"Virgin Mary" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a representation of "the nativity," carved in so masterly a manner, that, although it was considerably defaced, it must have required the ablest artists to accomplish. The handle, which was likewise superbly carved, ended in a figure of the Virgin Mary, with our Saviour in her lap. The other spoon was so much injured, that we could trace out nothing decisive; although here and there we could perceive it ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 362, Saturday, March 21, 1829 • Various
... had evening prayers, and afterwards all went up to bed. My bed was placed against the wall, in which there was a niche for the statue of the Virgin Mary. A lamp was always kept burning in the niche, and the oil for it was provided by the children who had been ill and were grateful for their recovery. Two tiny flower-pots were placed at the foot of ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... Louis II. issued the terrible edict of 1523, which ran as follows: "All Lutherans, and those who favour them, as well as all adherents to their sect, shall have their property confiscated and themselves be punished with death as heretics and foes of the most holy Virgin Mary." ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... they call it, of the Chinese to Christianity is so far from the true conversion required to bring heathen people to the faith of Christ, that it seems to amount to little more than letting them know the name of Christ, and say some prayers to the Virgin Mary and her Son, in a tongue which they understood not, and to cross themselves, and the like; yet it must be confessed that the religionists, whom we call missionaries, have a firm belief that these people will be saved, and that they are ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... eighty Catholic meetin'-houses in Rome, quite a few on 'em dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and lots of costly gifts are laid on her altar. But the one I wanted to see and so did the rest of our party wuz the one that stood on the spot where once the circus of Nero stood, weak, mizable creeter. The most agreeable actin' to him and his cruel pardner wuz the death struggles ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... the wood crackled, he chanted the Catholic burial prayer, "Jesu, Son of David, have mercy upon me." From the west a gentle breeze was blowing, and a gust dashed the smoke and sparks in his face. At the words "Who was born of the Virgin Mary" he ceased; his lips moved faintly in silent prayer; and a few moments later the martyr breathed no more. At last the cruel fire died down, and the soldiers wrenched his remains from the post, hacked his skull in pieces, and ground his bones to powder. As they ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... G.K. quoted with considerable amusement a learned critic who said it was "possible" that the poet had "passed through a period of intense devotion, more especially towards the Virgin Mary." "It is," he comments. "It does occur from time to time. I do not quite understand why Chaucer must have 'passed through' this fit of devotion; as if he had Mariolatry like the measles. Even an amateur who has encountered this malady may be allowed to testify that it does not usually visit ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... "There was a great and solemn procession and relics of saints were placed within" (Dugdale). But the following extract from a chronicle in the Lambeth library is worth quoting: "On the tenth of the calends of June, 1314, Gilbert, Bishop of London, dedicated altars, namely, those of the Blessed Virgin Mary, of St. Thomas the Martyr, and of the Blessed Dunstan, in the new buildings of the Church of St. Paul, London. In the same year the cross and the ball, with great part of the campanile, of the Church of St. Paul were taken down because they were decayed ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... have exercised our curiosity in observing that Adam, the eldest of the eldest world, died in his climacterical year, and Shem, the eldest son of the next world, in his; Abraham, the father of the faithful, in his, and the blessed Virgin Mary, the garden where the root of faith grew, in hers. But they whose climacterics we observe, employed their observation upon their critical days, the working of thy promise of a Messias upon them. And shall we, O my God, make less use of those days who have more of them? We, who have not only ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... longed to spend my time in worshipping Jesus, and was, as far as my inner life was concerned, absorbed in that passionate love of "the Savior" which, among emotional Catholics, really is the human passion of love transferred to an ideal—for women to Jesus, for men to the Virgin Mary. In order to show that I am not here exaggerating, I subjoin a few of the prayers in which I found daily delight, and I do this in order to show how an emotional girl may be attracted by these ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... must lead to the breaking up of the false doctrines and all the instruments by which the clergy have maintained their usurpations. It necessarily opens the eyes of the people to the antichristian doctrine of penance, to the absurdity of indulgences for sin, to the unwarranted worship of the Virgin Mary, to the monstrous claim of papal infallibility, and to all other glaring usurpations by which the popes have ruled the world. There is not a false doctrine in religion, nor an antichristian form of worship, nor a usurped prerogative of the Pope and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... of great trouble to Gerard, whose conscience compelled him to oppose the Pope. His Holiness, siding with the Grey Friars in their determination to swamp every palpable distinction between the Virgin Mary and her Son, bribed the Christian world into his crotchet by proffering pardon of all sins to such as would add to the Ave Mary this clause: "and blessed be thy Mother Anna, from whom, without blot of sin, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... ships a sailing there, sailing there, sailing there, The Virgin Mary and Christ they bare, A ...
— Rhymes Old and New • M.E.S. Wright
... Annunciation, and below the Presentation, and those on the right, the Angel appearing to the Shepherds above, and the Wise Men below. All the tabernacle work is most beautifully wrought in silver, but the figures are less good, that of the Virgin Mary being ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... attraction of our Christmas week was a genuine Mystery play, the Virgin Mary being represented by a girl in soiled white stockings and a confirmation dress. The Christ Child was a Spanish doll in a glass case. There were the three wise men—one in a long beard and a pink mask, and the others in gold braid and knickerbockers—more like dandies than ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... them afterward asserted that they felt as if they had been immersed in a stream of blood, which obliged them to leap so high. Others, during the paroxysm, saw the heavens open and the Saviour enthroned with the Virgin Mary, according as the religious notions of the age were strangely and variously reflected ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... with regard to the edifices on the opposite side of the road. The Virgin Mary was worshipped in the Templum divi Augusti, in the place of the deified founder of the empire; and also in the Basilica Julia, the northern vestibule of which was transformed into the church of S. Maria de Foro. Finally, the AErarium Saturni transmitted ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... usually credited with the discovery of vaccination. The doubtful honor, however, belongs in reality to an old Circassian woman who, according to the historian Le Duc, in the year 1672 startled Constantinople with the announcement that the Virgin Mary had revealed to her an unfailing ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... psalms, antiphons, lessons, &c., for feasts of various groups or classes (twelve in all); e.g. apostles, martyrs, confessors, virgins, and the Blessed Virgin Mary. These offices are of very ancient date, and many of them were probably [v.04 p.0505] in origin proper to individual saints. They contain passages of great literary beauty. The lessons read at the third nocturn are patristic homilies on the Gospels, and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... wrote—the Four Gospels—they taught this doctrine. In Jesus Christ they personified the law of Moses,—Christ representing in his double character both the spirit and the letter of the Law; John the Baptist, the witness of the spirit, representing the letter exclusively; the Virgin Mary the "wisdom" constantly personified in the Old Testament. She is also the Church, the bride of Christ, and that "invisible nature" symbolized in all mythologies as divine. The Father is the Spirit of the Law and the Spirit ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... doctrines of the Roman church, she endeavoured to propitiate the favour of Heaven by vows as well as prayers. In a small crypt, or oratory, adjoining to the chapel, was hung over an altar-piece, on which a lamp constantly burned, a small picture of the Virgin Mary, revered as a household and peculiar deity by the family of Berenger, one of whose ancestors had brought it from the Holy Land, whither he had gone upon pilgrimage. It was of the period of the Lower Empire, a Grecian painting, not unlike those which in Catholic countries ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... associated crimes. The Italian word mariuolo which signifies "rogue" owes its origin to the behaviour of certain pilgrims to the shrines of Loreto and Assisi, who, while crying Viva Maria! ("Hail to the Virgin Mary!") committed the most atrocious crimes, confident that the pilgrimage itself would serve as a means of expiation. In his Reminiscences Massimo d' Azeglio notes that places boasting of celebrated shrines always ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... the present time, spoken with the formalities necessary to make their utterances "ex cathedra" and infallibly binding, and that was when Pius the Ninth, on December 8, 1854, decreed the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary; which, if true, belongs to the realm of unpractical speculation. It was denied as heresy by orthodox Catholics, including fourteen Popes, for a thousand years, and is contrary to the well-nigh "unanimous consent of the fathers." See Dr. Pusey, ...
— The Christian Foundation, June, 1880
... said Mr. Macdermott, simply and fervently. "At processions, you know. It's a great Catholic day—like August 15th—I forget why. Some Catholic foolery. The birthday of the Virgin Mary, I fancy. Anyhow we throw stones.... I wonder will ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... religion of strong nature worship, overshadowed by fatalism, only thinly veneered by Christianity, the minds of the Christian converts of Scandinavia, like those of puzzled children, transferred to the Virgin Mary the attributes that had formerly been those of their "Lady"—Freya, the goddess ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... us! but if there isn't the ghowst of Miss Cora come to haunt me for not finding her afore!" exclaimed Teddy, retreating a step or two in genuine terror. "Saint Patherick, Saint Pether, Saint Virgin Mary, protict me! I didn't mane to get dhrunk that day, ye know, nor to make a ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... Virgin Mary, mum, I ain't a idolater, beggin' yer parding," says Mrs. Ginx; "an' tho' I wouldn't for the world offend them as has been so kind to my child, an' saved it from that deer little creetur bein' thrown over Wauxhall Bridge—an' Ginx ought to be ashamed of hisself, ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... sleepy, insensible, unmotherly girl, one so little worthy to have been selected as the Mother of the Saviour, that she seems to have neither heart nor feeling to entitle her to become a mother at all. But indeed the race of Virgin Mary painters seems to have been cut up, root and branch, at the Reformation. Our artists are too good Protestants to give life to that admirable commixture of maternal tenderness with reverential awe and wonder approaching to worship, with which the ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... every condition; it treats in hieroglyphics of the sepulchre of the Saviour, his death, and the Old Testament saints; it refers to Hezekiah and the Ten Tribes; it is written in glorification of the Virgin Mary. Such were the impossible and diverging interpretations of what many regarded as the very Word of God. A few only, till the beginning of this century, saw the truth,—which is so obvious to all who go to the Bible with the humble desire to know what it says, and not to interpret it into their ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... who cannot get along without that town—and others of his subjects have offered tribute. Thanks to the Lord, and to the most holy sacrament which appeared in public—and, as it were, on the field of battle—and to the most holy Virgin Mary, our Lady, on whose day the expedition was ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... woman Mary did bring forth the son who bruised the serpent's head, which brought sin into the world by the woman Eve, so the Virgin Mary was the occasion of grace as the Virgin Eve was the cause of damnation. Eve had not known Adam as yet when she was beguiled and seduced the man; so ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... Indian languages. The traits of his character are unmistakable. He was of the brotherhood of the early Canadian missionaries, and the true counterpart of Garnier or Jogues. He was a devout votary of the Virgin Mary; who, imaged to his mind in shapes of the most transcendent loveliness with which the pencil of human genius has ever informed the canvas, was to him the object of an adoration not unmingled with a sentiment of chivalrous devotion. The longings of a sensitive heart, divorced from ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... my dear reader, nor blame. After all, I extricated myself, perhaps, as Charles VI said, his confessor, and the pious souls who trust in God, and who wished me at the Devil, by the protection of the Virgin Mary, for the battle ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... ambassador called, July 3d, he found Madonna Lucretia, Sancia, the latter's husband, Giuffre, and one of Lucretia's ladies-in-waiting, who was the Pope's "favorite," with him. Alexander was then seventy years of age. He ascribed his escape to the Virgin Mary, just as Pius IX did his own when the house near S. Agnese tumbled down. July 5th Alexander held a service in her honor, and on his recovery he had himself borne in a procession to S. Maria del Popolo, where he offered the Virgin a goblet containing three hundred ducats. Cardinal ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... the habit of commanding his people not to listen to the Bible when any one offered to read it; but in the Bible itself he found these words, 'Search the Scriptures.' He had been in the habit of praying to the Virgin Mary, and begging her to intercede with God for him; but in the Bible he found these words: 'There is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.' These things perplexed him much. But while he was ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... the Catholics. I was with my mother at —, a Catholic town, and there was a lady we knew, had a very bad tooth-ache; she suffered night and day, and we were very sorry. But, over the river there was a Virgin Mary of great fame for miracles, and, one morning, when I wanted to get up, our maid did not come, and nobody knew where she was, and she could not be found. At last she came back with a large bouquet, which she had carried over the river ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... one line of the song, "God bless Aunt Mary Moses," that most people will find incomprehensible. It refers to the Virgin Mary, "Aunt" being among the Cornish a term of great respect; "Moses" being a corruption of the old Cornish word "Mowes," a maid. "Mary Moses" means literally ...
— Legend Land, Vol. 1 • Various
... spinning in the street, sayd to one of her neighbours, "I marvell what the matter is that the bishop makes so many visits to my lady; I trow he intends to marry her." Well, the bishop and her ladyship did not conclude about the land, and the bishop dreamt that the Virgin Mary came to him, and brought him to or told him of Merrifield; she would have him build his church there and dedicate it to her. Merrifield was a great field or meadow where the city of New Sarum stands, and did belong to the Bishop, as now ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... virginity as something sacred, and God has so honored it that he willed that his son be born of a virgin, fecundated, however, by the Holy Ghost. Still, it appears problematical whether the Virgin Mary, complete virgin that she was, did not have the same pleasure as those who are not virgins, when she received the divine annunciation. Father Sanchez has discussed the question very fully "whether the Virgin Mary ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... that human society is composed of unequal parts, even as the human body; that equality exists among the social members only in this: that all men have their origin in God the Creator, have sinned in Adam, and have been, by the sacrificial blood of God's only begotten Son, born of the Virgin Mary, equally redeemed into eternal life, if they will but accept Christ as their only true Saviour;—forgetting indeed that to abolish poverty would at once prevent all manifestations of human nature's most beauteous ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... designed by Miss Isabelle A. Sinclair, in the various colors appropriate to the Virgin Mary. The lily is the Virgin's flower, la fleur de Marie, the highest symbol of her purity. The gold border surrounding the panel is copied from the ornamentation of the mantle ...
— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... soul than he, a more honest one, more free from envy, from jealousy, and from selfishness, I never knew. Though he thought he was great by his theology, everybody else knew he was great by his religion. My mother is to me what the Virgin Mary is to a devout Catholic. She was a woman of great nature, profound as a philosophical thinker, great in argument, with a kind of intellectual imagination, diffident, not talkative,—in which respect I take after her,—the woman who gave birth to Mrs. Stowe, whose ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... by the side of the cathedral, has rather an amusing and pleasing aspect. In the middle is a pretty triangular fountain of the German Renaissance, which, besides having scepters, nymphs, angels, dolphins, and mermaids, serves as a pedestal to the Virgin Mary. This fountain was erected by Albert de Brandenburg, who reigned in 1540, in commemoration of the capture of Francis the First by Charles ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... of great or lesser thickness. If, for example, this statement, 'Some angels are solitary,' affected me powerfully for a time, I was, on reflection, unable to reconcile this solitude with their marriages. I have not understood why the Virgin Mary should continue to wear blue satin garments in heaven. I have even dared to ask myself why those gigantic demons, Enakim and Hephilim, came so frequently to fight the cherubim on the apocalyptic plains of Armageddon; and I ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... sometimes the words of the Blessed Virgin Mary: "Behold the handmaid of the LORD," and those of our LORD, "I came not to be ministered unto, but to minister;" and then act towards others as if you were their slave, warning, aiding, listening; abashed at what they do ...
— Gold Dust - A Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sanctification of Daily Life • E. L. E. B.
... figure was foreshown Christ, the true and only First-born of God the Father and of the Virgin Mary, and a true King and Priest, not in a fleshly and earthly sense. For His kingdom is not of this world; it is in heavenly and spiritual things that He reigns and acts as Priest; and these are righteousness, truth, ...
— Concerning Christian Liberty - With Letter Of Martin Luther To Pope Leo X. • Martin Luther
... go to find him sometimes, to warm him up to the enterprise that is begun. I have heard of the illness which God has sent ... and, considering his need, I beg and constrain thee as much as I can that thou and thy brothers bring it about that the Company of the Virgin Mary give him aid, as much as thou canst get. Catarina is very much to be pitied, to find herself alone and poor without any refuge; so be zealous to show this charity. I am writing of this to Pietro, too. Let me perceive that you have ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... of this great choir we must in thought sweep away the present seats and pulpit, and reconstruct the two side altars dedicated to St. John and St. Nicolas, which flanked the high altar dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Traces of this original arrangement are still to be seen in the restored aumbreys and piscina on the north and south walls. The height of these niches seems to show that the side altars were some four or five steps above the level of the present floor. The three aumbreys over the ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... round you; and for a token of it—a sign that we tell you truth, and that there is really such a great Queen, who is the Indian's friend—here is the picture of her.' What wonder if the poor idolatrous creatures had fallen down and worshipped the picture- -just as millions do that of the Virgin Mary without a thousandth part as sound and practical reason—as that of a divine, all-knowing, all-merciful deliverer? As for its being the picture of a beautiful woman or not, they would never think of that. The ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... of the passengers and men, steals away with the ship and its cargo. The Jesuits secure a new supply of food for their mission, by soliciting alms. The islands still suffer from the depredations of the Moro pirates. The writer describes the special festivities in honor of the Virgin Mary, and the martyrdom of some missionaries in Japan. He then proceeds to relate the particulars of the murder of the Augustinian provincial, Vicente Sepulveda, by some of his own friars, and the punishment of the criminals. A postscript to this letter states ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... no, not a whit he knows But the Virgin Mary knows. But he unto no good inclines 35 And only ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... While gaining a firmer mastery over the instruments of poetry he has struck from them a deeper, fuller, and more significant tone. In this his last volume, which has lately appeared, his verse is brought completely into the service of the Church. The "May Carols" are poems celebrating the Virgin Mary in her month of May. For that month, and for the Roman church, Mr. De Vere has done in this volume what Keble did for the festivals of the year, and the English church, in his "Christian Year." Catholicism in England has produced no ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... driven to admit that nothing in the life of our Lord can be certainly depended upon beyond the facts that He was begotten by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary; that He worked many miracles upon earth, and delivered St. Matthew's version of the sermon on the mount and most of the parables as we now have them; finally, that He was crucified, dead, and buried, that He rose again from the dead upon the third day, and ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... intermittent shelling from which it suffered for so long, the town was picking up the threads of activity. The sidings were full of trucks, and a procession of some twenty lorries moved slowly up the road to Bouzincourt. As reminder of anxious days, we noted a few skeleton roofs, and the giant Virgin Mary in tarnished gilt, who, after withstanding bombardments sufficient to have wrecked a cathedral, leaned over at right angles to her pedestal, suspended in apparently miraculous fashion by ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... obliged to stand armed before their own dwellings at the command of a fisherman, and in the name "of the most faithful people of the most faithful town of Naples, and in those who, by the grace of God and our Lord Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary, hold in their hands ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... to make out that our Lord was born into the world in some strange way—I know not how;—I do not choose to talk of it here:- but they would fancy and invent anything, rather than believe that Jesus was really born of the Virgin Mary, made of the substance of his mother. So that it was hundreds of years before the fathers of the Church set people's minds thoroughly at ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... hands, which was the host. This is a wafer and some wine, which the people believe is turned into the real body and blood of Christ. After him came a number of people with masks on their faces, and large cloaks on, so that they could not be known, bearing on their shoulders a huge figure of the Virgin Mary, and the infant Jesus in her arms. She was dressed in robes of silk with a crown of gold on her head, and numberless jewels glittering on her shoulders. Many other figures followed—one of Christ bearing the cross, and of various saints; and there ...
— Peter Biddulph - The Story of an Australian Settler • W.H.G. Kingston
... so that when I landed, I was assailed with questions from every quarter. The women petted me, some kissed me (by the bye, those were d'un certain age), and all agreed that I should burn half a dozen of candles on the altar of the Virgin Mary. There was one, however, who had wept for me; it was Isabella, a lovely girl of fifteen, and daughter to the old Governor. The General, too, was glad to see me; he liked me very much, because we played chess while smoking ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... Mater, or Lamentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the well-known Latin hymn on the Crucifixion, is one of the most familiar numbers in the Roman Missal. It is appointed to be sung at High Mass on the Friday in Passion Week, and also on the third Sunday in September. On Thursday in Holy Week it is also sung in the Sistine ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... quick, and be out of my misery, instead of being tortured to death by inches. I did this thing for this very purpose, for I do not fear death nor anything that comes after it. Talk about the existence of a God! I don't believe a word of it. And the story of heaven and hell, purgatory, and the Virgin Mary; why, it's all a humbug, like the rest of the vile stuff you call religion. Religion indeed! You wont catch us nuns believing it, and more than all that, you don't believe it ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... mother, and mounting to the top of the pedestal, I look up and behold my mother before me. The spectre of her, standing before the monument, looks down upon me, reproachfully, piteously, affectionately. I sit down at the feet of the Virgin Mary and bury my face in my hands and weep. I love what thou lovest, O my mother, but I can see no more what thou seest. For thy love, O my mother, these kisses and tears. For thy love, I stand here like a child, and ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... pray'd To Saint aid Virgin Mary; But one there was that stood composed Amid the waves' vagary; As staunch as rock, a true game-cock 'Mid ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... is the purification of the Virgin Mary), let three, five, seven, or nine young maidens assemble together in a square chamber. Hang in each corner a bundle of sweet herbs, mixed with rue and rosemary. Then mix a cake of flour, olive-oil, and white sugar; every maiden having an equal share in the making and the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... facetious fellow, who, notwithstanding his profession and appearance of mortification, loved good eating and drinking better than his rosary, and paid more adoration to a pretty girl than to the Virgin Mary, or St. Genevieve. He was a thick brawny young man, with red eyebrows, a hook nose, a face covered with freckles; and his name was Frere Balthazar. His order did not permit him to wear linen, so that, having little occasion to undress ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... appearance at the consecration is described as that of a corpse rather than a man, so emaciated with the rigors of devotion had he become. He had frequent visions, perhaps from his weakness, in one of which he imagined that the Virgin Mary herself appeared to him. The privations of the members of his little colony were most severe. The season for sowing had been spent in building the convent, and when the winter came they were reduced to little better than starvation. Coarse bread and beech-leaves steeped in salt were their ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... or divine words can we say than, "I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,"—and yet what more simple, human, and tender words can we say than, "Who was born of the Virgin Mary"? For what more beautiful sight on earth than a young mother with her babe upon her knee? Beautiful in itself; but doubly beautiful to those who can say, "I believe in Him who was born ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... Mahometans; and this I did outwardly, but with quite a different meaning from them. They have certain daily and stated prayers as we have, in which they call upon God as their father, and they even vouchsafe to name the blessed Virgin Mary; but they always wash before prayers. Standing all in order, after the priest has prayed, the whole people pray ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... the said abbot was accustomed yearly to preach at Leynt-warden on the Festival of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, where and when the people were wont to offer to an image there, and to the same the said abbot in his sermons would exhort them and encourage them. But now the oblations be decayed, the abbot, espying the image then to have a cote of ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... going, and resolved to make The noblest efforts for herself and mate, For Honour's, Pride's, Religion's, Virtue's sake: Her resolutions were most truly great, And almost might have made a Tarquin quake: She prayed the Virgin Mary for her grace, As being the best ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... my hips, the red jacket fitted tight and close, the tassel on my fez cap was silver, and in my girdle gleamed a knife and my pistols. Aphtanides was clad in the blue garb worn by Greek sailors; on his chest hung a silver plate with the figure of the Virgin Mary; his scarf was as costly as those worn by rich lords. Every one could see that we were about to go through a solemn ceremony. We stepped into the little simple church, where the evening sunlight, streaming through the door, gleamed on the burning lamp and the ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... difficulty the two poets ascended the steep and winding path, and paused to view the wonderful sculptures on the embankment, that would put Nature herself to shame, so natural were they. Many examples of Humility were there portrayed,—the Virgin Mary, the Holy Ark, drawn by oxen, the Psalmist dancing before the Lord, while Michal looked forth in scorn from her palace window, and Trajan, yielding to the widow's prayer. As they stood there, the souls came in sight. "Reader, attend not to the fashion of the torment, but think of what ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... is, that the women have far less imagination than the men; they cannot even realize their own favorite delusions. For instance, here are two young ladies, the Virgin Mary and the Queen of England. How do they play their parts? They sit aloof from all the rest, with their noses in the air. But gauge their imaginations; go down on one knee, or both, and address them as a saint and a queen; they cannot say a word ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... some years since, looking one evening into a chapel when the light was fading, I was surprised to see a saint whom I had not seen before; he had no glory except what shone from a very red nose; he was smoking a short pipe, and was painting the Virgin Mary's face. The touch was a finishing one, put on with deliberation, slowly, so that it was two or three seconds before I discovered that the ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... Don Luis joined us, both of them in tip-top spirits. "I guess this is the way we do the trick down in these clearings," said the former, shaking a bag of golden sand. As for Jose, Don Luis's Indian servant, he was devout in his expressions of thanksgiving to the Virgin Mary and the Great Spirit, whom he would insist upon classifying together, in a most remarkable and not ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... semi-divine, because she was the mother, the creator of man. And we know that she was credited among the Norsemen with supernatural powers. But upon this Northern foundation there was built up a highly complex fabric of romantic and artistic sentiment. The Christian worship of the Virgin Mary harmonized with the Northern belief. The sentiment of chivalry reinforced it. Then came the artistic resurrection of the Renaissance, and the new reverence for the beauty of the old Greek gods, and the Greek traditions of female divinities; these also coloured and lightened the ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... France's story of the juggler who juggled before the shrine of Our Lady, having no better offering to make to her, and Raft sat spellbound, after having made out that Our Lady was the Virgin Mary, the patron of Catholic shipmates. She told it so well and so simply, with unobtrusive foot notes as to monasteries and their contents, that he could not but see the point, the poor man having nothing to offer but his stock in trade ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... a number of Bulgarians came to our room at the khan (at Otluk-Keuy), and began to ask questions about Christ, the Virgin Mary, the New Testament, Popery, Protestantism, the ceremonies of the Greek Church, etc., etc. The number of persons increased until we had an audience of forty. They gave us no time to eat until nightfall; ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... forfeiture of all his or her lands and goods to the Lord Proprietary and his heires.... Whatsoever person or persons shall from henceforth use or utter any reproachfull words, or speeches, concerning the blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of our Saviour, or the holy Apostles or Evangelists, or any of them, shall in such case for the first offence forfeit to the said Lord Proprietary and his heires the sum of five pound sterling.... Whatsoever person shall henceforth upon any occasion... declare, call, or denominate ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... but more largely from the homilies of Gregory the Great. The whole is well woven together, and contains some hymns of great beauty and many passages of intense dramatic force. Throughout the poem a deep love for Christ and a reverence for the Virgin Mary are manifest. More than any other poem in any language, The Christ reflects the spirit ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... visions in morality, whether in the cell or street. But this advantage the mystic morality must always have—it is always jollier. A young man may keep himself from vice by continually thinking of disease. He may keep himself from it also by continually thinking of the Virgin Mary. There may be question about which method is the more reasonable, or even about which is the more efficient. But surely there can be no question about which ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... Tyreus, Hieronymus Mengus, and you shall find infinite examples of cures done in this kind, by holy waters, relics, crosses, exorcisms, amulets, images, consecrated beads, &c. Barradius the Jesuit boldly gives it out, that Christ's countenance, and the Virgin Mary's, would cure melancholy, if one had looked steadfastly on them. P. Morales the Spaniard in his book de pulch. Jes. et Mar. confirms the same out of Carthusianus, and I know not whom, that it was a common ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... form is taken from Tertullian's De Virginibus Velandis: "For the rule of faith is altogether one, alone (sola), immovable, and irreformable, namely, believing in one God omnipotent the Maker of the world, and in His Son Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, raised from the dead the third day, received into the heavens, sitting now at the right hand of the Father who shall come to judge the living and the dead, also through the resurrection of the flesh." Cyprian the Martyr, bishop of Carthage, who died 257, ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... lead a life of relaxation, would the savage incursions of the Scythians or the Hungarians frequently disturb the imperial slumbers, if limited to his own capital. It may be supposed that this safety did not extend much farther; for it is said that the Empress Pulcheria had built a church to the Virgin Mary, as remote as possible from the gate of the city, to save her devotions from the risk of being interrupted by the hostile yell of the barbarians, and the reigning Emperor had constructed a palace near the same spot, and ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... esthetic nature that seems rather Spanish than English. Born into an extreme Protestant family, but outraged by the wanton iconoclasm of the triumphant Puritans, and deprived by them of his fellowship, at Cambridge, he became a Catholic and died a canon in the church of the miracle-working Lady (Virgin Mary) of Loretto in Italy. His most characteristic poetry is marked by extravagant conceits and by ecstatic outbursts of emotion that have been called more ardent than anything else in English; though he sometimes writes also in a vein of calm and limpid beauty. He was a poetic disciple ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... of the Incarnation, which is thus set forth in the Shorter Catechism: "Christ, the Son of God, became man, by taking to Himself a true body, and a reasonable soul, being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and born of her, ...
— Exposition of the Apostles Creed • James Dodds
... the blessed, most pure, and most holy Mother of God," the priest cried from the golden partition which divided part of the church from the rest, and the choir began solemnly to sing that it was very right to glorify the Virgin Mary, who had borne Christ without losing her virginity, and was therefore worthy of greater honour than some kind of cherubim, and greater glory than some kind of seraphim. After this the transformation was considered accomplished, and the priest having taken ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... put the loveliest and the best qualities that ever were lodged in any woman's life. We need not accept the teaching that exalts the mother of Jesus to a place beside or above her divine Son. We need have no sympathy whatever with the dogma that ascribes worship to the Virgin Mary, and teaches that the Son on his throne must be approached by mortals through his more merciful, more gentle-hearted mother. But we need not let these errors concerning Mary obscure the real blessedness of her character. We remember the angel's greeting, "Blessed art thou among women." Hers ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... on second blue line, at the right of red lines. Make it as brief as possible, using the important name in it, first. Christ, Baptism of; Christ, Betrayal of; Virgin Mary, Coronation of; St John, Birth of; St Peter, ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana
... naturally scoffed at the Koran, but because he believed that his face, his accent, and some other personal peculiarities of his forbade his going to Spain, where he would find himself exposed to certain death should any Christian man or woman discover him to be an enemy to the Virgin Mary. ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... has come forward to defend the memory of the French Tiberius. The castle is built of brick, and is very pleasantly situated, being surrounded by woods. In the chapel is a portrait of Louis the Eleventh; he is painted as in the act of saluting the Virgin Mary, and our Saviour as an infant. His features are harsh, and something of the tyrant is legible even through the adulation of the painter. The castle, though built about 1450, is still perfect in all its parts, and has ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... the blood's wild wedding o'er, Were not dread his, half dark desire, To see the Christ-child in the cot, The Virgin Mary ...
— The Wild Knight and Other Poems • Gilbert Chesterton
... of the reign of Conan, King of North Wales, there was in the Christian Temple at a place called Harden, in the Kingdom of North Wales, a Roodloft, in which was placed an image of the Virgin Mary, with a very large cross, which was in the hands of the image, called Holy Rood. About this time there happened a very hot and dry summer; so dry that there was not grass for the cattle; upon which most of the inhabitants went and prayed to the image or Holy Rood, that it would cause ...
— The Hawarden Visitors' Hand-Book - Revised Edition, 1890 • William Henry Gladstone
... one-half hour sooner, thou wouldst have seen her with the gay youth that will give her little peace 'til she doth say the word. I tell thee both, the Virgin Mary doth plead our cause, and no doubt 'twas through her agency the rain came upon the maid and drove her here. We offered special prayer to Holy Mary this morning. And the youth with her is also of the only religion. Mistress Penwick was greatly frightened ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... place that every year there should be a fair." The same day the justice made a vow that he would give a gold text set in the precious stones and the relics of divers saints in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the service of the new church; afterwards the King went down with many of his nobles to the Bishop's palace and were entertained. On the Friday following Hubert de Burgh offered his "texte after ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... cattle are blessed with the gift of language for a while on Christmas Eve, but as it is a very great sin to listen, no one has yet reported any conversation among them. In another part of the country it is thought that the Virgin Mary with a company of angels passes over the land on Holy Night, and so tables are spread with the best the larders afford and candles are lighted and left burning that the angelic visitors may find abundant food should they chance to stop ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... their reading, which was necessarily very limited, by the Company of Stationers, or text-writers, who wrote and sold, by an exclusive royal privilege, the school-books then in use. These were chiefly the A B Cs, (called Absies), the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the address to the Virgin Mary, called Ave Maria. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... The powers of 2 have been calculated for many purposes. In Vol. II of his Magia Universalis Naturae et Artis, Herbipoli, 1658, 4to, the Jesuit Gaspar Schott[138] having discovered, on some grounds of theological {65} magic, that the degrees of grace of the Virgin Mary were in number the 256th power of 2, calculated that number. Whether or no his number correctly represented the result he announced, he certainly calculated it rightly, as we find ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... one of the largest windows in the world, shows the family of Jesse, the ancestor of Jesus. Jesse is resting at full length; above him is King David, and all around are figures of his descendants leading up to the Virgin Mary with the Holy Child in her arms. Above all, in the apex of the windows, are the emblems used in prophecies of Christ's coming. The third window of the south transept shows the Nativity, with the Babe in the manger. Two windows in the choir are ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... could not help setting the door a little ajar, just to peep in, when—Pop! out flew the Moon 64 Then he coaxed her down and took her home 72 "Here are your children; now you shall have them again. I am the Virgin Mary" 80 He too saw the image in the water; but he looked up at once, and became aware of the lovely Lassie who sate there up in ...
— East of the Sun and West of the Moon - Old Tales from the North • Peter Christen Asbjornsen
... feet in diameter, and 45 feet in circumference, was probably on the left side of the high altar, and corresponded with the one just mentioned, from which branched out other chapels or cells of the monks. How many chapels there were cannot be ascertained; the names of only three are known, the Virgin Mary, St. Thomas the Martyr, and St. Martin. The chapter-house and church were by far the most splendid apartments of this stately pile; the latter was richly adorned by the ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... at that! It is Loretto's most priceless treasure. It is a piece of the gown of the Virgin Mary, in which she was mourning for the Saviour. [Footnote: Ibid., vol. i., p. 245.] Preserve this relic carefully, dear Josephine, and may it protect you from danger and grief!" Josephine folded up the ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... Jesus Christ was born at Bethlehem, By the Virgin Mary, Baptized in the River Jordan, By St. John the Baptist. He commanded the water to stop, and it obeyed Him. And I desire in the name of Jesus Christ, That the blood of this vein (or veins) might stop, As the water did when ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen |
