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Professing   /prəfˈɛsɪŋ/   Listen
Professing

noun
1.
An open avowal (true or false) of some belief or opinion.  Synonym: profession.






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"Professing" Quotes from Famous Books



... to your predecessor are those concerning the restrictions of certain of the Swiss Cantons against citizens of the United States professing Judaism—a subject which received at Mr. Fay's hands a large share of earnest attention and upon which he addressed the department repeatedly and at much length. It is very desirable that his efforts to procure the removal of ...
— Notes on the Diplomatic History of the Jewish Question • Lucien Wolf

... half closed with a morose look, then he went on. "Yes, I laughed at Cassy. While she was out here at Lumley's getting cured, accordin' to the doctor's orders, things seemed to get a move on in the West. But it didn't suit professing Christians like you, dad." He jerked his head towards the old man and drew the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... a religion professing to be of divine origin is really so or not, it must be examined first with reference to the three fundamental, and the other derivative principles. If it opposes them, it is spurious and not genuine. If it is not opposed to the principles in question, it ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik

... mediaeval farce, indicated in point of form by the retention of octosyllabic verse, or an importation from the drama of Italy. Certain plays of Aristophanes, of Terence, of Plautus were translated; but, in truth, classical models had little influence. Grevin, while professing originality, really follows the traditions of the farce. Jean de La Taille, in his prose comedy Les Corrivaux, prepared the way for the easy and natural dialogue of the comic stage. The most remarkable group of sixteenth-century comedies ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... aided by many very ill-judged laws, have brought landlords into a habit of exerting a very lofty superiority, and their vassals into that of an almost unlimited submission: speaking a language that is despised, professing a religion that is abhorred and being disarmed, the poor find themselves in many cases slaves even in the bosom of written liberty. Landlords that have resided much abroad are usually humane in their ideas, but the habit of tyranny naturally contracts the mind, so that even ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young

... that the extreme liberalism of these countries must ultimately lead to good results. The very general toleration of foreign religions, the regard paid to the means of education, the freedom of the press, the facilities offered to all foreigners, and especially, as I am bound to add, to every one professing the humblest pretensions to science, should be recollected with gratitude by those who have ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... known to many of his readers. About the middle of the second century the Church was sorely troubled by false teachers, especially of the Gnostic type; and it may have been that some adventurer, of popular gifts and professing great zeal in the Christian cause, contrived to gather around him a number of deluded followers, who, for a time, adhered to him with wonderful enthusiasm. It may be that it is this charlatan to whom Lucian points, and whose history he perhaps exaggerates. But there is nothing in the life of Peregrinus ...
— The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious • W. D. (William Dool) Killen

... purchased at Bland's music-shop in Holborn in the year 1794, intitled, 'Think not, my love' and professing to be set to music by Thomas Wright. (I conjecture, Organist of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and composer of the pretty Opera called ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... are in their nature kind and benign, and united with principles of morality. They could not have made proselytes at first by professing anything that was vicious, cruel, persecuting, or immoral. Like everything else, they had their beginning; and they proceeded by persuasion, exhortation, and example. How then is it that they lose their native mildness, and become morose ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... say that he had nothing to do with her dismissal from school, having used every argument in her favor, in vain. He concluded by professing himself more than satisfied with her services, and convinced of her ability as a teacher; desired her to refer to him for a recommendation to any situation that she ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... patron of the Venetians in the early days before Mark's body was stolen from Alexandria, is S. Theodore of Heraclea. S. Theodore, surnamed Stretelates, or general of the army, was a famous soldier and the governor of the country of the Mariandyni, whose capital was Heraclea. Accepting and professing the Christian faith, he was beheaded by the Emperor Licinius on February 7, 319. On June 8 in the same year his remains were translated to Euchaia, the burial-place of the family, and the town at once became so famous as a shrine that its name was changed to Theodoropolis. ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas

... enough over his heart to give him the least pain or disquiet. In short, he had made a progress in my affection, and to his generosity was I indebted for my subsistence two whole years; during which, he was continually professing this philosophic indifference, while, at the same time, he was giving me daily assurances of his friendship and esteem, and treated me with incessant marks of the most passionate love; so that I concluded his intention was cold, though his temper was warm. Considering myself as an encumbrance ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... Margaret, whether if there should appear some good creature (sic) who professed to have had a revelation from God in respect to her, she would believe that? She answered that there was no Christian in the world who could come to her professing to have had a revelation, of whom she should not know whether he spoke the truth or not: she would know it through ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... of Sorell's government, the commerce of the colony was assisted by the enterprise of some British merchants. A company was formed at Leith, with a capital of L100,000, professing to promote the welfare of the colonies, by taking their produce in exchange for merchandise. A succession of vessels were dispatched: the first was the Greenock; among the rest, the Triton, Captain Crear. These ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... Henderson. From the first he had foreseen that it was not a problem to be handled as simply as Kate thought to handle it. The psychological instinct of the priest was very strong in him—doubtless there had been many a good cure of souls among past generations of Benoixes, professing an older faith than his. In moments of clear vision that came to him he battled, as all thinkers must battle, with a great discouragement, a sense of helplessness that was almost terrifying. Of what use man's puny human ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... in the evening, when he commented on Warrington's story and Sir Barnes's adventures in his simple way. He said his brother Hobson had been with him the morning after the dispute, reiterating Barnes's defence of his conduct: and professing on his own part nothing but goodwill towards his brother. "Between ourselves the young Baronet carries matters with rather a high hand sometimes, and I am not sorry that you gave him a little dressing. But you were too hard upon him, Colonel—really you were." "Had ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... married life with a husband who, although professing deep devotion to his brilliant and virtuous consort, was almost invariably absent from her side, Vittoria found herself left a widow shortly after the great battle of Pavia in 1525 wherein Francis ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... no doctrine was ever widely diffused among various nations through successive ages and under different religions, (such as is the doctrine of original sin, and redemption, those fundamental articles of every known religion professing to be revealed,) which is not founded either in the nature of things or in the necessities of our nature. In the language of the schools, it carries with it presumptive evidence that it is either objectively or subjectively ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge

... what, unless I remove my chimney. Is it my wife, too, or who, that sets up the neighbors to badgering me on the same subject, and hinting to me that my chimney, like a huge elm, absorbs all moisture from my garden? At night, also, my wife will start as from sleep, professing to hear ghostly noises from the secret closet. Assailed on all sides, and in all ways, small peace have I and ...
— I and My Chimney • Herman Melville

... that Europeans have been established there for centuries on account of its trade in spices, is characterized by a much higher degree of civilization than the rest of the Moluccas, a considerable proportion of its inhabitants professing to be Christians. The flower of the colonial army is recruited from the Amboinese, who regard themselves not as vassals of the Dutch but as their allies and equals, a distinction which they emphasize by wearing shoes, all other ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... cussedness, but it did not seem to be that either. Apparently she was deriving neither amusement nor profit from the struggle. Why, then, had she undertaken it? Perhaps she was not sincere. Perhaps, on the whole, that was most likely. She must be professing one thing and aiming at another. What the other thing could be he did not stop to consider. Insincerity was becoming his stock explanation for anything unfamiliar, whether that thing was a kindly action or ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster

... of the Druids were of a most interesting character—professing future punishments and immortality. Their heaven partook of the nature of the Elysian Fields, while their hell[8] was as horrible as the most violent fanatic could depict it. It was a gulph of darkness, where the baneful animal crept, where the cold, gliding serpent maddened the sinner ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various

... that is a declared enemy, fals not under the name of Punishment: Because seeing they were either never subject to the Law, and therefore cannot transgresse it; or having been subject to it, and professing to be no longer so, by consequence deny they can transgresse it, all the Harmes that can be done them, must be taken as acts of Hostility. But in declared Hostility, all infliction of evill is lawfull. From whence it followeth, that if a subject shall by fact, or ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... country. Some say, immediately after the Captivity; others put it much later. In 1850 several Hebrew rolls of parts of the Pentateuch, in the square character, with vowel-points, were obtained from the above city. There were then no professing Jews to be found, but in recent years a movement has been set on foot to ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles

... called into requisition for the falsification of business, and the mystification of an individual whom I will designate as Mr. W. That Mr. W. was imposed upon, kept in ignorance, and deluded, in every possible way; yet, that all this while, the ruffian—HEEP—was professing unbounded gratitude to, and unbounded friendship for, that much-abused gentleman. This was bad enough; but, as the philosophic Dane observes, with that universal applicability which distinguishes ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... believed in the enormous proportions of the man's wealth,—believed that he was powerful in all quarters of the globe,—and believed, because he was so told by 'The Surplice,' that the man was at heart a Catholic. That a man should be at heart a Catholic, and live in the world professing the Protestant religion, was not to Father Barham either improbable or distressing. Kings who had done so were to him objects of veneration. By such subterfuges and falsehood of life had they been best able to keep ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... your arbitrary dictate to renounce, as what you are pleased to call idolatries and abominations, the faith and rites held sacred by twenty generations of our ancestors and yours. We are to do this on peril of your highest displeasure, and that of God, by whose will you are professing to act; now who will ensure us that there may not be, some time hence, a vindictive inquisition, to find who among us have been the most ready of obedience to offer wicked insult to the Holy Catholic ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... different is the experience of so many of us professing Christians in our homes—little irritations, frayed tempers, selfishness and resentments; and even where there is nothing very definitely wrong between us, just not that complete oneness and fellowship that ought to characterise Christians living together. ...
— The Calvary Road • Roy Hession

... incontestable right to dissolve the Parliament after the close of a session, "many great lawyers" doubted whether he had such a right in the middle of a session, a dissolution at such a period being "a penal" one. Professing to believe that an immediate dissolution was intended, he even threatened to propose to the House of Commons "measures to guard against a step so inimical to the true interests of the country," and made a more direct attack than ever on the King himself, by the assertion ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... Thus professing, thus believing, Never insolently leaving The highway of our faith, Duty weighing, law obeying, Never shall we wander straying Where ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams

... huckster. Unlimited power belongs not to the nature of man, and rotten will be the foundation of every government leaning upon such a maxim for its support. Least of all can it be predicated of any government professing to be founded upon an original compact. The pretence of an absolute, irresistible, despotic power, existing in every government somewhere, is incompatible with the ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... an especial significance to me (something quite apart from its historical significance). Outwardly professing a keen interest in the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, and other objects which enthralled my young wife, I was secretly planning to offer Lorimer of The Post, the serial rights of my novel The Eagle's Heart, ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... my uncle's death was known at home, Richard wrote the most pathetic letter to me, professing deep contrition, and saying he could never forgive himself for having quarrelled with his dear uncle. He had a sad tale of how the business that he had started had failed and left him with debts. If he had only a few hundred dollars, he could go on with ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill

... refuses to call things by their proper names! Oh! what endless ways it has of putting lying! lying that is done on this day by professing Christians! Oh, the nice, comfortable, self-indulgent ways it has of looking at ungodly trades and practices! What do I mean? I mean trades that cannot be made subservient to the interest of the kingdom of Christ; trades that thrive by ministering either to the ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth

... Macdonald the younger of Colonsay. His father, Alexander Macdonald the elder, was a chief of the Scottish Island of Colonsay, off the Argyleshire coast, but nearly related by blood to the Earl of Antrim, professing himself therefore of the same race, kin, and religion as the Irish Macdonnells, and sharing their ancient grudge against the whole race of the Campbells. He had the personal peculiarity of being ambidexter, or able to wield his claymore with his left hand as well as with his ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... careful helpmeet in her husband," said Madison sternly, "and it's neither seemly nor Christian in you, Arthur, to repeat the idle, profane gossip of the Bar. I knew her before her marriage, and if she was not a professing Christian, she was, and is, a pure, good woman! Let us ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... many sins. For I repeatedly spent a part of the money in a childish way, and afterwards, when my father looked over my little treasure, I sought to deceive him in making up the accounts, either by not putting down all the money which he had given me, or by professing to have more money in hand than was the case, and counting it out accordingly before him. Now, though this deceit was found out at last, and I was punished, yet I remained the same. For before I was ten years old I repeatedly took of the government ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, First Part • George Mueller

... summer society. In the very last week of September we have gone to a supper, which lingered far out of its season like one of these late flowers, and there has been an afternoon tea which assembled an astonishing number of cottagers, all secretly surprised to find one another still here, and professing openly a pity tinged with contempt for those ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... of Smith having procured a passage from England in the Lady Penrhyn, with a design to proceed to India in the event of his not finding any employment in this country, on his offering his services, and professing to have some agricultural knowledge was received into the colony, and, being judged a discreet prudent man, was placed about the provision store under the assistant to the commissary at Rose Hill, and was moreover sworn in as a peace-officer, to act as such immediately under the provost-marshal; ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... she said quietly, "you have honoured me by professing some admiration of my poor person, and methinks that good taste would have demanded that you would have feigned, at least, some interest in the boy who championed my cause. I was wrong, even in merry jest, to touch on such a subject, but I thought that as French gentlemen you would understand ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty

... times. A mere translation, or republication of a foreign or ancient book, does not necessarily imply any degree of assent to the principles involved in the original writer's statements. The new version or edition may be nothing more than a work of antiquarian or literary interest, by no means professing any thing more than a belief that persons will be found who will, from some motive or other, be glad to ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton

... to what the planter was saying. I could scarcely believe the testimony of my ears. Was it really a man professing to be a Christian thus talking, thus boasting of the most horrible cruelties which even the fiercest savages could ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston

... The Authoress of the "Odyssey," but the section relating to the Iliad naturally found no place in the later work. For the sake of this alone "The Humour of Homer" deserves to be better known. Written as it was for an artisan audience and professing to deal only with one side of Homer's genius, "The Humour of Homer" must not, of course, be taken as an exhaustive statement of Butler's views upon Homeric questions. It touches but lightly on important points, particularly regarding the origin and authorship of the Odyssey, which ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler

... the "Institutes of English Grammar," the doctrinal parts of which are embraced in the present more copious work, was published in the year 1823; since which time, (within the space of twelve years,) about forty new compends, mostly professing to be abstracts of Murray, with improvements, have been added to our list of English grammars. The author has examined as many as thirty of them, and seen advertisements of perhaps a dozen more. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... to explain Lourdes; but they are the same arguments that can be, and are, brought forward against the miracles of Jesus Christ Himself. I say nothing to those here; I leave that to scientists such as Dr. Boissarie; but what I cannot understand is that professing Christians are able to bring a priori arguments against the fact that Our Lord is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever—the same in Galilee and in France. "These signs shall follow them that believe," He said Himself; and the history of the Catholic Church is an exact ...
— Lourdes • Robert Hugh Benson

... a Christian tone to the body of students. The extent and intensity of these revivals in some colleges is so manifest that from three-fourths to nine-tenths of the graduates go out from their halls professing Christians. ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker

... of Agpur were not minded to take their punishment lying down. At first Sher Singh had sent various ambassadors professing his readiness to surrender if his life was guaranteed, and when the authorities on the spot proved adamant, indited heart-rending letters to Sir Edmund Antony, entreating his intervention. But the Governor-General had spoken too plainly to ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... no less a degree spiritually fools. And thus, it is not without much truth that Christian writers have dwelt upon the insufficiency of worldly wisdom, and have warned their readers to beware, lest, while professing themselves to be wise, they should be accounted as fools ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold

... Have we not all, under every imaginable circumstance, a work mighty and difficult enough to develope our strongest energies, to engage our deepest interests? Have we not all to "work out our own salvation with fear and trembling?"[6] Professing to believe, as we do, that the discipline of every day is ordered by Infinite Love and Infinite Wisdom, so as best to assist us in this awfully important task, can we justly complain of any mental void, of any inadequacy of occupation, in any of the ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady

... your scriptural argument, because you profess to believe the Bible; because a large proportion of the abolitionists profess to do the same, and to act under its sanction; because your circular is addressed in part to "professing Christians;" and because it is from that class mainly that you expect to seduce converts to your anti-christian, I may say, infidel doctrines. It would be wholly unnecessary to answer you, to any one who reads the Scriptures ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... become a Gray Friar, and Buchanan answered in language which had the unpleasant fault of being too clever, and—to judge from contemporary evidence—only too true. The friars said nothing at first; but when King James made Buchanan tutor to one of his natural sons, they, "men professing meekness, took the matter somewhat more angrily than befitted men so pious in the opinion of the people." So Buchanan himself puts it: but, to do the poor friars justice, they must have been angels, not men, if they did not writhe somewhat under the scourge ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... their village. But this I would by no means consent to, for I was on thorns already lest something should mar our plot, and was keeping a wary eye on our wagoner, who, though slow-witted, was clearly in a state of great uneasiness. Professing, then, that having missed our way we must needs hurry on to make up for lost time, I listened patiently to the minute and befogging directions given us for finding the St. Malo road and ordered my party to march. But when we had gone some few miles out of the village, ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... said Hastings, professing not to recollect his said promise, did neglect to write a formal letter to Lieutenant Anderson in favor of the said Ranna of Gohud, and that the private letter, the extract of which the said Hastings did lay before the board on the 21st ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... of the luggage which had been left behind, there was a universal clamour for returning home, the Malays professing great disinclination to proceeding through the difficult Busang country ahead of us. Even those from Puruk Tjahu, who had pledged themselves to continue to the end, backed out. Though wages were raised to f. 1.50 per day, only eight ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz

... we say, brethren? Was Daniel cast into the den of lions, by men fearing God? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, were they cast into the fiery furnace by men, professing the excellent and glorious worship of the Most ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake

... group round the fire in the refectory he sat chatting with them for about half an hour or so, hoping to elicit from them in the course of conversation some particulars concerning the daily life, character, and professing aims of their superior,—but in this attempt he failed. They spoke of Heliobas as believing men may speak of saints, with hushed reverence and admiring tenderness— but on any point connected with his faith, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... take part in legislating for the restored Union. The same committee, worthy at all times to be cited, declared further, that "Other rebels of scarcely less note and notoriety than Mr. Stephens were selected from other quarters. Professing no repentance, glorying apparently in the crime they had committed, avowing still, as the uncontradicted testimony of Mr. Stephens and many others proves, an adherence to the pernicious doctrine of secession, and declaring that they yielded only to necessity, ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... present orthodox creed of kissing, it would most woefully spoil the sport of many a gallant youth, who, with the most polite officiousness, extinguishes (by pure accident of course) while professing to snuff, the candles, only that he may snatch a hasty, unobserved kiss of the smiling maiden, whose proximity hath so irresistibly tempted him. I wish the professor who hath already obliged us with a chapter on kissing, would lay us under greater and more manifold obligations, by a course of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various

... change of residence of our hero's parents during his infancy. But the oldest Volksbuch was written nearly forty years after the death of Faustus, and Widmann's work appeared even ten years later,—both, indeed, professing to be founded on the Doctor's writings, as well as on an autobiographical manuscript, discovered in his library after his death. Perhaps, however, the assertion of two of his contemporaries, one of whom was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... century," as Mrs. Lee calls him, is painted as a violent and arbitrary man, but always sincere and noble in his delusions. He never loses our respect, and we admire as often as pity him. When people, professing to believe that a few sestertia invested in papyri and sent to their barbarian neighbors would be sure to save hundreds or thousands of fellow-creatures from an eternity of inconceivable agony, do, notwithstanding, expend great sums on "snow-white mules and golden harness," to carry them to the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various

... a native Haytian. This Government asserted his treaty right to equal treatment with natives of Hayti in all suits at law. Our contention was denied by the Haytian Government, which, however, while still professing to maintain the ground taken against Mr. Van Bokkelen's right, terminated the controversy by setting him at ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

... these; they do not work for the public, but a privileged class: they are the parasites of property, sometimes, as in the case of lawyers, undisguisedly so; sometimes, as the doctors and others above mentioned, professing to be useful, but too often of no use save as supporters of the system of folly, fraud, and tyranny of which they form a part. And all these we must remember have, as a rule, one aim in view; not the ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris

... translated this difficult passage nearly as it stands, not professing to decide whether tops of buildings or human heads are meant. Either is strange till explained; neither seems at present to be supported by any exact parallel in ancient literature or ancient art. Necessity with her nails has met us before in Ode 35 of Book I, and ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace

... have been constantly in attendance on the Senate and House of this General Assembly, from the commencement of the session to the present time, four gentlemen professing to represent the great agricultural interest of the State of Iowa, known as the ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck

... grotesque and chimerical is this whole positive theory of progress, that, as an outcome of the present age, it seems little short of a miracle. Professing to embody what that age considers its special characteristics, what it really embodies is the most emphatic negation of these. It professes to rest on experience, and yet no Christian legend ever contradicted experience more. It professes to be sustained ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock

... feeble fancy which unites two vital epochs by the incident of the truant lambkin, and that the plot of the poem does not in any way reveal a great faculty of invention. A parable, moreover, teaches only so far as it is true to life; and in a tale professing to deal with persons of our own day and country, we have a right to expect some fidelity to our contemporaries and neighbors. But we find nothing of this in "Kathrina,"—not even in the incident of a young gentleman of fourteen sporting with a lambkin; or in the talk ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various

... had been persuaded by Signora Venosta, who was always sighing for fresh salons to conquer, to remove (towards the close of the previous year) to apartments in the centre of the Parisian beau monde. Without formally professing to receive, on one evening in the week her salon was open to those who had eagerly sought her acquaintance—comprising many stars in the world of fashion, as well as those in the world of art and letters. And as she had now wholly abandoned the ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... a professing member of the Presbyterian Church, and what is known as a praying man. By this is meant, that, while he never intentionally paraded or obtruded upon his associates his belief in the practical and immediate effect of prayer, he made no effort to ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge

... the station, and the Dunns' car conveyed them to the latter's residence, where they were to spend the day. The Dunns and Caroline had been together almost constantly since the evening when Malcolm and his mother interrupted the reading of the novel. The former, while professing to be harassed by business cares, sacrificed them to the extent of devoting at least a part of each twenty-four hours to the young lady's society. She was rarely allowed to be alone with her uncle, ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln

... the first feeling she roused in me was nothing worthier of a professing Christian than astonishment, I drop in my own estimation to the level of a savage. "Do you really mean," I was base enough to ask, "that you ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins

... disappointed at the results of this persecution of his subjects; and the deputies of the Swiss cantons tried to obtain honourable conditions for the Vaudois. Therefore a kind of amnesty was published Feb. 14th, 1664, which, although professing to confirm the articles of the treaty of Pinerolo, really abridged many of the privileges formerly enjoyed by the Vaudois. It also imposed a fine of two million francs. Janavello was refused any share in the benefits of this treaty, and consequently ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold

... sail within the limit of Phaselis and the Cyanean rocks; while, on the other hand, the Athenians were bound not to enter the territories of Artaxerxes [208]. No such arrangement was known to Thucydides; no reference is ever made to such a treaty in subsequent transactions with Persia. A document, professing to be a copy of this treaty, was long extant; but it was undoubtedly the offspring of a weak credulity or an ingenious invention. But while negotiations, if ever actually commenced, were yet pending, Cimon was occupied in the siege of Citium, where famine ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... "Without professing to be so wise or experienced, as to be very unhappy on that account," returned Morton, "I suppose I may say that I am old enough, and sufficiently changed since those days, to feel, as I now look back upon ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... endeavor to make himself agreeable to Mrs. Bolton, by paying great attention to the children, and by professing the warmest interest in the Friends' faith. It always seemed to him the most peaceful religion; he thought it must be much easier to live by an internal light than by a lot of outward rules; he had a dear Quaker aunt in Providence of whom Mrs. Bolton constantly reminded him. He insisted ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... of a party, animated by such sentiments, powerful in numbers and organisation, and in the station of some who more or less openly join it—owning a qualified allegiance to the constitution of the province—professing to regard the Parliament and the Government as nuisances to be tolerated within certain limits only—raising itself whenever the fancy seizes it, or the crisis in its judgment demands it, into an 'imperium in imperio,'—renders it, I fear, extremely doubtful whether the functions of Legislation ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... remarks, is one of those productions which do especial honour to the English aristocracy. It is the diplomatic career of the founder of a peerage; compiled and published by the third in succession to the earldom. The noble editor, professing to have done but little in this office of reverence and duty, has done much—he has paid due honour to a manly, wise, and vigorous ancestor; and he has set a striking example to the young nobility of his time. The libraries ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various

... beef-steak and a pipe afterward," broke out Pen, "you give yourself airs of superiority over people, whose tastes are more dainty, and are not ashamed of the world they live in. Who goes about professing particular admiration, or esteem, or friendship, or gratitude, even for the people one meets every day? If A. asks me to his house, and gives me his best, I take his good things for what they are worth, and no more. I do not profess to pay him back in friendship, but in the convention's money ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the young soldiers slept like tops that night in their improvised beds and rose the next morning professing to feel like "two year olds" and ready for whatever new fun and adventure the day ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope

... there was much jesting over the maternal anxiety of Arnould mere. Lauraguais, laughing, instantly offered to lay an immense wager that within fifteen days Mme. Arnould would no longer attend Sophie to the opera. The bet was taken, and the next day a handsome but modest-looking young man, professing to be from the country, applied at the Hotel de Chatillon for lodgings. The fascinating tongue of young Duval (for he represented that he was a poet of that name, who hoped to get a play taken by the managers) soon beguiled both mother and daughter, and he ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris

... is a very handy implement to keep on the writer's desk or table. I found a contrivance for protecting the hand in drawing corks, which all who are their own butlers will appreciate, and luminous match-boxes which really shine brightly in the dark, and that after a year's usage; whereas one professing to shine by night, which I bought in Boston, is only visible by borrowed light. I wanted a very fine-grained hone, and inquired for it at a hardware store, where they kept everything in their line of the best quality. I brought away a very pretty but very small stone, ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... arms, and delivered herself as follows: "I guess there's something I ought to say to you. When I told you about our treatment at Edinburgh, the wound still bled, and I did not measure my words as I ought, professing science. Now I feel a call to say that the Edinburgh school was, after all, more liberal to us than any other in Great Britain or Ireland. The others closed the door in our faces. This school opened it half. At first there was a liberal spirit; but the friends of justice ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... judging by her public avowal of the parricide. It is surprising, therefore—and one must bow down before the judgment of God when He leaves mankind to himself—that a mind evidently of some grandeur, professing fearlessness in the most untoward and unexpected events, an immovable firmness and a resolution to await and to endure death if so it must be, should yet be so criminal as she was proved to be by the parricide to which she confessed ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... Whoever, professing the Christian religion, shall wittingly deny the Song of Solomon to be the infallible word of God, may be whipped forty lashes and ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)

... wealthy, proud, and influential, which declined to yield its ancient prerogatives and privileges and to that end relied upon the support of clericals and conservatives who disliked innovations of a democratic sort and viewed askance the entry of immigrants professing an alien faith. Opposed to the Church stood governments verging on bankruptcy, desirous of exercising supreme control, and dominated by individuals eager to put theories of democracy into practice and to throw open the doors of the republic freely to newcomers from ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd

... of the other belligerents, although professing just and amicable dispositions, injuries materially affecting our commerce have not been duly controlled or repressed. In these cases the interpositions deemed proper on our part have not been omitted. But it well ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson

... inherited tendency that is not marked on the palm of the hand and can be traced with unerring accuracy by following the instructions given in this book. Even a casual reading will enable one to know his own character better and give convincing proof of the constancy of friends, or the professing ones. The Bible ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... Party has taken the innocuous title of "The International Publishing Company," alias "The International League of Defense." The I. W. W. operates under any local name which comes handy. Individual Reds often spread their doctrines, and incite workingmen to take part in outlaw strikes, while professing to be members of no ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... revenue. Yet this question, academic now, might soon become extremely practical. The makers of laws might not always express their intention so explicitly; they might, with intention to raise a revenue, pass acts professing to be for regulation only; and therefore, since "names will not change the nature of things," Americans ought "firmly to believe... that unless the most watchful attention be exerted, a new servitude may be slipped upon ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker

... as well as boys. Many of the former eagerly sought her acquaintance and thronged about her between the dances, when, accepting the deference due a cosmopolitan and an oracle of the mode, she gave demonstrations of the new step to succeeding groups, professing astonishment to find it unknown: it had been "all the go," she explained, at the Long Shore Casino for fully two seasons. She pronounced "slow" a "Fancy Dance" executed during an intermission by Baby Rennsdale ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington

... so strangely in her life. She had always known that some people were professing Christians; nay, she had, during her visits to the city, and even at home, seen people, even young girls, come forward and take upon themselves the vows of Christ. Perhaps it may have occurred to her that "sometime" she should do so, but to be deliberately called upon to consider her own immediate ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow

... place where we left our cable and anker, and our hawser, and as soone as we were at an anker the foresaid Gabriel came aboord of vs, with 3 or foure more of their small boats, and brought with them of their Aquauitae and Meade, professing unto me very much friendship, and reioiced to see vs againe, declaring that they earnestly thought that we had bene lost. This Gabriel declared vnto me that they had saued both the ankers and our hauser, and ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold

... of Othello was confirmed by the testimony of the lady Desdemona herself, who appeared in court, and professing a duty to her father for life and education, challenged leave of him to profess a yet higher duty to her lord and husband, even so much as her mother had shown in preferring ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... impressed by the sultana-like style of her Oriental beauty, as she, on her part, was touched and captivated by the youthful loveliness of my angelic wife. After sitting for above an hour, during which time she talked with a simplicity and good feeling that struck us as remarkable in a person professing an art usually connected with so much of conscious fraud, she rose to take her leave. I must mention that she had previously had our little boy sitting on her knee, and had at intervals thrown a hasty glance upon the palms of his hands. On parting, Agnes, with her usual frankness, held out her ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... tray to take away the dishes. She wore no yashmak, for Selim, though professing the Moslem faith, was somewhat lax in carrying out its articles. He did not believe in running a good thing into the ground, he said. So Zaidee came ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs

... really ludicrous—the P. M. G. professing a clearly suprarational faith in an elderly Engineer, saying that he will cook the goose if no one interferes with him ... as if he could go to Suakim, 'summon' a barbarous potentate, make him supply his ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell

... with as little hesitation shed his own for Christ's sake. When he found his own death approaching, he gathered his people around him, and charged them, as Moses and Joshua did Israel: "We are not now what we once were, savages, but men professing to be taught according to the gospel. Let us, then, do accordingly." Then, with unspeakable tenderness and gentleness, he counseled them to live peaceably with all men, to engage in no undertaking without the advice of Christian guides, to remain together as one people, ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... neighbors, these also figured conspicuously among the things the fitfully shining sun looks down upon. But what a charm there is in such a contest! Surely the desire to beautify the spot on which the Blessed Sacrament rests this is only another way of professing one's adoration. ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... be the unequivocal language of Jehovah, either expressly declared or obviously implied in every page of that record which He has vouchsafed to us of His Son; is it not a question of the deepest concernment to every one professing any regard for divine revelation, whether he really understands and believes that record, and whether he is able to give, not only to others, but to himself, a reason of this hope that ...
— The Loss of the Kent, East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay - Narrated in a Letter to a Friend • Duncan McGregor

... the books of Scripture be against all question tenable, it becomes yet more imperative on the interpreters of that Scripture to see that they are not made void by our traditions, and that the Mortal sins of Covetousness, Fraud, Usury, and contention be not the essence of a National life orally professing submission to the laws of Christ, and ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin

... ignorant people; that his case was particular, he had but too publicly shown his inclination to vanities, and the most becoming part he could now act would be owning the ill use he had made of his father's indulgence, and professing to endeavour to be no further expense to him, instead of scandalous complaints, and being always at his last shirt and last guinea, which any man of spirit would be ashamed to own. I prevailed so far with him that he seemed very willing to follow this ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville

... been the policy of Government to introduce among them the arts of civilization, in the hope of gradually reclaiming them from a wandering life. This policy has, however, been coupled with another wholly incompatible with its success. Professing a desire to civilize and settle them, we have at the same time lost no opportunity to purchase their lands and thrust them farther into the wilderness. By this means they have not only been kept in a wandering state, but been led to look ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson

... afterwards I went across the country accompanied by the brother, and his wife, of whom I had dreamed. Some of the congregation at the place where we were going to hold meeting on the next Sunday, were professing to be saved, and at the same time were living in adultery. Some others needed warning in regard to other sins. The Lord wanted me to preach to these people showing them where they stood; but, because of my sympathy ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole

... all to me, and the most difficult to understand," resumed Brisbane, "is the state of mind and feeling of those professing Christians, who, with ample means, give exceedingly little towards the alleviation of such distress, take little or no interest in the condition of the poor, and allow as much waste in their establishments as would, if turned to account, ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne

... regrets for having played the part of a special pleader, no regrets for having concealed its colors behind its back in shameful silence as to its past history, no regrets for having turned away one of Christ's little ones for whom He died, no regrets for having counseled it, while professing friendship, to go elsewhere. ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 39, No. 03, March, 1885 • Various

... value. In 1681, however, Prince Serban Cantacuzene, of whose good deeds we shall speak hereafter, completely restored the cathedral, as appears from the Roumanian inscription on a tablet outside near the portal. This inscription is quaint and interesting, and deserves a place in any work professing to deal with the history of the country. After a number of deeply pious and moral reflections ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson

... belief which have taken place in the course of five or six thousand years, the memory of what happened at a remote date has perished, or, if any trace of it remain, has come to be regarded as a fable to which no credit is due; like the Chronicle of Diodorus Siculus, which, professing to give an account of the events of forty or fifty thousand years, is held, and I believe justly, a ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli

... otherwise. The honest publican saw so much peril in crossing the course of the Earl of Leicester's favourite that his virtue was scarce able to support him in the task, and he was well pleased when it was likely to be removed from his shoulders still, however, professing his good-will, and readiness, in case of need, to do Mr. Tressilian or his emissary any service, in so far as consisted with his ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... that when once she had permitted any intimacy the novelty gave it a double charm. He had come upon her at first as one bowed down with sorrow for the follies of his youth, seeking only for the means of repairing what was past, and professing that happiness was over, and all he could hope was to evidence the depth of his repentance by his devotion and self-sacrifice in the cause of the Church. Then, when at unawares he allowed it to ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... hot or because it looks a little like rain. Others balk if the wind blows a little or if they do not feel just as good as they have felt at other times. Some go along with a profession till new light comes to them, but are unwilling to walk in it. They stop attending meeting or quit professing or try to go on with a profession and not measure up. In any of these cases they ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor

... well as commander-in-chief, Queen Anne addressed a graceful letter to him, dated June 23, 1713, in which, after alluding to her "good brother," the French King, having released from imprisonment on board his galleys such of his subjects as were detained there professing the Protestant religion, she desired to show her appreciation of his majesty's compliance with her wishes by ordering that all Frenchmen in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland who should desire to remain ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... say you are mistaken," he replied, "because you could not really believe me to entertain any design of alarming you; and I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance long enough to know that you find great enjoyment in occasionally professing opinions which in fact are not ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... development, and to underrate the importance of serious thought and quiet work, which can be the only solid foundation of our national progress. In these new associations—humble indeed in their origin, but destined to play a large part in the people's lives—projects, professing to be fraught with economic benefit, have to be judged by the cruel precision of audited balance sheets, and the worth of men is measured by the solid contribution they have made to ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett

... of Becky Sharp. In America she delivered lectures which were written for her by a clergyman and which dealt with the art of beauty. She had a temporary success; but soon she became quite poor, and took to piety, professing to be a sort of piteous, penitent Magdalen. In this role she made effective use of her beautiful dark hair, her pallor, and her wonderful eyes. But the violence of her disposition had wrecked her physically; ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... state), and in return, they deserve to be well paid. And you, Socrates, whether you please or not, must continue to be a measure. This is my defence, and I must request you to meet me fairly. We are professing to reason, and not merely to dispute; and there is a great difference between reasoning and disputation. For the disputer is always seeking to trip up his opponent; and this is a mode of argument which disgusts men with philosophy as they grow older. But the reasoner is ...
— Theaetetus • Plato

... regarded her sympathizing sisters through a grate of superior knowledge and unsharable grief. Like a devout nun, she worshipped "St. Philip," and firmly believed in his miraculous powers. She fancied that her woes set her apart from common cares, and slowly fell into a dreamy state, professing no interest in any mundane matter, but the art that first attracted Philip. Crayons, bread-crusts, and gray paper became glorified in Laura's eyes; and her one pleasure was to sit pale and still before her easel, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... of the population are Tamils professing Hinduism. Hindu temples of the ordinary Dravidian type are especially frequent in the northern districts, but they are found in most parts and at Kandy two may be seen close to the shrine of the Tooth.[115] Buddhists feel no scruple in frequenting them and the images of Hindu deities are habitually ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... to me," I said. "I couldn't have done it. I don't know why, but I couldn't. I'm not professing to be particularly brave or chivalrous or anything of that sort. But to resign under those circumstances——! Well, one doesn't ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham

... attended the funeral. He had consulted Abdul and they had come to the conclusion that it would be wiser for him, as a professing Christian, not to be present at the actual religious ceremony. From a raised spot in the desert he had seen all that had taken place. In accordance with Moslem superstition, the funeral had been before sunset. All Moslems dislike a dead body remaining in the house overnight; it is always, when ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer

... some account of the dispositions of the executive. These were sufficiently favorable; for the new governor had particular instructions fully to carry out the arrangements made by his predecessor with the associates. On learning Almagro's arrival, he came down to the port to welcome him, professing his willingness to afford every facility for the execution of his designs. Fortunately, just before this period, a small body of military adventurers had come to Panama from the mother country, burning with desire to make their fortunes in the New World. They caught much ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... most essential rights of human nature, and utterly repugnant to the precepts of the gospel, which breathes 'peace on earth and good will to men,' lament that a practice so inconsistent with true policy and the inalienable rights of men should subsist in so enlightened an age, and among a people professing that all mankind are, by ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole

... themselves or their fathers in an easy fashion with sacrifices and festive games, or with charms and invocations to get rid of an enemy good or bad by divine help and at a small charge;—they appeal to books professing to be written by Musaeus and Orpheus, and carry away the minds of whole cities, and promise to "get souls out of purgatory;" and if we refuse to listen to them, no one knows ...
— The Republic • Plato

... Though professing to have supernatural power himself, Tenskwatawa realized the degrading effect of petty superstition and the terror and injury the medicine men were able to bring upon the simple-minded Indians who believed in their charms and spells. He denounced ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney

... this day, ignored all the late proceedings, professing to be enraged with his brother and the Amlah, and refusing to meddle in the matter. This was no doubt a pretence: we had sent repeatedly for an explanation with himself or the Rajah, from which he excused himself ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... at the idea, professing that a medical career was the one thing nearest his heart. He had long feared, so he wrote, that his inspiration would forsake him if he relied upon literature for his living; but if he could devote himself to it in the intervals of medical practice, good things might ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... brotherhood of tradesmen professing the same art, governed according to their charter by a master and wardens. Of these there be about sixty, whereof twelve are of greater dignity than the rest, that is to say, the mercers, grocers, drapers, fishmongers, goldsmiths, skinners, merchant-tailors, haberdashers, salters, ironmongers, ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington

... papers. Before leaving a visit was paid to one of these, a young man named Wilnoti, whose father, Gatigwanasti, had been during his lifetime a prominent shaman, regarded as a man of superior intelligence. Wilnoti, who is a professing Christian, said that his father had had such papers, and after some explanation from the chief he consented to show them. He produced a box containing a lot of miscellaneous papers, testaments, and hymnbooks, ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney

... party of these witch-doctors, who were making an excellent living among the Kaffirs by professing to make rain and find witches to order, met their match for once in the English Governor of the newly annexed province known as 'Queen Adelaide,' the genial and energetic officer of Peninsular fame, Colonel—afterwards Sir Harry—Smith.[5] The English 'father,' as he was styled by ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... paths, even as you may follow such as can only lead you astray. Do not fail to keep in mind that perhaps in no region of human knowledge are there such a multitude of unsafe leaders as in this; for indeed this science of words is one which many, professing for it an earnest devotion, have done their best or their worst to bring into discredit, and to make a laughing-stock at once of the foolish and the wise. Niebuhr has somewhere noted 'the unspeakable spirit of absurdity' which seemed to possess the ancients, whenever they meddled ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench

... Isaacs kept their own strange private loyalty. I am willing to count this to you for a virtue as your own code may interpret virtue; but the fact would alone be enough to make me protest against any man professing your code and administering our law. And it is upon this point of your public position, and not upon any private feelings, that ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... Wea village at Terre Haute, and Harrison sent out the militia to discover what had become of them. One of these canoes came down the river to a Shaker settlement sixteen miles above Vincennes. The Indians there attended meeting on Sunday, the Prophet professing to believe in the Shaker creed, (without, however, practicing celibacy), and then finished the day's proceedings by stealing five horses. They made no attempt to cover their tracks, but the Governor stopped any pursuit, as he "had ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce

... the 'feebleness of the human faculties and the uncertainty of the subject,' we are inclined to believe that the fewer our words the better. At the approach of death there is not much said; good men are too honest to go out of the world professing more than they know. There is perhaps no important subject about which, at any time, even religious people speak so little to one another. In the fulness of life the thought of death is mostly awakened ...
— Phaedo - The Last Hours Of Socrates • Plato

... you doing off Hatteras, Captain Bob?" I asked. I was leading him on, professing ignorance of minor details, so that I could again enjoy the delight of ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith

... Convention go down to history as the beginning of an infamous period when the sanctity of free speech was a thing to be ruthlessly smashed by the hireling or misguided mobs of an organisation professing democratic principles. The miracle of the Easter Rising was that it put an end to the rule of the thug and the bludgeonman. But many things were to ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan

... police news headed "Bogus Russian Princess." But now he gloated over the lines which had made him shudder before when he read how Marie Lowenstein, of 15, Gerald Street, Charing Cross Road, calling herself Princess Popoffski, had been brought up at the Bow Street Police Court for fraudulently professing to tell fortunes and produce materialised spirits at a seance in her flat. Sordid details followed: a detective who had been there seized an apparition by the throat, and turned on the electric light. It was the woman Popoffski's throat that he held, and her ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... desirous to widen the breach between Anne and William III, influenced her to write to her Father, 'supplicating his forgiveness, and professing repentance for the ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... various commodities. With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice that Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people—a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence. ...
— The Federalist Papers

... king, though professing to be a reformer, would brook nothing which did not accord precisely with his own dogmatic utterances. Her presuming to write to him, when she did not submit to his dictation, he chose to construe as ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster

... with our collection, and found the vessels still surrounded by many canoes, and the natives swimming about extremely vociferous. Among them were a considerable number of women, who wantoned in the water like amphibious creatures, and were easily persuaded to come on board, perfectly naked, without professing greater chastity than the common women at Otaheite ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... away, you thieving scoundrel!" cried Archy, who was half mad with disappointment. "You come here professing to be civil, and yet you won't ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn

... but rarely employed. If the proprietor sometimes transfers them to the lower story he makes but a partial use of them; established customs, anterior and more powerful interests and instincts restrict their employment. In this respect he is not acting in bad faith, but as a man; each of us professing truths which he does not put in practice. One evening Target, a dull lawyer, having taken a pinch from the snuff-box of the Marechale de Beauvau, the latter, whose drawing room is a small democratic club, is amazed at such monstrous familiarity. Later, Mirabeau, on returning home just after ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... orange gloves and copper-coloured noses got themselves up in the most superb style, though few were going to land at Brest, and took tender farewells of such ladies as did, each professing desolation and despair at the termination of a ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott

... should reside within the precincts of the Court and lend his assistance to convict the Duke of his crime, terms to which the perfidious confidant readily consented; while with a tact worthy of his falsehood, he soon succeeded in reinstating himself in the good graces of the Duke, by professing to be earnestly engaged in France in furthering his interests, and by giving him reason to believe that he was still ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... long black hair falling over his shoulders." He sang, he danced, he rode, he boxed, he fenced. But below all these activities a restless inward current ran. For a time he became, as Mrs Orr has put it, "a professing atheist and a practising vegetarian;" and together with the growing-pains of intellectual independence there was present a certain aggressive egoism. He loved his home, yet he chafed against some of its social limitations. ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... under this immediate command, but the different detachments and separate armies through the course of the war. To the various branches of the army the general takes this last and solemn opportunity of professing his inviolable attachment and friendship. He can only again offer in their behalf his recommendations to their grateful country and his prayers to the God of armies. May ample justice be done them here, and may favors, both here and hereafter, ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various

... had not witnessed his triumphs, nor known his past radiant beauty, they were far from professing that respect that the last generation had had for him. They never lost an opportunity of worrying and teasing him cruelly. When he appeared in the Calle de Altavilla, or entered the Cafe de Maranon, he was surrounded by a crowd of gamins. ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds

... meet them with the conviction that she was going to play a part for want of some chosen means of not doing so. She found herself, before she knew it, making her banjo a property in the little comedy, and professing so much pleasure in the fact that Miss Dryfoos was taking it up; she had herself been so much interested by it. Anything, she said, was a relief from the piano; and then, between the guitar and the banjo, one must really choose the banjo, unless one wanted to devote one's whole natural life to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... already on their side, and now his zeal was quickened by the mortal terror he had undergone, perhaps also by shame at the unworthy panic in which he had already allowed the exiles to return. In an age when the larger number of professing Christians were content to spend most of their lives as catechumens, it was a decided step for an Emperor to come forward and ask for baptism. This, however, was the step taken by Valens in the spring of 367, which finally committed him to the Homoean side. By it he undertook to resume the policy ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin

... imagination to have been equal to, if not greater than, that of the prophet Elijah, who is credited with the power of having known from any distance all that happened in the king's bed chamber. No Orientalist has the right to reject the testimony of other people's Scriptures, while professing belief in the far more contradictory and entangled evidence of his own upon the self-same theory of proof. If Professor Muller is a sceptic at heart, then let him fearlessly declare himself; only a sceptic who impartially ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various

... lastly.—Do they reject Christ! If they do, they know nothing whatever about Spiritualism, there being NONE without Him. Again, when you observe professing psychists living in any eccentric way, so as to cause their trifling every-day actions to be remarked and commented upon, you may be sure the real power is not in them,—as, for instance, people who become vegetarians because they imagine that by so doing they will see spirits— people ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... amongst us to-night with other thoughts, other faiths, other beliefs than ours, but from what I see of the audience he will not speak to freethinkers only. I believe that there are more professing Christians in this hall to-night than there ever have been before. Let us remember that. It may be that Mr. Maxwell will teach us some lessons as unpalatable as those which he taught from the pulpit of ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith

... (returning to his fact): "Why there was Mary Peebles, ez was daughter of my wife's bosom friend—a mighty pooty girl and a professing Christian—died of scarlet fever. Well, that gal—I was one of the mourners, being my wife's friend—well, that gal, though I hedn't, perhaps, oughter say—lying in that casket, fetched all the way from some A1 establishment in Chicago, filled with flowers and furbelows—didn't ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte

... is, most people are like the devils of scripture who "believe and tremble" without admitting the authority of their belief. It is refreshing to find a writer like Mr. W. S. Lilley in the Nineteenth Century professing his absolute belief in ghosts. To man, and it would appear to man alone on this plane, it is given to explore the unknown and to establish the communion of ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips

... Madam, are four young ladies of like years, and different inclinations and tempers, all of whom may be said to have dangers to encounter, resulting from their respective dispositions: and who, professing to admire my character and example, were brought to me, to be benefited, as Mrs. Towers was pleased to say, by my conversation: and all was to be as if accidental, none of them knowing how well I was acquainted with their ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... good as their teachings. They proclaim the love of God for every man, and then make distinctions in their treatment of men. Professing love for all, they gather their skirts close about them when fallen ones pass by. But Jesus lived out all of the love of God that he taught. It was literally true in his case, that not one who came to him was ever cast out. ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller



Words linked to "Professing" :   profess, avowal, affirmation, avouchment, profession



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