"High altar" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was divided from the mere sight-seers by means of a silken rope that crossed the aisle. I exchanged greetings with most of these persons, and in return received their congratulations; then I walked with a firm deliberate step up to the high altar and there waited. The magnificent paintings on the wall round me seemed endowed with mysterious life—the grand heads of saints and martyrs were turned upon me as though they demanded—"MUST thou do this thing? Hast thou ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... building is larger than any I can remember in America, except the churches of Chicago and New York, and was packed with a dense throng. It was lighted with perhaps two thousand candles, and was decked from lantern to chapel with newly made paper flowers. The high altar had a front of solid silver, and the great silver candlesticks were ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... the only thing noticeable, (for rant and nonsense, though abundant as ever, have long before the last act become things of course,) is the profane representation of the high altar in a chapel, with all the vessels and other preparations for the holy sacrament. A hymn is actually sung on the stage by the chorister boys! For the rest, Imogine, who now and then talks deliriously, but who is always light-headed as far as her gown and hair can make her ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... by all those who were present, the Abbot and his ministers passed a clean sheet under the coffin, and collecting into it all the bones and holy dust, covered it with another sheet, and took it out, and laid it upon the high altar, with candles and torches on each side; and in this manner it remained there all day, till it was time to deposit it in the tomb. And all this while the choristers sung to the organ, and the organ ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... lit up. The tapers were flaring on the high altar, and in the middle of the chapel, wrapped in a large black cloak, his face hidden by a black mask, stood a ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... this association, is really attractive, and one lingers with quiet thoughtfulness among its marble aisles and confessionals. The lofty dome is supported by pillars of marble and the walls are frescoed. The high altar is a remarkable composition, with pillars of porphyry mingled with a confusion of images, candlesticks, and tinsel. The stalls for the priests are handsomely carved in mahogany. It was annoying to see Gothic ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... who would deem it a sin to laugh, speak, or wink on a Sunday. And this was what their brother was coming to. This was why it had been impossible to get him to go with them to St. Mark's Church, though they had told him how beautifully High Church it was; how it had a high altar and candles, almost like the Romanists, only that it was not at all Romish, but entirely and truly Catholic! Was ever such like woful perversity? When they had just got a brother to be proud of, who could ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... with a central column semee of hearts, the "armes parlantes" of Bishop Coeuret who built it. The clustered columns of the nave, consist of a central pillar surrounded by four others running up to the roof, so slender and delicate that they are united to the centre by small bars of iron. Over the high altar is an enormous wooden crozier, carved and gilt, from which the Host is suspended. A beautiful Renaissance tomb on the north side of the cathedral was raised in 1507 to the memory of Bishop James, who died three years before. The sculpture is much mutilated, but the arabesques are ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... the incorporation of the provinces of Preutzen and Posen. The politicians of St. Petersburgh know that the Russian people, living on in animal dulness, are susceptible of no other intellectual impression except a religious one; and so without reflection, the cross is torn from the high altar, and used as a military signal. Religion was employed as a pretext, in order to lead the unhappy Poles step by step into ruin; and Russia was just so employed in Turkey, when the 'heathen' undertook to disturb her in her Christian ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 238, May 20, 1854 • Various
... church of London, whether it were Paul's or not the French book maketh no mention, all the estates were long or day in the church for to pray. And when matins and the first mass was done, there was seen in the churchyard, against the high altar, a great stone four square, like unto a marble stone; and in midst thereof was like an anvil of steel a foot on high, and therein stuck a fair sword naked by the point, and letters there were written in gold about the sword that said ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... in the Tower, and a third culprit was hung, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn. The duchess was brought from Westminster, and landed at the Temple Stairs, from whence, with a tall wax taper in her hand, she walked bareheaded to St. Paul's, where she offered at the high altar. Another day she did penance at Christ Church, Aldgate; a third day at St. Michael's, Cornhill, the Lord Mayor, sheriffs, and most of the Corporation following. She was then banished to the Isle of Man, and her ghost they say still ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... holy water, surmounted by a finely sculptured group of three children supporting a cross. The design is by the donor—the wife of Alphonso de Lamartine, the poet. I noticed in one compartment some admirable traceries in solid oak, and before the high altar an elaborate gilt-bronze lamp—the gift of the wife of Louis Phillippe; but the most brilliant portion of the ulterior is the ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... witness into the hondo or main hall of the temple, where the ceremony was to be performed. It was an imposing scene. A large hall with a high roof supported by dark pillars of wood. From the ceiling hung a profusion of those huge gilt lamps and ornaments peculiar to Buddhist temples. In front of the high altar, where the floor, covered with beautiful white mats, is raised some three or four inches from the ground, was laid a rug of scarlet felt. Tall candles placed at regular intervals gave out a dim mysterious light, just sufficient ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... procession as it moved on to the cathedral. The bier was deposited before the high altar; the funeral service was commenced, and the grand organ began to peal through the ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... Chapel of the Apparition," explained the guide, after leading us to another part of the church. "Here the Lord appeared to Mary, His mother, after the Resurrection. In a niche beside the high altar is a hole in the wall. If you hold your taper up to it you may see within the wall a part of the column to which the Savior was bound during the Flagellation. You may touch the sacred column with this round stick, provided for the purpose, if you wish to do so. The stick, being worn smooth by ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... was damp like a vault. And she lay in the midst listless, heavy-lidded, apart, with the half-smile, as it seemed, of some secret mirth. Round her the great candles smoked and flickered, and mass was sung at the High Altar for her soul's repose. Sandro stood alone, facing the shining altar, but looking fixedly at Simonetta on her couch. He was white and dry—parched lips and eyes that ached and smarted. Was this the end? ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... upon his mother's lap. As soon then as he reached the west door of St. Paul's Cathedral, the Protector lifted the child King from his mother's chair, and set him on his feet, whilst the Duke of Exeter, on the other side, conducted him between them to the high altar up the stairs which led to the choir. At the altar the royal boy knelt for a time upon a low bench prepared for him, and was seen to look gravely and sadly on all around him. He was then led into the ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Durham greatly admireth. I doubt if he be a sound protestant: he was so blind at even-song on Candlemas-day, that he could not see to read prayers in the minster with less than three hundred and forty candles, whereof sixty he caused to be placed about the high altar; besides he caused the picture of our Saviour, supported by two angels, to be set in the choir. The committee is very hot against him, and no matter if they trounce him." This was Cosins, who survived the revolution, and returning with Charles the Second, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... taste of the speaker. It was thought by Norden to owe its name to Hippolits, a supposed Saint, who was very skilful in the treatment of horses. After the Saint's death a shrine was placed to his honour in the parish church, and to this shrine near the high altar divers persons brought their ailing steeds to be healed by the attendant priest with the help of relics of the Saint. The relics were of efficacy commensurate with the gifts of those who desired the Saint's blessing! "The horses," says one writer, "were brought out of ...
— Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins
... Chamberlain knocked for admittance. A voice inside asked, 'Who wishes to enter?' The answer given was 'Alfonso XII.' The doors were then thrown open. The prior of the monastery appeared. The body was carried into the church and placed on a raised bier before the high altar. The coffin was then covered with the four cloaks of the noble orders. A thousand tapers were lighted, and the church assumed a magnificent appearance. Black hangings embossed with the arms of Spain covered the stone walls. The Mass was ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... places they sink down on their knees, and, moist-eyed and full of feeling, cast a look of veiled adoration toward the high altar, then hide their ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... now lies at Lambeth, left a remarkable will. He was, as his epitaph informs us, a "High and Mighty Prince," and he writes of himself in the royal plural. He orders a tomb to be erected before the high altar of Thetford "with pictures of us and Agnes our wife to be set together thereupon." The Lambeth Parish Registers do not read so respectfully. This is the entry recording the passing of the Prince's widow—"Oct. 13, 1545, my Lady Agnes, olde Dutchesse ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... her bed stood a big yellow chest-of-drawers of lemon-wood, and a table which served at once as pharmacy and as high altar, on which, beneath a statue of Our Lady and a bottle of Vichy-Celestins, might be found her service-books and her medical prescriptions, everything that she needed for the performance, in bed, of her duties to soul and body, to keep the ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... have no reference to Athelstan, as they are of a style and character some hundreds of years subsequent to that monarch's decease. If there were any tomb to Athelstan it would have been placed near the high altar in the Presbytery, and very different in form and decoration to the altar tomb and statue here mentioned, which are at the east end of the south aisle of the nave.- J. B.] Sir George Marshal of Cole Park, a-quarry to King James ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... get them," said the King. "Give the harquebuss to one of these knaves—to Oliver—to any one. Now Our Lady of Embrun be praised! and silver shall be the screen that surrounds her high altar!" ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... the flame of love's high altar Trembles and sinks, and the sense of listening ears Heeds not the sound that it heard of love's blithe ...
— A Century of Roundels • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... habit to spend a short time every evening in the private chapel. After one of those visits, about three months after the prince's death, she retired to rest, and in the course of the night had a singular dream. She was in the chapel, kneeling in a tribune; opposite to her was the high altar. She had spent some time in prayer, when suddenly, on the steps of the altar, she saw the tall figure of the deceased prince, kneeling with great apparent devotion. Presently he turned towards her, and in his usual manner of addressing her, said: "Dear child, come ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... the nave was used as the parish church, and had its own high altar, while the choir was reserved for the use of the canons. The nave is made up of seven noble bays; the lower arcade consists of semicircular arches enriched with the chevron ornament, while the spandrels are filled with hatchet-work carving. The triforium of each bay on both sides consists ...
— Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch • Sidney Heath
... got up from his bench and went up to the high altar. The human figure in the pulpit came down again, and went rapidly into hiding. Don Rocco turned around so as to stand in cornu epistolae, toward the empty benches, imagined them full of people, of his people of ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various
... romantic towers and a fugitive queen, a joy transcending trains and elevators and prejudices, Carl knew that human girl as the symbol of man's yearning for union with the divine; he desired happiness for her with a devotion great as the passion in Galahad's heart when all night he knelt before the high altar. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... this memorable Sunday the high altar of Saint-Leu was the scene of two very different weddings. Augustine and Theodore appeared in all the radiance of happiness, their eyes beaming with love, dressed with elegance, while a fine carriage waited for them. Virginie, who had come in a good hired fly with the rest ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... artistically engraved, and ornamented with embossed or open work; while magnificent vessels of crystal, containing the most beautiful flowers, and massive candelabra, with innumerable lights, sparkled in the midst. On a separate table, near the high altar, were all the costly vessels and furniture which had been employed at the christening; and, in one of the side chapels, the princess's cradle, covered with white satin, and ornamented with gold lace. In the evening, the town, or rather, the public buildings, were illuminated. ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... surpasses these two bas-reliefs for harmonies of line and grouping, for choice of form, for beauty of expression, and for smoothness of surface-working. The marble is of great delicacy, and is wrought to a wax-like surface. At the high altar are three more fragments from the mutilated tomb. One is a long low frieze of children bearing garlands, which probably formed the base of Aragazzi's monument, and now serves for a predella. The remaining pieces are detached statues of Fortitude and Faith. The former reminds us of Donatello's ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... head of the cross, exactly opposite to the centre of the high altar, which faced the choir, in the place which seemed to be the special place of honor, Mr. George pointed to a small, square enclosure, or sort of projecting closet, which was richly carved and gilded, and adorned with a variety ...
— Rollo on the Rhine • Jacob Abbott
... send for them all to come to London. It was Christmas time, and in the great cathedral a solemn service was held, and prayer was made that some sign should be given, to show who was the rightful king. When the service was over, there appeared a strange stone in the churchyard, against the high altar. It was a great white stone, like marble, with something sunk in it that looked like a steel anvil; and in the anvil was driven a great glistening sword. The sword had letters of gold written on it, which read: "Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... at Holar. High altar in the center, and over it Christ on the Cross, an image of white alabaster, with bloody hands and feet and side, life-size. To either side, in the aisles, altars of the Virgin, splendid with images. On the floor of the aisle the tombstone of Bishop Gudmund Arason, ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various
... the art of a designer-engraver (ciseleur) in gold. For the town he made many beautiful pieces of work, notably the silver statue of St. Rombauld which decorated the high altar of the Cathedral. ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... saw that the cathedral was nearly empty: a priest was near the high altar, two boys were in the middle of the nave, by the chief entrance was a little group just preparing to leave. Nearer him, and close by the image, were two women. They were on their knees, and appeared to be absorbed in their devotions. It seemed to David that ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... dead, but now slain by the magic of these strangers, who come as the winds out of heaven, whence we know not, and who are what we know not? Beware, oh Queens, how ye tamper with the great majesty of the God, even before His high altar! There is a Power that is more than your power; there is a Justice that is higher than your justice. Beware how ye lift an impious hand against it! Let the sacrifice be sacrificed, ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... Cardinal Federigo, was to prove a staunch adherent of the Sforzas in days to come. He inherited the giant stature as well as the martial tastes of his family, and at the consecration of Pope Alexander VI. is said to have lifted Borgia in his arms and placed him on the high altar. The eldest of the brothers, Giovanni Francesco, Count of Caiazzo, succeeded to his father's estates in Calabria, but lived at Milan, and became one of Lodovico's chief captains. Both Gaspare—the gallant soldier known by his surname of Captain Fracassa—and ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... horse's tooth—what it is neither you nor any one else can guess at that distance. If the whole congregation knelt down in adoration, the artistic effect would unquestionably be fine, but then not one person in seven does kneel, and therefore the effect is lost. So it is with the washing of the high altar. If one priest alone went up and poured the wine and oil over the sacred stone, and then cleansed the shrine from any spot or stain, the grandeur of the idea would not be marred by the monotony ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... said to Sir Samuel Romilly in 1781, "Il faut sabrer la theologie," [16:22] and died in 1784 in the belief that complete infidelity was the first step toward philosophy. Five years later Holbach was buried by his side in the crypt of the Chapel of the Virgin behind the high altar in Saint-Roch. No tablet marks their tombs, and although repeated investigations have been made no light has been thrown on the exact position of their burial place. According to Diderot's daughter, ...
— Baron d'Holbach • Max Pearson Cushing
... third morning Tom turned his steps despairingly toward the slopes of the mountain. He was at a pass when he would have given worlds to find one of the sacred places undesecrated. And there remained now only the high altar under the cedars ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... censer clicks, steams of incense float to and fro. The Pope and his attendants kneel and rise,—he lifts the Host, and the world prostrates itself. A great procession of dignitaries with torches bears a fragment of the original cradle of the Holy Bambino from its chapel to the high altar, through the swaying crowd that gape and gaze and stare and sneer and adore. And thus the evening passes. When the clock strikes midnight all the bells ring merrily, Mass commences at the principal churches, and at San Luigi dei Francesi and the Gesu there ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... suspended; the bells, great and small, rang forth their silvery sounds; the churches were crowded, the chapels glittered with blazing lights; the prayers of the priests and people rose with the incense before the high altar; the solemn organ swelled its full tones responsive to the loud-voiced choir; the curates thundered from the pulpits, to the edification of charitable congregations; and after all had been prostrated in solemn adoration ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... chipped and scarred, yet rose high in air, but its long aisles were choked with rubble and fallen masonry, while through the gaping rents of its lofty roof the rain fell, wetting the shattered heap of particoloured marble that had been the high altar once. Here and there, half buried in the debris at my feet, I saw fragments of memorial tablets, a battered corona, the twisted remains of a great candelabrum, and over and through this mournful ruin a cold and rising wind ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... who explained to the Chamberlain Hugolin that, after six pilgrimages to Rome in vain, St. Peter had promised his cure if the King would, on his own royal neck, carry him to the Monastery. The King immediately consented; and, amidst the scoffs of the court, bore the poor man to the steps of the High Altar. There the cripple was received by Godric the sacristan, and walked away on his own restored feet, hanging his stool on the ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... silent. But above its dark roofs, more than two hundred steeples catch the sunshine on their gilded weather-cocks. Presently the bells begin to ring, and, as the artist listens to their pleasant chimes, he knows that in each of those churches over the high altar, hangs a painting by some great master's hand, whose beauty comes between him and heaven, so that he cannot pray, ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... down unknown to the landlady. Her amazement, therefore, was all the greater when, the next morning, the young man was brought back to her half frozen, more dead than alive, and when she learned that he had been found stretched at full length on the steps of the high altar of the little church. She ran at once to tell Christine, who hurried down and, with the help of the landlady, did her best to revive him. He soon opened his eyes and was not long in recovering when he saw his friend's ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... fancied—for he murmured less. So she described the glorious pomp sublime, In which the chapel shone at Easter time, The Banners, Vestments, gold, and colours bright, Counted how many tapers gave their light; Then, in minute detail went on to say, How the High Altar looked on Christmas-day: The kings and shepherds, all in green and red, And a bright star of jewels overhead. Then told the sign by which they all had seen, How even nature loved to greet her Queen, For, when Our Lady's last procession went ...
— Legends and Lyrics: Second Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... aisle after saluting the Host on the High Altar, took a footstool, and kneeled down. Georges took one beside it and when they were in the attitude of prayer, he said: "Thank you, thank you. I adore you. I should like to tell you constantly how I began to love ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... Bartholomew by name, presented himself before the chief and said that he had had a marvellous dream. St. Andrew had thrice appeared to him, saying, "Go into the church of my brother Peter at Antioch, and hard by the high altar thou wilt find, on digging up the ground, the head of the spear which pierced our Redeemer's side. That, carried in front of the army, will bring about the deliverance ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... penetrated by the marvellous singing of the Sistine chapel. Thousands and thousands of wax tapers lighted the noble space of the church, thousands and thousands of people pressed into the sacred halls. Under his canopy, opposite the high altar, sat the vicegerent of God upon his golden throne, surrounded by the consecrated cardinals and bishops, protected by the Swiss guard! Who could have ventured to attack the holy father—who would have been so foolhardy ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... banner in hand, during the coronation of Charles VII, before the high altar at Rheims (page 347), Frontispiece Painting by J. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... cathedral church of San Siro on Good Friday they hang the columns and the windows with black; they cover the pictures and deface the altar; above the high altar they raise a crucifix, and below they place a catafalque with the effigy of the dead Christ. To this sad symbol they address their prayers and incense, chant their 'litanies and lurries,' and clash ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... quest of adventures. "We went to the cathedral," he writes, "and while standing near the entrance, or about midway in the nave, we saw a female figure approaching through the dimness and distance, far away in the region of the high altar; as it drew nearer its air reminded me of Una, whom we had left at home. Finally, it came close to us, and proved to be Una herself; she had come, immediately after we left the hotel, with Miss Shepard, and was looking for ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... paddling an easy stroke. The red blurr of the fire on the point was growing larger, while the diminished blaze of lights on the high altar of the cathedral pierced the mist ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... But the great God who sees into all hearts, and in whose hands alone must rest our vengeance — He will surely repay you for the sorrows that your wickedness has caused. Go, Roderic MacAlpin. Go, ere it is too late, and before the high altar of St. Blane's pray to Him for the mercy and forgiveness that you ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... at her feet the remains of the cloth of gold and silk which Pope Paschal had found in her tomb." The reigning Pope, Clement VIII., ordered that the relics should be kept inviolate, and the coffin was enclosed in a silver shrine and replaced under the high altar, with great solemnity. A talented sculptor, Stefano Maderno, was commissioned to execute a marble statue of the saint lying dead, and this celebrated work, which fully corresponds with the description of Baronius, is now beneath the high altar of the church, ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... of St. Clair (1811), Julietta, who has been forced into a convent against her will, like so many other heroines, is drugged and conveyed as a corpse to the Count de Valve's Gothic castle. She comes to life only to be slain before the high altar, and revenges herself after death by haunting the count regularly every night. The Fugitive Countess or Convent of St. Ursula (1807) contains three spicy ingredients—a mock burial, a concealed wife and a mouldering manuscript. The social status ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... the entrances. It possesses not less than thirteen churches, of which the collegiate and cathedral church of St. Peter is the only one worth notice,—a large and lofty building of a mixture of styles, with some tawdry ornaments, but a handsome high altar and well carved oak stalls in the choir. The foundation consists of a dean and twelve canons, with eighteen other inferior clergy. Since 1839 it has ranked as a cathedral, Tempio having been erected into a see united with those of Cività and Ampurias, ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... was standing on the steps which lead to it, and discovered the interior of the dome, where I expatiated in solitude; no mortal appearing except an old priest who trimmed the lamps, and muttered a prayer before the high altar, still wrapped in shadows. The sunbeams began to strike against the windows of the cupola just as I left the church, and was wafted across the waves to the spacious platform in front of St. Giorgio Maggiore, by far the most perfect and beautiful edifice ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... sins of mankind, and accomplished our eternal redemption. It was the hour when that great sacrifice was offered up, the efficacy of which reaches back to the first transgression of man, and extends forward to the end of time; the hour when, from the cross, as from a high altar, the blood was flowing which washed away the guilt ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... persuade Miss Gresley to come to us next week?" said Lord Newhaven, strolling into the dining-room at Westhope Abbey, where Rachel and Dick were sitting at a little supper-table laid for two in front of the high altar. The dining-room had formerly been the chapel, and the carved stone altar still remained under ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... they had seen none of the king's predecessors crowned with so much goodwill and tranquillity." Nor was this the only great ecclesiastical function of the year. On July 7 Langton celebrated at Canterbury the translation of the relics of St. Thomas to a magnificent shrine at the back of the high altar. Again the legate gave precedence to the archbishop, and the presence of the young king, of the Archbishop of Reims, and the Primate of Hungary, gave distinction to the solemnity. It was a grand time for English saints. When Damietta ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... of the transept are decorated with open parapets; and at the east end, below a rose window remarkable for its tracery, an arched niche protects the water of the fountain of Soloman the idiot: the actual spring itself being beneath the high altar. ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... Cathedral, at the door stood the Archbishop with a horn of oil in his hand, accompanied with other bishops, superintendents, and many clergymen. He received the Prince at the church door, and conducted him up to the high altar, where they had prayers, and then the Archbishop anointed the Prince with the oil. They put upon him the royal apparel, put the crown upon his head, the sceptre in his right hand, and the ball into his left ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... occasionally felt some compassion for the desperate fellows who thus immolated themselves on the High Altar of her perfections, though it must be admitted that he received the news of their deaths with tolerable equanimity, knowing them to have been fools, and as such, better out of the world than in it. During the first two ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... what happened. They had been there about an hour, and the moon was pouring down as clear as daylight from the high altar window; when, all at once, the letter upon the altar began to move about of itself, as if it were alive, then it hopped down upon the floor, from that danced down the altar steps, and so on all along the nave, though no human being laid hands on it the while, and not a breath or stir was heard ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... of Saint-Jean-du-Doigt takes place on the 22nd of June, and is, perhaps, the most solemn of these festivals. During its celebration the relic of the Saint, the little finger of his right hand, is held before the high altar of the church by an abbe clad in his surplice. The finger is wrapped in the finest of linen, and one by one the congregation files past the abbe for the purpose of touching for one brief moment the ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... speak not, lest thou break my thread.— "Take me to Argos, brother, ere I die, Back from the Friendless Peoples and the high Altar of Her whose bloody ...
— The Iphigenia in Tauris • Euripides
... a bare, white room, where is erected the high altar of her soul, served through life, by her own faith. Upon the altar burns steadfastly the one light, waiting for him who at last has come and consecrated in his name. The door of the sanctuary is rock-ribbed and heavy, and he who has not the key may beat and call in vain, ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... gentlemen sat in the benches, having hitched their trousers slightly above their knees and laid their hats in security. They sat well back and gazed formally at the distant speck of red light which was suspended before the high altar. ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... till they themselves were borne to earth at last. And here, among the trees and ruins of the garden, kept trim by those who know the treasure which they own, stood Harold's two standards of the fighting man and the dragon of Wessex. And here, close by (for here, for many a century, stood the high altar of Battle Abbey, where monks sang masses for Harold's soul), upon this very spot the Swan-neck found her hero lover's corpse. 'Ah,' says many an Englishman—and who will blame him for it—'how grand to have died ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... since, in France, in the Revolution, the leading men, the 'flower' of that capricious nation, carried in triumph in grand procession the most beautiful harlot of Paris, to the Cathedral of Notre Dame, and, unveiling and kissing her before the high altar, proclaimed her as the 'Goddess of Reason,' exhorting the multitude of people to forget all the childish things that they had been taught as to the thunders of the wrath of God, for God was not, ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... yet dark a great strange cry rang out in the churchyard. Some ran forth, and there by the wall behind the high altar they saw a vast stone, four-square, that had not been there before, and in the middle thereof was stuck a great wedge of steel, and sticking therefrom by the point was a rich sword. On the blade were written words in Latin, which a clerk read forth, which said, 'Whoso pulleth ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... in illuminated manuscripts somewhat before that period we find such figures pourtrayed with the crucifix[167-*]. In the abbey church, Bury St. Edmund's, the rood and the figures of St. Mary and St. John, which were placed over the high altar, were (as we are informed by Joceline, who wrote his Chronicle in the twelfth century) the gift of Archbishop Stigand[167-]. Gervase, in describing the work of Lanfranc in Canterbury Cathedral, as it appeared ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam
... another at her feet; and the body was strewed with flowers. It was accompanied to the church of S. Peter in Montorio by the Brotherhood of the Order of Mercy, and followed by many Franciscan monks, with great pomp and innumerable torches. She was there buried before the high altar, after the customary ceremony had been performed. By reason of the distance of the church from the bridge, it was four hours after dark before the ceremony was finished. Afterwards, the body of Lucretia, accompanied in the same manner, was carried to ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... suggestive book on mediaeval heresies. A certain priest of Milan became so revered for his sanctity and learning, and for the marvellous cures he worked, that the people insisted on burying him before the high altar, and resorting to his tomb as to that of a saint. The holy man became even more undoubtedly saintly after his death; and in the face of the miracles which were wrought by his intercession, it became necessary to proceed to his ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... their religious festivals, the Jewish chorus surrounded the high altar of their worship, gorgeously dressed, and with an harmonious tread; they mounted and remounted the steps; they offered sacrifices; they bore branches of trees in their hands; they scattered the lustral water; they burnt incense; they pealed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... (whither he was come about business which he had to do with the Pope) by the hand of Guy de Montfort, the son of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, in revenge of the same Simon's death. The murther was committed afore the high altar, as the same Henrie kneeled there to hear divine service." A.D. 1272, Holinshed's chronicles p 275. See also Giov. Villani ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... commencement of the third, on the 14th of this month, it is devoutly to be wished that every enemy to civil and religious despotism, would give his sanction to the majestic common cause by a public celebration of the anniversary. Remember that on the 14th of July the Bastille, that 'High Altar and Castle of Despotism,' fell! Remember the enthusaism peculiar to the cause of liberty with which it was attacked! Remember that generous humanity that taught the oppressed, groaning under the weight of insulted rights, to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... you as an under-shepherd of this factious ewe lamb. Besides, could we not make a providential offering of Jack, as Abraham did of the goat when he was about to slay Isaac? Jack, I think, has a heavenly wit withal, and could adjust the little prayer light of his soul even to father's high altar mind. As for me, I cannot conceive of life alone without you one whole day longer. Indeed, so strong is my premonition of your approach, that even now I listen for the sound of your footsteps upon the ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... on all sides Bow down to the ground; And the big, burly peasant (The Elder he is As the peasants have noticed) Is cringing and bending Before the Pomyeshchick, Just like the Big Devil Before the high altar: "Just so! Yes, Your Highness, 200 It's done, at your bidding!" I think he will soon fall Before the Pomyeshchick And ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... head of the Oxford House, left the youth and went into their plainly-furnished chapel, where, in a silver dove, the only silver about the church, the reserved sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ was always kept for the sick in case of need. It hung from the beams of the chancel, before the high altar. ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... seat in the confessional to a young peasant woman who looked contrite and anxious, Mrs. Tiralla repeated the prescribed prayers before the high altar, and then hastened home. ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... and the sovereign of sovereigns, cannot think it reprehensible that this, our corporate realty and homage, that this our recognition of a signiory paramount—I had almost said this oblation of the state itself—as a worthy offering on the high altar of universal praise, should be performed with modest splendour and unassuming state. For those purposes they think some part of the wealth of the country is as usefully employed as it can be in ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... how old no one can tell. A square tower, about 17 feet by 18 feet, with walls five or six feet thick, of tremendous strength, is all that now remains. It is said to have been a seat of the "Red Cumin," the rival of Robert the Bruce for the throne of Scotland, slain at Dumfries before the high altar. The prison is sometimes said to have been on the island in the loch, but really the dungeon must be sought under the foundations of the tower. In the charter giving Ochtertyre to the Murrays, in the year 1467, ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... architect was engaged in restoring the church of San Marco, Fra Giovanni was probably commissioned to paint the altar-piece for the great altar. Vasari writes of it: "But exquisite and admirable above all is the picture of the High Altar in that church; for besides that the Madonna in this painting awakens devotional feeling in all who regard her, by the pure simplicity of her expression; and that the saints surrounding her have a similar character; ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino
... this crypt on the left hand as you enter is the tomb of St. Mellon who died in 311, to whom a church is dedicated that still exists in Monmouthshire, and on the right lies St. Avitien who died in 325. The saint to whose name and memory the crypt was dedicated lies buried beneath the high altar of the Church of St. Ambrose at Milan. The body of St. Victrice, its builder, after lying in this same vault for nearly four centuries after his death, was ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... wooden enclosure has been erected on the site of the high altar surmounted by a cross. It contained a few memorials, amongst the most touching of which were simple portraits of Arnauld, Le Maitre, De Saci, Quesnel, Nicole, Pascal, the Mère Angélique, the Mère Agnès, Jacqueline Pascal, and Dr Hanlon the physician. Two portraits of the Mère ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... pontifical seat, adorned with mosaic and precious marbles. The papal altar is under a canopy in the Byzantine style. The pavement of this presbytery is worthy of particular attention. Descending to the confessional which is under the high altar the tomb of the martyred saints, Lawrence, Stephen, and Justin, ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... Charlemagne presented himself in the church of St. Peter. At the desire of the Romans he was dressed in the long robe of the patrician, and unsuspicious, it is said, of the honor intended him, knelt at the high altar; but, just as he was about to rise, Leo advanced, and suddenly placed upon his head the crown of the Western world, amidst the popular acclamations, "Long life and victory to Charles Augustus, crowned by God, great and pacific Emperor of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... absolute seriousness of his professional devotion; it was as though a shy celebrant were to turn and explain, with mystical intensity and a mystic's involution and reversal of all the values of vulgar speech, the ceremonial of some strange, high altar. His own power as a creative artist was not always commensurate with his intellectual endowment or with his desire after beauty, and his frank contempt for the masses of men made it difficult for him to write ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... who with less apparent and evident coarseness has more of inherent sensuality, wrought out with attractive and luscious refinement, and that alike in all subjects, as in the Madonna of the Incoronazione, over the high altar of San Giovanni at Parma, of which the head and upper portion of the figure, now preserved in the library, might serve as a model of attitude and expression to a ballet figurante:[42] and again in ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... to be fatal illness; he was aware that the end was near; and after making his will and receiving the last sacraments of the church he passed away. "May God keep him and pardon his sins," says the narrative of his life; "he is buried in the church of Grainville la Teinturiere, in front of the high altar." ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... vaguest idea. Not, however, that he is without belief in their efficacy; nay, it may be that his very ignorance of their meaning causes the words he utters to have, in his eyes, a transcendent value. Above the high altar, in seated posture on lotus-blossoms,(23) are three colossal images, cunningly wrought and richly gilded, and bearing on their countenances an expression of placid repose. Perhaps, it is the Triratna, or Three ...
— Religion in Japan • George A. Cobbold, B.A.
... Those whom I had been taught to venerate as almost super-human in magnitude of intellect, I found perched in little fret-work niches, as grotesque dwarfs; while the grotesques, in my hitherto belief, stood guarding the high altar with all the characters of apotheosis. In short, what I had supposed substances were thinned away into shadows, while everywhere shadows were ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... desk, at which a man was reading aloud to a number of other persons wearing large turbans, their shoes placed on one side, and several children, all sitting on a carpet, listening devoutly. On the walls were draperies and pictures of the Saviour, and within a doorway was a high altar, covered with a cloth marked with the figure of the cross. The service was in Arabic. A handsome old man entered, bearing a staff surmounted by a golden cross. After kneeling at the altar, he invited the strangers ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... men knelt or squatted on the small open space immediately in front of the High Altar, but the majority of worshippers ranged themselves under the shade of some small trees and on the ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... cloister. Silence and gloom filled the building, raised more than a hundred and fifty years before on the foundations of a ruined Roman Temple by the great Margaritone. He traversed the Nave, and went and knelt in the Chapel behind the High Altar dedicated to San Michele, whose legend was painted in fresco on the wall. But the dim light of the lamp hanging from the vault was insufficient to show the Archangel fighting with Satan and weighing souls in the balance. Only the moon, shining ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... were the pleadings of duty against such arguments. The Pere, too, designed me for a priest. The life of a "seminarist" in a convent was to be mine! I was to wear the red gown and the white cape of an "acolyte!"—to be taught how to swing a censer, or snuff the candles of the high altar—to be a train-bearer in a procession, or carry a relic in a glass-case! The hoarse bray of a trumpet that then rung through the court routed these ignoble fancies, and as the staff rode proudly in, my resolve was taken. I was determined ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various |
