; and though their curiosity might perhaps have ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... people attend the place, and that those who do go sit just in the quarter mentioned. At the doors of this church, as at those of other Catholic places of worship in the town, you may see men standing with boxes, asking for alms. These are brothers of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. The object of this society is to visit and relieve the sick and the poor. The brothers are excellent auxiliaries of the clergy; and, further, ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... irrepressible dread of a future existence, he strictly performed his "aposaka"[2] vows, practised the virtue of non-procrastination, acquired the "dathanga,"[3] and caused books to be written, and image and alms-edifices to be formed. ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... Criterion Restaurant an enormously fat and white bookmaker in a curly hat and diamonds muttered remarks into the ear of an unshaven music-hall singer. A gigantic "chucker-out" observed them with the dull gaze of sullen habit, and a beggar-boy whined to them in vain for alms, then fluttered into obscurity. Fixed with corner stones upon the wet pavement of the "island" lay in an unwinking row the contents bill of the evening papers, proclaiming in gigantic black or red letters the facts of suicide, slander, divorce, murder, railway accidents, ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... the last degree, he suffers all extremes of heat and cold, sleeps upon a bed of ashes, and sits moodily beneath the burning mid-day sun, lives on charity while scorning usually to ask for alms, and bears the reputation of a saint while reducing himself to the very level of the ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... make a jeering remark to the effect that the alleged piety of the Dooley family had not penetrated to the Archey Road representative, when a person, evidently of wayfaring habits, entered and asked for alms. Mr. Dooley arose, and, picking a half-dollar from the till, handed it to the visitor with great unconcern. The departure of the wayfarer with profuse thanks was followed ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... by all-devouring Time into his wallet as mere "alms for oblivion"; yet amongst all the sea-dogs who ever sailed beneath "the blood-red flag" no one ever less deserved that fate. Campbell, in "Ye Mariners of England," groups "Blake and mighty Nelson" ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... hands of the Priest a bag of gold coins, his portion as a younger son, part of which he gave to be distributed in alms, part he still confided to Father Cyril's keeping, and the rest he was to take away for present needs—and they parted for the last night of his brief stay at ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... humming a gipsy melody between his teeth, while a dog that was harnessed to the cart lay panting hard by. On the threshold stood a girl dressed in rags, with features of faded beauty, and with outstretched hand she asked alms of Elisabeth. ...
— Immensee • Theodore W. Storm
... seemed half angry, half piteous. Ralph knew that the Leper was before him, and though he loathed to fly before so miserable a wretch, he turned and hurried on into the forest; the creature screamed the louder, and it seemed as though he were asking an alms, but he hobbled so slowly on his thick legs, foully bandaged with rags, that Ralph soon distanced him, and he heard the wretch stop and fall to cursing. This sad and fearful encounter made Ralph sick ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... numerous and very well known infant asylums, never failed to attend mass at one o'clock on Sundays, gave alms for herself directly, and for the world by means of an abbe, the ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... America, the whole population is equestrian. No man goes to visit his next door neighbour on foot; and even the beggars in the street ask alms on horseback. A French traveller being solicited for charity by one of these mounted petitioners, at Buenos Ayres, makes the following entry in his note-book.—"16th November. Saw a beggar this morning, who asked alms of me, mounted on a tall grey horse. The English have a proverb, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various
... the glowing June day was softened to a tender twilight. A curve in the lane brought them suddenly to an old gateway, with a crumbling stone bench in a nook beside it—a bench where the wayfarer used to sit and wait for alms, when the site of Les Tourelles was occupied by ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... the Lord's Cross, permitted the Christians to leave Egypt with all their belongings, and commanded all prisoners to be set free, so that at that time 30,000 captives were released. He also commanded his subjects to sell food to the rich and give alms to the poor and the sick." Occasionally the pope entered into an alliance with the enemies of Christendom against the emperor, if the latter proved troublesome. A.D. 1246 the Sultan of Egypt (Malek as Saleh Ejul) ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... on through the mud and rain, we overtook a poor lad painfully limping along with the help of a stick. He was a bright lad, who unbound his leg and showed me a large swelling above the knee. He spoke to me, though I did not understand him, but with sturdy independence did not ask for alms, and when I had seen his leg he bound it up again and limped on. Meeting him a little later at an inn, where he was sitting at a table with nothing before him to eat, I gave him a handful of cash which I had put in my pocket for him. He thanked me by raising his clasped ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... and educated I had always had my doubts concerning all "holy" wanderers who meander across the steppes collecting alms. Knowing much of the evil life lived in our Russian monasteries and convents, and the warm welcome given to every charlatan who grows his beard, forgets to wash, lifts his eyes heavenwards, and begs, I had, I confess at the outset, but ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... of the question, is: "Lying is sinful not only as harmful to our neighbor, but because of its own disorderliness. It is no more permitted to do what is disorderly [that is, contrary to the divine order of the universe] in order to prevent harm, than it is to steal for the purpose of giving alms, except indeed in case of necessity when all things are common property [when, for instance, the taking of needful food in time of a great disaster, as on a wrecked ship, is not stealing]. And therefore it is not allowable ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... hours. Hearing the well-known place, he could get no further, but sank down on the road, more dead than alive. A great many people passed—people rich and poor, on foot and in carriages, in clerical habit and in broadcloth; but not one gave alms, or even noticed, or had a kind word for the dying man at the roadside. There was not one good Samaritan among all the wayfarers ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... asked of his nearest neighbor, a young artificer; 'what now? Where are all these good folks thronging?' Does any rich patron give away alms or ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... "we are grieved enough to learn that he is not silenced." What these heresies preached by Petri were, appears from a polemic hurled at the young reformer by Brask's deacon. They include, among other things, a denial of the priest's authority to solicit alms, with assertions that men should place no faith in the Virgin or in other saints, but in God alone; that the priest's first duty is to preach, not pray, and that confession should be made to none but God. Surely ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... nothing ever seemed bleak, though in long hot droughts it was arid. But there were always temples, and palaces, and picturesque huts, and women and children in gay attire, old men kneeling somewhere, praying but keeping a sharp lookout for alms. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... had she many days Of sorrow in the world, but never wept. She lived on alms, and carried in her hand Some withered stalks she gathered in the spring. When any asked the cause she smiled, and said They were her sisters, and would come and watch Her grave when she was dead. She never spoke Of ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... of victims, or libations of some juice. Nor did these early Hindus take much thought of a future life. There is nothing in the Rig-Veda of a belief in the transmigration of souls[4], although the Vedic bards seem to have had some hope of immortality. "He who gives alms," says one poet, "goes to the highest place in heaven: he goes to the gods[5].... Where there is eternal light, in the world where the sun is placed,—in that immortal, imperishable world, place me, O Soma! ... Where there is happiness ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... give you alms! God will give you alms!" was Nadezhda's reply as, turning pale, she flung out her arms in the old woman's direction. "You see, a terrible thing has happened—our timber lands have caught fire. You must ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... the matter to a third party. No one to whom I spoke seemed to have any sympathy for the broken-down old man. Shocked by this indifference, I went to one of the county officers, who, on learning the condition of Judge Hammond, took immediate steps to have him removed to the Alms-house, some miles distant. ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... offerings of money flowed in. Those who had and those who lacked knocked at M. Myriel's door,—the latter in search of the alms which the former came to deposit. In less than a year the Bishop had become the treasurer of all benevolence and the cashier of all those in distress. Considerable sums of money passed through his hands, but nothing could induce him to ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... obsequiously when in actual solid wealth they are the veriest paupers. No wonder men think there ought to be another world, in which the injustices of this may be atoned for, when they see the friends of ruined families begging the wealthy sharpers to give alms to prevent the orphaned victims from starving, until they may ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... more because he thought he did it well than (as she supposed) from a desire to curry favour. He was ill-bred, but he was not mean; he was a vaunter but not a coward; he demanded adherence and did not beg alms. This was the attitude of his mind, but unhappily it was often apparently contradicted by the cringing of his body and the wheedling of his tongue. In attempting smoothness he fell into oiliness; where he aimed at polished brilliance, the result was blazing varnish. Had ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... one ought to give copper if the need is very pressing; if not so pressing, one gives small silver, and so on up. But here was an instance which involved a more extended application of alms. 'You know,' I told him, while I was doing my sum in mental arithmetic, 'there are the Mills hotels, where you can get a bed for twenty-five cents; I don't remember whether they throw in breakfast or not.' I felt a certain squalor in my attitude, which was not relieved by the air ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... general of the order, was away preaching. After the death of St Francis all Christendom crowded to visit the body of a man, who, both in life and in death, was known to have been so much beloved of God. As every man did alms to the saint according to his ability, it was determined that the church begun by friar Elias should be made much larger and more magnificent. But since there was a scarcity of good architects, and as the work demanded an excellent one, it being necessary ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... seldom pain. And when at last it is perceived that such pity cannot lead to effectual succor, common sense bids the soul rid of it. What I saw that morning persuaded me that the scrivener was the victim of innate and incurable disorder. I might give alms to his body; but his body did not pain him; it was his soul that suffered, and his soul ...
— Bartleby, The Scrivener - A Story of Wall-Street • Herman Melville
... gave him to know that he was a man of the people of Allah[FN85] who had rejected the world seeking acceptance of Allah and who went wandering over earth and entering every city and hamlet, whilst all the folk he met gave him alms according to their competence. "I entered this thy city" (continued he), "hoping that the folk would deal kindly and graciously with me as with others of my condition,[FN86] but thy followers stopped me and stripped me of one of my gowns and loaded ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... Hiram," answered the nomarch, "a prince of Tyre, a man of great charity. Every day he distributes bountiful alms, therefore poor people rush ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... picturesque sight to see the daily procession of priests and novices, each carrying a bowl in which to receive the offerings of food so willingly given by the inmates of the houses they visit. No request for alms is ever made, nor any word of thanks spoken, for such gifts are freely offered by a people who believe in their religion, and do so as an ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly |
