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Unction   Listen
noun
Unction  n.  
1.
The act of anointing, smearing, or rubbing with an unguent, oil, or ointment, especially for medical purposes, or as a symbol of consecration; as, mercurial unction. "To be heir, and to be king By sacred unction, thy deserved right."
2.
That which is used for anointing; an unguent; an ointment; hence, anything soothing or lenitive. "The king himself the sacred unction made." "Lay not that flattering unction to your soul."
3.
Divine or sanctifying grace. (R.)
4.
That quality in language, address, or the like, which excites emotion; especially, strong devotion; religious fervor and tenderness; sometimes, a simulated, factitious, or unnatural fervor. "The delightful equivoque and unction of the passage in Farquhar." "The mention of thy glory Is unction to the breast."
Extreme unction (R. C. Ch. & Gr. Ch.), the sacrament of anointing in the last hours; the application of consecrated oil by a priest to all the senses, that is, to eyes, ears, nostrils, etc., of a person when in danger of death from illness, done for remission of sins. (James v. 14, 15.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Unction" Quotes from Famous Books



... the English of both forts unless I win some of them for friends?" he would ask, never laying unction to his soul for the kindness that ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... moving to and fro in restless pursuit of their several purposes. The sermon of the Capuchin is an unparalleled composition;[34] a medley of texts, puns, nicknames, and verbal logic, conglutinated by a stupid judgment, and a fiery catholic zeal. It seems to be delivered with great unction, and to find fit audience in the camp: towards the conclusion they rush upon him, and he narrowly escapes killing or ducking, for having ventured to glance a censure at the General. The soldiers themselves are jeering, ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... masters of the lights, chamberlain, and other attendants on his person. He ordered all the silver-plate belonging to his table to be weighed, and to be distributed if his standard silver fell short.... King Haco received extreme unction on the night before the festival of St. Lucia. Thorgisl, Bishop of Stravanger, Gilbert, Bishop of Hainar, Henry, Bishop of Orkney, Albert Thorleif and many other learned men, were present; and, before the unction, all present bade the king farewell with a kiss.... The festival of the Virgin ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... I cannot lay that flattering unction to my soul," he returned. "Is this what you have to tell me? for in that case I must remark that I have about a ton of ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... bonhomie in his composition, was regarded by them with mingled feelings of fear and good will. They laughed at him, but carefully obeyed him. Besides this he preached a good sermon, read prayers with unction, and in his conversation sometimes had even a touch of evangelical spirituality. The young men even declared they could tell how much port he had taken in Common-room by the devoutness of his responses in evening-chapel; and it was on record that once, during the Confession, he had, in the ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman

... ridiculous, when they have been for some time laid aside. Mr. Lamb is the only imitator of old English style I can read with pleasure; and he is so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of his authors that the idea of imitation is almost done away. There is an inward unction, a marrowy vein, both in the thought and feeling, an intuition, deep and lively, of his subject, that carries off any quaintness or awkwardness arising from an antiquated style and dress. The matter ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... along the gallery, and our cousin was in full blast, when Adele, to whom he was introducing the portraits with triumphant unction, started forward ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... of him, too, to hold off a little. Most parsons would have rushed in, hot foot, to administer extreme unction and be sure I was in a proper mood concerning Providence. Brenton has had the decency to wait a little. It was almighty decent, too. I knew him in my palmy days, when life was young. It's young for him still—Hold on, Olive; I'm not going to maunder!—and I had a natural dread ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... The 'Nocturne' in black and gold I do not think a serious work of art." The witness here took from the pockets of his overcoat copies of the Times, and with the permission of the Court, read again with unction his own criticism, to every word of which he said he still adhered. "All Mr. Whistler's work is unfinished. It is sketchy. He, no doubt, possesses artistic qualities, and he has got appreciation of qualities of tone, but he is not complete, and all his works are in the ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler

... preacher to our circuit:" but such people forget that the accompaniments of preaching cannot be printed. Who can write down the spiritual atmosphere? Who can reproduce the tone of voice in which Peter spoke? How can he describe what some of us have felt—the unction—the never-to-be-forgotten emotions of the soul? Depend upon it, these were present ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness

... soldiers would be bad for my men, and so came up here, and now, if you please, these men have been at the rum, because Bum, the head man, has been too done up to do anything but lie in his blanket and feed. Kefalla is laying down the law with great detail and unction. Cook who has been very low in his mind all day, is now weirdly cheerful, and sings incoherently. The other boys, who want to go to sleep, threaten to "burst him" if he "no finish." It's no good—cook carols on, and soon succumbing to the irresistible charm of music, the other men have to join in ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... the last sentence with oratorical unction, and Cosmo was conscious of an approving movement of big official shoulders around him. The disdain deepened on ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss

... thirty years. She repeated the flattery and fawning that had been bestowed upon her by the men who had been fluttering around her, accepting all as the natural outpour of their sincerity; she quoted with unction the lying notices she had shown ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill

... about a great deal, but he describes places and people to her, and she enjoys it quite as much. Gertrude certainly is not exigeant, and she has a touch of tender gratitude that makes the professor feel continually that he has done a good deed by marrying her, which is a flattering unction to the ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... Bacadou's farmhouse, sharing the breath and the bread of its inhabitants; and the priest of the Ploumar parish had great cause for congratulation. He called upon the rich landowner, the Marquis de Chavanes, on purpose to deliver himself with joyful unction of solemn platitudes about the inscrutable ways of Providence. In the vast dimness of the curtained drawing-room, the little man, resembling a black bolster, leaned towards a couch, his hat on his knees, and gesticulated with a fat hand at the elongated, gracefully-flowing ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad

... is how it happened that the next morning, when the church bells of all Grayville were ringing with an added unction appropriate to the day, the sturdy little son of Deacon Byram, breaking a way through the snow to the place of worship, struck his foot against the ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce

... the writer remarks: "Next to the Holy Scriptures, we do not believe there has been given to the world, any writings, so valuable as Madam Guyon's; and of all these precious treasures, her letters are the most rare. All who have received the unction of the Holy One, whereby they know the truth, are agreed upon ...
— Letters of Madam Guyon • P. L. Upham

... Massachusetts magistrates, breathing reproaches and imprecations of vengeance. But meanwhile it was discovered that he had been living in adultery at Boston with a young woman whom he had seduced, the wife of a cooper, and the captain was forced to make public confession, which he did with great unction and in a manner highly dramatic. "He came {346} in his worst clothes (being accustomed to take great pride in his bravery and neatness), without a band, in a foul linen cap, and pulled close to his eyes, and ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... shot passed nearer to me than it did to himself. It barely missed me, and by all I could learn Rupert was leaning over by the top-mast rigging when it lodged. The fellow told his story in his own way, however, and with so much unction that I observed it made Grace look pale. The effect on Lucy was different. This excellent creature perceived my uneasiness, I half suspected, for she laughed, and, interrupting her brother, told him, "There—that's enough about the cannon-ball; now let us hear ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... alone have been a church. In the centre of the mosaic pavement there was a flight of steps, down which we went, and saw a group in marble, representing the nativity of Christ, which, judging by the unction with which our guide talked about it, must have been of peculiar sanctity. I hate to leave this chapel and church, without being able to say any one thing that may reflect a portion of their beauty, or of the ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... woman—little, very little for the tribe of Levi, and less than all for Ichabod. His black eyes she likened to burnt cinders; she saw no beauty in a beard striped and mottled with grey, although it was perfumed with the sweets of Araby, and oiled with as pure and undefiled an unction as that which flowed from the horn of the ancient Samuel upon the head of the youthful David. His stateliness provoked her mirth—his deafness her impatience; and when she compared him with the joyous cavaliers, ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... slipped away. In vain the minister, apprised of the block, lengthened out the formulae for the other pairs, and blessed them with more reposeful unction. It was impossible to stave off the Leibel-Green item indefinitely, and at last Rose remained the only orange-wreathed spinster in the synagogue. And then there was a hush of solemn suspense, that swelled ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various

... taught in Domremy," answered Jacqueline, "She believed in Absolution, Extreme Unction, in the need of another priest than Jesus Christ,—a representative they call it." She spoke slowly, as if interrogating each point of ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... stolid Spectator, bewildered with fabulous bow-wows, Sick with a surfeit of dog, ran me for all it was worth! Vainly—if I may recur to a metaphor drawn from the ocean, Long (in a figure of speech) tied to the tail of the moon— Vainly, O excellent organ! with ample and aqueous unction Once, as a rule, in a week, 'cleansing the Earth of her stain'; (Here you will possibly pardon the natural scion of poets, Proud with humility's pride, spoiling a passage from Keats)— Vainly your voice on the ears of impregnable Laureate-makers, Rang ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman

... editor relaxed from his gravity, and the "In-General" man from his more serious views, and the Daily the next morning wished everybody a merry Christmas with even more unction, and resolved that in coming years it would have a supplement, large enough to contain all the good wishes. So away again to the houses of confectioners who had given the children candy,—to Miss Simonds's house, because ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale

... charity is among them," Girdlestone answered with unction, shaking the philanthropist's extended hand. "Good-bye, my dear sir. Pray let me know if our efforts are attended with any success. Should more money be needed, you know one who ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... irregular bars by groans and gruntings and sighings—all, I was gratified to note, modulated to the standard of civility I had indicated. I had made a hortatory hit, and it was encored. I spread wide my hands, in one of which was the New Testament, and reiterated the text with greater unction ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland

... ye of a praist, and extreme unction," he said. "The likes of yerself always kapes a clane breast; and the knife that went into yer heart found nothing that ye need have been ashamed of! Sorrow come over me, but yer lass is as great a one to meself, as if I had tidings ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... consulting lawyer. Usually her advice was sensible and judicious—nothing better could be done than to follow it; only her clients complained that she pronounced her sentences with too little tenderness, without granting any appeal. She was good, charitable, but lacked unction, and she had no sympathy with the illusions of others. A German poet, in making his New-Year offerings, wishes that the rich may be kind-hearted, that the poor may have bread, that the ladies may have ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez

... free scope to the emulation of intellect and to the cultivation of proper self- interest—and vindicate to popular opinion, the claims of this most useful class, to the character of moral and rational beings, so that no flattering but injurious unction may be applied to film over the real turpitude of their offences—then, and then only, may it be safely asserted, that such descriptions as we have been considering, are the offspring of prudery or inflamed imagination, and have no prototype ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... approved the stopping of the Rams but sought to prove that the Government had dishonoured England by failing to act of its own volition until threatened by America. He cited Seward's despatch of July II with much unction, that despatch now having appeared in the printed American diplomatic correspondence with no indication that it was not an instruction at once communicated to Russell. The attack fell flat for Russell simply replied that Adams had never presented such an instruction. This forced Derby ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... kingdom of God in Germany was now scarcely less than when Tilly was leading his maddened hordes through the fair fields and over the ruins of those once happy towns? Some of the clergy were the first to indicate new life. They preached with more unction, and addressed themselves to the immediate demands of the parish, especially to provide for the orphans and widows of those who had fallen in battle. Certain ministers who had spent their youth in vain theological wrangling, preached sermons which contained better ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... and was used for a great variety of purposes. In typology, however, it has special reference to the office work of the Holy Spirit. He is distinctively the Sanctifier, and to be filled with the Spirit is designated by the Apostle John as "the unction" or "the anointing." The holy anointing oil was to be sprinkled upon the tabernacle and all its sacred vessels. It was also poured upon the heads of prophets, priests and kings, as a necessary qualification for the discharge ...
— The Theology of Holiness • Dougan Clark

... church-pictures is worth examining and admiring; they are full of "unction" and pious mystical grace. "Saint Scholastica" is divine; and the "Taking down from the Cross" as noble a composition as ever was seen; I care not by whom the other may be. There is more beauty, and less affectation, about ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... overwhelmed with glory, as we read his beautiful teachings upon this theme, which he so clearly sets forth. God grant that we all may "walk in the light as he is in the light," walking "even as he walked," that his love in us may be "perfected," that we may prayerfully hold fast and abide in this "unction from the Holy One," that the "anointing" may abide in us. Such an experience can be realized only by every one that "purifieth himself even as he ...
— Sanctification • J. W. Byers

... for the self-righteous moralists who puff themselves into a state of Jingo complacency over the failings of foreign nations, to declare with considerable unction that the domestic hearth, which every Frenchman habitually tramples upon, is maintained in unviolated purity in every British household. The rude shocks which Mr. Justice BUTT occasionally administers ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 14, 1891. • Various

... permanent place in the world's Christian Art. If not wholly worthy of so large and grand a theme, they yet scarcely suffer from comparison with like efforts by other artists. They have hardly less of unction and holiness than Fra Angelico's designs, while undoubtedly they display profounder science and art. That they have nothing in common with the Bible of Gustave Dore is much to their praise; on the other hand, that they ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson

... spell rattan, and as thou hast missed thine own mode of spelling, thou shalt not miss the cane." The Dominie then applied it to my shoulders with considerable unction, much to the delight of Mr Knapps, who thought the punishment was much too small for the offence. But I soon extricated myself from these associations as my ideas extended, and was considered by the Dominie as the cleverest boy in the school. ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... greeted Chiltern, pronounced his name with unction. His air of hospitality, of good-fellowship, of taking the world as he found it, could not have been improved upon. He made it apparent at once that nothing could surprise him. It was the most natural circumstance in life that ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... this. So long as we could lay the flattering unction to our souls that acquired characteristics were heritable, and that therefore if an outcast from Posen, migrating to America, had taken advantage of his new opportunities and so had developed his character-potential, amassed money and acquired ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram

... faculty to the state that is vulgarly called thick-tongued. Although a three-bottle man, Mr. Rotherham was far from being without his devout feelings, on occasions, discharging all the clerical functions with as much unction as the habits of the country, and the opinions of the day, ordinarily exacted of divines. He had even volunteered to read the prayers for the sick, as soon as he perceived that the patient's recollection had returned; but this kind offer had been declined ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... true faith in spite of all temptations, and entreated Middleton, who, almost alone among the courtiers assembled in the bedchamber, professed himself a Protestant, to take refuge from doubt and error in the bosom of the one infallible Church. After the extreme unction had been administered, James declared that he pardoned all his enemies, and named particularly the Prince of Orange, the Princess of Denmark, and the Emperor. The Emperor's name he repeated with peculiar emphasis: "Take notice, father," he said to the confessor, "that I forgive ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... and image of your sister Eileen you are, with your nose always in a book; and you're like your mother, too, God rest her soul. (He crosses himself with pious unction and Mary also does so.) It's Nora and Tom has the high spirits in them like their father; and Billy, too,—if he is a lazy, shiftless divil—has the fightin' Carmody blood like me. You're a Cullen like your mother's people. They always was dreamin' ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill

... growing imperceptibly better. His Catholic principles grow more robust; he becomes more fearless in expressing them; each volume leaves an aroma behind and imparts a new flavour to his life. Fresh oil is poured into the lamp of his piety, its flame burns brighter, he feels an unction in his prayers; he has a holy relish for the sacraments. His very interests in life change: he looks on everything with supernatural eyes, he becomes touchy about the interests of the Church, anxious about the foreign missions, and ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan

... Conference as a success. He had refuted the Puritans, as he believed, with much Latin and some Greek. He ended by declaiming against them with such unction that one enthusiastic bishop declared that his Majesty must be specially ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... still kindled in the churchyards on Easter Saturday, and ecclesiastical refuse of various sorts, such as candle-ends, old surplices, and the wool used by the priest in the application of extreme unction, is consumed in the flames. At Zoznegg down to about 1850 the fire was lighted by the priest by means of a flint which had never been used before. People bring sticks, especially oaken sticks, char them in the fire, and then carry ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... August published a carefully prepared letter on the electoral counting of 1876. Mr. Marble was unsparing in his denunciation of the Republicans for having, as he alleged, obtained the election of Hayes and Wheeler by corruption in the Southern States. He dealt with unction upon the fact that the absolute trust of Mr. Tilden and his adherents in the Presidential contest had been in moral forces. As the accusations put forth were attributed to Mr. Tilden, and only the remarkable rhetoric of the letter to Mr. Marble, the public interest was fully aroused, and the ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... They are sons through Him. Is He the High Priest? They are priests unto God. Is He the Light of the World? They are, in their places, kindled and derived lights. Is He the Christ, the Messias, the Anointed? 'Ye have an unction from the Holy One,' and He hath anointed us in Him. So that it is no arrogance, though it may be a questionably wise form of expression, when we say that the object of Christ's coming is to make us all Christs, God's anointed, and to make us so because He Himself in His ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... flock, remember, and my first duty is to them. At any moment I may have a summons to one who is dying. A black sheep he has been perhaps, but all the more should he be washed white at the last. And I must hold myself ready to give him the extreme unction when I am sent for, if it be now or not ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... the crucifix on high while he pronounced the solemn absolution of the Church, as to one who had newly confessed herself of deadly sin. I pushed on with passionate force, till I stood close to the dying woman, as she received extreme unction amid the breathless and awed hush of the multitude around. Her eyes were glazing, her limbs were stiffening; but when the rite was over and finished, she raised her gaunt figure slowly up, and her eyes brightened to a strange intensity of joy, as, with the gesture of her finger and the trance-like ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell

... my friend!" Father Pezelay answered with unction. "But his Majesty's will is to do—to do for the glory of God and the saints and His Holy Church! How? Is that which was lawful at Saumur unlawful here? Is that which was lawful at Tours unlawful here? Is that which the King did in Paris—to the utter extermination of the ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... and Hugh Peter, leave a positively unpleasant savor in the nostrils. Each is selfish in his own way,—Downing with the shrewdness of an attorney, Peter with that clerical unction which in a vulgar nature so easily degenerates into greasiness. Neither of them was the man for a forlorn hope, and both returned to England when the civil war opened prospect of preferment there. Both, we ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... disease whereof she died in the month of June following. Before her death, she seemed to shew some remorse for her past conduct; but no signs of true repentance, else she would not have received the Popish sacrament of extreme unction. The papists having now lost their head, and the church not suffering her to be buried with the superstitious rites of popery, she was coffined, and kept four months, and then went to France: and so she, who a little made the followers of Christ when killed lie unburied, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... an unction,' says St. John in our last text, 'from the Holy One.' I need not remind you, I suppose, of how in the old system, prophets, priests, and kings were anointed with consecrating oil, as a symbol of their calling, and of their fitness for their special offices. The reason for the use ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... of his once Herculean strength to stamp the death-warrants of innocent men. No wonder that Mr. Froude's critics failed to accept his estimate of Henry, or that they arrayed anew the long list of his shocking misdeeds, and dwelt with unction on his total want of sympathy with ordinary humanity. As little surprising is it that Mr. Froude's attachment to the kingly queen-killer should be increased by the course of the critics. That is the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... point of the sword into a manifesto of peace and sound government".[1] This wise change of policy cut away the ground from under the feet of the English supporters of Louis. The friends of the young Henry could appeal to his innocence, to his sacred unction, and to his recognition by Holy Church. They offered a programme of limited monarchy, of the redress of grievances, of vested rights preserved, and of adhesion to the good old traditions that all Englishmen respected. From that moment the Charter became a new ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... keep time, And makes as healthful music: it is not madness That I have utter'd: bring me to the test, And I the matter will re-word; which madness Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace, Lay not that flattering unction to your soul That not your trespass, but my madness speaks: It will but skin and film the ulcerous place, Whilst rank corruption, mining all within, Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven; Repent what's past; avoid what is to come; And do not spread ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... garden property in all Persia without a family of guebres in charge of it. They are said to be far more honest and trustworthy than the Persians, who, as Shiite Mohammedans, consider themselves the holiest people on earth; or the Armenians, who hug the flattering unction of being Christians and not Mohammedans to their souls, and expect all Christendom to regard them benignly on that account. It is doubtless owing to this invaluable trait of their character, that the guebres have naturally drifted to their level of guardians over the private property ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... same day, the priest Vignali administered the sacrament of extreme unction. Some days before, Napoleon had explained to him the manner in which he desired his body should be laid out in state, in an apartment lighted by torches, or what Catholics call une chambre ardente. "I am neither," he said in the same phrase which we have ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various

... common schools. Instead of a rattle or a drum the operator talks about "destiny" and "duty," or molds into easy phrases the sentiments which are popular. It is only a difference of method. Solemnity, unction, and rhetorical skill are needed. Often the phrases embody only visionary generalities. "Citizenship," "publicity," "public policy," "restraint of trade," "he who holds the sea will hold the land," "trade follows the flag," "the dollar of the fathers," "the key of ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... which Uncle Sheba took part with much unction, for he wished to impress all present that in spite of the "bobscure affliction" he "injied 'ligion" as much as any of them. Mr. Birdsall offered a characteristic prayer, and then Aun' Sheba nodded to Sissy, who brought out a large supply of cakes and apples. Some ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... time and place may deeply move an audience, and yield rich spiritual results. Physical condition may have some influence on a minister's delivery; but the chief element in the eloquence that awakens and converts sinners and strengthens Christians is the unction of the Holy Spirit. Our best power is the ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

... able to contain herself, would give an ironical turn to her wrath, imitating Jenkins with his oily manner and his hand on his heart; then, puffing out her cheeks, she would say in a loud, deep voice full of lying unction: ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... a diligent attendant at the meeting-house, a frequent and serious reader of the Bible, and the head of an orderly and well-regulated house. He is described as knowing Dr. Watts' hymns almost by heart, and as singing them on Sunday at meeting with equal fervour and unction. Bernard Barton feared in 1847—the date of his epistle—the breed of such men was dying out. It is to be feared in East Anglia the race is quite extinct. In our meeting-house at Wrentham, when I was a lad, there were several such. I am afraid there is not one there ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie

... culprit; she merely an accessory, acting under his direction and guidance; and, now that she had placed oceans between her and the scene of their crime, nothing, she argued, could transpire to mar her triumph, and, laying this flattering unction to her soul, her ladyship prepared for her journey with a buoyancy of spirit that astonished ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... They were like the prostitutes waiting at the doors of their huts. How were they ever permitted to live there!... Nevertheless, the men bowed before them like slaves, or followed as suppliants these creatures who talked with unction of the millions inherited from their fathers, of their formidable wealth of industrial origin which had enabled them to buy noble husbands and then give themselves up to their natural ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... side, as the matter was once elaborately made plain to me; consequently, she was not compelled, as most ladies are, to "change her name" when she wedded Teddy's sire, and still retained after marriage her ancestral patronymic—which was sometimes sported with such unction by her brother, when laying down the law and giving a ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson

... with his own suddenly acquired importance. Not only were there dark, serious looks from the men in the party, and distressed exclamations from the most beautiful young lady in the world (he had always said that of her), but he had the extreme unction of bringing tears to the eyes of a prince, and of hearing manfully suppressed sobs from the throat of the ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... own country, where he has bitter adversaries as well as devoted friends, Mr. Wilson was regarded by many as a composite being made up of preacher, teacher, and politician. To these diverse elements they refer the fervor and unction, the dogmatic tone, and the practised shrewdness that marked his words and acts. Independent American opinion doubted his qualifications to be a leader. As a politician, they said, he had always followed the crowd. He had swum with the tide of public sentiment in cardinal ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... he saw indications on the part of Adele of its being not wholly unacceptable. Rose, too, seemed not disinclined to receive the assiduous attentions of the young minister, who had become a frequent visitor in the Elderkin household, and who preached with an unction and an earnestness that touched her heart, and that made her sigh despondingly over the outcast son of the old pastor. Watching these things with a look studiedly careless and indifferent, Reuben felt himself cut off more than ever from such charms or virtues as might possibly have belonged ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... malady was drawing on apace, he bade the Abbe Vignali prepare the large dining-room of Longwood as a chapelle ardente; and, observing a smile on Antommarchi's face, the sick man hotly rebuked his affectation of superiority. Montholon, on his return to England, informed Lord Holland that extreme unction was administered before the end came, Napoleon having ordered that this should be done as if solely on Montholon's responsibility, and that the priest, when questioned on the subject, was to reply that ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... red screens is Henri. He is a priest, mobilized as infirmier. A good one too, and very tender and gentle with the patients. He comes from the ward next door, Salle II., and is giving extreme unction to the man in that bed, back of the red screens. Peek through the screens and you can see Henri, in his shirt sleeves, with a little, crumpled, purple stole around his neck. No, the patient has never regained consciousness since he's been here, but Henri says it's all right. He may be a Catholic. ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte

... shall wrangle at the bar, and fight his way to wealth and honors and, in his declining age, shall be a worshipful member of his Majesty's council. A third-and he is the master's favorite—shall be a worthy successor to the old Puritan ministers now in their graves; he shall preach with great unction and effect, and leave volumes of sermons, in print and manuscript, for the ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... think he's so madly in love with you that it doesn't matter how you look, I suppose? Don't lay that flattering unction to your soul, Eleanor. I've known many an engagement broken off in consequence of the man coming suddenly upon the girl when she had a bad cold and had got ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice

... genial little negro whose acquaintance the ladies had made, and he performed his duty with an unction that left nothing to be desired. The bell was so large that William was compelled to use both hands in swinging it. He bore it from the dining-room to the hall, and thence from one veranda to the other, making fuss enough to convince ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris

... other rites, as of Marriage, of Extreme Unction, of Visitation of the Sick, of Consecrating Churches, and Church-yards, and the like, exempt from Charms; in as much as there is in them the use of Enchanted Oyle, and Water, with the abuse of the ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... One cause of this terror will seem to us now all the more amusing because there are not wanting those who will doubtless honestly believe that in giving it expression he wrote with something of prophetic unction:— ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various

... hand with unction]. Ah then, I must Bear witness;—Lo! in wedded Love's presented A treasure such as neither moth nor rust Corrupt—if ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen

... unction Anointing as part of a religious, ceremonial, or healing ritual. Ointment or oil. Something that serves to soothe; a balm. Affected or exaggerated earnestness, especially in choice and ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... one of the stories is the surest road to their confidence and esteem. In this way, and in this way only, I have been enabled to collect and verify the folklore included in this volume. There is an anecdote about the Irishman and the rabbit which a number of negroes have told to me with great unction, and which is both funny and characteristic, though I will not undertake to say that it has its origin with the blacks. One day an Irishman who had heard people talking about "mares' nests" was going along ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris

... no further encouragement, but disregarding the hints and looks of Coates, sang with much unction the following ballad to a good old tune, then very popular—the merit of which ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... fell to weeping in great measure and he said: "Percival thy fame hath reached even to this remote place, for every one talketh of thee with great unction. But, touching my daughter Yvette, if thou wilt come with me I ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle

... no hurry," Charlie answered gallantly, "would I were as sure of living a twelvemonth as he is of dying within the hour! Extreme unction for him in my bullet patch. Remember, I claim to be his confessor, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... gospel had not, perhaps, in his mouth all the unction to be desired; his voice was rough, his exhortations were unpolished; but their moral quality was excellent; they abounded in charity. He said the mass as rapidly and as forcibly as if he were a buccaneer. One could pardon him when one knew that this holy office was often interrupted ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue

... (Contra Faust. xix) that the "sacraments" of the New Law are "less numerous" than those of the Old Law. But in the Old Law there was no sacrament corresponding to Confirmation and Extreme Unction. Therefore these should not be counted among the sacraments of ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... Extreme Unction made a deep impression on me. I can still see the place where I knelt, and hear my poor ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)

... began with unction, and then he looked grievously about. The expensive gas engine which he had bought and installed was already unwatering the mine; spare timbers were going down, the new blacksmith-shop was running and ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge

... expected from such a point of view, the church pieces, to which Wordsworth gave so much thought, are, with few exceptions, such as the sonnet on Seathwaite Chapel, formal, hard, and very thinly enriched with spiritual graces or unction. They are ecclesiastical, not religious. In religious poetry, the Church of England finds her most affecting voice, not in Wordsworth, but in the Lyra Innocentium and the Christian Year. Wordsworth abounds in the true devotional cast ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley

... appear to be most themselves when they show these traits of character. They are most natural and earnest and at home when they speak from this link which binds them to the past. Then their hearts are opened, and they speak with a glow of eloquence and a peculiar unction which touch the same chord in the breasts of those who hear them. It is well for man to feel his indebtedness to the past which lives in him and without which he would not be what he is. He is far more its creature than he gives himself credit for. He reproduces ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... "shout", I do not know what it is. I find no response of gladness in my heart." I trembled with fear to think of God and the judgement day. This continued from youth up to the age of forty. At this time I received from Christ the "Gift of the Holy Ghost", the "Unction", that which "leads unto all truth." There are many names for this; I call it the Bible name. "Hold fast the form of sound words." Before this I had never spoken a word for God or prayed in public. ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation

... life as disclosed to us in these pages has been called joyless, by that sect of religious partisans whose peculiarity is to mistake boisterousness for unction. Was the life of Christ himself, then, so particularly joyful? Can the life of any man be joyful who sees and feels the tragic miseries and hardly less tragic follies of the earth? The old Preacher, when he considered all the oppressions that are ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley

... with just unction, recounted the sad tale as he halted his horses on the bridge; and as his passengers looked down the rock-fretted brown torrent towards the fall, Isabel seized the occasion to shudder that ever she had set foot on that suspension-bridge ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... as he has mentioned in his Prayers and Meditations[1153], gave me 'Les Penses de Paschal', that I might not interrupt him. I preserve the book with reverence. His presenting it to me is marked upon it with his own hand, and I have found in it a truly divine unction. We went to ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... religion merely for its consolations, and take it up as an occasional remedy. In this way religion is injured. It is associated only with sorrow, and clothed, to the eyes of men, in perpetual sadness. It is sought as the last resort, the heart's extreme unction, when it has tried the world's nostrums in vain. It is dissociated from things healthy and active,—from all ordinary experiences,—from the great whole of life. It is consigned to the darkened chamber of mourning, and the weary and disappointed spirit. Besides, to seek religion ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin

... lay the flattering unction to my soul that I had gotten away with something, eh?" he laughed, much more at his ease, now that he realized how frank and yet how tactful she ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... of the critic, Carleton would not be reckoned, as he himself knew well, in the front rank of orators. Neither in overmastering grace of person, in power of unction, in magnetic conquest of the mind and will, was he preeminent. When, leaving the flowery meadows of description or rising from the table-land of noble sentiment and inspiring precepts, he attempted to rise in soaring eloquence, ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis

... Kathleen when the funeral was over. His nephew accompanied them to the train and said with unction: ...
— The City and the World and Other Stories • Francis Clement Kelley

... Business has up to the present been unable to get control of the reins of government in Canada, that the courts have been kept comparatively free of political influence and that the doors of underground politics are not easily pried open by corruption. Why is this? Canadians would fain take unction to themselves that it is owing to their superior national integrity, but ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut

... falling from his old eyes over his wrinkled cheeks, whom I presently found to be the excellent Padre Carera, sat in a large chair by the bedside, with a silver cup in his hand, beside which lay a large crucifix of the same metal; he had just administered extreme unction, and the viaticum, he fondly hoped, would prove a passport for his dear child to another and a better world. As I entered he rose, held out his hand to me, and moved round to ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... for, and indeed as it seems to me rather enjoying,' said Fledgeby, with peculiar unction, 'the precious kick-up and row that will come off between Mr Twemlow ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... With what unction Uncle Simon used to pour forth that verse. It was to him the grand cure-all, the panacea for every heart-trouble; and over and over again he would sing it, always winding up in his own peculiar fashion with a quick, jerked-out ...
— Step by Step - or, Tidy's Way to Freedom • The American Tract Society

... evening after supper, having seen that all the people were in their places and that a strict silence was observed, he preached to the fish. His text was that the Hurons did not burn fish bones. "Then enlarging on this theme with extraordinary unction, he exhorted and conjured and invited and implored the fish to come and be caught and to be of good courage and to fear nothing, for it was all to serve their friends who honoured them and did not burn their bones." The ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... Howland with such unction that Bradford gravely smiled as he followed him from the room, and murmured under his breath,—"He will wed Elizabeth Tilley, an' I'm ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... that I became alarmed. You seldom mentioned her name, and when I referred to her, you always turned the conversation. However, that is all over now. She is Countess of Beaumaris," added Myra, dwelling slowly and with some unction on the title, "and may be a powerful friend to you; and I am Countess of Roehampton, and am your friend, also not quite devoid of power. And there are other countesses, I suspect, on whose good wishes you may rely. If we cannot shape your destiny, there is no such thing ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... grimaced—neurasthenics, in short—left him with no fine feeling of the victorious sufficiency of himself. Thus to conceal himself from doubts always threatening an appearance, it was necessary for him to assume a viciousness of attitude not entirely sincere. So he read with unction political speeches and art reviews denouncing the phantasts of his day, and from them he borrowed elaborate invective. Yet his invective seemed like a vague defense of himself who should need no defense and thus again doubt raised a ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht

... of a trial to him than usual. The twins were in the class of Winona, and Winona taught her class to-day with unwonted unction; but the Wilbur twin was pestered with few questions about the lesson. She rather singled Merle out and made him an instructive example to the rest of the class, asking Wilbur but twice, and then in sheerly ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time, And makes as healthful music: it is not madness That I have uttered: bring me to the test, And I the matter will re-word; which madness Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace, Lay not that flattering unction to your soul, That not your trespass, but my madness, speaks: It will but skin and film the ulcerous place, Whilst rank corruption, mining all within, Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven; Repent what's past; avoid what ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard

... different methods were used by various healers, and we must not omit a brief account of healing by unction. The very definite instructions laid down in the Epistle of James were evidently strictly carried out in the early church, but the first definite mention of anointing after that made by Mark and James is found in the writings of Tertullian (160-220). ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten

... Unfortunately, Jermin at last slipped and fell; his foe seating himself on his chest, and keeping him down. Now this was one of those situations in which the voice of counsel, or reproof, comes with peculiar unction. Nor did Beauty let the opportunity slip. But the mate said nothing in reply, only foaming at the mouth and ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... he called me to confess him and to administer the sacraments. Better still was Alfrez Amesquita, who ejected through his mouth three sompites which had pierced his throat three days before, during the attack. But best of all was the case of a sargento in the same company, to whom I gave extreme unction in great haste, because he had a bullet-wound in his stomach and most of his food passed out through the wound. There are many others too, who, grievously injured at Mindanao, are now going about Manila. Only Alfrez Romero and Menchaca died at Samboanga, and that ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various

... act of consecration chiefly consisted in the unction, which was a ceremony derived from the most primitive antiquity. The sacred tabernacle, with all the vessels and utensils, as also the altar and the priests themselves, were consecrated in this manner by Moses, at the divine command. It is ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey

... but quite in his senses. He would not delay hearing his confession till he reached the Workhouse, but heard it in the car. Finn was then removed to the House, and laid on a bed in his clothes, where he received the sacrament of Extreme Unction. "I feared," said the Rev. Mr. Barry, "the delay of stripping him." And the rev. gentleman was right, for he had scarcely concluded his ministrations ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... of such things: we are still far from Bottles; the three Lord Shaftesburys relieve us by not even threatening to appear. And accordingly the two essays add in no small degree, though somewhat after the fashion of an appendix or belated episode, to the charm of the book. They have an unction which never, as it so often does in the case of Mr Arnold's dangerous master and model Renan, degenerates into unctuosity; they are nobly serious, but without being in the least dull; they contain some ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury

... a penny would they give to help the accursed Yankees. It served them right. If they had stayed in Connecticut, where they belonged, they would have kept out of harm's way. And with a blasphemy thinly veiled in phrases of pious unction, the desolation of the valley was said to have been contrived by the Deity with the express object of punishing these trespassers. But the cruelty of the Pennsylvania legislature was not confined ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... conclave maintained a grim silence. The shuttered window screened from their sight the interview to which they were submitting with a rude sense of affording the man they had condemned some substitute for extreme unction: an interval to shrive his ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... Meilleraye and the Coadjutor, and their faces and gestures showed plainly that they were seriously alarmed; but M. de Beautru, nothing daunted, turned to the Regent, saying, 'How ill Her Majesty must be, since M. le Coadjutor is come to bring her extreme unction,' whereupon there was another great burst of ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... pretty. I hope she does not paint. I can affirm that her legs are strong, for she walks to Bellingham twice a week to take her Scarlet bath, when, having confessed and been made clean by the Romish unction, she walks back the brisker, of which my Protestant muscular systems is yet aware. It was on the road to Bellingham I engaged her. She is well in the matter of hair. Madam Godiva might challenge her, it would be a fair match. Has it never struck you that Woman is nearer the vegetable than Man?—Mr. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... discuss whether the King of England had, from the time of Edward the Confessor, the power of healing inherent in him before his unction, or whether the gift was conveyed by ecclesiastical hands, to show the efficacy of the royal touch, he added an idle story, which had come under his own observation, of a person who appeared to have been so healed. Carte said of this ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... to the doctor. He was rubbing his hands, and smiling, with great unction, an action very unbecoming, to say the least, in a medical man who had just lost a patient. Taken all in all, Locke felt he could now sense the web of conspiracy tightening around him. The cards were still in ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey

... seen extreme unction administered as I had seen many another office of the church in my dim days, with scarcely any attention. Now the words were terribly living. I knew every one before it rolled off the celebrant's lips. Yet under ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... with a knife] This 'ere cork is like Sasiety—rotten; it's old—old an' moulderin'. [He holds up a bit of cork on the point of the knife] Crumblin' under the wax, it is. In goes the screw an' out comes the cork. [With unction]—an' the blood flows. [Tipping the bottle, he lets a drop fall into the middle of his hand, and licks it up. Gazing with queer and doubting commiseration at has mother] Well, old dear, wot shall we 'ave it aht of—the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... that religious meetings were for instruction rather than prayer; but now it was a delightful privilege to unite with them in pleading for the conversion of the world to Christ. Never were their petitions so full of unction as when offered for this object. In April, Miss Fiske's pupils, not satisfied with an extra meeting by themselves, though continued till near sunset, were induced to close it only by the promise of having a similar meeting next day. No wonder their teacher never enjoyed a monthly ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary

... of exhibiting external marks of dignity, unless at the time and in the manner when they were most likely to produce an imposing effect. Therefore, although, had he been to receive a brother chieftain, he would probably have been attended by all that retinue which Evan described with so much unction, he judged it more respectable to advance to meet Waverley with a single attendant, a very handsome Highland boy, who carried his master's shooting-pouch and his broadsword, without which he ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott



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