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Impurity   Listen
noun
Impurity  n.  (pl. impurities)  
1.
The condition or quality of being impure in any sense; defilement; foulness; adulteration. "Profaneness, impurity, or scandal, is not wit."
2.
That which is, or which renders anything, impure; foul matter, action, language, etc.; a foreign ingredient. "Foul impurities reigned among the monkish clergy."
3.
(Script.) Lack of ceremonial purity; defilement.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Impurity" Quotes from Famous Books



... "this is good to see," he says of a purity, of a fair thing. It needs not to speak of the impurity, of the ugliness. Left unmentioned, unforbidden, who knows how soon they might die out of men's lives, perhaps even from the earth's surface? Men hedging gardens have for centuries set plants under that "letter of law" which "killeth," until the very word hedge has become a pain and an ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson

... undoubtedly true; yet we are not to consider them as simply a sanitary code. They reached to the inner man. Through these physical distinctions of clean and unclean God educated the people to an apprehension of the difference between moral purity and impurity. ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows

... Catau (his name for the Empress) loves the philosophers, her husband will suffer for it with posterity.' At the same time, she respected him more than Frederick, and her letters were never disgraced by any impurity. She offered D'Alembert to intrust him with the education of her only son, and to settle on him a pension of 50,000 francs (L2000). She flattered Diderot, and sent him a present of 66,000 francs (L2400). ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... it within them, with abhorrency. I would think if we were circumspect in this, the worse the world is, we might be the better, the worse the times are, we might spend it better, the more pride we see, it might make us the more humble, the more impiety and impurity abound, it might provoke us to a further distance from, and disconformity with, the world. Thus, if we were wise, we might extract gold out of the dunghill, and suck honey out of the most poisonable weed. The surrounding ignorance and wickedness of the world might cause a holy antiperistasis(194) ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... compares the seat of the desires to the women's quarters, the seat of the passions to the men's quarters, in a house. The spleen, again, is the napkin of the internal organs, by whose excretions it is saturated from time to time, and swells to a great size with inward impurity. "After this," he continues, "they shrouded the whole with flesh, throwing it forward, like a cushion, as a barrier against injuries from without." The blood he terms the pasture of the flesh. "To assist the process of nutrition," he goes on, "they ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus

... be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, not to break one of the least of the commandments, not to give way to anger, not to tolerate the thought of impurity, to give no rash promises, or in conversation to say more than yea or nay. The spirit of retaliation is not to be indulged in; a yieldingness of spirit is to characterise the child of the kingdom; ...
— A Ribband of Blue - And Other Bible Studies • J. Hudson Taylor

... death, which had bereaved me of him: and I imagined it would speedily make an end of all men, since it had power over him. Thus was it with me, I remember. Behold my heart, O my God, behold and see into me; for well I remember it, O my Hope, who cleansest me from the impurity of such affections, directing mine eyes towards Thee, and plucking my feet out of the snare. For I wondered that others, subject to death, did live, since he whom I loved, as if he should never die, was ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine

... esteem of those whose approbation he values, he will submit to much personal exertion, and sacrifice much selfish advantage, which others might deem highly worthy of attainment. But all this may go on without any recognition of divine authority; and may all exist in a man in whom there is much impurity of desire, and much deficiency of moral feeling. It is all referable to a motive of a personal nature, and, in the gratification of this, his ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie

... Christian Treason and through heathen Treachery, through guile and through wile, through lawlessness and awelessness, through Murder of Friends and Murder of Foes, through broken Troth and broken Truth, through wedded unchastity and cloistered impurity. Little they trow of marriage vow, as ere this I said: little they reck the breach of oath or troth; swearing and for-swearing, on every side, far and wide, Fast and Feast they hold not, Peace and Pact they keep not, oft and anon. Thus in this land they stand, Foes to Christendom, ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen

... though their temple had no Beautiful Gate, it was none the less a temple, consecrated to the Most High. Within it, day and night, the sacred fire burned, the sacred Presence rested. There, honor, justice, devotion, and all heroic virtues dwelt. Thence falsehood, impurity, profanity, whatsoever loveth and maketh a lie,—were excluded. They are unsuccessful, because they will not lower the standard which their youth unfurled. Its folds float high above them, out of reach, but not out of sight, nor out of desire. With constant ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... stated that 84,000 gallons per day can be easily purified by an apparatus 7 feet in diameter. The chemicals used are chiefly lime, soda, and alumina, and the cost of treatment is stated to vary from a farthing to twopence per 1,000 gallons, according to the degree of impurity of the water ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various

... meditation of impurity, in which you consider the evil consequences of corruption, the effects of sin and diseases. How trivial often the pleasure of the moment, and ...
— The Way of Peace • James Allen

... renders that amiable which religion and reason alike teach us to detest, or clothes impurity in the garb of virtue, like Beaumont and Fletcher." Much of the work of their contemporary dramatists is marred by such blemishes. Unpleasant as are numbers of these plays, they are less insidious than many which have appeared on the stage in ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... repeat more of his audacious and exasperating falsehoods? Let us close fittingly with this one: he affirms that "in the mosque of St. Sophia at Constantinople I got my feet so stuck up with a complication of gums, slime, and general impurity, that I wore out more than two thousand pair of bootjacks getting my boots off that night, and even then some Christian hide peeled off with them." It is monstrous. Such statements are simply lies—there is no other name for them. Will the reader ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... virulent and hostile if they happened to have left the body of one who was ceremonially impure. The most terrible ghost in Babylonia was that of a woman who had died in childbed. She was pitied and dreaded; her grief had demented her; she was doomed to wail in the darkness; her impurity clung to her like poison. No spirit was more prone to work evil against mankind, and her hostility was accompanied by the most tragic sorrow. In Northern India the Hindus, like the ancient Babylonians, regard as a fearsome demon the ghost of a woman who died while pregnant, ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... should we recognise impurity? It is light which makes us understand what darkness is. Many people not discerning in themselves certain particular vices think that they possess the opposite virtues, and ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus

... darling. Listen to this verse about the City. "There shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth." No one can be allowed in if they are stained with sin, no dirt, no impurity. We must have had our hearts washed white before we can go in. Only Jesus can do this; but we must not think that is all we have to do. What makes our ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre

... and the constant thought of unity. When you are trying to live the life of the Spirit, you will try to be pure. You do well, but why? In order that you may be pure, and leave your impure brethren in their impurity? Oh no! You must try to be pure, in order that there may be more purity in the world to share amongst all men, because you are pure. You are not wanting to be purer than others, but only gathering purity that you may spread it in every direction, ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant

... Roger sobbed on. "I thought the reason she didn't come to my meeting this evening was that she was ashamed to see her son professing Jesus. I thought hardly of her for not bringing you two along as she promised, because I didn't see you weren't there, and I preached on the sin of impurity specially for you, and it was a real sacrifice for me to do it, because the officers thought it was a forward subject for me to choose, and it my first service here. I had to wrestle to ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... revellers—phantoms who attend such wassail, and keep the ladle of the punch-bowl clinking, the tongue of the songster glib and tuneful, and the general mirth alive and furious. A few honest folk, with the gift of a second sight in such matters, discover their uncanny presence—leprous impurity, insane blasphemy, and the stony grin of unearthly ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... pitch of art. The strong man and the odd man and the boy man, brothers in Bohemianism, brothers in art, brothers in love for youth and beauty; the girl, the fair, the kind, the for-ever-desirable, pure in impurity, and sacred even in shame; the dingy evil genius who gibbers in Yiddish to the God he denies; the hopeless, devoted musician, whose spirit in a previous existence answered to the name of Bowes; the mother who makes the appeal that so many parents have made on behalf of ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood

... our every effort to obliterate those evils which tend to destroy our character and our homes, such as intemperance, gambling, and social impurity. ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various

... then, is this. What is it that induces boils in one person and not in another under identical circumstances? The answer is obvious. The boil is not a local disease at all, but is a manifestation of some constitutional defect, or of some impurity of the blood stream, which enables this microbe to ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various

... the vow not to kill; not to steal; to abstain from impurity; not to lie; to abstain from intoxicating drinks which hinder progress and virtue; not to eat at forbidden times; to abstain from dancing, singing, music and stage plays; not to use garlands, scents, unguents, or ornaments; ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins

... meditation is continually working upon nothing but impurity which he knows to be so odious to Almighty God, what can he say when he comes to speak to Him? He draws back, but immediately falls into a relapse. If the object of divine justice and the presence of his Maker did, as he pretends, strike and chastise his soul, how short soever the repentance ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... zincs for batteries a separate crucible, used only for zinc, is very desirable, as the presence of a very small amount of lead or other impurity will cause the batteries to polarize. A very good way to make the binding posts is to remove the binding posts from worn-out dry batteries and place them in the molds in such a way that the melted ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... monastery, he could fast the whole week cheerfully. "Vain-glory is the reason," replied the saint; "fasting pleases, when men see you; but seems intolerable when that passion is not gratified."[11] One came to consult him, who was molested with temptations to impurity: the saint, examining into the source, found it to be sloth, and advised him never to eat before sunset, to meditate fervently at his work, and to labor vigorously, without sloth, the whole day. The other faithfully complied, and was freed from his enemy. God revealed to St. Macarius, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... stigmatized Darwin as a "pedant," and evolution as "gloomy". Monseigneur Segur, referring to Darwin and his followers, went into hysterics and shrieked: "These infamous doctrines have for their only support the most abject passions. Their father is pride, their mother impurity, their offspring revolutions. They come from hell and return thither, taking with them the gross creatures who blush not to proclaim ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... of Puebla, is consecrated to their support, under the supervision of the bishop. That smoking mountain, that outlet to infernal fires, is so lose at hand as to suggest the idea that this whole mass of impurity and moral rottenness may have been vomited up from the bottomless pit, or that the fallen angels, in their way thitherward, tarried here to found a sacred city, see its Cathedral finished, and then led the way down the inclined ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... turpentine-like smell. Genuine amber is to be obtained generally of the tobacconists, who have often broken mouth-pieces by them: old necklaces, now out of use, are sold at a very moderate price by the jewellers. The amber of commerce, used in varnish-making, contains so much impurity that the waste of chloroform renders it very undesirable to use. The amber should be pounded in a mortar, and, to an ounce by measure of chloroform, add a drachm and a half of amber (only about one-fourth of it will be dissolved), and this requires two days' maceration. It should be ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853 • Various

... time had come, he drank the hemlock as if it had been a cup of wine: he then walked up and down the room for a little while, bade his pupils remember that this was the real deliverance from all disease and impurity, and then, as the fatal sleep benumbed him, he lay down, bidding Krito not forget a vow he had made to one of the gods; and so he slept into death. "Thus," said Plato, "died the man who, of all with whom ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge

... State.—The ancient idea of the state was that it was everything and the individual nothing. The first question was, "Is the state strong and prosperous?" The happiness or unhappiness of the individual was not considered. The purity or impurity of the life of the individual was of little consequence. The citizens existed for the state and to serve it and its ruler. This idea has lingered long and is not ...
— Studies in the Life of the Christian • Henry T. Sell

... sharply marked in the Gathas; the writers continually harp upon it, their minds are evidently struck with this sad antithesis which colors the whole moral world to them; they see everywhere a struggle between right and wrong, truth and falsehood, purity and impurity; apparently they are blind to the evidence of harmony and agreement in the universe, discerning nothing anywhere but strife, conflict, antagonism. Nor is this all. They go a step further, and personify the two parties to the struggle. One is a "white" or holy "Spirit" (cpento mainyus), and ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson

... we always strive independently of circumstances. But at the same time just this aim demands the greatest efforts of us; and so, led astray by pride, losing sight of this aim, we occupy ourselves either with the mystery which in our impurity we are unworthy to receive, or seek the reformation of the human race while ourselves setting an example of baseness and profligacy. Illuminism is not a pure doctrine, just because it is attracted by social ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... this character is not purity, as I have just established it cannot be in argument with Plato himself, it is conceivable it may be impurity, which impurity is the necessary condition of all existing things. For have we not just seen how the pure has neither life nor consciousness? And you must yourself, I trow, have learned amply from experience ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France

... of the eighteen-forties (they are now no longer to be found) who while deliberately and without any conscientious scruples condoning impurity in themselves, required ideal and angelic purity in their women, regarded all unmarried women of their circle as possessed of such purity, and treated them accordingly. There was much that was false and harmful in this outlook, as concerning the laxity the men permitted themselves, but in regard ...
— Father Sergius • Leo Tolstoy

... from bad to good, and from good to better, and from better to best, he might give example and instruction, which, from truer testimony, no one could receive. Therefore, if either of these reasons excuse me, the bread of my moulding is sufficiently cleared from its first impurity. ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri

... proposed. He was ever careful to keep the Provinces of Holland and Zeeland safe from every foreign master. That spot was to be holy ground. Not out of personal ambition. God forbid that they, should accuse his memory of any such impurity, but because he wished one safe refuge for the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... experimentally examined. Platina plates (569.) having no action on mixed oxygen and hydrogen, being boiled in a solution of caustic potassa, washed, and then put into the gases, were found occasionally to act pretty well, but at other times to fail. In the latter case I concluded that the impurity upon the surface of the platina was of a nature not to be removed by the mere solvent action of the alkali, for when the plates were rubbed with a little emery, and the same solution of ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday

... well as for yourselves. Many careful writers, among others the Head Master of Haileybury, recommend, as a great safeguard, the teaching to children, before knowledge is conveyed to them from impure sources, the simple facts of life. "They are innocent," says the latter writer, "of impurity, indescribably eager for wholesome knowledge, perfectly trustful of their parents, and, though self-absorbed, are capable of being easily trained to a tone of mind to which sympathy is congenial and cruelty abhorrent. Such a description is literally true of ...
— The After-glow of a Great Reign - Four Addresses Delivered in St. Paul's Cathedral • A. F. Winnington Ingram

... white; it will make truth fictitious; it will lead to temptation,—to death. Says Miss Yonge, "If every modest woman or girl would abstain from such books as poison, and never order or read one which makes crime and impurity prominent, or tampers with dilemmas about the marriage vow, there would be fewer written and published, and less wildfire would be spread abroad." Shun the romances which centre all in a false, unnatural affection. ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder

... understanding will follow. Not anxious to know our duty, or knowing it and not doing it, how shall we understand that which only a true heart and a clean soul can ever understand? The power in us that would understand were it free, lies in the bonds of imperfection and impurity, and is therefore incapable of judging the divine. It cannot see the truth. If it could see it, it would not know it, and would not have it. Until a man begins to obey, the light that is in ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald

... a plant that has grown from one seed; it is like a lake that has been fed by countless springs. It is a great pool of living water, mingled from many sources and tainted with much impurity. It is synthetic in its nature; it becomes simpler from ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells

... our works, but that this inchoate fulfilling of the Law pleases on account of faith, and that, on account of faith, there is no imputation of the imperfection of the fulfilling of the Law, even though the sight of our impurity terrifies us. Now, if justification is to be sought elsewhere, our love and works do not therefore justify. Far above our purity, yea, far above the Law itself ought to be placed the death and satisfaction of Christ, presented to us that we might be sure that because of ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon

... century are Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon. Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is a monument of masterly ability and of vast research; a work, however, marred by a want of naturalness in style, and, still more, by a lack of religious faith and reverence, and by impurity of tone and allusion. Hume's style is one of his chief claims to esteem as an historian; for he was indolent in his researches, and prejudiced in his views. He merited distinction chiefly as an ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... sense of the value of dirt; cottage children never appear but in fresh got-up caps and aprons, and white-handed beggars excite compassion in unexceptionable rags. In reality, almost all the colors of things associated with human life derive something of their expression and value from the tones of impurity, and so enhance the value of the entirely pure tints of nature herself. Of Stanfield's rock and mountain drawing enough will be said hereafter. His foliage is inferior; his architecture admirably drawn, but commonly wanting in color. His picture of the Doge's palace at Venice was quite clay-cold ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... girl. I saw a gracious lady, knowing life, and being yet pure, having learned of good and evil only to remember the good. For the knowledge of evil is like vaccine—it causes disturbance only when hidden impurity awaits it. ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman

... during the next five days, owing, it was believed by Noddy, to the influence of his daughter, who had the courage to speak the truth to him. Shortly after the departure of the Roebuck, it had been ascertained that, from some impurity in the casks, the water on board was not fit for use; and the captain decided to put into Barbadoes and procure a fresh supply. When the schooner took a pilot, on the twelfth day out, it was found that the yellow fever was making terrible ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic

... have been loving, and pure, and noble, and brave, and self-sacrificing, shall be there. All who have been cleansed by the blood of Christ from the defilements of sin, and strengthened by the power of Christ against the enticements of sin, shall be there. There shall be no drunkenness nor impurity there, nor hatred, nor emulation, nor ill temper, nor selfishness, nor meanness. Ah! it is worth hoping for. We poor strugglers who hate ourselves and are so dissatisfied with ourselves, who look from afar at the lovely ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth

... amorous beauty! when she displays her dainty outline, her richly ornamented form, and chatters gaily with the foolish man! Ah, then! what perturbation and what evil thoughts, not seeing underneath the sorrows of impermanence, the impurity, the unreality! Considering these as the ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng

... habitation and status of the soul as Garden of Eden (Paradise) and Gehenna.[78] The former expression is intended to suggest happiness, there being nothing pleasanter in the world than a garden. The term Gehenna is associated in the Bible with Tofteh, which was a place of impurity not far from the Temple. In reality, however, God will create a substance which will combine light and heat in such a way that the righteous will enjoy the light only, while the wicked will be tortured by the heat. All this Saadia infers ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik

... a needle, or put a drop of acid in the water, the whole body at once contracts in consequence of this mechanical or physical stimulus. As a rule, the body then resumes its globular shape. In certain circumstances—for instance, if the impurity of the water lasts some time—the amoeba begins to develop a covering. It exudes a membrane or capsule, which immediately hardens, and assumes the appearance of a round cell with a protective membrane. The amoeba either takes its food directly by imbibition of matter floating in the water, ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.1. • Ernst Haeckel

... in a figure as original and as impossible to forget, for any one who has ever felt the savage fascination of its presence, as any of the humaner figures evoked and immortalized by Shakespeare. The rage of Swift, without his insanity and impurity, seems to utter in every word the healthier if no less consuming passion of a heart lacerated by indignation and envenomed by contempt as absolute, as relentless, and as inconsolable as his own. And in the very torrent of ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... things done without God are only gross errors, illusions and seductions, serving but to show how much the heart of the doer is full of presumption, falsehood and impurity. ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch

... begin by denying yourselves your natural wishes,—a painful work; by refraining from sin, by rousing from sloth, by preserving your tongue from insincere words, and your hands from deceitful dealings, and your eyes from beholding vanity; by watching against the first rising of anger, pride, impurity, obstinacy, jealousy; by learning to endure the laugh of irreligious men for Christ's sake; by forcing your minds to follow seriously the words of prayer, though it be difficult to you, and by keeping before you the thought ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman

... boldness, it seemed. She told Sally what he had said. She told her things and things in the irresistible splurge of the silly girl whose mind is full of adolescent impurity. Well, Sally knew all that. She knew all the things that boys said; and a few more things she had noticed and thought for herself. She was not a prude. May didn't know anything that Sally did not know; but she talked about it. Sally did not ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton

... others sought its author for advice as to how to cope best with their more hot-headed enemy Martin Luther. We must also remember that we are told that Colet "was not very hard on priests and monks who only sinned with women. He did not make light of impurity, but thought it less criminal than spite and malice and envy and vanity and ignorance. The loose sort were at least made human and modest by their very faults, and he regarded avarice and arrogance as blacker sins in a priest than a hundred concubines." This ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore

... consists the divinity of the Brahmanas? In what their purity? In what their impurity? And in what their ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... the common people to such a pitch of licentious indecency, as must be a reproach to every civilized nation. Let it not be affirmed, to the disgrace of Great Britain, that such receptacles of vice and impurity subsist under the connivance of the government, according to the narrow views and confined speculation of those shallow politicians, who imagine that the revenue is increased in proportion to the quantity of strong liquors consumed in such infamous recesses of intemperance. Were this ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... omnipresent self, which crop out with varying degrees of prominence, in different persons, and under different circumstances. Notice only a few of these: In Galatians, fifth chapter, nineteenth verse: "The deeds of self are ... improper sexual intercourse, impurity, shameless looseness...." It will, wherever possible, debase the holiest functions of the body. In Colossians, third chapter, fifth verse, speaking of the "old man": "And covetousness, which is reckoning of highest worth that which is less worthy than God." ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon

... of Philomela, Progne, and Tereus, those who framed this termination of the story intended to depict the different characters of the persons whose actions are there represented. As the lapwing delights in filth and impurity, the ancients thereby portrayed the unscrupulous character of Tereus; and, as the flight of that bird is but slow, it shows that he was not able to overtake his wife and her sister. The nightingale, concealed in the woods ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... of the air, vary greatly in amount according to the extent to which the gases have been purified. London coal-gas, which was formerly purified to the highest degree practically attainable, used to contain on the average only 10 to 12 grains of sulphur per 100 cubic feet, and virtually no other impurity. But now coal-gas, in London and most provincial towns, contains 40 to 50 grains of sulphur per 100 cubic foot. At least 5 grains of ammonia per 100 cubic foot in also present in coal-gas in some towns. Crude acetylene also contains sulphur and ammonia, that coming from good quality calcium carbide ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield

... unite two things so opposed as the purity of God and the impurity of the creature, the simplicity of God and the multiplicity of the creature, God must operate alone; for this can never be done by the effort of the creature, since two things cannot be united unless there is some relation or resemblance ...
— A Short Method Of Prayer And Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon

... on to exhort them to avoid impurity and work quietly, and then he speaks of the eschatological difficulties. The Thessalonians wondered whether the Christians already dead would miss a share in the joy of Christ's second coming. St. Paul replies that those who are alive at Christ's appearing will have no advantage over the ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan

... commerce as muriate and sulphate of ammonia. The former, owing to its high price, is practically excluded from use as a manure; the latter sells at present at from L15 to L15: 10s. per ton, and, making allowance for the usual amount of impurity (5 or 6 per cent), the actual ammonia is worth about L63 per ton. Calculating from other substances it appears that ammonia is worth, ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson

... earth was the kingdom of light, and purity, and holiness, what could be more plain, than that below it was the kingdom of darkness, and impurity, and sin? That was no theory to our forefathers: it was a physical fact. Had not even the heathens believed as much, and said so, by the mouth of the poet Virgil? He had declared that the mouth of Tartarus lay in Italy, hard by the ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley

... But I do see things in the external world through my ideas of goodness or fulness that correspond to these ideas. They have some of the qualities the ideas embrace; and so I point them out and say, "This represents purity; that, impurity"; or, "This is full, that is empty." One satisfies my concept of purity, while the other does not. One fulfils my concept of fulness; the other does not. And because we can never point out any one quality in the outside world and say "This ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter

... and impurity he seems unscrupulously negligent. I have heard that he is a glutton and a wine-bibber. I have heard that he despises the washing of ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus

... points in Talmudic law, such as ablutions, the making and the use of Tefillin, the Zizit, the order of the Parashiot, the blessing of the priests, the ceremony of the Passover eve, the slaughter of animals, the case of diseased animals, impurity in women, etc. ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber

... do not think themselves degraded by printing in loathsome detail, and so bringing the foulness of a common sewer on to every breakfast-table in the kingdom, is in accordance with the organisation of society on Christian principles? Intemperance, social impurity, wide, dreary tracts of ignorance, degradation, bestiality, the awful condition of the lowest layer in our great cities, crushed like some crumbling bricks beneath the ponderous weight of the splendid superstructure, the bitter partisan spirit of politics, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... is an invaluable protection to men, as a restraining feeling. But the objects to which it properly attaches are wrong-doing, unkindness, discourtesy, to others, and, as regards ourselves, ignorance, imprudence, intemperance, impurity, and avoidable defects or misfortunes. While it confines itself to objects such as these, it is one of the sternest and, at the same time, most effective guardians of virtue and self-respect. But, as soon as a man begins to care about what others will say of circumstances not under his ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler

... and impurity felt the ever-present rebuke of his perfection and purity. Hence the world's hatred of the just and perfect Jesus, and the 52:12 prophet's foresight of the reception error would give him. "Despised and rejected of men," ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... different windows; and curtains of some rich material concealed the interior from the eyes of curious passengers. The place had an air of repose and secrecy; and Harry was so far caught with this spirit that he knocked with more than usual discretion, and was more than usually careful to remove all impurity from ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... of most dumb animals are far better developed than those of man. Hounds can trace footsteps over flat rocks, even though a shower has fallen in the interval; cats can see in the dark; rabbits hear sounds that men never hear; horses detect an impurity in water that a chemical analysis does not reveal, and homing pigeons would gain nothing by carrying a compass. And so I feel safe in saying that if any man were so good and perfect an animal that he had ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard

... enclosure with a stick in his hand, or with dusty shoes, or when carrying parcels, or to shorten his path.[6] They were especially scrupulous in watching that no one entered within the inner gates in a state of legal impurity. The women had an ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan

... other designs appear to be Giotto's own invention. Chastity, as a young woman, sits in a fortress surrounded by walls, and angels pay her devotion. On one side are laymen and churchmen led forward by S. Francis, and on the other Penance, habited as a hermit, driving away earthly love and impurity. S. Francis in glory is more conventional, as might be expected from ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies

... The idea of a woman like Hester being in any sense defiled by knowing what her Lord knows while she fills up what is left behind of the sufferings of Christ for her to suffer for the sake of his world, is contemptible. As wrong melts away and vanishes in the heart of Christ, so does the impurity she encounters vanish in the heart of the pure woman: it ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... were never thought of before, ulcers or eruptions where never a pimple existed, make you ask in wonder, if not in agony, the cause. This effect may come in various ways, but the cause is always impure blood. This impurity or blood poisoning produces Rheumatism, Debility, Neuralgia, Scrofula, Mercurial or Syphilitic Ulcers, ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham

... tells them "what to eat, drink, and avoid;" says that if they get drunk they must drop it off, that if they stuff and gormandise they will be a long while before reaching the kingdom of heaven; that they must avoid dishonesty, falsehood, impurity, and other delinquencies; and, furthermore, intimates that they won't get to any of the saints they have a particular liking for by a round of simple religious formality—that they must be good, do good, and behave themselves ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus

... leaf began to re-expand on the fourth day, and all were fully re-expanded on the sixth. The glands which had been in contact with the mucin were a little darkened. We may therefore conclude that a small amount of some impurity of a moderately exciting nature had been absorbed. That the mucin employed by me did contain some soluble matter was proved by Dr. Sanderson, who on subjecting it to artificial gastric juice found that in 1 hr. some was dissolved, but only in the proportion ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin

... it is almost a non-conductor of electricity. If any impurity is present it still presents an exceedingly high, almost immeasurable true resistance, but becomes by the presence of any impurity ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone

... immortality is assured to us by the mouth of God. It may be lost. With all its dignity and glory, it may be for ever crushed by the divine hand, but never destroyed. While, however, it may be lost, it may be saved. The grace which can calm its fears, and satisfy its hopes, and purge its impurity, and consummate its bliss is now manifested. How insignificant does everything appear when compared with its salvation. The blotting of the sun, the desolation of an universe is a trifle when put in the balance with an immortal spirit. Let the sceptic ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King

... heads in scorn of all that a man holds truest and best. We can afford to let them speak, if they please, even words of contempt and dishonor; we can afford to let them say that in laboring for our country we are groveling in mud and defiling our hands with impurity; but we cannot afford to let them steal our children from us, nor to submit to the pestilent influence of their corruption in our ranks. Those who would be of the republic must labor for the public good, instead of insolently asserting that there ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford

... earthquake to cleanse them from the land? Had he falsified the divine message to the people in his charge? Was he turning men's hearts from the worship of God? Was his priestly office disgraced by carelessness or drunkenness or impurity of life? ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... read here. Are you willing to think they are the word of God? I am not. Believe in a God if you will, but do not degrade him by accepting an interpretation of him that would do injustice to Mephistopheles! Have a religion if you desire, but demand that it be free from impurity and lies, and that it be just. Exercise faith if you must, but temper it wisely with reason. Do not allow ministers to tell you stories that are sillier than fairy tales, more brutal than barbaric warfare, and too unclean ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener

... second virtue, because it depends on time and accident, and things which the crystal cannot help. If it is cooled too quickly, or shaken, it must take what shape it can; but it seems as if, even then, it had in itself the power of rejecting impurity, if it has crystalline life enough. Here is a crystal of quartz, well enough shaped in its way; but it seems to have been languid and sick at heart; and some white milky substance has got into it, and mixed itself up with it, all through. It makes the quartz quite yellow, if you hold it up to the ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... steal into my family-circle, concealing this disgusting and disgraceful fact!—Hath he endeavored to engraft the impurity of his source on the untarnished stock of a noble and ancient family! There is something exceeding mere duplicity in this, Signor Grimaldi. There is a ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... Christian to stay in it long at a time. The Sunday-school is held there, and it is thought to be best to accustom the children to bad air before they go into the church. The poor little dears shouldn't have the wickedness and impurity of this world break on them too suddenly. If the stranger noticed any lack about our church, it would be that of a spire. There is a place for one; indeed, it was begun, and then the builders seem to have stopped, with the notion that it would grow itself from such a good root. It is ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... In the flesh of animals slaughtered whilst suffering acute inflammation or fever, the hollow fibres, or capillaries, as they are called, which form the substance of the lyer, are filled with congested and unassimilated animal fluid, which, from its impurity, gives the lyer a dark colour, and produces a tendency to rapid putrefaction. In a more advanced stage of such disease, serous, and sometimes purulent matter, is formed in the cellular tissues between the muscles of the flesh; and when such is the case, nothing can be more poisonous ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... do here and now declare that I will abstain from the use of all low or profane language; from the taking of the name of God in vain; and from all impurity, or from taking part in any unclean conversation, or the reading of any obscene book or paper at any time, in any company, or ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard

... villainy that can be named. Now reverse the order. Reasoning according to your own logic: while before you willingly witnessed, heard and uttered things shameful and unchaste, and sought lewdness, lending your bodies to it, let impurity now be distressing to your sight and hearing; let the body flee from it; be pure in words and works. All the members of the body, all its functions, are to be ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther

... preceding the day of ai-lolo was devoted to special services of dance and song. Some time after midnight the whole company went forth to plunge into the ocean, thus to purge themselves of any lurking ceremonial impurity. The progress to the ocean and the return they made in complete nudity. "Nakedness is the garb of the gods." On their way to and from the bath they must not look back, they must not turn to the right hand ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson

... a very extraordinary circumstance; one does not see why it should be. The common teleological explanation is, that it is to prevent the impurity of the blood resulting from the crossing of one species with another, but you see it does not in reality do anything of the kind. There is nothing in this fact that hybrids cannot breed with each other, to establish such a theory; there is nothing ...
— The Conditions Of Existence As Affecting The Perpetuation Of Living Beings • Thomas H. Huxley

... but had no knowledge of magnesia, and if it was an impurity like clay or sand, cutting down value per ton, and if it was worse because harmful, they ...
— Right Use of Lime in Soil Improvement • Alva Agee

... 'I am not to have the privilege of saying who shall and who shall not frequent my own drawing-room! I am not to save my servants and dependents from having their morals corrupted by improper conduct! I am not to save my own daughters from impurity! I will let you see, Mr Slope, whether I have the power or whether I have not. You will have the goodness to understand that you no longer fill any situation about the bishop; and as your room will be immediately ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... other needs, in addition to his intellectual wants, and that long before his intelligence is developed and satisfied, his pure and open spirit reflects the divine light. He is perhaps the Parsifal for whom we are waiting, depressed and sick at heart, while because of the impurity of our hands the dove can no longer descend in the Holy Grail towards the chalice filled with the ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori

... scouring, the wool is usually dusted by machines to remove all loose dirt. The scouring must be done by the mildest means possible in order to preserve the natural fluffiness and brilliancy of the fiber. The chief impurity is the wool grease or "yolk" which is secreted by the skin glands to lubricate the fiber and ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson

... one year. This son who is born unto thee will be left on the earth, and his three children will be saved with him, when all mankind that are on the earth shall die. And there will be a great punishment on the earth, and the earth will be cleansed from all impurity. And now make known to thy son Lamech that he who was born is in truth his son, and call his name Noah, for he will be left to you, and he and his children will be saved from the destruction which will come upon the earth." When Methuselah had heard the words ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... scheme. True that around our 450 European and Native officers, we have enlisted and drilled a force of several thousands of earnest soldiers of the Cross, who are pledged abstainers from all intoxicating liquors and drugs, who have renounced all forms of impurity and sin,—who have promised to devote their lives to the social, moral and spiritual regeneration of their fellow countrymen,—who are accustomed to pray and preach in their leisure hours, without being paid ...
— Darkest India - A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" • Commissioner Booth-Tucker

... drawing him thither, for New England offered advantages to men of unprosperous fortunes as well as to dissatisfied religionists, and Pearson had hitherto found it difficult to provide for a wife and increasing family. To this supposed impurity of motive the more bigoted Puritans were inclined to impute the removal by death of all the children for whose earthly good the father had been over-thoughtful. They had left their native country blooming like roses, and like roses they had perished in a foreign soil. Those ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne



Words linked to "Impurity" :   debasement, dirtiness, putridity, waste matter, adulteration, pollution, impureness, purity, taint



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