"Edifying" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to see everything that has part or lot in African frailty. Go everywhere, see everything. Bring your notes to me, and I will select such fragments of the broken commandments as suit my purpose, which is, as always, the edifying of the human race. Only this time I mean to ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... slipping up with him near the Marble Arch and giving him a nasty fall, he became incapacitated for a month. Sir W. Robertson thereupon called me in to act as locum tenens. From many points of view this proved to be a particularly edifying and instructive experience. One could not fail to be impressed with the smoothness with which the military side of the War Office was working under the system which Sir William had introduced, and one furthermore found oneself behind the scenes in respect ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... no means had been found, its methods were providentially chosen by a process of spiritual selection. Its agencies are the accretions of the Divine purpose in its progress toward the salvation of the undermost, and the edifying of the whole body of Christ. To the production of its unique Christian institutions the exclusive devotion to the study of the peculiar conditions of these entirely distinct communities was necessary. There have been generated by this ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... reality most impatient of his compulsory seclusion. His pretence of "composing himself as much as possible to tranquillity and repose" could deceive none of the intimate associates to whom he addressed himself in that edifying vein. While he affected to be blind and deaf to politics, he had eyes and ears for nothing else. Worldly affairs were his element, and he was shipwrecked upon the charming solitude which he affected to admire. He was most anxious to return to the world again, but he had difficult cards to play. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... he, Doctor?" sarcastically remarked Quick, who had been watching this edifying scene. "Nasty Eastern temper all gone; no Hebrew talk of eye for eye or tooth for tooth, but kisses the fist that smote him in the best Christian spirit. All the same, I wouldn't trust the swine further than I could kick him, especially in the dark, which," ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... et les annees suivantes. Par G. Lues d'Aramon, Ambassadeur de France a Constantinople. Paris, 1739. 3 vols. 4to.—This relates chiefly to the manners and customs; other pieces are contained in these volumes, which relate, in a manner more minute than important and edifying, the various journies in France, of the Kings of France, from Louis the ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... scholars of the said Hall, but by their means to all the students of the before-named university for ever, in the form and manner which the following chapter shall declare. Wherefore the sincere love of study and zeal for the strengthening of the orthodox faith to the edifying of the Church, have begotten in us that solicitude so marvellous to the lovers of pelf, of collecting books wherever they were to be purchased, regardless of expense, and of having those that could not ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury
... same time that it penetrated his good heart. All occasion for explanation and lectures vanished, for the Candidate had entirely renounced his dissipated friends and companions, and now nobody could talk more edifying than he on the subject. He agreed so cordially with Elise, that the fleeting champagne of the orgies foamed only for the moment, leaving nothing but emptiness and flatness behind. "For once, nay, for a few times," he was of opinion, ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... hour of death (and that with him chanced to be the largest share of it), he spent the remainder of his life, or seventy years, in the retirement of a recluse, when he was exemplary in his temperance and edifying in ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... learning and the arts, perpetually increasing, activity. The Grecian gods seem indeed to have been personally more innocent, although it cannot be said, that as far as temperance and chastity are concerned, they gave so edifying an example as their successor. The sublime human character of Jesus Christ was deformed by an imputed identification with a Power, who tempted, betrayed, and punished the innocent beings who were called ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... this moving address, Miss Lee extended one of her well-shaped hands to Mr. Pennington Brown—who grasped it warmly, for he was deeply moved by so edifying an exhibition of affectionate and dutiful unselfishness—and with the other applied her ...
— The Uncle Of An Angel - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... miracle-plays of England and France. Their great period was the fifty years from 1470 to 1520, and |147| they were performed, like the divozioni, by confraternities of religious laymen. The actors were boys belonging to the brotherhoods, and the plays were intended to be edifying for youth. They are more refined than the northern religious dramas, but only ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... righteousness above imputed righteousness" and "love above faith," and to use "some broad expressions as though in this life wee may be above ordinances"; and finally he notices that since Whichcote has "cast his sermons in this mould," they have become "less edifying" and "less affecting the heart."[16] He thinks, too, that he has discovered the foreign source of the infection: "Sir, those whose footsteppes I have observed [in your sermons] were the Socinians and ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... what the officers of the church of Christ are and why they are appointed. "And he gave some apostles; and some prophets; and some evangelists; and some pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." Deacons were also appointed to serve tables and assist in other ways (Acts 6:1-7; Phil, 1:1). The Apostles were personally commissioned by Christ (John 20:21-23; Acts 26: 16), miraculously inspired to teach (1 Cor. ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... and gave judgment in favour of Lady Pierrepoint, who happened to be in the right. Regardless of right or wrong, Lady Bradstone became more and more vehement, whilst Lady Pierrepoint sat in all the composed superiority of silence, maintaining the most edifying meekness of countenance imaginable, as if it were incumbent on her to be, or at least to seem, penitent for a sister's perversity. She sighed deeply when the tirade was finished, and fixed her eyes upon her beautiful niece Gabriella. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... more, we discern little that is edifying: a Constitutional Theory of Defective Verbs struggling forward, with perseverance, amid endless interruptions: Mirabeau, from his tribune, with the weight of his name and genius, awing down much Jacobin violence; which in return vents itself the louder ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... spectacle, edifying in its purport, or even a little distressing if one had no belief in a sense of humour, for there were moments of absurdity about it as there is sure to be in a room filled with any type of concerted egotism. But you did not forget the raison ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... been neither more friendly than Sir Walter, nor more discriminating, in speaking of Jonathan Wild and Smollett's Count Fathom in the same breath, as if they were similar either in purpose or in merit. Fathom is a romantic picaresque novel, with a possibly edifying, but most unnatural reformation of the villainous hero at the last; Jonathan Wild is a pretty consistent picaresque satire, in which the hero ends where Fathom by all rights should have ended,—on the gallows. Fathom is the weakest of all its author's novels; Jonathan Wild is not ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... people might come, indeed, from a distance,—geographically; but they would come out of a precisely corresponding little sphere in some other place, and fit right into this one, for the time being, with the most edifying sameness. ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... ages; all the parts of the volume called the Bible exhibit the clearest indications of unity of design. Each writer testifies to the "one faith," and each contributes something to its illustration. Thus it is that, even at the present day, every book in the canon is "good to the use of edifying." The announcements made to our first parents will continue to impart spiritual refreshment to their posterity of the latest generations; and the believer can now give utterance to his devotional feelings in the language of the Psalms, as ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... congregation; their attention to the sermon marked and riveted; sermon from St. Luke xv, verse 2, 'This Man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.' The exposition of chapter most vivid and instructive; never heard better, or so good; the application fervent and pointed; altogether, most edifying service." ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... self-discipline in the matter of the tongue, for all who name the Name of Christ. "For every idle word that men shall speak they shall give account" [Matt. xii. 36.]; "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but such as is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers" [Eph. iv. 29.]; "If any man among you seem to be devout ([Greek: threskos]), and bridleth not his tongue, that man's devoutness ([Greek: threkeia]) is vain" [Jas. i. 26.]; "Set a watch, O Lord, before my ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... writes blood-curdling romances in the vein of La Tosca, and goes in fear of the re-establishment of the Holy Office in Dublin and London. In view of the clamours about the severity of the bench in Ireland, it was edifying to find an Irish Judge astonished by the drastic decisions of our Courts in regard to the anarchists who were hanged at Chicago, after a thorough and protracted review of the law in their cases. He thought no Court ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... mostly of rude, uneducated people, must be interested in order that it may listen to the sermons; the homilies are therefore filled with legendary information concerning the Holy Land, with minute pictures of the devil and apostles, with edifying tales full of miracles. In the homilies of Blickling, the church of the Holy Sepulchre is described in detail, with its sculptured portals, its stained-glass and its lamps, that threefold holy temple, existing far away at the other extremity of the world, in the distant East.[123] This ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... him to turn Christian on the supposition of being his companion; and then gives him the slip. The neophyte's expressions on the occasion are not wholly edifying. ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... payments. The upshot of all this is that the police, if you persist in your schemes of revenge, will have in their hands all the proofs that are wanted against you and your brother. I might add, as an edifying piece of evidence, the story of the conversation which I overheard between your brother and yourself in a dining-car on the railway between Brest and Paris, a fortnight ago. But I feel sure that you will not drive me to adopt these ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... edifying instance turns upon Paris fashions. That Berlin, like Vienna, should seek to vie with Paris in setting the fashion of feminine finery to the world is conceivable and legitimate. But that Germans should compete with Paris in Paris fashions connotes ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... explain it to myself in that way frequently; but still it seems to me sometimes that I am like Chilo, and better in nothing than he. When he ceases to be needful to thee, send him to me. I have taken a fancy to his edifying conversation. A greeting from me to thy divine Christian, or rather beg her in my name not to be a fish to thee. Inform me of thy health, inform me of thy love, know how to love, teach how to love, ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... superb tree of Jesse, famous as the work of Engrand le Prince, about 1570 or 1580, in whose branches, among the fourteen ancestors of the Virgin, three-fourths bore features of the Kings of France, among them Francis I and Henry II, who were hardly more edifying than Kings of Israel, and at least unusual as sources of divine purity. Compared with the still more famous Tree of Jesse at Chartres, dating from 1150 or thereabouts, must one declare that Engrand le Prince proved progress? and in what direction? Complexity, Multiplicity, even a step towards Anarchy, ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... Clones, who was talking to me on Sabbath School work and missionary enterprise in a highly edifying manner, could only express her surprise about the poor of her own people who were doomed to the poor house, that they did not go in at once without struggle or fuss. And yet she had been a mother, and must have known what parting with children meant to a mother's ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... is longitude expressed in time—four minutes, we all know, representing one degree. This, briefly, is the principle on which longitude is found independent of chronometers. The work of the lunarian, though seldom practised in these days of chronometers, is beautifully edifying, and there is nothing in the realm of navigation that lifts one's heart up more ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... auxiliaries. In the treasury of the chief eunuch, which some time after there was occasion to open, was discovered an acknowledgment of many pounds of gold received by him from Cyril, through Paul, his sister's son. Nestorius was abandoned by the court, and eventually exiled to an Egyptian oasis. An edifying legend relates that his blasphemous tongue was devoured by worms, and that from the heats of an Egyptian desert he escaped only into the ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... intrusion of many strangers, who came to look upon them from motives of curiosity. The universal Yankee nation is a self-elected Investigating Committee, which never adjourns its sessions. This is amusing, and perhaps edifying, to their own inquiring minds; but William and A-lee-lah had Indian ideas of natural politeness, which made them regard such invasions as a breach ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... to ring down the curtain. The last days of the fair were not edifying. Scenes of riot and debauch, of violence and lawlessness disgraced the assembly. Its usefulness as a gathering for trade purposes had passed away. It became a nuisance and a disgrace to London. In older days the Lord Mayor used to ride in his grand coach to our old gateway, and there ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... of it, Amidon felt, was to come, as he could see no reason for making a secret of these very solemn and edifying matters. Stevens felt very much the same way about it, and was full of expectancy when informed that the next degree would test his obedience. He highly resolved to obey to ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... them but the unexpected, and that brings its joys and terrors, its laughter and its tears. Here a great deal of unrestrained human nature is given free play, and the results are exciting if not edifying. Let us spend an evening, but not a night—that is too much ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... with churches suitable for the public worship of our true religion, with convenient buildings for the habitation of their ministers—where they could practice the exercises of the monastic life, and whence issued the splendors of their edifying holiness to illumine the dark shades of idolatry and paganism, served as the original basis for the spread of the faith. After that, they continued to found many other villages dependent on the first, which were then considered as visitas or subject ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... kept the balance true between the poverty of riches and the riches of poverty? And isn't struggle a necessity to some of us? Look out for your digestion, and only look," he added, with a mock-heroic gesture, "at the majestic, thrice holy, and edifying appearance of this amiable capitalist's dining-room. That man has in reality only made his money for our benefit. Isn't he a kind of sponge of the polyp order, overlooked by naturalists, which should be carefully squeezed before he is left for his heirs to feed upon? There ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... covered by such a roof, that we were not quite throwing away our time. Albert B—— dined with us, and in the evening, with one accord, we went to hear Dr. Hamilton again. We had good seats and heard a most beautiful as well as edifying discourse on the first verses of the 103d Psalm. Some of the images were very fine, and the whole tone of the sermon was moderate, sensible, and serious. I use these words advisedly, for I had an impression that he was a flowery, ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... Ireland used the cut-off ends of old rent rolls. He next bought up quantities of old fly-leaves of books, and on this ancient paper he indicted a sham confession of faith, which he attributed to Shakespeare. Being a strong "evangelical," young Mr. Ireland gave a very Protestant complexion to this edifying document. And still the critics gaped and ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... This edifying incident, which was explained to me solely by sound, had scarcely come to an end when a noise of creaking boards drew my eyes to the other window. The shutter suddenly flew around, and a human figure swung in at the open casing. Astonishment at this singular ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... God, containing a true history of facts, in which we are deeply concerned—a true recital of the laws given by God to Moses, and of the precepts of our blessed Lord and Saviour, delivered from his own mouth to his disciples, and repeated and enlarged upon in the edifying epistles of his Apostles; who were men chosen from amongst those who had the advantage of conversing with our Lord, to bear witness of his miracles and resurrection—and who, after his ascension, were assisted and inspired by the ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... into lecture, a luxury the worthy soldier loved greatly to indulge, for much had he seen and somewhat had he reflected; and valuing himself, which was odd in a corporal, more on his knowledge of the world than his knowledge even of war, he rarely missed any occasion of edifying a patient listener with ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Creator, and of the reverence and gratitude that man owes to him, than the stupid texts of the Bible and the Testament, from which, be the talents of the preacher; what they may, only stupid sermons can be preached. If man must preach, let him preach something that is edifying, and from the texts that are ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... of truth in all that. Of course, I could give you a very different notion of how those things hung together. Perhaps they knew a few more of these edifying anecdotes. ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... Alan Brandir (if indeed he were dead) and the connection of Marwood de Whichehalse with the dealings of the Doones, and the threats of Carver Doone against my own prosperity; and, may be, one or two little things harrowing more than edifying. ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... follows a hushing up and wiping up among the juvenile population, and a series of remarks commences from the various shelves of a very edifying and instructive tendency. One says that the woman did not seem to know where anything was; another says that she has waked them all up; a third adds that she has waked up all the children, too; and the elderly ladies make moral reflections ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... more sanity than the papists, in that his allegories conform to moral standards, as a rule. Yet, he ought to have kept in view the rule laid down by Paul, who demands that prophesy is to be the guardian of faith; for faith is edifying and the proper sphere of the Church. Rules governing morals can be laid by even heathen philosophers who know nothing whatever ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... under arms, and the Capuchin, who is not martially inclined, was so alarmed at this indication of resistance, that he has left the town with more haste than ceremony.—He had, in an harangue at the cathedral, inculcated some very edifying doctrines on the division of property and the right of pillage; and it is not improbable, had he not withdrawn, but the Amienois would have ventured, on this pretext, to arrest him. Some of them contrived, in spite of the centinel placed at the lodging of these great men, to paste up on the door ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... and the displays of learning relieve the general monotony, while considerable intellectual energy is displayed in the discussions; but to see a conclave of learned professors devoting their time to the examination and discussion of Aristotle's writings is about as edifying as to see a geographical society devoting its time to discussing ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... that, after the first novelty, things seemed pretty much the same as before. Bessie Osbourne was not so different from Bessie Hall. She might have appreciated that as significant; but doubtless she had never heard the edifying jingle of the unfortunate youth who "wandered over all the earth" without ever finding "the land where he would like to stay," and all because he was injudicious enough to take "his disposition with him everywhere he went." It was as if she had been going in a circle from right to left, and, ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... Joseph, the Virgin Mary, Watkin the funny man, and the Prophetess well stricken in years, proceed to forward four, and end with a promenade all around. Indeed, our ancestors seem to have found it edifying, not to say entertaining, to go to a cathedral to see Satan and an Archbishop dance a hornpipe with the Seven Deadly Sins ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... talk over the matter further. Your project attracts me enormously. But in the meantime go back to the Orphanage and put everything tidy and light the lights, so that the occasion may seem a little solemn. And then we will spend a little edifying time together, my dear Engstrand, for now I am sure you are in a ...
— Ghosts - A Domestic Tragedy in Three Acts • Henrik Ibsen
... with the scrutinio, or, as we should term it, the ballot. Each cardinal writes his own name and that of his candidate on a ticket. Then, with many ceremonies and genuflections, not very edifying to profane eyes, if profane eyes were permitted to see them, but each of which has its mystical interpretation, he ascends to the altar and lays his ticket on the communion-plate, whence it is transferred to the chalice,—communion-plate ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... him with Master Brinsmead, who was well-known all along the road, to partake of his family supper. If good old Will found a fitting opportunity, he would on such occasions suggest reading a chapter in the Bible, which he expounded in his own peculiar phraseology, in a clear and edifying manner, never failing to offer up a fervent prayer that a blessing might rest on the house of his entertainers, that his honoured master might prosper, and that he and his companions might be preserved from the dangers of the road, and obtain a satisfactory price for their cattle. Seldom indeed ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... the education of all its citizens. To it, then, the church can appear only as a school, for the church instructs its own people concerning the nature of religion, partly by teaching proper, that of the catechism, partly in quite as edifying a way, by preaching. From this point of view, the State can look upon the church only as one of those schools which prepare for a special avocation. The church appears to the State as that school which assumes the task of educating the religious element. Just ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... theological thoroughness and erudition do not conflict with the nature of a confession as long as it is not mere cold intellectual reflection and abstraction, but the warm, living, and immediate language of the believing heart. With all its thoroughness and erudition the Apology is truly edifying, especially the German version. One cannot read without being touched in his inmost heart, without sensing and feeling something of the heart-beat of the Lutheran confessors. Jacobs, who translated the Apology into English, remarks: ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... An edifying pastime for an adult woman! I did not utter this sentiment, for she would rightly have styled me the most ungrateful ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... liberal man and a pleasant, entertaining, and edifying companion. He deserves all the success he has ever ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... was edifying his hearers with an explanation of the drama of The Corsican Brothers, and his eloquence, unlike that of the other speakers, was largely inspired by the hope of pennies. It was a novel idea, and his interpretation ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... not all. On close and careful inspection, the mysterious texture of the narrative, no less than its 'edifying and eminently Christian' character, vindicates for the Pericope de adultera a right to its place in the Gospel. Let me endeavour to explain what seems to be its spiritual significancy: in other words, to ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... good attorney was more than usually bland and happy that day. He saw the pork-butcher in his back-parlour, and had a few words to say about the chapel-trust, and his looks and talk were quite edifying. He met two little children in the street, and stopped and smiled as he stooped down to pat them on the heads, and ask them whose children they were, and gave one of them a halfpenny. And he sat afterwards, for nearly ten minutes, with lean old Mrs. Mullock, in her little shop, ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... and the same thing whether empty or full; it is the smell of stale incense mixed with garlic and human odour, horrible combination of poisonous exhalations. I must say, as everybody has before remarked, that there is something highly edifying in the appearance of devotion which belongs to the Catholic religion; the churches are always open, and, go into them when you will, you see men and women kneeling and praying before this or that altar, absorbed in their occupation, and who must have been led there by some devotional ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... were too edifying those years. But they were as good as the men I went with and I kept myself in hand. I saw men go to pieces with drink—and I didn't drink. I saw men go to pieces over women—and I kept away from that kind of woman. ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... the latter, with edifying coolness;—"and will think no more of taking the scalps of thee two poor women than ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... corresponding to the entire clergy of Protestant churches). Then there were such unworthy charlatans as the pardoners and professional pilgrims, traveling everywhere under special privileges and fleecing the credulous of their money with fraudulent relics and preposterous stories of edifying adventure. All this corruption was clear enough to every intelligent person, and we shall find it an object of constant satire by the authors of the age, but it was too firmly established to be ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... all but a Hindu, the picture seems not only incongruous but highly absurd and disgusting. One can hardly imagine that any mortal, to whom a vision of the divine being had been granted, could fail so utterly to furnish us with an edifying description ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... miniature painting representing My Lords of the Circumlocution Department, Commandership-in-Chief of any sort, Government. It was quite an edifying little picture to be hung on the ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... communicant of the Episcopal Church. But although he ever after manifested an extreme regard for religious things and persons, and would never permit either to be spoken against in his presence without rebuke, he was very far from edifying his brethren by a consistent walk. At Washington, in the debates, he was as incisive and uncharitable as before. His denunciations of the second President Adams's personal character were as outrageous as his condemnation of parts of his policy was just. Mr. Clay, ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... 216. "The edifying things which the Archbishop said to me in the three audiences, particularly in the last, and what I have again been told by this glorious man of God, had so admirable a physical effect on me that I had to leave the opera in the evening in the middle of the first act, ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... a cynical laugh. "I could pick out a score of impecunious fellows from the clubs who would be only too glad to earn a hundred or two in any way you can mention. All their talk about honour and so forth is very pretty and edifying, but it's not meant for every day use. Of course we should have to ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... professing zeal for the defence of the country from the dangers threatened by Popish intrigues at home and abroad. Even Burton, whom no one will suspect of partiality to the Church, and whose animus against the ministers often overcomes his historic judgment, in writing of what he calls the 'edifying ceremony' of the absolution of the lords, says: 'It must be conceded to their enemies that it was a solemn farce; and whatever there might be in words or the surface of things, there would be, when these Earls were restored, a power in the North ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison
... Caesar, disdainfully. "The verses amuse me, and I find them most edifying. That is all. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... men from the docks and leave not a stone upon a stone of his house. Whether it was through his being impressed by her terrible earnestness as a member of the Church militant, or whatever else was the reason, Jamieson in the end became a Catholic, and died a most edifying death. ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... professed a charming devotion to her old teacher. After her husband's death she had been left in poor circumstances. She came to consult Frau Kummerfelden very seriously about a project of settling down in Weimar as a nurse; and she made it all so touching and edifying that the captain, who happened to be present at some of these discussions, found his heart growing quite warm. Moreover, the little woman had a fascinating heart-shaped face, broad in the brow and pointed at the chin, and a pair of ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... played about the hints we receive and woven them into stories which far outrun any true implication of the facts. Thus has much legendary matter gathered about the childhood of our Lord, containing the stories, not always very edifying according to our taste, which are set down in the Apocryphal Gospels. The same eagerness to know more than we are told has produced the developed legend of the childhood of our Lady. We can of course place no reliance on most ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... talker. He was brought up with the idea that to be beautiful was to make good. His conversation was about as edifying as listening to a leak dropping in a tin dish-pan at the head of the bed when you want to go to sleep. But he and me got to be friends—maybe because we was so opposite, don't you think? Looking at the Hallowe'en mask that I call my face when I'm shaving seemed to give Fergus pleasure; ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... seemed to give him greater pleasure than the presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who attended him, and from whose hands he received the sacrament. His deportment at this solemn ceremony, as related by a church dignitary, was fully edifying. He says:—"His majesty had already experienced the blessed consolations of religion, and removed the doubts his anxious attendants were entertaining, by eagerly desiring the queen to send for the archbishop, seeming, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the above edifying and idiomatic homily was intended for some sporting contemporary, but, with his accustomed courtesy, he gives it ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 7, 1891. • Various
... the two.... Both were at the same time, at Altona, accepted as members of the body of Christ [the Labadist church].... She loved her husband tenderly, but when God called him elsewhere, to the service of His work and children, she embraced His will therein with much love; which was especially edifying in her, since before this, when she was living in the world, she was wont to be in great anxiety whenever he was away from home on their own concerns. At Bremen, when a portion of our community was there, then at Altona, and here in Friesland, ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... time alarmed about her; but she is better now, and this afternoon we succeeded in inducing her to take a little broth. We employ every means of consoling her, and as she is a good Christian, she knows how to support with edifying resignation even so great a misfortune ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... immediately took his place. "Il semble qu' on soit dans un enfer, et que ce soient tout autant de diables dechaines."—But enough of this unedifying scene, of which the Abbe Geramb gives a similar account. If we contrast with it the majestic and edifying ceremonies of the Roman church, we shall feel grateful to God for having preserved us from such disorders. I shall merely add from Thevenot, that the Christians are called to office at the holy Sepulchre by boards struck with iron, ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs
... of Basil are his De Spiritu Sancto, a lucid and edifying appeal to Scripture and early Christian tradition, and his three books against Eunomius, the chief exponent of Anomoian Arianism. He was a famous preacher, and many of his homilies, including a series of lenten lectures on the Hexaemeron, and an exposition of the psalter, have been preserved. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... Church of England, though she asked for the intercession of no created being, still set apart days for the commemoration of some who had done and suffered great things for the faith. She retained confirmation and ordination as edifying rites; but she degraded them from the rank of sacraments. Shrift was no part of her system. Yet she gently invited the dying penitent to confess his sins to a divine, and empowered her ministers to ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... his way; he loved a joke, if by good fortune he understood it, and took his share generously of a bottle if another paid for it, and especially if there was a young lord in company to drink it. In these cases there was not a harder drinker in the University than Mr. Tusher could be; and it was edifying to behold him, fresh shaved and with smug face, singing out "Amen!" at early chapel in the morning. In his reading, poor Harry permitted himself to go a-gadding after all the Nine Muses, and so very likely ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... only power that makes the knee bend. Over twenty years ago, his sexton said to the writer: "I never opened the church in the morning that I did not find Father MacDonald kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament." What time he entered it, no one knew. How edifying this must have been to the poor factory hands, who were wont to beg God's blessing on their daily labor, in the short, scorching summer, and the bitter cold of the long winter, for at that time the church was not heated. Never did these children of toil miss that bent and venerable form, absorbed ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... spiritually, by clear and crafty utterance of words, may be so well ordered and uttered: that these things corporeal may be coupled with things spiritual, and that these things visible may be conjoined with things Invisible. Excited by these causes to the edifying of the people contained in our Christian faith of almighty Christ Jesus, whose majesty divine is incomprehensible: and of whom to speak it becometh no man, but with great excellent worship and honour, and with an inward dreadful fear. Loth to ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... disciple at this moment, 'Wells is one of the best. Galsworthy is one of the best, if you except his concern for delicacy of style. Mrs. Ward has a very firm grasp of problems, but is not very creational.—Caine's books are very edifying. I should like to read all that Caine has written. Miss Corelli, too, is very edifying.—And you may add Upton Sinclair.' 'What I want to know,' says the disciple, 'is, what English novels may be selected as specially enthralling.' The pundit answers: 'We have no novels addressed to the passions ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... consecrate the young priest; and a high opinion of his learning and talents to be entertained, no matter how dull he may be so far as honest nature is concerned. Whatever he says is sure to have some hidden meaning in it, that would be' highly edifying, if they themselves understood it. But their own humility comes in here to prop up his talents; and whatsoever perplexity there may be in the sense of what he utters, is immediately attributed to learning ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... fellow sued me, and, contriving to catch me before I left the vessel, I was sent to jail, for the first and only time in my life. This turned out to be a new and very revolting school for me. I was sent among as precious a set of rascals as New York could furnish. Their conversation was very edifying. One would tell how he cut the hoses of the engines at fires, with razor-blades fastened to his shoes; another, how many pocket-books he and his associates had taken at this or that fire; and a third, the mariner of breaking ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... I myself am, I trust, often amiable—always in some respects exemplary. In my castle, I am always all that I ought to be—all that I wish to be. I am as stately as Juno, as beautiful as Adonis, as elegant as Chesterfield, as edifying as Mrs. Chapone, as eloquent as Burke, as noble as Miss Nightingale, as perennial as the Countess of Desmond, and as robust as Dr. Windship. I also understand everything but entomology and numismatology; and if I do not understand them, the only ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... be edifying to follow the great Chief through the various campaigns—including those of Minisink and Mohawk Valley—in which he was engaged until the Treaty of 1782 put an end to the sanguinary war. In that Treaty, which restored peace between Great Britain and the United States, the former neglected to make ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... still thinks that the British are apt to make merits of their stupidities, and to represent their various incapacities as points of good breeding. English life seems to him to suffer from a lack of edifying rhetoric (which he calls moral tone); English behavior to show a want of respect for womanhood; English pronunciation to fail very vulgarly in tackling such words as world, girl, bird, etc.; English society to be plain spoken to an extent which ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... have seen me that morning, for I was bedecked in all my finery, and upon entering Noo-koom's lodge, I seized Ojistoh by the hair of her head, and dragged her out. Her struggles to escape from me were quite edifying in their propriety. Her shrieks were heartrending—or rather, they would have been had they not alternated with delighted giggles. By that time the wedding march had begun; for as we struggling lovers led the way, the children, ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... of a child and a story, without thinking of the fairy tale. Is this, as some would have us believe, a bad habit of an ignorant old world? Or can the Fairy Tale justify her popularity with truly edifying and educational results? Is she a proper person to introduce here, and what are ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... million, made by selling soft goods and attending church, and with other books relating pathetic anecdotes of boys who died young and, before they died, delighted society with observations of the most edifying character on the shortness of life. We had rather have been a horsedealer and kept ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... in the way of devotional literature is chiefly limited to edifying booklets and biographies of their own members; writings which were distinguished rather by their pious tenor and sincerity than by daring or ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... choice recreations in those days of yore, when ladies and gentlemen were not much in the habit of reading. Be this as it may, he will often, at supper-table, when conversation flags, call on some one or other of the company for a story, as it was formerly the custom to call for a song; and it is edifying to see the exemplary patience, and even satisfaction, with which the good old gentleman will sit and listen to some hackneyed tale that he has heard for at least a ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... Book. The book containing the writings of Ben Sira was known under a variety of titles. The Latin Church followed the Greek in calling it Ecclesiasticus. This term was applied to those books which were not in the canon, but were held to be edifying and proper for public use in the churches. The Hebrew text of Ben Sira enjoyed wide currency, was frequently quoted by the later rabbis, and was often referred to by later Jewish and Christian writers. It was almost completely ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... indication of the many forces which are at work, or as an adequate moral barometer of the general moral state. The attempt to establish such a condition too closely, seems to me to lead to a good many very edifying but not ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... afternoon we came to the foot of a considerable hill. As we ascended it Rouville began to ask questions concerning our conditions and prospects at home, and Shaw was edifying him with a minute account of an imaginary wife and child, to which he listened with implicit faith. Reaching the top of the hill we saw the windings of Horse Creek on the plains below us, and a little on the left we could distinguish the camp of Bisonette among the trees and copses along the ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... valleys, streams, and waterfalls, harebells and daffodils. These descriptions were interspersed with dialogues, which, though they proceeded from the mouths of pedlars and rustics, were of the most edifying description; mostly on subjects moral or metaphysical, and couched in the most gentlemanly and unexceptionable language, without the slightest mixture of vulgarity, coarseness, or pie-bald grammar. Such appeared to me to be the contents of the book; but before ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... the functions of the regular clergy, whose leisured and tranquil existence was more consonant with the punctual observance of the custom, and by whom it was handed down to successive generations as a laudable and edifying practice importing much comfort for the living, and, it might be hoped, true succour for the ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... bustle and considerable excitement, which were caused by the activity of the new Court, and the eccentricities of the King; but in the present instance the Crown has been transferred to the head of the new Queen with a tranquillity which is curious and edifying. The first interest and curiosity to see the young Queen and observe her behaviour having passed off, there appears nothing more to do or to think about; there are no changes, and there is no talk of change. Her Majesty has continued quietly at Kensington, where she transacts ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... be with you, Amen. I being taken from you in presence, and so tied up, that I cannot perform that duty that from God doth lie upon me to youward, for your further edifying and building up in faith and holiness, &c., yet that you may see my soul hath fatherly care and desire after your spiritual and everlasting welfare; I now once again, as before, from the top of Shenir and Hermon, so 'now' from the lions' dens, from the mountains of the leopards ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... eyes by one chubby hand, and the minister's steel-bowed glasses resting on his nose, and the good man's dressing-gown trailing magnificently behind. Bub's manner showed that he felt his consequence much increased by his clerical outfit, and the benignant gravity of his face was edifying ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... fear of God. The apostle Paul reproved the Corinthians for abusing extraordinary gifts to make the people think them prophets and spiritual persons, while they ought to have applied them to the 'edifying of the church.' 'God,' adds this apostle, 'is not the author of confusion, but of peace.' For such reasons we suppose our blessed Saviour desired concealment in this house; and so much right had he to rest after a journey, to refresh himself with food and sleep, to retire from the malice ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... were unable to do so. Seeing this wonder they were moved to repentance and they gave themselves to God and to Mochuda for ever and, till the time of their death, they remained under his guidance and rule and many subsequent edifying and famous ...
— The Life of St. Mochuda of Lismore • Saint Mochuda
... regard to the writings concerning this period that, as a rule, a most gorgeous superstructure of fancy has been raised upon a very meagre foundation of fact. As romance, information of this highly imaginative sort is entertaining, but it is not edifying." One would be glad to get at the other side of the Aztec story, which, we suspect, would place the chivalric invaders in a very different light from that of their own boastful records, and also enable us to form a more just and truthful opinion of the aborigines ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... in England and America all their lives. Miss Jacobi has certainly rather a Jewish type of face, and she has the clear olive complexion of the Italian. Well, you will see them for yourself on Sunday, for they are regular church-goers, though Mr. Jacobi's behaviour during service is not always edifying. They have seats near us, and it irritates me dreadfully to see him lounging and yawning while other people are saying ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Gibbon says, "was accordingly left out of the Arabic version of Grotius' Book, intended to circulate among the-Musselmen, for fear that they should laugh at such a piece of ignorance or effrontery: but it still maintains an edifying place in those copies printed for the perusal of Christians."! I quote ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... pretend to produce the words; but the substance I shall give; and I appeal to the candour of all his readers, whether they have been able to apprehend his meaning. I certainly did not for years. But, now that I do, the passage places his procedure in a most striking and edifying light. Astronomers, says Kant, had gone on for ages, assuming that the earth was the central body of our system; and insuperable were the difficulties which attended that assumption. At length, it occurred to try what would ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... people dancing in a fairy ring, which might be supposed at first sight to be an illustration of a nursery tale, but the text describing a Witch's Sabbath, rapidly dispels the idea. Nor does a version of the popular Faust legend—"Dr. John Faustus"—appear to be edifying for young people. This and "Friar Bacon" are of the class which lingered the longest—the magical and oracular literature. Even to-day it is quite possible that dream-books and prophetical pamphlets enjoy a large sale; ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... And, indeed, he who offends not in word, the same is a perfect man.[588] But yet in Malachy, who, though he observed with unusual care, ever detected, I will not say an idle word,[589] but an idle nod? Who ever knew his hand or his foot to move without purpose? Yea, what was there that was not edifying in his gait, his mien, his bearing, his countenance? In fine, neither did sadness darken nor laughter turn to levity the joyousness of his countenance.[590] Everything in him was under discipline, everything a mark of ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor
... sense to convey the idea of mortal sin. And on the other hand he said much to the contrary; so much as to leave no manner of doubt on my mind that he had kept his baptismal innocence. He was deeply attached to an edifying and religious mother; he was at hard work before the dawn of sensual passion, and his recreation, even as a boy, was in talking and reading about deep social and philosophical questions, and listening to others on the same themes. He expressly told me that he had ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... a good deal about the Jews, about their opinions, their religion, and about what had been going on during the last half century amongst them. Or grounds of policy he professed to accept the Jewish faith—of which an edifying example is given in the fact that, on one occasion, Bernice was prevented from accompanying him to Rome because she was fulfilling a Nazarite vow in the Temple ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... was a busy one: Georgie in particular never had a moment to himself. The Hurst, so lately a desert, suddenly began to rejoice with joy and singing and broke out into all manner of edifying gaieties. Lucia, capricious queen, quite forgot all the vitriolic things she had said to him, and gave him to understand that he was just as high in favour as ever before, and he was as busy with his duties as ever he had been. Whether he would have fallen into his old place ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... saying seems to you very wise and edifying, Joseph Putnam, but I have a bad headache, and do not care to ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... patron Saint, which again on this occasion the Archbishop, nolens volens, was compelled by the mob to produce. But for the great mass of educated foreigners then filling the hotels and pensions of the place, it cannot be said that their conduct was edifying, particularly in face of the example set by the King and Queen of Italy. To add to the general panic prevailing in the city, the Neapolitans themselves were not unnaturally greatly exasperated by the serious accident ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... But you did not know how boundless is a child's readiness to accept what comes as from a spiritual authority, or you would have drawn the line more strongly between doctrine and opinion, fact and allegory, the true and the edifying.' ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... grace, perhaps) to the religious papers; where, after many months, I found and read and wondered at it; and whence I have now reproduced it for the wonder of others. And you and your dear brother have, by this cycle of operations, built up a contrast very edifying to examine in detail. The man whom you would not care to have to dinner, on the one side; on the other, the Reverend Dr. Hyde and the Reverend H. B. Gage: the Apia bar-room, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... after night, the one or other part of the camp is entertained by the edifying spectacle of natives being thrashed, tents being burnt, and white people surrounded by ferocious crowds who can scarcely be kept back from carrying out their desire for vengeance by a small truncheon and a ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz |
