"Idolatry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... consequences of this disposition to disregard the Almighty Hand, as it is so plainly visible in all around us, is that of substituting our own powers in its stead. In this period of the world, in enlightened countries, and in the absence of direct idolatry, few men are so hardy as to deny the existence and might of a Supreme Being; but, this fact admitted, how few really feel that profound reverence for him that the nature of our relations justly demands! ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... English poet is living to-day on the current proceeds of his verse. For a country which possesses the greatest poetical literature in the world this condition of affairs is at least odd. What makes it odder is that, occasionally, very occasionally, the average lettered man will have a fit of idolatry for a fine poet, buying his books in tens of thousands, and bestowing upon him immense riches. As with Tennyson. And what makes it odder still is that, after all, the average lettered man does not truly ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... Bearwarden, "that people are better now than formerly. The sin of idolatry, for instance, has ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... the flesh are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditious, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, of which I forewarn you, as I have told you in time past, that they who do such things ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 8, August, 1880 • Various
... have, Madam, too much good sense not to perceive at once that the antiquity of an opinion proves nothing in its favor. If antiquity was a proof of truth, Christianity must yield to Judaism, and that in its turn to the religion of the Egyptians and Chaldeans, or, in other words, to the idolatry which was greatly anterior to Moses. For thousands of years it was universally believed that the sun revolved round the earth, which remained immovable; and yet it is not the less true that the ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... Compassionate, the Merciful.... The eyes see him not, but he seeth the eyes; and He is the Gracious, the Knowing'.... So also comes a time when religion shall be without heart, dead, and the quickening of worship lost in idolatry; when men shall cry, God, my God, to stones and graven images, and sing to hear their singing, and the loud music it goes with. And that time shall be first in lands of growth and freshness, in cities where comforts and luxuries are as honey ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... thirst for glory. He evinces contempt for his life so as to achieve immortal glory among those to live after him. Contemplating, therefore, merely his life's dream, as it were, and the outward mask, it is a most beautiful deed. But before God it is shameful idolatry; because he claims for himself the glory of his deed. And who would doubt that he had other failings besides this thirst for glory? Attilius cannot claim the great virtues of truthfulness and love of country without tending ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... development of that family, which in rosy childhood followed William Irving to the old Brick Church, and whose early progress he was permitted to witness. The biographer passes lightly over the scenes of boyhood, and there was hardly any need for his expatiating on that idolatry which surrounded the youngest. He was no doubt the first child ever named after the father of his country, and the touching incident of Lizzie's presenting the chubby, bright-eyed boy to Washington, is hit off in a few touches. It was, however, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... history of human change has been transacting before us, I have not shut my ears and eyes to its moral; that I have not followed the throng into the valley, and there joined the fabricators of the new idolatry, the priesthood of the golden calf of revolution, and shared the polluted feast and the intoxicated dance; while the thunders of divine vengeance were ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... our churches themselves, bells and times of morning and evening prayer remain as in times past, saving that all images, shrines, tabernacles, rood-lofts, and monuments of idolatry are removed, taken down, and defaced, only the stories in glass windows excepted, which, for want of sufficient store of new stuff, and by reason of extreme charge that should grow by the alteration of the same into white panes throughout the realm, are not altogether abolished ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... much on their abhorrence of it, considering the immemorial cult of the Black Stone at Mecca. If a conference of Vedantists and Muslims could be held, it would appear that the former regarded image-worship (not idolatry) [Footnote: Idols and images are not the same thing; the image is, or should be, symbolic. So, at least, I venture to define it.] simply as a provisional concession to the ignorant masses, who will not perhaps always remain so ignorant. So, then, Image-worship ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... to which some people may say I had no right, and I often thought so myself. But on the other hand I felt that I could do more good with it than it would do left there in the bed of that stream—so many relics of a superstition—of a pagan idolatry carried on three hundred years ago. The traditions of its being hidden there had of course been handed down, but it had never been seen since it was buried at the time of the conquest, and all who had a right to it ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... theater, to pictures, to concerts, taking every care of her health, her manners, her principles. But one enemy he forgot to guard her against: how is a man to protect even the woman he loves from the hidden god of his idolatry—his own ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... to lie back in Abraham's own life. Abraham was Israel's link with the idolatrous heathen, as well as the beginning of the new life away from idolatry. He grew up among an idolatrous people, yet in his heart there was a yearning for the true God. Back in his old home there came to him one day the definite inner voice to cut loose from these people, his own dear kinsfolk, and go out to a strange unknown land, with what seemed an indefinite ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... several times attacked the island with their accustomed unsparing ferocity: particularly Cerdic, in 530, who replaced the slaughtered British by a colony of his own countrymen; and Ceadwalla of Murcia, who having seized it in 686, was so incensed at the idolatry of the inhabitants, that he resolved at first to extirpate them, and repeople the island with Christians! but at the intercession of bishop Wilfred, great numbers saved their lives by submitting ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon
... by a single power, he in either case but SUPPOSES an unconditioned, that is, an impossible, entity, that he may deduce therefrom an explanation of such phenomena as he deems inconceivable on any other hypothesis. The mystery of God and reason! In order to render the object of his idolatry more and more RATIONAL, the believer despoils him successively of all the qualities which would make him REAL; and, after marvellous displays of logic and genius, the attributes of the Being par excellence are found to be the same ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... to these old hermits, that they did not invent the belief that the air was full of daemons. All the Eastern nations had believed in Genii (Jinns), Fairies (Peris), and Devas, Divs, or devils. The Devas of the early Hindus were beneficent beings: to the eyes of the old Persians (in their hatred of idolatry and polytheism), they appeared evil beings, Divs, or Devils. And even so the genii and daemons of the Roman Empire became, in the eyes of the early Christians, wicked and ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... then at the climax of his fame, and the gods of his idolatry were Goethe and Emerson; but apparently he did not resemble them in soaring above the petty comforts and vexations of life. Any one inviting him to dine was likely to receive an answer asking how the dining-room was lighted—whether by gas, ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... Hitherto these gentlemen had not been close friends; but now they allied themselves as against a common enemy. Mr. Cruse did not care much for associations, seemed indeed to think that any special attention to sacred places savoured of idolatry, and professed himself willing to eat his dinner on any of the hills or in any of the valleys round Jerusalem. Fortified with so good an opinion, and relying on the excellence of his purpose, Mr. M'Gabbery ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... spiritual order of the Pope and the Bishops, he says: "It were better that every bishop were murdered, every foundation or cloister rooted out, than that one soul should be destroyed, let alone that all souls should be lost for the sake of their worthless trumpery and idolatry. Of what use are they who thus live in lust, nourished by the sweat and labour of others, and are a stumbling-block to the word of God? They fear bodily uproar and despise spiritual destruction. ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... of the Jews, it is proved by Lightfoot,[5] that after their return from Babylon, having entirely forsaken idolatry, and being no longer favoured with the gift of prophecy, they gradually abandoned themselves, before the coming of our Saviour, to sorcery and divination. The Talmud, still regarded with a reverence bordering ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... shall—Paul is a manly fellow, and as fond of her as of his own soul—nay, as I tell him, it's idolatry and a sin before God, his love ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... home he is gentle, amiable, always kind, social and hospitable. He loves deeply, and his friends revere him to a point that is but little this side of idolatry. And surely ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... of Olives we can plainly distinguish all the convents, and the different quarters of the Catholics, Armenians, Jews, Greeks, etc. The "Mount of Offence" (so called on account of Solomon's idolatry) rises at the side of the Mount of Olives, and is of no great elevation. Of the temple, and the buildings which Solomon caused to be erected for his wives, but few fragments of walls remain. I had also been told, that the Jordan ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... Catholics for worshipping Saints, and honouring the Virgin and images, &c. These things may perhaps be idolatrous; I cannot make up my mind about it; but to my mind it is the Carnival that is real practical idolatry, as it is written, 'the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.'" The Carnival, I observe in passing, is, in fact, one of those very excesses, to which, for at least three centuries, religious Catholics have ever opposed ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... would be satisfied with the possession of the holy city and of the true cross. But the latter replied, that Jerusalem was as dear to the Moslem as to the Christian world; and, moreover, that he would never be guilty of conniving at idolatry by permitting the worship of a piece of wood. Thwarted by the religious prejudices of his enemies, the English commander attempted a different expedient. He proposed a consolidation of the Christian and Mohammedan interests, the establishment of a government ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... and in some respects new light upon the more human side of the great movement. It is easier perhaps to us who are acquainted with all that followed to understand the fiery zeal which flamed against every accessory of what they conceived to be idolatry—the saintly image, which was nothing but a painted board, and the "round clipped god" upon the altar which was blasphemously asserted to be the very Lord Himself—than to remember that these men had also many links of use and wont, ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... grotesque ceremony, clinging indestructibly, like the odor of musk, to everything that has once come into contact with it. In illustration of this, consider the profound wisdom of the Upanishads, and then look at the mad idolatry in the India of to-day, with its pilgrimages, processions and festivities, or at the insane and ridiculous goings-on of the Saniassi. Still one can't deny that in all this insanity and nonsense there lies some obscure purpose which accords with, or is a reflection ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, A Dialogue, Etc. • Arthur Schopenhauer
... florid complexion and straw colored hair. After first fixing on me a broad stare of astonishment, she pointedly addressed her apologies for intruding on us to the Major alone. The creature evidently believed me to be the last new object of the old gentleman's idolatry; and she took no pains to disguise her jealous resentment on discovering us together. Major Fitz-David set matters right in his own irresistible way. He kissed the hand of the overdressed girl as devotedly as he had kissed ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... much serene gravity as that with which he had made himself the derision of the civilised world in other matters, saying that though human life was holy, human virtue was more holy still; and he had added to the crime of murder, the crimes of adultery, idolatry and apostasy, for which this punishment was theoretically sanctioned. There had not been, however, more than two such executions in the eight years of his reign, since criminals, of course, with the exception of devoted believers, instantly made their ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... had blotted a thousand, which they thought a malevolent Speech. I had not told Posterity this, but for their Ignorance, who chose that Circumstance to commend their Friend by, wherein he most faulted. And to justifie mine own Candor, (for I lov'd the Man, and do honour his Memory, on this side Idolatry, as much as any.) He was, indeed, Honest, and of an open and free Nature, had an Excellent Fancy, brave Notions, and gentle Expressions, wherein he flow'd with that Facility, that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopp'd: Sufflaminandus erat, as Augustus said of Haterius. His Wit ...
— Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709) • Nicholas Rowe
... as something even more sacred than the Cross itself, I have believed in it as the most effective instrument for teaching the Cross." Mr Steele pulled a wry mouth. "At this moment I seem to be the bigger fool. They may be right: the Church may be worth a disinterested idolatry: but as a means to teach mankind the lesson of Christ it has rather patently failed to do its business. Men are not fools: or rather they are fools, but not fools enough in the long-run to pay for being taught to be ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... composers; where the prettiest sort of pretty pictures of pretty saints assailed the imagination and senses through stained-glass windows; and where sculpture and architecture came to the help of painting. Nobody ever reminded them that these things had sometimes produced such developments of erotic idolatry that men who were not only enthusiastic amateurs of literature, painting, and music, but famous practitioners of them, had actually exulted when mobs and even regular troops under express command had mutilated church statues, smashed church windows, ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... the degraded condition of the people. I wandered around and examined the idols, most of which had in front of them, and in some instances on their flat heads, offerings of tobacco, food, red cotton, and other things. My heart was sad at these evidences of such degrading idolatry, and I was deeply impressed with my need of wisdom and aid from on high, so that when I met the people who here worshipped these idols I might so preach Christ and Him crucified that they would be constrained to accept ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... raising riot in Negros they would draw off troops from Panay, and so favour the movement in that Island. Armed groups rose everywhere against the Americans and the established government. In the south-east the notorious Papa Isio appeared as a Santon, preached idolatry, and drew to his standard a large band of ruffians as skilled as himself in villainous devices. Insurgency, in the true sense of the word, did not exist in Negros; opposition to the American domination was merely a pretext to harass, plunder, and extort funds from the planters and property-owners. ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... near one of the summits; and it is not doubted that they both connect themselves through links of ancient tradition with the gloomy realities of Paganism, when the whole Hartz and the Brocken formed for a very long time the last asylum to a ferocious but perishing idolatry.] ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... Saint-Simon, the model of Lord Chesterfield, this ornament of his age, belonged, as well as Saint-Simon, to that state of society in France which was characterised—as Lord John Russell, in his 'Memoirs of the Duchess of Orleans,' tells us—by an idolatry of power and station. 'God would not condemn a person of that rank,' was the exclamation of a lady of the old regime, on hearing, that a notorious sinner, 'Pair de France,' and one knows not what ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... not in opinion only: It holds the dignity and estimation, As well, wherein 'tis precious of itself, As in the prizer: 'tis idolatry, To make the service greater ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... suffrage and woman's rights, yet not radical enough to please that reform party who stand where the socialists of France do, and are for tearing up all creation generally. Lastly, he had had the misfortune of a popularity which is perfectly phenomenal. I cannot give you any idea of the love, worship, idolatry, with which he has been overwhelmed. He has something magnetic about him, that makes everybody crave his society, that makes men follow and ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... obscene rites of heathenism; but it has a side of danger in it against which I would warn you all, especially young, reading men and women. The time has not yet come when we can afford to let such investigations be our principal occupation in the face of heathenism. If idolatry was dead we could afford to do that, but it is alive—the more's the pity; and it is not only a curious instance of the workings of man's intelligence, and a great apocalypse of earlier stages of society, but, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... anthropomorphism on Jewish theology,(163) and declines allowing the allegorical interpretation in explanation of it;(164) examines Jewish prophecy, parallels it with heathen oracles,(165) and claims that the goodness not the truth of a prophecy ought to be considered;(166) points to the ancient idolatry of the Jews as proof that they were not better than other nations;(167) and to the destruction of Jerusalem as proof that they were not special favourites of heaven. At last he arrives at their idea of creation,(168) and here reveals the real ground of his antipathy. While he ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... Laws of Nature, Moses and Christ, corrupted by the Sodomytes, Pharisees and Papystes most wicked (pr. 1538 and again in 1562) was a morality play. The direction for the dressing of the parts is instructive: "Let Idolatry be decked like an old witch, Sodomy like a monk of all sects, Ambition like a bishop, Covetousness like a Pharisee or spiritual lawyer, False Doctrine like a popish doctor, and Hypocrisy like a gray friar." A Tragedye; or enterlude manyfesting the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... outside of the peasantry of Italy. Be their beautiful faith born of ignorance or what, I do not say. I simply assert that it exists. There is no devotion so true as that of a converted Indian. Maybe it is the devotion of idolatry, the faith of superstition. But I repeat, it is sincere. And let me further say, it seems to me whatever is worth believing at all, is worth believing utterly and entirely—just as these simple children of the wilderness believe, without ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... compelled to give reluctant attendance at endless prayers and sermons, and might think himself fortunate when he was not insolently reminded from the pulpit of his own frailties, of his father's tyranny, and of his mother's idolatry. Indeed he had been so miserable during this part of his life that the defeat which made him again a wanderer might be regarded as a deliverance rather than as a calamity. Under the influence of such feelings ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to the realm of the explained. In the holy temple were arcades of shops; through its precincts hurried the trams; the pictures of trade were displayed; men were building hoardings in my soul and posting notices of idol-worship, and hurrying throngs were reading books of the rites of idolatry. Instead of the mighty anthem of the ocean I heard the roar of traffic. Where had been mysterious forests now stood dark chimneys, and the songs of birds were exchanged for the ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... testified their admiration of his homely genius by going mad, receiving him with frantic acclamations of delight, dining him, and suppering him, and going through the 'pump-handle movement' with him. Mr. Dickens was, in consequence, intensely bored by this attestation of popular idolatry so peculiar to the United States, and looked upon us as officious, absurd, and disgusting. Officious we were, and absurd enough, surely, but far from being disgusting. He ought hardly to beget disgust whose youth and inexperience leads him to extravagance in his kindly demonstrations ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... "innovations" introduced by Laud and his fellow-prelates. With this view commissioners were sent in January 1641 into every county "for the defacing, demolishing, and quite taking away of all images, altars, or tables turned altarwise, crucifixes, superstitious pictures, monuments, and reliques of idolatry out of all churches and chapels." But the bulk of the Commons as of the Lords were averse from any radical changes in the constitution or doctrine of the Church. All however were agreed on the necessity ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... they in majesty With thee compare? Or their idolatry With thy Urim and thy Thummim august? Who can surpass thy priests, thy saintly just, Thy prophets bold, ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... they robed the vestals, the worst and wildest of the great Elizabethan playwrights clung to the literal purity of a woman as to the central pillar of the world. Above all, the modern world (even while mocking sexual innocence) has flung itself into a generous idolatry of sexual innocence— the great modern worship of children. For any man who loves children will agree that their peculiar beauty is hurt by a hint of physical sex. With all this human experience, allied with the Christian authority, I simply conclude ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... four reformer-prophets whom we have studied had condemned the offerings and animal sacrifices of the old worship, not only because of the idolatry and other heathen and immoral practices connected with them, but also on the ground that Jehovah did not want sacrifices anyway, but ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... overthrown by the Philistines, Samuel prayed, and God sent thunder and lightning, and destroyed the armies of their enemies. Again, to show their rebellion against God, in asking a king, he prayed, and God sent thunder and lightning upon them in the time of wheat harvest. In order to punish the idolatry and rebellion of the Israelites, Elijah prayed earnestly that it might not rain; and it rained not for three years and six months. Again; he prayed that it might rain, and there arose a little cloud, as a man's hand, which spread and covered the ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... who change every hour. Their religion is a worship of God in Trinity, that is of Wisdom, Love and Power, but without any distinction of persons. They behold in the sun the reflection of His glory; mere graven images they reject, refusing to fall under the 'tyranny' of idolatry. ...
— The Republic • Plato
... the world do the Simonians any longer exist. Moreover by getting many under his influence Simon took away from his disciples the danger of death, which Christians were taught was taken away, teaching them that there was no difference between it and idolatry. And yet in the beginning the Simonians were not plotted against. For the evil daemon who plots against the teaching of Jesus, knew that no counsel of his own would be undone by the ...
— Simon Magus • George Robert Stow Mead
... radiant with a strong, childlike light of imagination, which flames up under Constantine, illumines all the shores of the Bosporus and the AEgean and the Adriatic Sea, and then gradually, as the people give themselves up to idolatry, becomes corpse-like. The architecture sinks into a settled form—a strange, gilded, and embalmed repose: it, with the religion it exprest; and so would have remained forever—so does remain where its languor has been undisturbed. But rough ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... allowing the exposure of her arms; a simple morning-dress, again, seemed better still, as fitted to call out the childlike innocence of her face, by confining the attention to that. But all these are feelings of fond and blind affection, hanging with rapture over the object of something too like idolatry. God knows, if that be a sin, I was but too profound a sinner; yet sin it never was, sin it could not be, to adore a beauty such as thine, my Agnes. Neither was it her beauty by itself, and that only, which I sought at such times to admire; there was ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... "slow-poke" town of Bayport, found in the brilliant arrival from foreign parts the personification of his ideals, a satisfying specimen of that much read of genus, "the complete man of the world." He fell on his knees before that specimen and worshiped. Such idolatry could not but have some effect, even upon as blase an idol as Mr. Phillips, so the latter at first tolerated and then even encouraged the acquaintanceship. He began to take this young follower more and more into ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... naturally suggests such reflections as these. Of all the men of the Revolution, Robespierre has suffered most from the audacious idolatry of some writers, and the splenetic impatience of others. M. Louis Blanc and M. Ernest Hamel talk of him as an angel or a prophet, and the Ninth Thermidor is a red day indeed in their martyrology. Michelet and M. D'Hericault treat him as a mixture ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... Madagascar but a little way farther; South America, and all the numerous and large islands in the Indian and Chinese seas, I hope will not be passed over. A large field opens on every side, and millions of perishing heathens, tormented in this life by idolatry, superstition, and ignorance, and exposed to eternal miseries in the world to come, are pleading; yea, all their miseries plead as soon as they are known, with every heart that loves God, and with all ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... idolatry from which that of rank preserves us, and perhaps it is the worst of any—that of office. The basest deity is a subordinate employee, and yet just now in civilised Governments it is the commonest. In France and all the best of the Continent it rules like a superstition. It is ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... justice, and on account of the offence of those who interpret the Torah, not according to its true sense (33). Noxious beasts come into the world for vain swearing (34), and for the profanation of the Divine Name (35). Captivity comes into the world on account of idolatry, immortality, bloodshed, and the neglect of the year of rest for the soil (31). 12. At four periods pestilence grows apace: in the fourth year, in the seventh, at the conclusion of the seventh year, and at the conclusion of the Feast of Tabernacles in each year: ...
— Pirke Avot - Sayings of the Jewish Fathers • Traditional Text
... that our race is aesthetically more mythological than all others. If we consider the religious teaching of various Aryan peoples, from the most primitive Vedic idolatry to the successive religions of Brahma and Zend, of the Celts, Greeks, Latins, Germans, and Slavs, we shall see how widely they differ from the religious conceptions and ideas of other races. The vein of fanciful creations is inexhaustible, and there is a wealth of symbolic ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... lieutenant, and all related to his own comforts. "Where is my steward to lie? where is my valet to sleep? where is my cow-pen? and where are my sheep to be?" We discovered when he had been one hour in our company, that his noble self was the god of his idolatry. As for the details of the ship and her crew, masts, rigging, stowage, provisions, the water she would carry, and how much she drew, they were subjects on which he ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... hard-bitten crew whom Burke ridiculed—the "calculators and economists"—he will talk airily of golf and ladies' fashions; and ladies he will seek to impress by the Praise of Vivisection or the Defence of Philosophic Doubt. His social agreeableness has, indeed, been marred by the fatuous idolatry of a fashionable clique, stimulating the self-consciousness which was his natural foible; but when he can for a moment forget himself he still is excellent company, for he is genuinely amiable ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... men were led to bind themselves together in "bands," or covenants, and together to God, in prosecution of their aims. At Dun, in 1556, they entered into a "Band" in which they vowed to "refuse all society with idolatry." At Edinburgh, in 1557, they entered into "ane Godlie Band," vowing that "we, by His grace, shall, with all diligence, continually apply our whole power, substance, and our very lives to maintain, set forward and establish the most blessed Word of God." At Perth, ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... China crying out for God. When we were only half-way through the city, the endless masses of humanity had so impressed me that I could not restrain the tears. The sight was simply overwhelming. And all this the parish of one man! It is to save this great city, now almost wholly given to idolatry, that Mr. Groesbeck asks for money to build in its very center an assembly-room and an institutional church, and that Doctor Lesher asks for a hospital building to facilitate his ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... a daughter had been born, named Julia, and whom her father, notwithstanding all Clotilde's efforts of resistance, had spoilt to excess. Monsieur de Trecoeur's idolatry for his daughter was well-known, and the world, with its habitual weakness of judgment, forgave him readily his scandalous existence in consideration of that merit, which is not always a great one. It is not, indeed, a very difficult matter to love one's children; it is sufficient for that not ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... not commit—idolatry," he remarked in a low, cynical tone, which the repressed feeling in his face and the terrible new earnestness ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the nations of the earth be blessed." Israel, being scattered and cast off, became a blessing to the world. They gave to the surrounding nations the only true idea of God, for in their lowest condition and idolatry they preserved the name and knowledge of Jehovah, and Christ sent His disciples after them through one of their own Tribe—namely, Benjamin—telling them not to go into the way of the Gentiles, nor into the cities ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... of the Fabian systems," and in writing of the thanksgiving for the Saratoga Convention, he said that "one cause of it ought to be that the glory of turning the tide of arms is not immediately due to the commander-in-chief.... If it had, idolatry and adulation would have been unbounded." James Lovell asserted that "Our affairs are Fabiused into a very disagreeable posture," and wrote that "depend upon it for every ten soldiers placed under the command of our Fabius, ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... inclined to think that they might be "occasional conformists" and attend Mass without being false to their convictions. But in this brief lull Knox came over to Scotland at the end of harvest, in 1555. On this point of occasional conformity he was fixed. The Mass was idolatry, and idolatry, by the law of God, was a capital offence. Idolaters must be converted or exterminated; they ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... while victorious, he was vituperated with corresponding violence the instant fortune showed signs of wavering in her fidelity. At this distance from those stirring times we can easily perceive that the idolatry and the abuse were alike unjust and even ridiculous; the same wisdom that pronounces it unsafe to praise a man until death has set the seal to his earthly reputation, deems it no less a folly to bestow adulation or excessive blame ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... Amelia's education; and in the course of a year turned a good young girl into a good young woman—to be a good wife presently, when the happy time should come. This young person (perhaps it was very imprudent in her parents to encourage her, and abet her in such idolatry and silly romantic ideas) loved, with all her heart, the young officer in His Majesty's service with whom we have made a brief acquaintance. She thought about him the very first moment on waking; and his was the very last name mentioned in her prayers. ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... rock, And leave the figurative Man— Upon thy margin, roaring Bran!— Fixed like the Templar of the steep, An everlasting watch to keep; With local sanctities in trust, More precious than a hermit's dust; And virtues through the mass infused, Which old idolatry abused. ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... picturesque description of those Islands of Paradise which bloom like gardens amid the blue waters of the Pacific Ocean. He described the fecundity and luxuriance of Nature, drew word-portraits of the mild, brown-skinned Polynesians, wept over their enthralment by a debased system of idolatry, and painted the blessings which would befall them when converted to the gentle religion of Christ. Baltic had the gift of enchaining his hearers, and the audience hung upon his speech with breathless attention. The natural genius of the ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... until of late, their places of worship were not churches, but meeting-houses merely; and by the stout-hearted men who used to dwell in New England it would have been deemed a heresy near akin to idolatry itself, or at least savoring strongly of the damnable errors of the Romish Church, to hold that wood and stones, carved and fashioned by the hand of man, could be hallowed by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... Fussie had Henry's idolatry all to himself. I have caught them often sitting quietly opposite each other at Grafton Street, just adoring each other. Occasionally Fussie would thump his tail on the ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... religions there are only two: one of them recognises and worships the Holy that without form or shape dwells in and around us; and the other recognises and worships it in its fairest form. Everything that lies between these two is idolatry." ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... themselves. Merritt came forward with an admiration almost fawning. He did not know quite how the thing had happened, but Chris had done the police. Smartness and trickery of that kind were the highest form of his idolatry. His admiration ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... imprudence might finally prove of service to him. All that remained of this scene was a declaration—gracefully made, spontaneous, natural—which subjected Madame de Tecle to the double charm of a mystic idolatry which pleased her sex, and to a manly ardor which could ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... championship of the chapter's powers; the "Gargouille," in fact, was "created" after the "privilege" had become established; and for us the chief merit of the tale lies in the fact that it preserves the national memory of St. Romain's firm stand against the old dragon of idolatry and paganism, whose last remnants were swept out of Normandy by his ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... hence could not have been the work of Moses or any other Hebrew. Mr. Smith thinks that it was produced soon after the Flood, by an Arabian. He finds in it many proofs of great antiquity. He sees in it (xxxi, 26, 28) proof that in Job's time idolatry was an offense under the laws, and punishable as such; and he is satisfied that all the parties to the great dialogue were free from the taint of idolatry. Mr. ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... theologians should tell the king, "that if he did not consent to the utter abolition of Episcopacy he would be damned." But it is not without some indignation that we read the following vote of the lords and commons: "The houses, out of their detestation to that abominable idolatry used in the mass, do declare, that they cannot admit of, or consent unto, any such indulgence in any law, as is desired by his majesty, for exempting the queen and her family from the penalties to be enacted against the exercise of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... to idolatry; how, then, could she hate him? The emperor was her compatriot and the benefactor of her father. The Baron di Piombo was among those of Napoleon's devoted servants who had co-operated most effectually in the return from Elba. Incapable of denying ...
— Vendetta • Honore de Balzac
... like to see these things," said Mrs. Ellison. "It really seems to savor of idolatry. Don't you ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... Nature. How far they affect that of man, except indirectly, is unascertained. "We do not think about that," was the invariable answer, when any one was questioned about a future state. Too vague for monotheism, the Silong creed is also said to be too vague for idolatry, too vague for sacrifices. ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham
... way enchaced with glass and beads There is, that to the Chapel leads; Whose structure, for his holy rest, Is here the Halcyon's curious nest; Into the which who looks, shall see His Temple of Idolatry; Where he of god-heads has such store, As Rome's Pantheon had not more. His house of Rimmon this he calls, Girt with small bones, instead of walls. First in a niche, more black than jet, His idol-cricket there is set; Then in a polish'd oval by There stands his idol-beetle-fly; ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... earth, It were a simple harlotry in me. But, Lake, to love the life and not the house, The living house so admirably built Of tissue flawless as the material stars, Wherein the life I love is manifest, Were harlotry no less I know than that. You, the dear Lake of my idolatry, For I am something near it, as you are, Are one life, whereto pilgrim thought conspires With all the cunning moulding of the flesh, And of my brain and body is my love, Dream to your dream, desire to ...
— Preludes 1921-1922 • John Drinkwater
... or two, was much beloved by her, and no reference to him is ever made in her presence, without a flow of tears from her eyes. Her love of home and kindred seems very strong, and her devotion to little Jennie amounts almost to idolatry, so the solicitude expressed by the good woman is only a part of what she really feels, but which is shown in hundreds of ways. When the doctor settled the little girl in her bed she adjusted a heavy weight to the foot on the limb which has given her so much trouble, and ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... example of our hypothesis from Shakspeare himself, who, of all authors, drew his portraits for all ages. With the whole sum of the idolatry which affects us at his name, the mass of readers peruse, without amusement, the characters formed on the extravagances of temporary fashion; and the Euphuist Don Armado, the pedant Holofernes, even Nym and Pistol, are read with little pleasure by ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... she made an atmosphere of life, The very air seem'd lighter from her eyes, They were so soft and beautiful, and rife With all we can imagine of the skies;— * * * * * Her overpowering presence made you feel, It would not be idolatry to kneel. ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various
... the reader's attention, female beauty was a quality of much higher importance than it has been since the ideas of chivalry have been in a great measure extinguished. The love of the ancient cavaliers was a licensed species of idolatry, which the love of Heaven alone was theoretically supposed to approach in intensity, and which in practice it seldom equalled. God and the ladies were familiarly appealed to in the same breath; and devotion to the fair sex was as ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... an idolatry, and not a nature-worship. Just so does the priest of Southern India, after having made his idol, enchant his god into it by due ceremonial. It may be a very ancient system: but as for its being a ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... relegated to the oratorio platform since the end of the eighteenth century. Racine's tragedy "Athalie" has called out music from Abbe Vogler, Gossec, Boieldieu, Mendelssohn, and others, and a few oratorios, one by Handel, have been based on the story of the woman through whom idolatry was introduced into Judah; but I have no record of any ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... dispute about the proper sphere of women is idle. That men should have attempted to draw a line for their orbit, shows that God meant them for comets, and above our jurisdiction. With them the enthusiasm of poetry and the idolatry of love is the simple voice of nature." There are, indeed, many passages of this boyish composition, a good deal resembling in their style those ambitious apostrophes with which he afterwards ornamented his speeches on the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... in a bag, and locked up in a chest? No, no, Deerslayer; my poor father carries his God with him, wherever he goes, and that is in his own cravings. These things may really be idols—I think they are myself, from what I have heard and read of idolatry, but they have come from some distant country, and like all the other articles, have fallen into Thomas Hutter's hands ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... perish and all else remain," said Gerald, whose eyes had been feasting on beauties of line and color such as he conceived were not to be found outside this land of his idolatry, "the world would be irreparably impoverished. If all the world besides should perish and Italy remain, the world could ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... it by heart could work miracles likewise, as we know by Justin Martyr and others, who have written of the power and miraculous gifts of the early Church. But when the pure doctrine became corrupted, and the Christian Church (like the Jewish of former times) gave itself up to idolatry, masses, image-worship, and the like, the knowledge of the mystic name was withdrawn, and all miracles have ceased in the Church from that up ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... nine tribes and a half, which were carried off by Shalmanezer, king of Assyria, and which settled in Media, remained there long, they would, by intermarrying with the nations of that country, from a natural fickleness and proneness to idolatry, and from the force of example, have adopted and bowed before the Gods of the Medes and Assyrians; and have carried them along with them. But he affirms that there is not the least trace of this idolatry to be discovered ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... conveys the praise of Shakspeare can fail to be agreeable? The most certain method by which a foreigner an introduce himself at once to the good-will and good opinion of an Englishman, is by thus doing homage to this national object of idolatry. I perceived that Mr. Montenero's was not a mere compliment—he spoke with real feeling. "In this instance," resumed he, "we poor Jews have felt your Shakspeare's power to our cost—too severely, and, considering all the circumstances, rather unjustly, ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... purpose it was antagonistic. In practice it was tolerant where it could tolerate safely. At the centre it aimed at purity of Christian doctrine, locally it permitted pagan practices to be continued under Christian auspices. In the earliest days it set itself against all forms of idolatry and non-Christian practices; in later days, after the fifth century, says Gibbon,[444] it accepted both pagan ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... laws! The beginning of all things is hard, but as soon as you will have grown accustomed to obedience, all else will be easy to you. If you will now observe the Abrahamic covenant, the Sabbath, and the commandment against idolatry, then will you be My possession; for although everything belongs to Me, Israel will be My especial possession, because I led them out of Egypt, and freed them from bondage. With respect to Israel, God is like one who receive many fields as an heritage, but one he purchased ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... America," says, "There is a pagan population of four to five millions." Then, with respect to the Roman Catholic population, Rev. T. B. Wood, LL.D., in "Protestant Missions in South America," says, "South America is a pagan field, properly speaking. Its image-worship is idolatry. Abominations are grosser and more universal than among Roman Catholics in Europe and the United States, where Protestantism has greatly modified Catholicism. But it is worse off than any other great pagan field in ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... this subject were called out by his experiences in securing an education for his nephew Karl, son of his like-named brother, a duty which devolved on him on the death of his brother in the winter of 1815. He loved his nephew almost to idolatry, and hoped that he would honor the name of Beethoven in the future. But there was a frivolous vein in Karl, inherited probably from his mother, who was on easy footing with morality both before and after her ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven
... Hebrews The Logos Reason and Understanding Kean Sir James Mackintosh Sir H. Davy Robert Smith Canning National Debt Poor Laws Conduct of the Whigs Reform of the House of Commons Church of Rome Zendavesta Pantheism and Idolatry Difference between Stories of Dreams and Ghosts Phantom Portrait Witch of Endor Socinianism Plato and Xenophon Religions of the Greeks Egyptian Antiquities Milton Virgil Granville Penn and the Deluge Rainbow English and Greek Dancing Greek Acoustics Lord Byron's Versification ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... year. His father died the same year, and his brothers and sisters discarded him. His literary fame had grown, and he was editor of the London "Review." The pedantry of youth had disappeared—practical business had sobered him, and love had relieved him of his idolatry for books. Heart now meant more to him than art. His plea was for liberty, national and individual. The modesty, gentleness and dignity of the man made his presence felt wherever he went. A contemporary said: "His features were refined and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... Margaret had several wild tales to tell about it, which greatly interested Tamar. She said, that in the times of papal power, there had been a monastery there, and in that place a covenanter had been murdered; hence, it had been pulled down to the ground, and all the unholy timbers and symbols of idolatry burnt; "and still," she added, "to this day, uncanny objects are seen in that place, and wailings as of souls in woe have also been heard coming from thence; and I myself have heard them. Nay, so short a time ago as the night or two before you, Tamar, were brought a baby to this house, a light ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... was religious confusion. In at least a formal obedience to the deuteronomic laws of worship, the people of the land continued to resort to the Temple fasts and festivals.(309) But resenting the failure of their God to grant victory numbers relapsed into an idolatry as rank as that under Ahaz or Manasseh;(310) while others, more thoughtful but not less bewildered, conceived doubts of the worth of righteousness. And these tempers were embittered by the cruel selfishness of the new monarch and his reckless injustice. To the taxes required for ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... later Jewish tradition as the forerunner of the Jerusalem priesthood. In the still later Jewish traditions, of which many have been preserved, he is pictured sometimes as an invincible warrior, before whom even the great city of Damascus fell, sometimes as an ardent foe of idolatry, the incarnation of the spirit of later Judaism, or else he is thought of as having been borne to heaven on a fiery chariot, where he receives to his bosom the faithful of his race. Thus each succeeding generation or group of writers made Abraham, as the traditional father of their race, the embodiment ...
— The Making of a Nation - The Beginnings of Israel's History • Charles Foster Kent and Jeremiah Whipple Jenks
... noblest and most beneficial of which He alone carried farther in a few years, than all the most Learned who went before him, had been able to do in many Ages. Here too, MADAM, You will observe, that an Abhorrence of Idolatry and Persecution (the very essence and foundation of that Religion, which makes so bright a part of YOUR MAJESTY's character) was one of the earliest Laws of the Divine Legislator, the Morality of the first Ages, and the primitive Religion of both Jews and Christians; ...
— The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended • Isaac Newton
... the good fortune to behold. A long narrow coffee-room was furnished with all manner of things that, belonging neither to heaven, earth, nor the water under the earth, the redoubted Saltero might well worship without incurring the crime of idolatry. The first thing that greeted my eyes was a bull's head, with a most ferocious pair of vulture's wings on its neck. While I was surveying this, I felt something touch my hat; I looked up and discovered ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... at large, and did not modify a law or remove a single object of scandal. Do you call that state of society prosperous and happy when half of the population was in base bondage to cruel masters; when women generally were degraded and slighted; when money was the object of universal idolatry; when the only pleasures were in banquets and races and other demoralizing sports; when no value was placed upon the soul, and infinite value on the body; when there was no charity, no compassion, no tenderness; when ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... reptiles, are more frequent, or of larger size. So far as the Portuguese power and colonization extends, the popish religion is established; but vast numbers of the indigenous natives of the country remain unsubdued, and continue their original idolatry, being of such cruel and vindictive dispositions, that when a Christian falls into their hands, the best thing that can happen to him is to have his throat cut, as they are, for the most part, put to death by ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... whose ever-during verse All ages venerate, all tongues rehearse; Could blind idolatry be justly paid To aught of mental power by man display'd, To thee, thou sire of soul-exalting song, That boundless worship might ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... arrival of Mary Douglas. She alone could open her heart before the gaze of a companion. Her affections were untrammelled by false hopes or unrequited love. She sought the society of the former with a feeling bordering on idolatry. Together they spent much of their time, while Captain Trevelyan was thrown upon the resources of Lady Rosamond. The constant companionship of the man whom she loved cost many a bitter struggle to her ladyship. The earnest gaze of Guy Trevelyan's ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... involved the destinies of civilization. The blow was aimed directly or indirectly at the whole world, and Germany's only prospect of success lay in the chance that most of the world would fail to perceive its implications or delay too long its effective intervention. It was the defect of her self-idolatry and concentration that she could not develop an international mind or fathom the mentality of other peoples. She could not conceive how England would act on a "scrap of paper," and never dreamt of American participation. ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... every joint of the understanding is put under drill; and we know, that, where the mind does not have exercise for its body, but relics simply on idle cessation for its reinforcement, it will get too much lymph. Work is worship; but work without rest is idolatry. And rest is not, as some seem to think, a swoon, a slumber; it is an active receptivity, a masterly inactivity, which alone can deserve the fine name of Rest. Such, we believe, our favorite game secures better than all others. Besides this direct use, one who loves it finds ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... was no beggar, no man poor, &c., but all rich, and in good estate, and he gives the reason, because they were more religious than, their neighbours:" why was Israel so often spoiled by their enemies, led into captivity, &c., but for their idolatry, neglect of God's word, for sacrilege, even for one Achan's fault? And what shall we except that have such multitudes of Achans, church robbers, simoniacal patrons, &c., how can they hope to flourish, that neglect divine duties, that ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... various points of difference in our faith. Many things I urged were not answered, such as the fruits of the Catholic religion in the various countries where it prevails; the objection concerning forbidding to marry; idolatry of the Virgin Mary, etc., etc.; yet there is a gentleness, an amiability in the man which makes me think ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... him. What an overturning of the heaven of her dreams would he produce by a word! And what could be more useless than remonstrance with one so infatuated! How would she receive his bitter words about one she loved to idolatry? ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... same manner which had hitherto caused me to treat him rather coolly, and rendered me little disposed to cultivate his intimacy. His companion, Don Pablo, was a tolerably insignificant person, who seemed to look up to Silveira and his wife with a respect and reverence almost amounting to idolatry. Beside him, their suite ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... I, "that Abraham is preaching to full-grown men in Canaan, and is trying to proselyte them from their idolatry to the worship of God. He would say to them, 'Believe and be circumcised,' would he not? for God ordained that certain proselytes should ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams
... as before-mentioned, is an epitome or quintessence of more than thirty works,—perhaps the best being "The Prior of Marrick," a story of idolatry; "Anti-Xurion," a crusade against razors; and "The Author's Tribunal," an oration; but I confess, not having looked at the book since my hair was black (and now it is snow-white), and considering ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... more," his restless genius accomplished nothing substantial or sound. His writing was far less careful than his oratory. A man from whom almost everything was expected, and who was always before the eye of the public; he has been described as "the God of Whiggish idolatry," and as "impossible" in society. Harriet Martineau is unsparing in her criticism of his manners and language; and evidently he was an inveterate swearer. His enthusiasm for noble causes was infectious; only, as ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... idolatry The heart has turned, and wiser grown, In earnestness and purity Would make a nobler plan its own,— Yet, after all its zeal and care, Must of its chosen aim despair,— Some bitter tears may be forgiven By Man, at least,—we ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... servants, rescuing his body from King Herod, brought it by sea to Gallicia, where they likewise preached the gospel. But soon after, the Gallicians, relapsing into great sins, returned to their former idolatry, and persisted in it till the time of Charles the Great, Emperor of the Romans, French, Germans, and other nations. Charles therefore, after prodigious toils in Saxony, France, Germany, Lorraine, Burgundy, Italy, Brittany, and other ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... hideous evil, but they embraced it. Between 1832 and 1860 a change had been wrought such as twice that time could not have accomplished at any earlier period of human history. The old Southern ideas respecting slavery had disappeared, and that institution had become an object of idolatry, so that any criticisms to which it was subjected kindled the same sort of flame that is excited in a pious community when objects of devotion are assailed and destroyed by the hands of unbelievers. The astonishing material prosperity that accompanied the system of slave-labor ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... them, and Enraghty called out, "Behold our God!" and they fell on their knees before him. As it had been from the beginning, the wisest and best, the first in prayer and counsel, were foremost in the idolatry; and young girls, and wives and mothers joined in hailing Dylks as their Creator and Savior, and besought him to bless ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... relic-worship degenerated into idolatry. In the year 1549 John Calvin published a tract on the subject, wherein he stated that the great majority of alleged relics were spurious, and that it could be shown by comparison that each Apostle had more than four bodies, and that every Saint had two or three ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... a very superstitious country where such zeal passes for true devotion. I doubt it will be damned by all our Protestant husbands for flat idolatry. But, if you can make Alderman Fondlewife of your persuasion, ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... the season of prosperity and power. They detested the civil treaty of Limerick, and were indignant when they learned that the Lord Lieutenant fully expected from them a parliamentary ratification of that odious contract, a contract which gave a licence to the idolatry of the mass, and which prevented good Protestants from ruining their Popish neighbours by bringing civil actions for injuries ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the testimony of the Scripture, and by powerful arguments, offered to give additional proof thereof by miracles, if the heretics would promise to acquiesce in consequence; and quoted the example of St. Remigius, Apostle of the French, who was then living, and setting up the faith on the ruins of idolatry by a multitude ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... I speak thee, or thy power address, Thou God of our idolatry, the press? By thee, religion, liberty, and laws Exert their influence, and advance their cause; By thee, worse plagues than Pharaoh's land befel, Diffused, make earth the vestibule of hell: Thou fountain, at which drink the good and wise, Thou ever-bubbling spring of endless lies, Like Eden's ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... his longing grew stronger every day. That strong, proud, self-secluded nature of his was most intense in all its feelings, and dwelt with concentrated passion upon this one object of its idolatry. He had never had any other object but ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... of many, throughout the harlot's domain, from her sin and her plagues," and he even carried his hatred so far as to denounce the keeping of Christmas, which to him was nothing less than an act of idolatry. ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... this plan they had once before practically adopted, and under present circumstances it was something more than a simple expedient. The whole nation had their eyes upon them. An unlimited confidence in their integrity, and the universal veneration for their persons, which closely bordered on idolatry, would ennoble the cause which they might make their own and ruin that which they should abandon. Their share in the administration of the state, though it were nothing more than nominal, kept the opposite party in check; while they attended the senate violent measures were avoided ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... noticed, to have been permitted to the Jews during their weak state, that they might not swear by the idols of their cotemporary neighbours, and thus lose sight of the only and true God. But what Christian stands in need of any preservative against idolatry, or of any commemorative of the existence and superintendence of an almighty, wise, beneficent, and moral Governor of the world? Some again have imagined, that, as the different purifications among the Jews, denoting the holiness of God, signified that it became men to endeavour to be holy, ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... well enough among the Mahometans," he said, "for you have learned a good deal of our manners, and if you had been willing to forsake your degrading idolatry, and embrace the true worship of Allah, you might have attained to a high position among us. But now you are to pass through the country parts of Bengal, in which there are few or no Moors, but only Gentoos, of whom I would have you beware. For the secret hatred of these people for us, their ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... Idolatry is the worship of that which is non-significant. The worship of one God, as Coleridge says, may ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford |
