"Vestry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... In the vestry things assumed a brighter tone. There was no lack of witnesses to sign the register. The verger pointed out to them the place, and they wrote their names, as people in such cases do, without stopping to read. Then it occurred to some one that ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... at the services regularly, and in time, and especially at the Prayer-Meeting. Stay to the Sunday night one, and go to the one held in the week. What a comfort for the Minister to see the vestry filled when he gets to the Weekly Prayer-Meeting! and when you are there, or on your knees at home, pray for him; for if Paul needed the prayers of the Church, much more do the ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... the Bermondsey Vestry, the Medical Officer reported that water drawn from the service-pipe of a house in the Jamaica Road, had been submitted to him. The water was clear, but it ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Volume 101, October 31, 1891 • Various
... "Here, darling, in the vestry!" Jim was whispering, smiling his dear, easy, reassuring smile as he guided her to the nearby door. And in a second they were all about her, her first kiss on the wet cheek of Aunt Sanna, the second to her mother—"Evelyn, you were a darling to come way across the city, and Marguerite, you were ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... darted through courts, and invented ways into awkward houses. If you did not look up quickly he was round the corner. His visiting exhausted him only less than his zeal in the pulpit, from which, according to report, he staggered damp with perspiration to the vestry, where Hendry Munn wrung him like a wet cloth. A deaf lady, celebrated for giving out her washing, compelled him to hold her trumpet until she had peered into all his crannies, with the Shorter Catechism for a lantern. Janet ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... or her being set free, and they are hereby authorized and required, to take up and sell the said negro, mulatto or Indian, as a slave, at the next court to be held for the said county, at public vendue: and the monies arising by such sale, shall be applied to the use of the parish, by the vestry thereof: and if any negro, mulatto or Indian slave, set free otherwise than is herein directed, shall depart this province, within six months next after his or her freedom, and shall afterwards return into this government, it shall and may be lawful for ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... English franklin, had been influenced in his choice of a purchase by the fact that one of Queen Anne's churches stood so near the farm. To that little church, a tiny edifice of stone, with a high, pointed roof, without steeple, bell, or vestry-room, had three generations of us been taken to be christened, and three, including my father, had been taken to be buried. Excellent, kind-hearted, just-minded Mr. Hardinge read the funeral service over the man whom his own father had, in the same humble edifice, christened. Our neighbourhood ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... yachting with him next day in the Spindrift. Miss King accepted the invitation, and then, worked up perhaps to an unusual pitch of friendliness by the sermon, asked the Major to go back to Ballymoy House with her for luncheon. Meldon appeared from the door of the vestry room and urged the Major to accept ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... was over, Dulcie plucked Will's sleeve, to turn him into the vestry. One must be the guide if not the other, and "it's main often the woman," the old clerk would tell ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... he do? Should he wait till to-morrow? No, that was out of the question; he couldn't wait. He must know what answer to send to the call. If Deacon Hooper happened to be at home he would talk to him about the door of the vestry, which would not shut properly. If the Deacon was not there, he would see her and force a confession ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... U., at Memorial Service in Honor of Francis Willard. Boston, Mass.— Mrs. Carry Nation, the strenuous Kansas temperance reformer, was hailed as a "modern Deborah" at a meeting of the local W. C. T. U. yesterday afternoon in the vestry of Park Street Church. Not a dissenting voice was heard from among the gathering of perhaps 200 women, but all over the room there was audible expressions of approval of the Characterization, which was applied by Mrs. ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... completely refuted in four of my unpublished sermons. However, as your present mood seems to be one peculiarly secular, I will return to the church at once. Indeed, I have just been informed by the pew-opener that for the last hour and a half Miss Prism has been waiting for me in the vestry. ...
— The Importance of Being Earnest - A Trivial Comedy for Serious People • Oscar Wilde
... we had a tremendous stimulus in the meetings from the active participation of four of the most prominent theosophists in the country—two of whom are members of the vestry. They sharpened the line between spiritual and material things. They brought to the notice of working-class Socialists the essential things of the soul. They made the meetings a melting-pot in which the finest, best and most permanent things were made to stand out ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... a very kind-hearted, man, and could not bear to see anything in pain. One Sunday, as he was preaching his sermon in church, he stopped in the middle of it, stooped down, picked up something, and went into the vestry. He soon returned and went on with his sermon. After the service was over, some one asked him why he had stopped in the middle of his sermon. He answered that he had seen a butterfly lying on the floor, and ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... came to pass that Miss Gushing could never get her final prayer said, her shawl and boa adjusted, and stow away her nice new Prayer-Book with the red letters inside, and the cross on the back, till Mr Oriel had been into his vestry and got rid of his surplice. And then they met at the church-porch, and naturally walked together till Mr Oriel's cruel gateway separated them. The young thing did sometimes think that, as the parson's civilisation progressed, he might have taken ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... hassocks, and the brass tablets upon the grey stone walls. He walked through, picking his way carefully in the dusk, saw for an instant the high, vast expanse of the nave with its few twinkling lights that blew in the windy air, then turned to the left into the Vestry, closing the door behind him. Even as he closed the door he could hear high, high up above him the ringing of ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... joy, and with a detestable hope. And how is it that such men, formed by nature and education to be objects of mere contempt, can ever inspire terror? How is it that such men, without talents or acquirements sufficient for the management of a vestry, sometimes become dangerous to great empires? The secret of their power lies in the indolence or faithlessness of those who ought to take the lead in the redress of public grievances. The whole history of low ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... as he had got through his discourse and gratefully asked a blessing on all that we had 'learned and taught,' the sexton, who apparently entertained unusually high and comprehensive view of the duties of his calling, attended the preacher to the vestry. Thence presently issued cries indicative not only of remorse, but of some kind of physical distress. The two are often connected as intimately as mysteriously in the discipline of the visible world, although we are often assured by those ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... all three in the south have fine geometrical tracery. The three chapels in the south transept were used as vestries until a few years ago, when the space beneath the bell-tower and part of the north aisle of the nave was converted into a large vestry for both clergy and choir. In the chapel here nearest the choir there remains the lower part of the newel staircase which led to an upper chapel. On the west side of the south transept has been erected a building ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... which all the country people in the neighbourhood resorted to lay out their money. I had employed all my stock, and even engaged my credit, to procure a large assortment of goods for the Lammas market; but, having given my vote in the election of a vestry-clerk, contrary to the interest of Justice Gobble, he resolved to work my ruin. He suppressed the annual fairs, by which a great many people, especially publicans, earned the best part of their subsistence. The country people resorted to another town. I was overstocked ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... Haweis introduced his congregation to a Mahatma in the vestry after service last Sunday?" said Madame Valtesi. "I heard so, and that he has persuaded Little Tich to read the lessons for the rest of the season. I think it is rather hard upon the music halls. There is really so much ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... of a wife's kiss when the sweet red lips that gave it were curved like those of the girl before him. He felt a great outpouring of spiritual grace during that service; his powers of devotion were intensified. But the moment it was over he hurried to the vestry, tore off his surplice and threw it on the floor, met Evadne as she left the church, and lingered long on the cliffs with her in ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... impoverish, confiscate, and extinguish the original gentlemen and landed property of a whole nation cannot be justified under any form it may assume. I am satisfied beyond a doubt, that the project of turning a great empire into a vestry, or into a collection of vestries, and of governing it in the spirit of a parochial administration, is senseless and absurd, in any mode or with any qualifications. I can never be convinced that the scheme of placing the highest powers of the state in church-wardens and constables and other ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... So many human beings, and how they can snap! It was a choice party. So very select. We always have plenty of saucy children, and servants. Husbands and wives too, and quite as many of the former as the latter, if not more. But besides these, we had two vestry-men, a country postmaster, who devoted his talents to insulting the public instead of to learning the postal regulations, three cabmen and two 'fares,' two young shop-girls from a Berlin wool shop in a town where there was no competition, ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... peace. Then he wipes his humid forehead, his eyes sparkle with divine light, he descends the narrow stairs, and we hear on the pavement the regular taps of the rod of the verger, who is reconducting him to the vestry. ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... at last coming out of his confessional. He was a handsome man, of some forty years of age, with a smiling, kindly air. When he recognised Madame Quenu he grasped her hand, called her "dear lady," and conducted her to the vestry, where, taking off his surplice, he told her that he would be entirely at her service in a moment. They returned, the priest in his cassock, bareheaded, and Lisa strutting along in her shawl, and paced up and down in front of the side-chapels adjacent to the Rue du ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... to perform the marriage comes into the chancel from the vestry. At a few paces behind him follows the groom, who in turn is followed by the best man. The groom stops at the foot of the chancel steps and takes his place at the right, as indicated in the accompanying diagram. His best man stands directly behind him. ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... any such reluctance on her part," said the lawyer dryly, "but we can easily settle the question. I must go home and get some plans before I attend the vestry meeting about that pinnacle. Will you step across with me ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... over, she took his arm; and leaning upon it, so that he could feel she leaned, guided him to the vestry. ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... get at the books in the vestry myself," the Q.C. muttered low between his clenched teeth, "before the fellow has time to ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... lot of myself and Polly, must fall in love with our cousin, Fanny Figtree, and marry her out of hand. You should have seen the wedding! Six bridesmaids in pink, to hold the fan, bouquet, gloves, scent-bottle, and pocket-handkerchief of the bride; basketfuls of white favours in the vestry, to be pinned on to the footmen and horses; a genteel congregation of curious acquaintance in the pews, a shabby one of poor on the steps; all the carriages of all our acquaintance, whom Aunt Figtree ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Postmaster General; Chancellor of the Exchequer or Secretary of State; Vice Treasurer, Cashier of the Exchequer; Keeper of the Privy Seal or Auditor General; Provost or Fellow of Dublin University; nor Lord Mayor or Alderman of a corporate city or town. He could not be a member of a parish vestry, nor bequeath any sum of money or any lands for the maintenance of a clergyman, or for the support of a chapel or a school; and in corporate towns he was excluded ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... down; and of the ghost of the unfortunate Governor Leisler, who was hanged for treason, which haunted the old fort and the government house. The gossiping knot dispersed, each charged with direful intelligence. The sexton disburdened himself at a vestry meeting that was held that very day, and the black cook forsook her kitchen, and spent half the day at the street pump, that gossiping place of servants, dealing forth the news to all that came for water. In a little time, the whole town was in a buzz with tales ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... Oxfordshire. These screens, many of which have been over-restored, are very common, and in addition to those above mentioned, are found at S. Mary's, Stamford, Ottery S. Mary, Chudleigh, Bovey, and in nearly all the Devon parish churches. At Dunstable a screen of Queen Mary's time separates the vestry from the chancel. ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath
... Steamboats C Vibbard and Daniel Drew, commencing May 31, will leave Vestry st. Pier at 8.45, and Thirty-fourth st. at 9 a.m., landing at Yonkers, (Nyack, and Tarrytown by ferry-boat), Cozzens, West Point, Cornwall, Newburgh, Poughkeepsie, Rhinebeck, Bristol, Catskill, Hudson, ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various
... be published three times in the parish church, in each place where the persons concerned reside. The clerk is applied to on such occasions; his fee varies from 1s. 6d. upwards. When the marriage ceremony is over, the parties repair to the vestry, and enter their names in the parish registry. The registry is signed by the clergyman and the witnesses present, and a certificate of the registry is given to the bridegroom if desired. The charge for a certificate of marriage is 2s. 7d., ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... for the better, socially. Politically, no. England governed by the Marylebone vestry and the penny papers, and England as she would be after years of such governing; is what I make of that. Socially, the change in manners is remarkable. There is much greater politeness and forbearance in all ways. . . ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... read dramatic pieces during courtship, to stop the saying of things over again till the drum of the car becomes nothing but a drum to the poor head, and a little before they affix their signatures to the fatal Registry-book of the vestry, they enter into an engagement with a body of provincial actors to join the troop on the day of their nuptials, and away they go in their coach and four, and she is Lady Kitty Caper for a month, and he Sir Harry Highflyer. See the honeymoon spinning! The marvel to me is that ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... withdrawal into the vestry for the signing of the register, when everybody seemed to be kissing everybody else with considerable lack of discrimination. Finally, to the inspiriting strains of Mendelssohn—who evidently saw nothing sad or sorrowful in a wedding, but only joy and triumph and the completing of life—the whole ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... just disappeared into the vestry as the old clock chimed twelve, and Jan Cuxson, swinging back the churchyard gate, strode up the narrow tomb-lined path to ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... I found that I had been removed to the vestry-room. The open coffin was in the aisle of the church, surrounded by a curious crowd. A medical gentleman had examined the body carefully, and had pronounced life totally extinct. The trepidation and horror I experienced were indescribable. ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... Cofre' after William Canynge the younger, with whose name the erection and completion of St. Mary's were especially associated. These had contained deeds and papers dealing with parochial matters and the affairs of the Church, but some years before Chatterton's birth the Vestry had determined to examine these documents, some of which may have been as old as the building itself. The keys had in the course of time been lost, and the vestrymen accordingly broke open the chests and removed to another place what they thought of value, leaving Canynge's Coffer and ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... of any burial ground or cemetery, and to regulate burials in common graves in statutory cemeteries and to compel persons in charge of vaults or places of burial to take steps necessary for preventing their becoming dangerous or injurious to health. The vestry of any parish, whether a common-law or ecclesiastical one, was thus authorized to provide itself with a new burial ground, if its existing one was no longer available; such ground might be wholly or partly consecrated, and chapels might be provided for the performance of burial service. The ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... can't bear the Dusautoys. She left off subscribing to anything when they came; and he behaved very ill to the Admiral and everybody at a vestry-meeting.' ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "It's evident ye never read police reports," he said—"Talk o' misters,—he's a pretty specimen! He's been hunted out o' his place in Yorkshire for carryin' on love-affairs wi' the women o' his congregation. One day he locked himsel' in the vestry wi' the new-married wife o' one o' his preencipal supporters—an' he had a grand time of it—till the husband came an' dragged him oot an' thrashed him soundly. Then he left the neighborhood—an' just th' ither day—he turned ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... to Dublin to receive the freedom of the city, which the town council had unanimously agreed to confer upon him, he spent a day in the docks and courts and in visiting St. Michael's Church—a place full of historical interest. On the vestry table lie two casts of the heads of the brothers Shears, who were beheaded in the rebellion of 1798. Such are the properties of the soil in the cemetery that the bodies of those are as perfect as the day ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... goes to the town-gate next day, and sits down in the gate (for the porch of the gate was a sort of town-hall or vestry- room in the East, wherein all sorts of business was done), and there he challenges the kinsman,—Will he buy the ground and marry Ruth? And he will not: he cannot afford it. Then Boaz calls all the town to witness that day, that he has bought all that was Elimelech's, and Ruth the ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... the current mysteries with their myth of a dying and rising god and of salvation by sacramental rite; how it decked itself in the white robes of Greek philosophy and with many a gewgaw of ceremony and custom snatched from the flamen's vestry; how it created a pantheon of saints to take the place of the old polytheism; how it became first the chaplain and then the heir of the Roman Empire, building its church on the immovable rock of the Eternal City, asserting like her a dominion without bounds of space or time; how it ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... miracles, but as curiosities of a past age they are worthy of high consideration. Everything that was used by him, and that survives the ravages of time, possesses a peculiar charm; even the chair in which he at is preserved in the vestry of the new chapel, and is shown to those who make the pilgrimage to the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Esq., by whose father probably it was preserved at the demolition of the Priory, and conveyed to Isfield, his manorial estate. At the expense of Dr., afterwards Sir William, Burrell, it was removed from its obscure station, and placed upon a suitable shrine, in the vestry-pew of Southover Church, that being the nearest convenient spot to its original station. The stone is of black marble, sculptured in very high relief. The lower end had been broken off before its discovery at Isfield. Around the rim, and along the ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... newspapers. I wish to have the people of the parish come before me, one by one, that I may hear what they have to say, and thus be in a better position to form a sound judgment. I have written the petitioners to this effect, and have told them that I shall be in the vestry of the church next Thursday, morning and afternoon, to hear what they have to say. I have also written to your wardens—whose names, by the way, do not appear on the petition— stating the case, that they may give ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... accomplishment rather than an atmosphere; their 'Hub,' as they call it, is the paradise of prigs. Chicago is a sort of monster-shop, full of bustle and bores. Political life at Washington is like political life in a suburban vestry. Baltimore is amusing for a week, but Philadelphia is dreadfully provincial; and though one can dine in New York one could not dwell there. Better the Far West with its grizzly bears and its untamed cow-boys, its free open- air life and its ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... church. At left are the steps leading to the chancel and the chancel rails. Beyond the rails are palms, grouped, which conceal the altar. Past the chancel, up stage, is the exit into the choir. Down stage is the exit to the vestry and robing-room. To right of centre begin the pews of the church on each side of a broad centre aisle. The stage is set a little diagonally so that the aisle runs from upper right toward centre stage. This will make a row or two more pews above the aisle than below it. White satin ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The Moth and the Flame • Clyde Fitch
... used to go on Sundays to a school in Inverary. He made up his mind to join them. The class met in the vestry of the United Presbyterian Church there. After their lesson they went together into the church to hear a closing address. Mr. Meikle, the minister, who was also superintendent of the school, one afternoon took from his pocket a magazine ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... of a colony (let not the comparison be too much disdained) is only the vestry of a larger parish, which may lay a cess on the inhabitants, and enforce the payment; but can extend no influence beyond its own district, must modify its particular regulations by the general law, and, whatever ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... the temporary structure in which the congregation of St. George's, Fredericksburg, met before the church was completed. It was probably during a visit to Mr. Staige that Mr. Marye made an impression on the people of that place. At any rate the early Vestry-book shows that, in 1735, the churchwardens, after the colonial custom, asked leave of the Governor of Virginia to call James Marye to their pulpit, and it was granted. He is described as "Mr. Marie of St. James," being then officiating ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... put the sacristy?" said Willis; "that closet is meant for the vestry, but would never be ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... eight. In the vestry of the Regular church John Ellery was conducting his prayer meeting. The attendance was as large as usual. Three seats, however, were vacant, and along the settees people were wondering where Captain Elkanah Daniels and his daughter might be. They had not missed a service ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... seems to think lynching an any-day possibility in the streets of New York. The value of his forecasts may, however, be discounted by his prophecy in the same book that the London County Council would be merely a glorified vestry, utterly indifferent to the public interest, and unlikely to attract any candidates ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... of the same. First he had there a dean, a great divine, and a man of excellent learning; and a sub-dean, a repeater of the choir, a gospeller and epistler of the singing-priests, and a master of the children [therefore, of course, children]; in the vestry a yeoman and two grooms, besides other retainers that came thither at principal feasts.... And as for the furniture of the chapel it passeth my weak capacity to declare the number of the costly ornaments and rich jewels that were occupied in the ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... his feet, and I knew at once that he was very angry indeed. I could see a broad white rim all round the irises of his eyes, and a pulse in his temples was throbbing visibly. I recognized the symptoms. I had seen them once before at a vestry meeting when some ill-conditioned parishioner said that the Dean's curate was converting to his own uses the profits of the parish magazine. The periodical, as appeared later on, was actually ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... vestry," whispered an aged but frivolous woman, who was grimly waiting with a huge ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... had joined in the same form of service, to whose font they had brought their children in baptism, and at whose altar-rails they had stood for "the solemnization of matrimony," and knelt in the office of communion. The second entry made in the parish register, still retained in the vestry, records the death of the head of the family in 1562. Outside the church, and close against its walls, is the tomb of the Winthrop family, which, by a happy coincidence, had just been repaired, as if ready to receive a visitor from a land where tombs are not supposed to have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... William Hogarth, the famous painter and satirist, was baptized. He was born in Bartholomew Close on 10th November, 1697, and his baptism is entered in the parish register on the 28th of the same month.[2] It is recorded that the font had a narrow escape in the eighteenth century, when the Vestry ordered it to be removed for a new one, but fortunately the order was never ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley
... was occupied in this holy function, the statue being half consumed, Eberard felt himself extremely ill; he was led into the vestry, where he ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... night long let three stout men The vestry watch within, To each man give a gallon of beer And ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... Campbell, Headley; the neighbours join in the cry; for there is no mistaking cause and effect there, and no one bears a great love to him; besides, terrified and conscience-stricken men are glad of a scapegoat; and some of those who were his stoutest backers in the vestry are now, in their terror, the loudest against him, ready to impute the whole cholera to him. Indeed, old Beer is ready to declare that it was Treluddra's fish-heaps which poisoned him and his: so, all but mobbed, the old sinner ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... In the vestry of a fashionable church the admirers of a certain earnest preacher come to see him after the sermon. Says a lady, "Well, padre, can you tell ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... vestry after the others to count and take care of the offerings, and as he took up the gold, he could not but look at his son, who was waiting for him, and who flushed all over as he met his eye. 'Yes, Papa, I wanted to tell you—I did grudge it at first,' he said hoarsely. 'I knew it was ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... young as thee bist, as of are' a man in the parish, and as how he wur set on lettin' the lots to thaay as'd do best by 'em; only he said as the farmers went agin givin' more nor an acre to any man as worked for them; and the Doctor, you see, he don't like to go altogether agin the vestry folk." ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... set it up in Nero's Circus, where it remained till 1586. Now, as Nero's Circus was situate on the very ground where St. Peter's now stands, and the base of this obelisk covered the actual site where the vestry now is, it looked like a gigantic needle shooting up from the middle of truncated columns, walls of unequal ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... deadly pale, and sank fainting to the ground. She was the first, but not the only one, of her sex that fainted as Euthymia disappeared in the smoke of the burning building. Even the rector grew very white in the face,—so white that one of his vestry-men begged him to sit down at once, and sprinkled a few drops of water on his forehead, to his great disgust and manifest advantage. The old landlady was crying and moaning, and her husband was wiping his eyes ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... I can say, then. In presents of one kind and another and in money it never cost me less than from fifty to seventy-five dollars a year extra. Having been in the vestry for the last ten years, I happen to know that there was always something to make up at the end of the year, and it generally came out of the ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... on the pine knoll at the close of the service many persons went up to him; but before he had time to speak to a soul Sexton Blackie stepped up and asked him to come along into the vestry. ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... days, when so much is heard in favour of coming back to the Parochial area as the unit of local government, it may be of interest just to glance back at the condition of things when, in the last century, the parish vestry was almost omnipotent, and controlled all sorts of things, from a pauper's outfit, or from marrying a pauper, to the maintenance of the fire engine, the repair of the Church, and the wine used at the Communion! The oldest materials I ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... sculptured stones at Kirkdale. They are generally built into the walls on the exterior, and are not very apparent unless carefully looked for. In the vestry some fragments of stone ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... story as this which was told him by a bishop: There was a dispute in a vestry at Providence between two hot church-members. One said at last, "I should like to know who ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... been the mother of all great inventions. Ericsson began the construction of a screw-propeller in a bath-room. John Harrison, the great inventor of the marine chronometer, began his career in the loft of an old barn. Parts of the first steamboat ever run in America were set up in the vestry of an old church in Philadelphia by Fitch. McCormick began to make his famous reaper in an old grist-mill. The first model dry-dock was made in an attic. Clark, the founder of Clark University of Worcester, Mass., ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... should be sought for, and that it should be thus officially ascertained whether she had been christened with the well water, or not. After much trouble, the important document was discovered—not where it was first looked after, but in a neighbouring parish vestry. A mistake had been made about the woman's birthplace—she had not been baptized in the local church, and had therefore not been protected by the marvellous virtue of the local water. Unutterable was the ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... two little chorister boys, the old Cure left the vestry, and at the moment when he knelt on the steps of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... belief in "Gramarie"—that some fake spirit had issued forth from the "cofre of Mr. Canynge,"[7] so long preserved in the room over the north porch of this Bristol church of Redcliffe—a "cofre" secured by six keys, all of which being lost or mislaid, the vestry ordered the "cofre" to be opened; and not only "Canynge's cofre," but all the "cofres," in the mysterious chamber: not from any love of antiquity, but because of the hope of obtaining certain ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... to toll, and we went to church. My companions placed themselves near the dead. I went into the vestry till the appointed hour. I thought as I put on my surplice how, in all religions but the Christian, the dead body was a pollution to the temple. Here the church received it, as a holy thing, for a last embrace ere it went ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... brisk confidence of the City man, "I find I'm disengaged next Tuesday. Will you meet me at St George's Church at two? I should like to show you the curate and the vestry, and one or ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... With the vestry of the Marrow kirk in Bell's Wynd the synod met, and was constituted with prayer. Sederunt, the Reverend Gilbert Peden, moderator, minister of the true kirk of God in Scotland, commonly called the Marrow Kirk, in which place the synod for the time being was assembled; the Reverend Allan Welsh, minister ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... and respectable meeting of the colored inhabitants of the city of Hartford and its vicinity, convened at the vestry room of the African church, on the 13th inst. for the purpose of expressing their views in relation to the American Colonization Society, Mr Henry Foster was called to the chair, and Mr Paul Drayton appointed ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... is a better arrangement to have the groom and the best man enter the church without their hats, and have the latter sent from the vestry to the church door, so that the groom may receive his when he ...
— The Book of Good Manners • W. C. Green
... science of antiquities. The painted windows of the upper galleries of the nave represent the seventy four ancestors of Jesus Christ; higher up are the images of saints and martyrs; in the right aisle, over the vestry, is seen the gigantic figure of saint Christopher: on the South side, of the six windows that have each sixteen divisions, the four first contain some scenes from the history of the Bible; the two last, the day of Judgment and the celestial Jerusalem. On the ...
— Historical Sketch of the Cathedral of Strasburg • Anonymous
... he was inaugurated president," and your friend will say: "M-hm." But you tell him that right across Broadway is where Barnum's Museum used to be, and he'll brighten right up and remember all about how Barnum strung a flag across to St. Paul's steeple and what a fuss the vestry of Trinity Parish made. That's something he knows about, that's part of ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... is done, as to periwiggs, for nobody will dare to buy any haire, for fear of the infection, that it had been cut off the heads of people dead of the plague. My Lord Brouncker, Sir J. Minnes, and I up to the Vestry at the desire of the Justices of the Peace, in order to the doing something for the keeping of the plague from growing; but Lord! to consider the madness of people of the town, who will (because they are forbid) ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... day's custom is termed 'Gooding.' In neighbouring parishes no corn is given, the farmers giving money instead; and in some places the money collected is placed in the hands of the clergyman and churchwardens, who, on the Sunday nearest to S. Thomas's Day, distribute it at the vestry. The fund is called S. Thomas's Dole, and the day ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... of Commons as a mere vestry," said Waldershare. "I believe it to be completely used up. Reform has dished it. There are no men, and naturally, because the constituencies elect themselves, and the constituencies are the most mediocre of the nation. The House of Commons now is like ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... while I take my holiday on the croquet ground at Wimbledon. Yes, when the present wrongs of women are exchanged for equality with men, I will cheerfully marry; and to do the thing generous, I will not oppose Mrs. M.'s voting in the vestry or for Parliament. I will give her my own votes ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... about the quadrangle, Mr. Reed. It certainly is beautiful and like the English Universities," he broke into a sentence genially. "But I wish to talk to Mr. Fairfax. I've come to bring you the first news, Mr. Fairfax, of what you will hear officially within a day or two—that the vestry of St. Eric's hope you will consider a call to be our assistant rector." Rex's heart almost stopped beating, and his smile faded as he stared breathless at this portly and beneficent Mercury. Mercury went on "A vestry ...
— A Good Samaritan • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... S., with unimpaired dignity, proposed to the congregation a hymn, which was long enough to occupy them during the preparations for the actual baptism. He then retired to the vestry, and I (for I was to be the first to testify) was led by Miss Marks and Mary Grace into the species of tent of which I have just spoken. Its pale sides seemed to shake with the jubilant singing of the saints ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... twenty-seven feet long by eighteen wide,—but still it is a perfect church. It contains an old carved pulpit and reading-desk, a tiny altar under a window filled with dark old-coloured glass, a font, some half-dozen pews, and perhaps a dozen seats for the poor; and also a vestry. The roof is high pitched, and of black old oak, and the three large beams which support it run down to the side walls, and terminate in grotesquely carved faces,—two devils and an angel on one side, two angels and a devil on the other. ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... was not idle, and was always on the lookout for fresh and rising talent. On one occasion, being at a church in the neighborhood of his country seat in Berkshire, he was very much struck by the sermon which was preached by a new curate. After the service he went into the vestry, and had a long conversation with the preacher, the result of which was that he told him that a curacy was not a very enviable position, and that he would do much better to go to London, and write for The Times ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... came from The Red Lion and had a peculiar smell of stale straw. They drove with both windows closed so that the Vicar should not catch cold. The sexton was waiting at the porch to take the communion plate, and while the Vicar went to the vestry Mrs. Carey and Philip settled themselves in the vicarage pew. Mrs. Carey placed in front of her the sixpenny bit she was accustomed to put in the plate, and gave Philip threepence for the same purpose. The church filled up ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... west of old Chancery Lane, till 1799, when the lawyer's lane was widened, stood an old, picturesque, gabled house, which was once the milliner's shop kept, in 1624, by that good old soul, Isaak Walton. He was on the Vestry Board of St. Dunstan's, and was constable and overseer for the precinct next Temple Bar; and on pleasant summer evenings he used to stroll out to the Tottenham fields, rod in hand, to enjoy the gentle sport which he so much loved. He ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... laid at this man's door. While donning his surplice, Dr. Upround revolved these things with gentle indignation, quickened, as soon as he found himself in white, by clerical and theological zeal. These feelings impelled him to produce a creaking of the heavy vestry door, a well-known signal for his daughter to slip out of the chancel pew ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... wor varry sooin at th' chapel door. Th' only consolation 'at poor Tommy had wor thinkin 'at th' chapel wodn't be oppen, an' then Alick wod find aght his mistak; but it unfortunately happened' at ther wor a meetin that neet i'th vestry abaat establishing a Band o' Hope, soa th' chapel doors wor oppen. Alick rushed in wi' poor Tommy, moor deead nor alive. Th' noise they made sooin browt all th' fowk aght o'th' vestry, an' th' parson coom fussin to see what wor to do, an' as ther ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... account, you wouldn't find in all England. Not that it matters whether they came over with William the Norman, nor whether they could once on a time ride from sea to sea on their own acres. For Kitty was the last to carry the name, and she left it in Ardevora vestry the day she signed marriage with Paul Lebow (or, as he wrote it, Lebeau—"b-e-a-u,"): and the property had gone generations before. As she said 'pon her death-bed, "five-foot-six of church-hay will hold the only two achers left to me," she being a little body and very facetious ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Vestry-book belonging to St. Michael's we also learn the rents of the shops, which were at first only forty shillings, in the course of a few years were raised to four marks; afterwards to four pounds, and after the fire they were let at ten ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 395, Saturday, October 24, 1829. • Various
... circumscribed; they hallowed it, they fumed it, they sprinkled it, they bedecked it, not in robes of pure innocency, but of pure linen, with other deformed and fantastic dresses, in palls and mitres, gold, and gewgaws fetched from Aaron's old wardrobe or the flamen's vestry: then was the priest set to con his motions and his postures, his liturgies and his lurries, till the soul by this means of over-bodying herself, given up justly to fleshly delights, bated her wing ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... particularly since the seed sown by the wayside has been protected by the peculiar appropriation of part of the church-rates in our country parishes. See the remonstrance from a "Country parson," in The Times of June 4th (or 5th; the letter is dated June 3rd,) 1862:—"I have heard at a vestry meeting a good deal of higgling over a few shillings' outlay in cleaning the church; but I have never heard any dissatisfaction expressed on account of that part of the rate which is invested in 50 or 100 ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... conceivable. The principal features are the auditorium, seating eleven hundred people and capable of holding fifteen hundred; the "Mother's Room," designed for the exclusive use of Mrs. Eddy; the "directors' room," and the vestry. The girders are all of iron, the roof is of terra cotta tiles, the galleries are in plaster relief, the window frames are of iron, coated with plaster; the staircases are of iron, with marble stairs of rose pink, ...
— Pulpit and Press • Mary Baker Eddy |
