"Idolatry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was held between Knox and the sub-prior, Wynram, the Scottish Vicar of Bray, Knox being understood to maintain that no bishop who did not preach was really a bishop; that the Mass is "abominable idolatry"; that Purgatory does not exist; and that the tithes are not necessarily the property of churchmen—a doctrine very welcome to the hungry nobles of Scotland. Knox, of course, easily overcame an ignorant opponent, a friar, who joined in the fray. His own arguments ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... plain commands," he wailed. "He hath bidden me cast down idolatry, and bring the Gentiles ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... some of our very respectable painters are. We do not think that the pictorial world, either in taste or practice, will be Turnerized by this palpably fulsome, nonsensical praise. In this our graduate is semper idem, and to keep up his idolatry to the sticking-point, terminates the volume with a prayer, and begs all the people of England to join in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... prince, found, as I had found it, and to which some people may say I had no right, and I often thought so myself. But on the other hand I felt that I could do more good with it than it would do left there in the bed of that stream—so many relics of a superstition—of a pagan idolatry carried on three hundred years ago. The traditions of its being hidden there had of course been handed down, but it had never been seen since it was buried at the time of the conquest, and all who had a right to it ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... his legs broken, and his limbs dreadfully mangled. After having bathed his remains with their tears, they buried him on the site of the chapel, that had been hewn down with its crucifix, with whatever else remained of the emblems of idolatry." Such was the merciless character of the invasion of Acadia; such the looming phantom of the greater crime which was so speedily to spread ruin over her fair valleys, and ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... and in some respects new light upon the more human side of the great movement. It is easier perhaps to us who are acquainted with all that followed to understand the fiery zeal which flamed against every accessory of what they conceived to be idolatry—the saintly image, which was nothing but a painted board, and the "round clipped god" upon the altar which was blasphemously asserted to be the very Lord Himself—than to remember that these men had also many ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... before which dark and ill-defined figures were ever and anon flitting like phantoms; while, in the midst, the funnel of the steam-boat loomed tall and black above the veil of smoke that hung around—like some dark and horrid object Of heathen idolatry surrounded by its sacrificial fires. The sounds that met my ear, however, dispelled this somewhat fanciful idea; for in the stillness of the night voices grow distinct, while forms are indebted to the imagination for filling ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... Thyra was induced to assent, and again left the object of her idolatry sleeping in blissful unconsciousness of ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... sympathy and admiration, we could heartily wish that the young men of America would inhale the almost supra-mortal spirit which it breathes: "I would not with any idolatrous admiration regard the Constitution of the United States, nor any other work of man; but this side of idolatry, I hold it in profound respect. I believe that no human working on such a subject, no human ability exerted for such an end, has ever produced so much happiness, or holds out now to so many millions of people the prospect, through such a succession of ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... qualities which deserve prosperity; where and what are they? Then, seriously examining into my past conduct, I found too little good on which to pride myself; the chief part was a tissue of vanity, idolatry, and the mere exterior of virtue. Unworthy, therefore, as I am, let me suffer! If it be intended that men and gnats should destroy me, unjustly or otherwise, acknowledge in them the instruments of a ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... state, however, the most excellent revelation was that which was given first. Now the first revelation, before the Law, was given to Abraham, for it was at that time that men began to stray from faith in one God by turning aside to idolatry, whereas hitherto no such revelation was necessary while all persevered in the worship of one God. A less excellent revelation was made to Isaac, being founded on that which was made to Abraham. Wherefore it was said to him (Gen. 26:24): "I am the God ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... proceeds of his verse. For a country which possesses the greatest poetical literature in the world this condition of affairs is at least odd. What makes it odder is that, occasionally, very occasionally, the average lettered man will have a fit of idolatry for a fine poet, buying his books in tens of thousands, and bestowing upon him immense riches. As with Tennyson. And what makes it odder still is that, after all, the average lettered man does not truly dislike poetry; he only dislikes it when it takes a certain form. ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... the Protestants, in their horror of idolatry, discontinued, in a great degree, the use of the cross, as an outward religious symbol; and that there was probably a time when there was not a single cross to be seen in the whole of a country that was settled by those who made a profession ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... how pale and wan and piteously still he lay there, with the ghastly white bandages round his head, and one helpless, languid hand hanging over the bedside! How changed from that glorious creature, all youth, health, strength, and exulting activity, whom it had so long been her innocent idolatry to worship in secret! How fearfully like what might be the image of him in death, was the present image of him as he lay in his hushed and awful sleep! She shuddered as the thought crossed her mind, and drying the tears that obscured her sight, turned a little ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... almost yearly tours to the Continent for concert-giving purposes, and kept his friendship with the great composers of the Continent green by personal contact. Beethoven was the god of his musical idolatry, and his pilgrimage to Vienna was always delightful to him. When Beethoven, in the early part of 1827, was in dire distress from poverty, just before his death, it was to Moscheles that he applied for assistance; ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... deemed herself for devotion to the cause of order and orthodoxy. It was rumored that the brooding brow of Mazzini had been observed in her rooms, and there was no sort of question that she had thrown herself in ecstatic idolatry at the feet of the hero ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... that there was so much evil in God's people to be cleansed away? Was it only in the Church of the first century, that Paul and James and our Lord Himself had to speak such sharp words? Or is there not in the Church of our days an idolatry of money and talent and culture, a worldly spirit, making it unfaithful to its one only Husband and Lord, a confidence in the flesh which grieves and resists God's Holy Spirit? Is there not almost everywhere ...
— The Ministry of Intercession - A Plea for More Prayer • Andrew Murray
... Nothing could be more pleasant than this; their income was unembarrassed, and Mrs. Val, for the first time in her life, was able to set up her carriage. Among the effects arising from this cause, the female Neverbends, who had lately been worshippers of Gertrude, veered round in their idolatry, and paid their vows before Mrs. Val's new yellow panels. In this new carriage now came the four ladies to pay a morning visit to Mrs. Tudor. It was wonderful to see into how small dimensions the Misses Neverbend had contrived to pack, ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... of the 20th Brumaire was a Fete of Liberty not of Reason, the mistake being due to a careless transcription in the proces-verbal of the Convention. A living representative of Liberty was chosen as less likely to tend to idolatry than an image of stone. See La Revolution Francaise, 14th April 1899, La ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... is there a greater slavery among white men, than that of impressed Englishmen on board of one of their own men of war? The American, over his grog, seems equally happy, and equally forgetful of his harsh treatment. The Englishman, when his skin, is full of grog, glows with idolatry for his country, and his favorite lass; and so does the American: The former sings the victories of Bembow, How, Jervase and Nelson; while the latter sing the same songs, only substituting the names of ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... but had they stayed there, not evil. Out of gratitude, purest gratitude, rose idolatry. For the devil sees the ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... read all Balzac. That's a colossal order," said Paul, rather excited-for, in his limited acquaintance with cultivated folk, Colonel Winwood was the only human being who could claim acquaintance with one of the literary gods of his idolatry—"but I know him pretty well. I can't stand his 'Theatre'—that's footle—but the big things—'Le Pere Goriot,' 'La Cousine Bette,' 'Cesar Birotteau'—what a ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... learning from them their secret. They taught artists, and priests, and laymen, too, that beauty is only worthy of admiration when it is the outward sacrament of the beauty of the soul within; they helped to deliver men from that idolatry to merely animal strength and loveliness into which they were in danger of falling in ferocious ages, and among ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... Vithoba of Pandharpur, who is a manifestation of Krishna. Into the bhakti system of western India Buddhist elements have entered; and the school of devotees is often denominated Bauddha-Vaishnava. Along with extravagant idolatry it inculcates generally, at least in the Maratha country, a pure morality; and the latter it apparently owes to Buddhism. Yet there are many sad lapses from purity. Almost of necessity the worship of Krishna led to corruption. The ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... enough if we may believe the philosophers, that the same cause will produce the same effect upon the rest of the world. All her pictures, therefore, like those of the painter who doated upon his mistress to such a degree as to introduce her face into every one of his works, contain the object of her idolatry, either prominently in the foreground, or so ingeniously placed in the background, as to be quite as well fitted to draw attention.—But it is time to follow her in some of ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... protection of the monarch than it would have been in complete independence. The dreadful lesson taught by the desolation of the land, the destruction of the temple, and the captivity of the people, had effectually cured the Jews of that tendency to idolatry which had been their ruin. But, as time went on, the distortion of character which had been restrained in one direction broke forth in another; and although they no longer went formally astray from a religion which did not suit ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley
... if he did not surpass, him in wickedness. Jair erected an altar unto Baal, and on penalty of death he forced the people to prostrate themselves before it. Only seven men remained firm in the true faith, and refused to the last to commit idolatry. Their names were Deuel, Abit Yisreel, Jekuthiel, Shalom, Ashur, Jehonadab, and Shemiel. (104) They said to Jair: "We are mindful of the lessons given us by our teachers and our mother Deborah. 'Take ye heed,' they said, 'that your heart lead you not ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... is, in like manner, confidently pronounced to be a universal remedy for all the political and social complaints of India. Remove that, and you will at one stroke secure social liberty, national unity, the removal of idolatry, and, some even are rash enough to affirm, the universal adoption of Christianity. Such, then, are a few examples of the nonsense you will hear commonly talked about caste, and I think I need not waste time in pointing out that ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... practical conclusions are virtually those of Jesus, we are distinctly pleased and encouraged to find that we were doing him an injustice, and that the nimbus that surrounds his head in the pictures may be interpreted some day as a light of science rather than a declarations of sentiment or a label of idolatry. ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... of settin' up your back against God A'mighty and encouragin' the heathen and the infidel in his idolatry. I might 'a' knowed somethin' would happen, takin' you along! 'And the heathen and the infidel went out, and the Lord God sent a cloud-burst to wet him,'" quoted Mrs. Yellett from the apocryphal Scriptures that never yet failed to furnish her ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... and yet radiant with a strong, childlike light of imagination, which flames up under Constantine, illumines all the shores of the Bosphorus and the Aegean and the Adriatic Sea, and then gradually, as the people give themselves up to idolatry, becomes Corpse-light. The architecture sinks into a settled form—a strange, gilded, and embalmed repose: it, with the religion it expressed; and so would have remained for ever,—so does remain, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... only two: one of them recognizes and worships the Holy that, without form or shape, dwells in and around us; and the other recognizes and worships it in its fairest form. Everything that lies between these two is idolatry. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... henceforth for him, all her heart, as far as she could command her heart, and certainly all her truth. There should not be a secret of her mind hidden from him. She would force herself to love him, and to forget that other man. He should be the object of all her idolatry. She would, in that case, do her very utmost to reward him for the constancy of the affection with which he had regarded her; and yet, as she was driven in at the vicarage gate, she told herself that it would have been better for ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... either by sign or gestures any thing certain. It seemed to us that they had no religion or laws, or any knowledge of a First Cause or Mover, that they worshipped neither the heavens, stars, sun, moon nor other planets; nor could we learn if they were given to any kind of idolatry, or offered any sacrifices or supplications, or if they have temples or houses of prayer in their villages; our conclusion was, that they have no religious belief whatever, but live in this respect entirely free. All which ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy
... inferior to those in the Old Testament, which are the more remarkable, because, among all their other follies and vices, the Jews were not at this time idolaters; and the deliverances here mentioned were done in order to prevent their relapse into that idolatry. ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... is an epitome or quintessence of more than thirty works,—perhaps the best being "The Prior of Marrick," a story of idolatry; "Anti-Xurion," a crusade against razors; and "The Author's Tribunal," an oration; but I confess, not having looked at the book since my hair was black (and now it is snow-white), and considering ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... daughter had been born, named Julia, and whom her father, notwithstanding all Clotilde's efforts of resistance, had spoilt to excess. Monsieur de Trecoeur's idolatry for his daughter was well-known, and the world, with its habitual weakness of judgment, forgave him readily his scandalous existence in consideration of that merit, which is not always a great one. It is not, indeed, a very difficult matter to love one's children; it is sufficient for that ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... faith; and Jacob, dying and blessing his children, cried in a transport which made him break off his discourse, "I await, O my God, the Saviour whom Thou hast promised. Salutare taum expectabo, Domine."[220] The Egyptians were infected both with idolatry and magic; the very people of God were led astray by their example. Yet Moses and others believed Him whom they saw not, and worshipped Him, looking to the eternal gifts which He was ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... be sinful, but when it is used only to protect men from a devil, which is a thing harmless in itself, the sign too must be, as a bottle is neither good nor bad, harmless. For the sign is neither good nor bad. But if the bottle be full of gin, the gin is bad; and if the sign be made in idolatry bad, so is the idolatry.' And, very like a native pastor, he had a text apposite about the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Indians, as it is called, is vast and populous, lying far beyond Egypt. On the side of Egypt it is washed by seas and navigable gulphs, but on the mainland it marcheth with the borders of Persia, a land formerly darkened with the gloom of idolatry, barbarous to the last degree, and wholly given up to unlawful practices. But when "the only-begotten Son of God, which is in the bosom of the Father," being grieved to see his own handiwork in bondage unto sin, was moved ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... Delphi, even so "the fair-wrought court divine hath fallen; no more hath Phoebus his home, no more his laurel-bough, nor the singing well of water; nay, the sweet-voiced water is silent." The fane is ruinous, and the images of men's idolatry are dust. ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... his enemies by the parable of the Unclean Spirit. The demon of unbelief had once possessed the Jews, and had been manifested in the form of idolatry; it had been cast out, but it had returned with more terrible manifestations of hypocrisy, covetousness, hatred, fanaticism, and pride. Such had been the fate of the nation; and such is the experience of an individual ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... his own private interest. This self-love is, in its whole nature, and every degree of it, enmity against God; it is not subject to the law of God, and is the only affection that can oppose it. It is the foundation of all spiritual blindness, and, therefore, the source of all the open idolatry in the heathen world, and false religion under the light of the gospel: all this is agreeable to that self-love which opposes God's true character. Under the influence of this principle, men depart from truth, it being itself the greatest ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... his Lordship's may seem cold in the writing, my dears, and you who did not know him may wonder at it. It had its birth in an admiration few men receive, and which in Charles Fox's devoted coterie was dangerously near to idolatry. During the recital of it Charles walked to the window, and there stood looking out upon the gray prospect, seemingly paying but little attention. But when Comyn had finished, he wheeled on us with ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... thro' with MacMuir, big and red and kindly, and I was not long in letting him know of the interest which Captain Paul had inspired within me. His own feeling for him was little short of idolatry. I had surmised much as to the rank of life from which the captain had sprung, but my astonishment was great when I was told that John Paul was the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... spots refreshing streams that need? O why, forgetful of your solemn call, Sit ye, unmindful where the victims fall, To hire ONE SACRIFICE with cords be bound, And your anointed hands inflict the wound? O desecrated thus, by off'rings high To demon passions!—Foul idolatry! If such your rites, no LEVITE here I view, But BAAL'S PRIESTS may leap and shout with you.[B] O whither urge these bodings of my breast? Let hope, let charity their flight arrest! In Britain's SARDIS, surely some remain Whose courtly robes yet bear ...
— The Ghost of Chatham; A Vision - Dedicated to the House of Peers • Anonymous
... distance, he instructed Abraham how to conduct the business of idol-selling during his absence. The future founder of the Hebrew nation, however, had already obtained a knowledge of the true and living God, and consequently held the practice of idolatry in the utmost abhorrence. Accordingly, whenever any one came to buy an idol Abraham inquired his age, and upon his answering, "I am fifty (or sixty) years old," he would exclaim, "Woe to the man of fifty who would worship the work of man's hands!" and his father's ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... both at Hyde and St. Mary to sweep away all the rotten bones that be called relics; which we may not omit, lest it be thought we came more for the treasure than for the avoiding of th' abomination of idolatry". ...
— Winchester • Sidney Heath
... January 1641 into every county "for the defacing, demolishing, and quite taking away of all images, altars, or tables turned altarwise, crucifixes, superstitious pictures, monuments, and reliques of idolatry out of all churches and chapels." But the bulk of the Commons as of the Lords were averse from any radical changes in the constitution or doctrine of the Church. All however were agreed on the necessity of reform; and one of the ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... amusements of the populace. Vulgar delight is too naturally portrayed; the part of the Puritan, however, is deserving of distinction: his casuistical consultation, whether he ought to eat a sucking-pig according to the custom of the fair, and his lecture afterwards against puppet-shows as a heathen idolatry, are inimitable, and full of the most biting salt of comedy. Ben Jonson did not then foresee that, before the lapse of one generation, the Puritans would be sufficiently powerful to take a very severe revenge on his art, on ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... to be satisfied, despite themselves. Merritt came forward with an admiration almost fawning. He did not know quite how the thing had happened, but Chris had done the police. Smartness and trickery of that kind were the highest form of his idolatry. His admiration was nearly ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... they were womenkind, and they all talked together, and made a noise while they rowed, instead of being "silent in the boat." But what impressed Eilert most of all was the fact that, in the Finnwoman's family, they practised sorcery and idolatry, or so folks said. He also heard tell of something beyond all question, and that was the shame of having Finn blood in one's veins, which also was the reason why the Finns were not as good as other honest folk, so that the magistrates gave them their ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... how many loving rivers can I reckon up, whom beauty hath enthralled! I say nothing all this while of idols themselves that have committed idolatry in this kind, of looking-glasses, that have been rapt in love (if you will believe [4855]poets), when their ladies and mistresses looked on to ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... their accustomed unsparing ferocity: particularly Cerdic, in 530, who replaced the slaughtered British by a colony of his own countrymen; and Ceadwalla of Murcia, who having seized it in 686, was so incensed at the idolatry of the inhabitants, that he resolved at first to extirpate them, and repeople the island with Christians! but at the intercession of bishop Wilfred, great numbers saved their lives by submitting to ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon
... can wonder that the children of that fine old city are proud of her, and offer up prayers for her prosperity? I myself, who was not born within her walls, offer up prayers for her prosperity, that want may never visit her cottages, vice her palaces, and that the abomination of idolatry ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... their prevalence in India, are generally known to the reading public. Buddhism is the basest kind of idolatry, and its rites are debasing and revolting. The worshipper is to infuse himself into Buddha by a constant repetition of his name, ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... and have contradicted His clearest statements. In fact, the Church of England, in her Book of Homilies, declares that "clergy and laity, learned and unlearned, all ages, sects, and degrees of men, women, and children, of whole Christendom, were altogether drowned in damnable idolatry by the space of 800 years and more"! (Hom. on Peril of Idol., part iii.). This is a specimen of the way in which God's promises are set aside, and the Bible misinterpreted by outsiders while professing to make it the foundation of their creed. ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... patient love, that checked each wayward word; The holy love, that turned thee to thy God— Fount of all pure affection! Hadst thou dwelt Longer in such an atmosphere, thy strength Had yielded to the weakness of idolatry, Forgetting Him, the GIVER, in his gifts. So He recalled them. Ay, for that rejoice, That thou hast added treasure up in Heaven; O, let thy heart dwell with thy treasure there; The dream shall thus become reality. The blessing may ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... this seclusion; and his wife, "so infatuated with her idolatry of that graceless old man," as surrounding young ladies said, that she was well content to forego the society of the county people for a less interrupted enjoyment of that of her husband. "What she could see in him" to interest or ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... child had been permitted to see him, and the immense novelty had not yet worn off. Kathleen was a hero-worshiper. If she had been devoted to Dorn before his absence, she now manifested symptoms of complete idolatry. Lenore had forbidden her to question Dorn about anything in regard to the war. Kathleen never broke her promises, but it was plain that Dorn had read the mute, anguished wonder and flame in her eyes when they rested upon his empty ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... it possible; too, that Christ, though nothing more than an ordinary man, may really have 'thought himself Divine,' without being liable to the charge of a visionary self-idolatry or of blasphemy,—as supposed by every body, Trinitarian or Unitarian, except Mr. Foxton. He accounts for it by the 'wild sublimity of human emotion, when the rapt spirit first feels the throbbings of the ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... capricious in its indignation as it had been capricious in its fondness, flew into a rage with its froward and petted darling. He had been worshiped with an irrational idolatry. He was persecuted with an irrational fury. Much has been written about those unhappy domestic occurrences which decided the fate of his life. Yet nothing ever was positively known to the public but this—that he quarreled with his lady, and that she refused to live with him. There ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... unification of the literary spirit and the scientific spirit was degrading the literary man to the level of the scientific man. He thought this was bad for the small remnant of mankind, who in default of their former idolatry might take to the worship of themselves. Now, however bad a writer might be, it was always well for the reader to believe him better than himself. If we had not been brought up in this superstition, what would have become of the classics of all ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... tidings of how his barons warred with each other in remoter parts of his dominions, seizing the strong castles of each other, putting one another to death, and forsaking the ways of the Holy Church of Christ and turning to the idolatry of the old British pagans, some of whom still lurked and performed their evil rites in the desolate and secret places of the ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... Intellectually, humanity cleaves to idolatry; and each of us worships in the Pantheon, where our favorite divinities in literature crowd the niches. To become a skilful artist, and paint the portrait of Antigone, vas the ambition that had shaped and colored Beryl's young dreams, long ere she suspected ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... lack; but the deeper problem of the dramatist's mental history can hardly be said to have arisen till our own generation. As regards many of the parallel passages, the ground has been pretty well cleared by the dispassionate scholarship brought to bear on them from Farmer onwards; though the idolatry of the Coleridgean school, as represented by Knight, did much to retard scientific conclusions on this ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... charity for the good of Papists as willingly as for the good of Protestants; but in doing so she always remembered the good cause. She always clogged the flannel petticoat with some Protestant teaching, or burdened the little coat and trousers with the pains and penalties of idolatry. ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... think so. The only thing that puzzles me is that you, Jack De Baron, should be led away to such idolatry. Why should she be different from others? Her father is a money-loving, selfish old reprobate, who was born in a stable. She married the first man that was brought to her, and has never cared for him because he does not laugh, and dance, and ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... ceremony, clinging indestructibly, like the odor of musk, to everything that has once come into contact with it. In illustration of this, consider the profound wisdom of the Upanishads, and then look at the mad idolatry in the India of to-day, with its pilgrimages, processions and festivities, or at the insane and ridiculous goings-on of the Saniassi. Still one can't deny that in all this insanity and nonsense there lies some obscure purpose which accords with, or is a reflection of the profound wisdom ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, A Dialogue, Etc. • Arthur Schopenhauer
... in the hearts of his Majesty's well-affected subjects, occasioned by some ill instruments about the Queen's person, by the flowing of priests and Papists to her house, and by the use and practice of the idolatry of the mass, and exercise of other superstitious services of the Romish Church, to the great scandal of true ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... a natural terror in the religious mind of laying too much stress on this, or of seeming to encourage too much an aesthetic emotion. If the first business of religion is to purify life, there will always be a suspicion of idolatry about ritual, a fear of substituting a vague desire for beauty for a practical ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... may be of interest to you for me to tell you something about the character of these people at the time Paul first visited them. Ancient history gives a very dark picture of this. What Paul said of Athens applied equally to Colosse: "The city was wholly given to idolatry." The lower classes, especially, were very ignorant, having no knowledge of God save that which the light of nature ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... for worshipping Saints, and honouring the Virgin and images, &c. These things may perhaps be idolatrous; I cannot make up my mind about it; but to my mind it is the Carnival that is real practical idolatry, as it is written, 'the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.'" The Carnival, I observe in passing, is, in fact, one of those very excesses, to which, for at least three centuries, religious Catholics have ever opposed themselves, ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... Tripple, the evangelical minister of Lebanon. It was a paean of the Scriptures accompanied by a crazy charge that the Roman Church forbade the reading of the Bible. It had a tirade also about the Scarlet Woman and Popish idolatry. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... had left our home on our unfortunate expedition, Timbo had set off to Kabomba, in the hope, as he said, of telling the natives about the Bible, showing them how much superior is the white man's religion to their foolish idolatry. They had listened more readily than he had expected; and his great wish now was to return there at some future day with missionaries, who might teach them to read about the matter themselves. He had just got back, when one morning Jack Handspike, who was on guard, observed a body of blacks ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... their children into slaves. He believed that his son was capable of being one of the world's greatest musicians, and he gave a splendid and permanent demonstration of his theory. Through all his vicarious ambition he kept his son's love and kept it almost to the point of idolatry. Indeed the boy once wrote, ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... the Gipsies to have been heathens before they came into this country, their separation from pagan degradation and cruelty, has been attended with many advantages to themselves. They have seen neither the superstitions of idolatry, nor the unnatural cruelties of heathenism. They are not destitute of those sympathies and attachments which would adorn the most polished circles. In demonstration of this, we have only to make ourselves acquainted with the fervour and tenderness of their conjugal, parental, and filial sensibilities,—and ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb
... read his first lecture to his auditory. He studied the Scriptures while laboring under the conviction that people worship the Bible instead of the universal Father; and he seemed to say within himself: "I will destroy this vain idolatry, if it take bread from my wife and children: if life be lost in the effort." So he set himself to work with a will. He was in a difficulty concerning the want of understanding as to the number of sacred books. He consulted the Jews of Palestine, and they replied "twenty-four;" ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... and legislature. It calls on us all to fall down and worship, promising the world if we obey, the cross if we refuse. And we bow to it; and that is all it asks, for a nod on our part makes us its slaves. It is the idolatry of money, position, shrewdness, learning—in one word, of success. It takes all the strength out of our morality, loyalty and obedience to God out of our religion, and makes cowards and liars of us, who should be heroes. It makes our religion ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... said the man in black; "shame on you, Mr. Hater of Idolatry; why, the very supposition brings you to the ground; you must make figures of Shakespeare, must you? then why not of St. Antonio, or Ignacio, or of a greater personage still? I know what you are going to say," he cried, interrupting ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... belief in supernatural beings, distinct from and even independent of matter, since it is passively subject to their will; while the former considers matter itself as animated, and has no idea of any higher or more spiritual form of being. It is further supposed that idolatry, properly so called, belongs to Fetishism only, and not at all to Polytheism, for this singular, but not very conclusive reason, among others, that if Polytheism be justly chargeable with idolatry because it recognizes many wills superior ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... repented, cannot but involve your Self and your Posterity under the wrath of the ever-living GOD, For your being guiltie of the shedding of the blood of many thousands of your Majesties best Subjects; For your permitting the Masse, and other Idolatry, both in your own Family and in your Dominions; For your authorizing by the Book of Sports the profanation of the Lords Day; For your not punishing of publick scandals, and much profanenesse in, & about your Court; For the shutting of your eare, from the humble and just desires of ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... heretical foreigners. The course which the Czar was pursuing was contrary to the laws of God, they said, who had forbidden the children of Israel to have any communion with the unbelieving nations around them, in order that they might not be led away by them into idolatry. And so in Russia, they said, the extensive power of granting permission to any Russian subject to leave the country vested, according to the ancient usages of the empire, with the patriarch, the head of the Church—and Peter had violated these usages in sending away so many of the ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... servant to fetch back the painting. As soon as it had been brought back my brother made a battle of it in real earnest, for he cut it up with a sword into twenty pieces. He made up his mind to settle his affairs in Paris immediately, and to go somewhere else to study an art which he loved to idolatry; we resolved ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... and wrapped up in a linen cloth. The book, translated by Bell, and again by the younger Hazlitt in 1847, was originally collected by Dr Anton Lauterbach (1502-1569) "out of the holy mouth of Luther.'' It consists chiefly of observations and discussions on idolatry, auricular confession, the mass, excommunication, clerical jurisdiction, general councils, and all the points agitated by the reformed church in those early periods. The Table-Talk of Selden contains a more genuine ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... publication and was much sought after by collectors. It contains five letters, the first three of which are by Toland, the other two and the preface by Holbach and Naigeon. The matters treated are, the origin of prejudices, the dogma of the immortality of the soul, idolatry, superstition, the system of Spinoza and the origin of movement ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing
... wood or ivory: figures of demons, preternaturally ugly; little skeletons, and other superstitious devices. It would be hard, indeed, if you could not be pleased, whatever your religious denomination—unless indeed you were determined to reject all the appliances and objects of idolatry indiscriminately—and in that case you would rejoice that it was night when you arrived there, and, in particular, that darkness swallowed up other appliances and objects of pagan worship, which to darkness were due by a particular title, and by darkness were best shrouded, till the coming ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... clad in a loose robe of black, developing by its attitude a contour of such rich and symmetrical proportion as might be difficult for the imagination to embody. And who was the being upon whom his each excited sense now lingered with an admiration little short of idolatry? One whom, a moment before, he believed to be still far distant, whom he had only a few months previously fled from, as from a pestilence, and whom he had solemnly sworn never to behold again, yet whom he continued to love with a passion that defied ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... subjects for this lecture. First, for "the proving, explaining, and proper use and improvement of the principles of Natural Religion." Second, "for the confirmation, illustration, and improvement of the great articles of the Christian Religion." Third, "for the detecting, convicting, and exposing the idolatry, errors, and superstitions of the Romish Church." Fourth, "for maintaining, explaining, and proving the validity of the ordination of ministers or pastors of the churches, and so their administration of the sacraments or ordinances ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... favour of the argument. With respect to Scotland he knew that not one Presbyterian in a thousand would take the sacrament, would not even go to a place of worship where there was an organ, would consider it idolatry to kneel at an altar; if they conscientiously thought so, was it to be wondered at that they evinced a repugnance at what they considered a mixture of idolatry with Christian worship? If in the recent contest at Vintry ward, one of the candidates had differed from ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the idolatry of Ahab, and followed this with a command to assemble his people on Mount Carmel, and bring also all the priests and attendants of Baal and Ashtoroth. Ahab did not dare to disobey, and a great, weary, listless crowd assembled on the sun-burned slopes of the mountain. The priests ...
— The Man Who Did Not Die - The Story of Elijah • J. H. Willard
... Rukmini is one of his commonest titles. Namdev's opinions varied at different times and perhaps in different moods: like most religious poets he cannot be judged by logic or theology. Sometimes he inveighs against idolatry—understood as an attempt to limit God to an image—but in other verses he sings the praises of Pandurang, the local deity, as the lord and creator of all. His great message is that God—by whatever name he is called—is everywhere and accessible to all, accessible ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... going back to the trenches," he said, gloomily. "Same old business and one of the crowd again." He was suffering from the reaction of popular idolatry. He felt hipped because no one made a fuss of him now or bothered about his claret-colored ribbon. The staff-officers, chaplains, brigade majors, regimental officers, and army nurses were more interested ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... too often submitting to a despotism, are the Jews. Between these two, the Jew and the Catholic, there exists an unmitigated hostility. The Catholic reviles the Jew with a sin of which, most likely, his own ancestors were not guilty,[67] and the Jew curses the Nazarene for the idolatry of his worshipers. He will make no allowances for the nice distinction between adoration and worship, and insists that the making the likeness of any thing to be set up in a place of worship is idolatry, and that the image of the cross is as much an image as the image of Him who hung thereon. ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... affection to new heights. A man's growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends. For every friend whom he loses for truth, he gains a better. I thought as I walked in the woods and mused on any friends, why should I play with them this game of idolatry? I know and see too well, when not voluntarily blind, the speedy limits of persons called high and worthy. Rich, noble and great they are by the liberality of our speech, but truth is sad. O blessed Spirit, whom I forsake for these, they are not thee! Every personal ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... many of his friends. He told many stirring experiences of the difficulties encountered in the missionary work, and gave affecting accounts of the persecution of the native Christians because of their turning from their idolatry and former beliefs. ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... entertainment with an ice-cream debauch. We do not get ice-cream every where, and so, when we do, we are apt to dissipate to excess. We never cared any thing about ice-cream at home, but we look upon it with a sort of idolatry now that it is so scarce in these red-hot climates of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... forest. On its verge, however, he paused a moment, to shake off the dust of his feet against the village where he had dwelt, and to invoke a curse on the meeting-house, which he regarded as a temple of heathen idolatry. He felt a curiosity, also, to see whether the fire and brimstone would not rush down from Heaven at once, now that the one righteous man had provided for his own safety. But, as the sunshine continued to fall peacefully on the cottages and fields, and the husbandmen labored and children ...
— The Man of Adamant - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... home he is gentle, amiable, always kind, social and hospitable. He loves deeply, and his friends revere him to a point that is but little this side of idolatry. And surely their ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... to fix exactly the period when idolatry took its rise. Adam, coming immediately from the hands of God, had experienced too many manifestations of his power and goodness to be unacquainted with him, and must have preserved the purest idea of him in his own family, which, most probably, continued ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... from such idolatry The heart has turned, and wiser grown, In earnestness and purity Would make a nobler plan its own,— Yet, after all its zeal and care, Must of its chosen aim despair,— Some bitter tears may be forgiven By Man, ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... reigned no ordinary passion. But in death only, was I fully impressed with the strength of her affection. For long hours, detaining my hand, would she pour out before me the overflowing of a heart whose more than passionate devotion amounted to idolatry. How had I deserved to be so blessed by such confessions?—how had I deserved to be so cursed with the removal of my beloved in the hour of her making them, But upon this subject I cannot bear to ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... at pageants and symbols; the earlier Puritans had proscribed ceremonial as savouring of idolatry, and feared any manifestation of beauty as a snare of the devil. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, England began to throw off the shackles of Puritanism, and to lose all interest in Whiggery. The new democracy was neither coldly ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... left the succession to his son, Eadbald. This prince, seduced by a passion for his mother-in-law, deserted for some time the Christian faith, which permitted not these incestuous marriages: his whole people immediately returned with him to idolatry. Laurentius, the successor of Augustine, found the Christian worship wholly abandoned, and was prepared to return to France, in order to escape the mortification of preaching the gospel without fruit to the infidels. ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... evidently holds that idolatry begins with a personal deity. And let us note that the latter is deliberately denied by the Thirty-nine Articles. With them God is a Being without Parts (personality) or Passions. He professes a vague Agnosticism, ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... the human heart. Johnson said, that the description of the temple, in The Mourning Bride, was the finest poetical passage he had ever read; he recollected none in Shakspeare equal to it. 'But, (said Garrick, all alarmed for the 'God of his idolatry,') we know not the extent and variety of his powers. We are to suppose there are such passages in his works. Shakspeare must not suffer from the badness of our memories.' Johnson, diverted by this enthusiastick jealousy, went on with greater ardour: 'No, Sir; Congreve has NATURE;' (smiling ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... faith and salvation to be prescribed to him, but each one was wont to make protestation of his faith, by outward signs of his profession, according as he thought best. But about the time of Abraham faith was on the wane, many being given over to idolatry. Moreover, by the growth of carnal concupiscence natural reason was clouded even in regard to sins against nature. And therefore it was fitting that then, and not before, circumcision should be instituted, as a profession of faith and ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... really believe sun, moon, and stars, earth, sea, and air, fountains, and lakes, to have understanding and active power. To pay homage to them, and implore their favor, is a kind of idolatry ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... gave his license to Paulinus to preach the Gospel, and renouncing idolatry, declared that he received the faith of Christ. And when he inquired of the high priest who should first profane the altars and temples of their idols with the enclosures that were about them, Coifi answered, 'I; for who can more properly than ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... appeared to derive greater amusement from the gossipry of the Court and the gallantries of the courtiers; and he no sooner ascertained that Mademoiselle d'Entragues had become the mistress of Bassompierre than he said laughingly to the Duc de Guise: "D'Entragues despises us all in her idolatry of Bassompierre. I have good grounds ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... the true source of religious learning, and by him priests were sent across the sea to study. But the first sect of any importance—the Hosso—that resulted from this movement does not seem to have risen above the level of idolatry and polytheism. It was a "system built up on the worship of certain perfected human beings converted into personal gods; it affirmed the eternal permanence of such beings in some state or other, and it gave them divine attributes."* Some of these were companions and disciples ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... cherished me, yea, saved my life, When in Peru arose the civil strife. Yet still remembering her I loved so well, Oft I returned to the gray father's cell: His voice instructed me; recalled my youth From rude idolatry to heavenly truth: Of this hereafter; he my darkling mind Cleared, and from low and sensual thoughts refined. Then first, with feelings new impressed, I strove 110 To hide the tear of tenderness and love: Amid the fairest maidens of Peru, My eyes, my heart, one ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... fellow-captain Almagro as the judges, an attorney-general being appointed for the crown and counsel for the prisoner. The crimes charged against the Inca were chiefly of a kind with which the Spaniards had nothing to do, among them the assassination of Huascar and the guilt of idolatry. These were simply to bolster up the only real charge, that of exciting an insurrection against the Spaniards. The whole affair was the merest show of a trial, and was hurried through without waiting for the return of De Soto, who could have given useful evidence about the insurrection. The ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... the ordinary words of their language till they have learned their precise signification, change the idea they make this or that term stand for, almost as often as they use it. He that does this out of uncertainty of what he should leave out, or put into his idea of CHURCH, or IDOLATRY, every time he thinks of either, and holds not steady to any one precise combination of ideas that makes it up, is said to have a confused idea of idolatry or the church: though this be still for the same reason as the former, viz. because a mutable idea (if we will ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... again alluded to; and again it is made manifest that the sorcery or witchcraft of the Old Testament resolves itself into a trafficking with idols, and asking counsel of false deities; in other words, into idolatry, which, notwithstanding repeated prohibitions, examples, and judgments, was still the prevailing crime of the Israelites. The passage alluded to is in Deuteronomy xviii. 10, ii—"There shall not be found among you anyone that maketh his son or his daughter to pass ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott |
