"Unworthiness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... strong is the popular sense of the unworthiness and insignificance of things purely emotional, that those who have taken moral problems to heart and felt their dignity have often been led into attempts to discover some external right and beauty of which, our moral and aesthetic feelings should ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... flings himself at the feet of the coming One. He is strong, as his life and the awestruck crowds testified; how strong must that Other be! He feared not the face of man, nor owned inferiority to any; but his whole soul melted into joyful submission, and confessed unworthiness even to unlace the sandals of that mightier One. His transitional position is also plainly marked by our Evangelist. He is the end of prophecy, the beginning of the Gospel, belonging to neither and to both. He is not merely a prophet, for he is prophesied of as well; and he stands ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... really subdued. He made no question as to the propriety of the decision, but rather felt his own unworthiness, and was completely humbled and downcast. When a note came from Mrs. Anderson, saying that she was convinced that it could not have been Dr. May's wish that she should be exposed to the indignity of a practical joke, and that a young lady of the highest family should have been insulted, ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... too many, who, instead of applauding the hazardous boldness of the measure, and for the sake of its public utility standing forward in its encouragement and support, will endeavour to damp it by premature censure, ascribe the undertaking to vanity, or unworthiness, and if it should fail, be ready to aggravate the disappointment of the projectors with the galling imputation of temerity, impudence, or overweening self-conceit. The sympathy which mankind in general think it handsome to feel for unassuming merit, stumbling ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... it would be strange indeed if any sense of strangeness were left in it. But when I first found out that she had fallen in love with me just as quickly as I with her, I could not get over the wonder of it, or the feeling of added unworthiness with which the knowledge burdened me. But, in truth, the very things which make a man feel so clumsy and coarse in the presence of the woman he loves are the things that take a woman's fancy, just as her sweetness ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... to save her from me that you are marrying her,—so that she may not sink into the abyss of my unworthiness." ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... all collects, to pray which is to take refuge from our own ignorance in the boundless wisdom of God's love—"Thou who knowest our necessities before we ask, and our ignorance in asking: Have compassion on our infirmities, and those things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask, condescend to give us, for the worthiness of Jesus ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... infirmities; encourages them to urge their prayer in faith; teaches them to reason with God; enables them to come boldly in the name of Jesus, when oppressed with a sense of their own insignificance and unworthiness; and, when words fail them and they scarcely know how to voice their desires, He intercedes within them with unutterable groanings, according to the will of God (Romans viii. 26, 27; ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... exchanged vows of love and eternal fidelity. From such vows who could release them? Yet the vows were already broken by each, and of this each was conscious. Had Brooke met Dolores before this last scene with Talbot, he might have felt self-reproach, but he could not have felt such a sense of unworthiness. For before that he had, at least, kept a watch upon his tongue, and in words, at least, he had not told his love for another. But now his word had gone forth, and he had pledged himself to another, when there was ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... delectable hope to renew: My regeneration to this life present, Resurrection from death so excellent; Thou art above [all] other. I desire humbly To kiss thy hands, wherein lieth my remedy. But mine unworthiness maketh resistance; Yet worship I the ground that thou goest on, Beseeching thee, good woman, with most reverence On my pain with thy pity to look upon. Without thy comfort my life is gone; To revive my dead spirits thou may'st prefer me, With the words of thy mouth to make ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... you know his unworthiness, his baseness," said Mary, "I should think it would break all ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... son,—possibly weighed with him,—more than the longest opposing argument could have done. The manner of the father had conveyed, unwittingly enough, a notion of absurdity as attaching to the lad's engaging in such sacred studies, which overwhelmed him with a sense of his own unworthiness. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... of undeserved praise; but though his natural fear of offending and losing favor sprung up directly, a higher principle faced it, and bearing down all obstacles, forced him to acknowledge his unworthiness ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... not worth living, and the size of a world which contains no corner of comfort in all its pitiless expanse. And it was the same story too. She was witnessing the same mystery of love rejected—the same worthiness for the same unworthiness; the same fine discipline of resignation, which made the pain of it endurable; listening to the same old pulpit platitudes even, which have such force of soothing when reverently expressed. She and Edith were ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... destiny, owing no gratitude except to his own might, and being compelled to yield to nothing save the enigmatical, pitiless power of eternal laws or their co-operation, so incomprehensible to the human intellect, called "chance," which took no heed of merit or unworthiness. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... who entertained no thought of revolution. But the distinction between the divine and the human element in the Church was not appreciated by all, with the result that a great body of Christians, disgusted with the unworthiness of some of their pastors, were quite ready to rise in revolt whenever a leader should appear to sound the trumpet-call ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... two lessons from Deuteronomy suit the lesson from the Epistle to the Corinthians. We heard the description of the beauty and richness of the land which God gave to his people,—there were their advantages and privileges,—we heard also, the declaration of their unworthiness, and the solemn threatening of vengeance if, after having received good, they did evil. And as the vengeance has fallen upon them to the utmost, so we are taught expressly to apply their example to ourselves. "If God spared not the natural branches," such was ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... me out. Here you shall be my victim for a few seconds, and you are going to be so exceedingly kind as to listen to me. You need fear nothing. I did not carry you off to insult you, nor yet to take by force what you refused to grant of your own will to my unworthiness. I could not stoop so low. You possibly think of outrage; for myself, I have ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... which you have been exposed, and lament the pain and annoyance which the manifestation of yourself must have cost you, we cannot but rejoice that, in the fulfilment of a duty, you have allowed neither the unworthiness of your assailant to shield him from rebuke, nor the sacredness of your inmost motives to deprive that rebuke of the only form which could at once complete his discomfiture, free your own name from the obloquy which prejudice had cast upon it, and afford invaluable ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... spiritless For shame's sake and unworthiness Of these poor forceless hands that come Empty, these lips that should be dumb, This love whose seal can but impress These weak word-offerings wearisome Whose blessings have not strength to bless Nor lightnings fire to burn up aught Nor smite with ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... praise me—that keeps me here, because I then have to suffer double. O my God! how many fresh flowers are falling upon me!' She always saw flowers as the forerunners and figures of sufferings. Then she rejected all praises, with the most profound conviction of her own unworthiness, saying: 'God alone is good: everything must be paid, down to the last farthing. I am poor and loaded with sin, and I can only make up for having been praised by sufferings united to those of Jesus Christ. ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... The heroine's emotions are worked at top-pressure almost throughout the play. At the very start she is torn with passionate grief for the death of her lover and a still more passionate desire to take vengeance on the man who killed him. When she learns the unworthiness of the one and the justification of the other those emotions are instantly exchanged for a passionate worship of the late object of her vengeance, to be followed by bitter remorse for the harm she has done him ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920 • Various
... dear Miss St. Quentin, pulverised though I am by the weight of my own unworthiness, I protest that petition is not wholly foreign to the question you did me the honour ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... of my doubts at last, In some new way till Fate becomes my friend. I will re-gain the right to re-defend The love I bear to thee, for good or ill. For though, 'tis said, our griefs have power to kill, Mine let me live, in mine unworthiness, That, spurn'd of thee, my lips may praise ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... throne, from the throne of God and of the Lamb. Wherefore, sinner, here is laid a necessity upon thee; one of the two must be thy lot: either thou must accept of God's grace, and be content to be saved freely thereby, notwithstanding all thy undeservings and unworthiness, or else thou must be damned for thy rebellion, and for thy neglecting of this grace. Wherefore consider with thyself, and think what is best to be done. Is it better that thou submit to the grace and mercy of God, and that thou accept of grace ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... it English fashion,—it is a good word) as a dahlia. As a general rule, that society where flattery is acted is much more agreeable than that where it is spoken. Don't you see why? Attention and deference don't require you to make fine speeches expressing your sense of unworthiness (lies) and returning all the compliments paid you. This is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... unworthiness could be brought by either of you against the other, then it would be my duty even at the ...
— Clair de Lune - A Play in Two Acts and Six Scenes • Michael Strange
... he never rises higher, he can rest in the consciousness that no man ever rose more rapidly at the Suffolk Bar than he has." And within a year he had put it all behind him,—a sinful and unworthy life,—and had set out to be a new man. That there was sin and unworthiness in the old life we, who look into our own hearts, need not doubt; but how much of sin, how much of unworthiness, happily we need not determine. Mr. Durant was ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... inferior parts of that fiery corporeity were veiled lest they should be seen by the Eyes that see all things. The wings made no screen that hid the seraph's feet from the eye of God, but it was the instinctive lowly sense of unworthiness that folded them across the feet, even though they, too, burned as a furnace. The nearer we get to God, the more we shall be aware of our limitations and unworthiness, and it is because that vision of the Lord sitting on 'His throne, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... hands, and recites the Orate Fratres and Our Father. All then kneel to adore the blessed Sacrament, which he raises over the paten. He divides it as usual, but without saying any prayer [102], into three parts, putting one of them into the chalice. Striking his breast, and acknowledging his own unworthiness, he receives communion, taking the sacred host, and afterwards the consecrated particle with the wine in the chalice [103]. He then receives the ablution, washes his hands, and returns to the sacristy ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs
... gift. This greatness appears in superlative degree in the self-effacement of him who possessed these powers. Greatness always knows itself more or less fully. It was not self-ignorance that led John to claim to be but a voice, nor was it mock humility. The confession of his unworthiness in comparison with the mightier one who should follow is unmistakably sincere, as is the completed joy of this friend of the bridegroom rejoicing greatly because of the bridegroom's voice, even when the bridegroom's presence ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... Reform Bill era. That is the right thing; and for that he will work day and night, body and soul, and if needs be, die. There, in the editor's den at Leeds, he "begins to see the truth of what you told me about the world's unworthiness; but stop a little. I am not sad as yet. . . . If I am hindered from feeling the soul of poetry among woods and fields, I yet trust I am struggling for something worth prizing— something of which I am not ashamed, and need not be. ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... courtesies to show them, rather than himself, humble. He disdains all things above his reach, and preferreth all countries before his own. He imputeth his want and poverty to the ignorance of the time, not his own unworthiness; and concludes his discourse with half a period, or a word, and leaves the rest to imagination. In a word, his religion is fashion, and both body and soul are governed by fame; he loves most voices ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... now that his first dream of impossible things was over, vibrated too far in the contrary direction; and her every movement of feature—every tremor—every confused word—was taken as so much proof of her unworthiness. ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... Deity: "I have shown myself as I was; contemptible and vile when I was so; good, generous, sublime when I was so; I have unveiled my interior such as Thou thyself hast seen it, Eternal Father! Collect about me the innumerable swarm of my fellows; let them hear my confessions; let them groan at my unworthiness; let them blush at my meannesses! Let each of them discover his heart in his turn at the foot of thy throne with the same sincerity; and then let any one of them tell thee if he dares: 'I was ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... are the chosen models of prompt response to the call of duty. So, again, at the very outset of the poem, we find St. Paul and Aeneas quoted as the two instances of living men who have been permitted to see the future world; and Dante professes his own unworthiness to be put on a level with them, apparently without a hint that he holds the Aeneid any lower as an authority than the Epistle to the Corinthians. In a practically pagan humanist of the days of Leo X. this would hardly surprise us; but it is, at first sight, not a little astonishing in the ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... recognition of the Father's great goodness and condescension, coupled with his own absolute unworthiness, and the impulse which called those words forth, was nearly the highest act of worship which ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... quarters in the guard house, but before he was fairly ensconced there the cap and blouse would go out again, and the maddened guard be regaled with a spirited and vividly profane lecture on the depravity of Rebels in general, and his own unworthiness ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... full extent of her sacrifice for love dawned upon him. He was a vagabond on the face of the earth, but she was tearing herself away from deep roots in the soil of home, as well as from the conventions of her circle and her sex. Once again he trembled with a sense of unworthiness, a sudden anxious doubt if he were noble enough to repay her trust. Mastering his emotion, he went on: "I reckon my packing and arrangements for leaving the country will take me all day at least. I must see my bankers if nobody else. I shan't take leave ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... perform his duty. I passed a miserable night of remorse, and bitter self-accusation, and in the morning was distracted by the battling feelings that were marshalled against each other in my soul. Now, a sense of my unworthiness was victorious over every other thought, and I resolved to resign my trust, and think of it no more; then the belief in my election, the animating thought that I was chosen, and must still go forward or stand condemned, hated ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... crown of his father, the avenging his death, and restoring to their fortunes and their country the numerous exiles, who were suffering poverty and banishment on account of their attachment to his cause. Pride too, or rather a just and natural sense of dignity, displayed the unworthiness of a Prince descending to actual personal conflict with a subject of any degree, and the ridicule which would be thrown on his memory, should he lose his life for an obscure intrigue by the hand of a private gentleman. What would his sage counsellors, Nicholas and Hyde—what ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... thou hast reft away my fear, So nobly meeting my unworthiness, I pray thee, hear me for thine ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... pretend unto salvation, and those infinite swarms who think to pass through the eye of this needle, have much amazed me. That name and compellation of 'little flock' doth not comfort but deject my devotion, especially when I reflect upon mine own unworthiness, wherein, according to my humble apprehensions, I am below them all. I believe there shall never be an anarchy in heaven; but as there are hierarchies amongst the angels, so shall there be degrees of priority amongst the saints. Yet it is, I protest, beyond my ambition to ...
— Sir Thomas Browne and his 'Religio Medici' - an Appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... Roxanne who came to my rescue and held all of them out for him to take his choice. He took the one I would rather have him take—a beautiful pearl, like my friendship is for him, shadowed by the moonstone, which is my unworthiness. ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... him of his earldom. All over the country there were secret meetings and eager preparations for war. The outlook became still more alarming when the Earl of Lincoln at last changed his policy. Convinced of the unworthiness of Gaveston, he turned against him, and the whole baronage followed his lead. Only Hugh Despenser and a few lawyers adhered to the favourite. Gloucester did not like to take an active part against his brother-in-law, but his stepfather, ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... woman's heart weak that will go on loving, through evil report and good report,—through the deep snows of long absence, and the howling storms of no love to meet it, and the black gulfs of utter unworthiness. ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... modern life, its drab vulgarity, the unworthiness of its very ideals stood appallingly revealed before some inner eye just opening. I felt shaken to the core of what had seemed hitherto my very solid and estimable self. How the man thus so powerfully affected me lies ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... right. What labour was too great for the advantage of such moments?—moments indeed they were, and less—flashes of time, that were not here before they had disappeared. We exchanged but few words. I was still oppressed with the conviction of my own unworthiness, and wondered if she could read in my burning face the history of shame. How she must avoid and despise me, thought I, when she has discovered all, and how bold and wicked it was to darken the light in which she lived with the guilt that was a part of me! Not the less did I experience ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... content to speak only the ordinary language of human affection, or to do its ordinary deeds, but is self-impelled to impart what transcends all other gifts of human tenderness, and to give its very self. And so a love that condescends, a love that passes by unworthiness, is turned away by no sin, is unmoved to any kind of anger, and never allows its cheek to flush or its heart to beat faster, because of any provocation and a love that is content with nothing short of entire surrender and self-impartation underlies ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the free, and airy feel Of a light mantle; and while Clerimond Is looking round about him with a fond, And placid eye, young Calidore is burning To hear of knightly deeds, and gallant spurning Of all unworthiness; and how the strong of arm Kept off dismay, and terror, and alarm From lovely woman: while brimful of this, He gave each damsel's hand so warm a kiss, And had such manly ardour in his eye, That each at other look'd half staringly; And then their features started into smiles ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... in life, and be confronted perhaps with an uncertain shape of grief and despair, whom we would fain banish from our shuddering sight, perhaps with some solemn form of heavenly radiance, whom we may feel reluctant in our unworthiness to entertain. But in either case, such times as those, when we wrestle all night with the angel, not knowing if he wishes us well or ill, ignorant of his name and his mien alike, are better than hours spent in indolent contentment, in the realisation of our ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... much pains to conceal from the best of parents the real state of my heart, I know not, except that, from habit, deceit was to me more readily at hand than candour; certainly my attachment to this fair and virtuous creature could not cause me to blush, except at my own unworthiness of so much excellence. My father looked disappointed; I know not why; but I afterwards learned that the subject of our union had, since my brother's death, been discussed and agreed to between him and Mr Somerville; and ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... only the memory of his unworthiness," replied Sophie, her voice rising and clearing, while she regarded her sister with a full, bright glance. "As to hating him—I cannot hate any one I have loved, Neelie." She raised herself up as ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... issue? They seem to believe, and they act as if they believed, that our union, our peace, our liberty, are invulnerable and immortal—as if our happy state was not to be disturbed by our dissentions, and that we are not capable of falling from it by our unworthiness. Some of them have, no doubt, better nerves and better discernment than mine. They can see the bright aspects and the happy consequences of all this array of horrors. They can see intestine discords, our government disorganized, our wrongs aggravated, ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... Congdons were privileged characters in the Springs. They were at once haughty with the pride of esthetic cleverness, and humble with the sense of their unworthiness in the wide old-world of art. Lee was contemptuous of wealth when they had a pot of beans in the house, and Frank was imperiously truculent when borrowing ten dollars from a friend or demanding an advance of cash from ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... head upon her gentle breast; Nor did she lift an eye nor speak a word, Rapt in the fear and in the wonder of it; So moving without answer to her rest She found no rest, and ever failed to draw The quiet night into her blood, but lay Contemplating her own unworthiness; And when the pale and bloodless east began To quicken to the sun, arose, and raised Her mother too, and hand in hand they moved Down to the meadow where the jousts were held, And waited there for Yniol ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... about death is the more noteworthy in her case because of her very deep, poignant sense of sin and of her own unworthiness. ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... were all eyes now fixed, and he was immediately summoned by the clergy and the people of Rome, in whom the right of election was vested, to take possession of the vacant throne. He did not affect unworthiness like Gregory in later years, but accepted at ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... information as to the cause and issue of this journey. The scheme of happiness to which he had devoted his thoughts was blasted by the discovery of last night. My preference of another, and my unworthiness to be any longer the object of his adoration, were evinced by the same act and in the same moment. The thought of utter desertion, a desertion originating in such a cause, was the prelude to distraction. That Pleyel should abandon me forever, because I was blind to his excellence, because ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... and themselves, my father is driving out sin by sin. I cannot love you: but what I do under force I will do with an honest wish to please. I thank you for stooping to one whom her parents cast out. I shall remember my unworthiness all the more because you have overlooked it. You are all strange to me. Just now I shrink from you. But you at least see something left in me to value. Noble or base your feeling may be: it is something which these two, my parents who begat me, have ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... upon her with a kind of idolatry, as something more than mortal; and I felt humiliated at the idea of my comparative unworthiness. Yet she was mortal; and one of mortality's most susceptible and loving compounds; for ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... together with the counsel of instinct, had been too strong in his favour to permit more than a moment's doubt. And she had repented; but that, it appeared, was not enough; she must be punished in this unique way, have her own unworthiness demonstrated by this artless manifestation of his worth. And however much she might long to make ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... fill his empty days. Everard Barett's heart had been his wife's all along. He knew it for a certainty, looking at the woman and her child together, kneeling before them, with a sudden conviction of his own unworthiness, and folly, ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... the evangelists were either not fully informed concerning the facts, or mistaken in their estimate of the character of Christ, is of no avail. For, in addition to their testimony, we have his own personal conviction of entire freedom from sin and unworthiness, which leaves us only the choice between absolute moral purity, and absolute hypocrisy; such hypocrisy would, indeed, be both the greatest miracle and the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... I must explain more particularly than as yet I have done, a word rendered frivolous by the levity of our heart, a word defiled by the disorder of our passions, and too often by the unworthiness, and worse, of poets and novelists, but which still, in its virgin purity, is ever protesting against the outrages to which it has been subjected: that ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... Ingelo, one of Whitelocke's chaplains, prayed with them, and then amplified the favours and deliverances which God had wrought for them, the great difficulties and dangers wherein He had preserved them, and their unworthiness of any mercy; he exhorted them to all gratitude to the Author of their mercies: in all which he expressed himself with much piety, ingenuity, and with great affection. Mr. George Downing, who had ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... conduct; he brought disgrace upon his family. To dishonor a person is to deprive him of honor that should or might be given. To discredit one is to injure his reputation, as for veracity or solvency. A sense of unworthiness humbles; a shameful insult humiliates; imprisonment for crime disgraces. Degrade may refer to either station or character. An officer is degraded by being reduced to the ranks, disgraced by cowardice; vile practises degrade; drunkenness is a degrading ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... there was again the Divine interposition, while there was no reproach, no allusion even to that sinful temper which had led to the banishment of both mother and child, and caused them to come here to perish in the wilderness. Blessed be God that he does not suffer the unworthiness of his children to separate them from his love; that in the hour of extremity he is still nigh; that his ear is ever open to hear and his arm ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... hitherto opposed to conscience and to public opinion the same cool and placid hardihood which distinguished him on fields of battle, had really begun to feel remorse, it would be absurd to reject, on account of his unworthiness, the inestimable services which it was in his power to render to the good cause. He sate in the interior council; he held high command in the army; he had been recently entrusted, and would doubtless again be entrusted, with the direction ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to join the church? Let not a sense of unworthiness keep you back—a deep sense of unworthiness is one grand part of due preparation; and no worthiness of yours can give you any title to that new testament in Christ's blood, which was shed for the remission of sins. Worthless, vile, empty, helpless is every son and daughter of Adam's ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... be, but it was not lowliness!" said Sister Ada, tartly. "If I had been elect—of course I do not mean that I expected such a thing, not for a moment—I should have knelt down and kissed the chapel floor, and protested my sense of utter unworthiness and incapacity ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... with man? That God is looking after men? That God is yearning over sinners, as the heart of a father yearns over his rebellious child, as the heart of a faithful and loving husband yearns after an unfaithful wife? That God does not take a disgust at us for all our unworthiness, but wills that none should perish, but that all should come to repentance? Oh joyful news! Man may be, as the text says that he was in the time of Noah, so low fallen that he is but flesh like the brutes that perish; the imaginations of his ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... hostility towards all creatures, are regarded as the characteristics of Darkness. Whatever undertakings exist that are unmeritorious (in consequence of their being vain or useless), what gifts there are that are unmeritorious (in consequence of the unworthiness of the donees, the unreasonableness of the time, the impropriety of the object, etc.), vain eating,—these also appertain to Darkness. Indulgence in calumny, unforgiveness, animosity, vanity, and absence of faith are also said to be characteristics of Darkness. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... office of an Advocate against the adversary by argument.-1. He pleads the pleasure of his Father in his merits.-Satan rebuked for finding fault therewith.-2. He pleads God's interest in his people.-Haman's mishap in being engaged against the king's queen.-N. B. It seems a weak plea, because of man's unworthiness; but it is a strong plea, because of God's worthiness.-The elect are bound to God by a sevenfold cord.-The weight of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... relinquish his double hope of aiding the Netherlands and crippling the overshadowing power of Spain. Still did he implore help for the oppressed. Long did he carry in his heart a picture of the queen—whom he adored in spite of her unworthiness—as the zealous and devoted champion of a great cause. But Elizabeth was no zealot, nor could she be made one. When Sidney at length realized that the queen could not be induced to move in the cause of the Netherlands, he made up his mind to go as a volunteer to ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... I see; you cannot understand what I am to him, nor can I tell you what he is to me. It is not as if I could dislike or despise him for any unworthiness of his own; nor as if he were a lover only. Then I could do much which now is worse than impossible, for I have married him, ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... simpler as well as the wiser, the softer as well as the stronger for the experience? So it seemed. And yet Lewis had told me, with such tears as Snuffy never made him shed, how tender his uncle was to his unworthiness, what allowances he made for the worst that Lewis could say of himself, and what hope he gave him of ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... nothing to say of her unfitness, her unworthiness, to occupy the place to which he pointed. Not a doubt, not a fear, had she to express. He loved her, and that she knew; and she had no thought of depreciating his choice, its excellency or its wisdom. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... and goodness of God are more mysterious to us mortals when we consider them lavished in extraordinary munificence on the souls of poor sinners. When we feel crushed to the earth in our unworthiness, the forgiving spirit of God lifts us up and pours around us consolations which are the privilege of the innocent. Thus the humble Alvira little dreamt what might be the grand consolations destined for her; but the time of their fulfilment has ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... his heart. It often happens that one receiving for the first time a great and long-desired blessing, can feel, for the moment, not joy and triumph so much as awe and fear at its sudden glory of fairness in contact with his unworthiness. ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Who shall essay, Blinded and weak, to point and lead the way, Or solve the mystery in familiar speech? Yet, if it be that something not thy own, Some shadow of the Thought to which our schemes, Creeds, cult, and ritual are at best but dreams, Is even to thy unworthiness made known, Thou mayst not hide what yet thou shouldst not dare To utter lightly, lest on lips of thine The real seem false, the beauty undivine. So, weighing duty in the scale of prayer, Give what ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... for the world encroach upon your goodness; the favour I have found has indeed always exceeded my expectations, as it has always surpassed my desert: yet has it never blinded me to my own unworthiness. Do not, then, fear to indulge me with your conversation; I shall draw from it no inference but of pity, and though pity from Miss Beverley is the sweetest balm to my heart, it shall never seduce me to the ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... Leo, climbing on a chair," this pattern boy, called Paul Meyerhofer, has in the most inconsiderate manner withdrawn from the verdict of the assembly. As he foresaw, in his feeling of unworthiness, that most of the refusals would be gathered upon his undignified head, he ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... thrilled her heart. She seemed taking part in a triumphal march led by celestial minstrelsy toward the throne. She saw her husband mount its white, glistening steps, so changed, and yet so like his former self when full of love, youth, and hope. He appeared overwhelmed with a sense of unworthiness, but his reception was all the more kind and reassuring. Then as he departed from the royal presence, crowned with God's love and favor forever, though he had all heaven before him, he seemed looking for her as that he longed for most, and her strong effort to reach his side aroused her from her ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... looking on the other towards the Protestant communions, being herself also protesting and reforming, may yet in the providence of God have an important part to play for the reconciling of a divided Christendom. And if this ever should be so, if, notwithstanding our sins and unworthiness, so blessed a task should be in store for her, it will not be a small help and assistance thereunto, that the language in which her mediation will be effected is one wherein both parties may claim their own, in which neither will feel that it ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... is due to his memory, on account of the heartless doubts I permitted to influence me, and which drove him into those terrible scenes that destroyed him. When a woman really loves, Anneke, it is vain to struggle against anything but positive unworthiness, I fear. Poor Guert was not unworthy in any sense; he was erring and impulsive, but not unworthy. No—no—not unworthy! I ought to have given him my hand, and he would have been spared to us. As it is, I can only live his widow in ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... countrymen, to speak of peace without profound emotion. In thousands of homes in America, in millions of homes around the world, there are vacant chairs. It would be a shameful confession of our unworthiness if it should develop that we have abandoned the hope for which all these men died. Surely civilization is old enough, surely mankind is mature enough so that we ought in our own lifetime to find a way to permanent peace. Abroad, to west and east, are nations whose sons mingled their ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... guilt. Whence did it come? What caused it? Calamities many times sweep through a life as a tornado sweeps over a field of wheat, and when they have passed there is more than an appreciation of loss; there is a vision of the soul's unworthiness and humiliation. Again death comes exceedingly near, and, in a single hour, the solemnities of eternity become vivid, and the soul sees itself in the light of God. And again, the essential glory of goodness is so vividly manifest that the ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... Concerning the unworthiness of art because of its character as appearance and deception, it must be admitted that such criticism would not be without justice, if appearance could be said to be equivalent to falsehood and thus to something ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... there in the trodden grass he began to understand something of the unformulated decision that had been slowly growing in him—of the determination, taking shape, to deal more nobly with himself—with this harmless self which had accepted unworthiness and all its attributes, and which riven pride would have flung back at the civilisation which ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... changes of their life bring interest: a job found, a shilling saved, a dainty earned, all these are wells of pleasure springing afresh for the successful poor; and it is not from these but from the villa-dweller that we hear complaints of the unworthiness of life. Much, then, as the average of the proletariat would gain in this new state of life, they would also lose a certain something, which would not be missed in the beginning, but would be missed progressively and progressively lamented. Soon there would be a looking back: ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... on such a wretched creature, who requites Thee only with ingratitude. For if anyone reads this life with attention, he will see on God's part, nothing but goodness, mercy, and love; on my part, nothing but weakness, sin and infidelity. I have nothing to glory in but my infirmities and my unworthiness, since, in that everlasting marriage-union thou hast made with me, I brought with me nothing but weakness, sin and misery. How I rejoice to owe all to Thee, and that Thou favorest my heart with a sight of the treasures and boundless riches of Thy grace and love! Thou hast dealt ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... silence, I confess, with much mental anguish, compunction of feeling and contrition of heart, whilst I revolved all these things within myself; and, as God the searcher of the reins is witness, for the space of even ten years or more, [my inexperience, as at present also, and my unworthiness preventing me from taking upon myself the character of a censor. But I read how the illustrious lawgiver, for one word's doubting, was not allowed to enter the desired land; that the sons of the high-priest, for ...
— On The Ruin of Britain (De Excidio Britanniae) • Gildas
... must found the whole of it upon your merit. Not being able to derive much consequence from the character of Doctor, you are obliged perhaps to attend more to your character as men, as gentlemen, and as men of letters. The unworthiness of some of your brethren may perhaps in this manner be in part the cause of the very eminent and superior worth of many of the rest. The very abuse which you complain of may in this manner perhaps be the real source of your present excellence. You are at present well, ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... gestures, indicative of despair, and need of swift assistance. Berkeley turned good-naturedly, and came in to the rescue, but when he discovered the service required of him, he regarded it with aversion, and showed a mean desire to retreat, which unworthiness was promptly detected by Pocahontas, and ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... chapel in a wood near Bajet, beloved by him on account of its solitude and silence. There, entirely alone save for the acolyte and server required by the rubrics, and trembling at the thought of his own unworthiness, the newly made priest, celebrating the great Sacrifice for the first time, offered himself for life and death to be the faithful servant of his Lord. So high were his ideals of what the priestly life should ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... know to their cost what she thinks of them. There is the pompous lady of a hundred committees. She has a passion for committees, and no sooner has she formed one or sat on one than she discovers the general unworthiness of the assembly. She comes to expose people, to prove how utterly incapable ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... that Esther was the more deserving of happiness, no one will be sorry that her own love-story should find a pleasant denouement. As an argument in favor of mixed marriages the book would have been stronger if Esther's lover had been separated from her only by prejudice, and not by unworthiness as well, but the pathos of the story is in no way marred by the neglect to clinch an argument. Like all Miss Laffan's novels, it is simple in plot. Construction is not her strong point, and though Christy Carew has more story to it than her former ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... on Simon's mind was overwhelming. Instantly he felt that he was in the presence of divine revealing, and a sense of his own sinfulness and unworthiness oppressed him. "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord," he cried. Jesus quieted his terror with his comforting "Fear not." Then he said to him, "From henceforth thou shalt catch men." This was another ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... of cheap furniture which was theirs. The thing so praised, whatever it was, was sure to be sent the next morning with the compliments of the giver for Lord Timon's acceptance, and apologies for the unworthiness of the gift; and this dog or horse, or whatever it might be, did not fail to produce from Timon's bounty, who would not be outdone in gifts, perhaps twenty dogs or horses, certainly presents of far richer worth, as these pretended donors knew well enough, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... you this hour's long space, And feared to find you in another place; But since you're here, my jealousy grows less: You will be kind to my unworthiness. What shall I say? I love to that degree, Each glance another way is robbed from me. Absence, and prisons, I could bear again; But sink, and die, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... the rigid and pious character of the new bishop, the growing reputation, and rising honours of his son, she mistook the appearance of moral excellence for moral excellence itself, and felt her own unworthiness even to become the supplicant ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... back over the past years of his life, and to ask himself whether in very truth that life had been well or ill spent? Viewed by his own inner contemplative vision, Cardinal Felix Bonpre saw in himself nothing but wilful sin and total unworthiness;—but in the eyes of those he had served and assisted, he was a blameless priest,—a man beloved of God, and almost visibly encompassed by the guardianship of angels. He had been singularly happy in ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli |
