"Edifying" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that is not all. On close and careful inspection, the mysterious texture of the narrative, no less than its 'edifying and eminently Christian' character, vindicates for the Pericope de adultera a right to its place in the Gospel. Let me endeavour to explain what seems to be its spiritual significancy: in other words, ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... incidents as we decide by combat; and show, from their practice, that this resentment neither has its foundation from true reason, nor solid fame; but is an imposture,[268] made up of cowardice, falsehood, and want of understanding. For this work, a good history of quarrels would be very edifying to the public, and I apply myself to the town for particulars and circumstances within their knowledge, which may serve to embellish the dissertation with proper cuts. Most of the quarrels I have ever known, have proceeded from some valiant coxcomb's persisting ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... into detail in describing the service, which was attended alike by white men and Indians. The new pastor preached a long and edifying sermon, and then Agnes with her class of little ones sang hymns about the little Lord Jesus and His wondrous love. Though the time was short, Agnes and Matthew had drilled the story of the nativity well, and the children ...
— Three Young Pioneers - A Story of the Early Settlement of Our Country • John Theodore Mueller
... speedily expand into wide extended and improving commerce. The slave trade is gradually diminishing, and must, ere long, disappear under the blessed influences, more active than ever, which are now at work; the whole church is moved by the edifying narratives of zealous missionaries; and the countenance of the Apostolic See is willingly bestowed on missionary effort. So, it is not too much to say that, with such auspicious commencements in the age of Pius IX., the days of some future Pontiff, ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... functions of the regular clergy, whose leisured and tranquil existence was more consonant with the punctual observance of the custom, and by whom it was handed down to successive generations as a laudable and edifying practice importing much comfort for the living, and, it might be hoped, true ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... very different kind from the tranquil sensuousness of the days in Savoy, when the blood was young, and life was not complicated with memories, and the sweet freshness of nature made existence enough. Then his supreme expansion had been attended with a kind of divine repose, and had found edifying voice in devout acknowledgment in the exhilaration of the morning air of the goodness and bounty of a beneficent master. In this later and more pitiable time the beneficent master hid himself, and creation was only ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... 4:11, 12, we learn what the officers of the church of Christ are and why they are appointed. "And he gave some apostles; and some prophets; and some evangelists; and some pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." Deacons were also appointed to serve tables and assist in other ways (Acts 6:1-7; Phil, 1:1). The Apostles were personally commissioned by Christ (John 20:21-23; Acts 26: 16), miraculously inspired to teach (1 Cor. 2:12, ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... weapons several times to kill him but they were unable to do so. Seeing this wonder they were moved to repentance and they gave themselves to God and to Mochuda for ever and, till the time of their death, they remained under his guidance and rule and many subsequent edifying and famous acts of ...
— The Life of St. Mochuda of Lismore • Saint Mochuda
... "Ceremonies;" and the claim of this right for the Church accords with Art. xxxiv., which says: "Every particular or national Church hath authority to ordain, change, and abolish ceremonies or rites of the Church ordained only by man's authority, so that all things be done to edifying." ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous
... national repose of manner which we were to see so often again, south as well as north, and which I find it so beautiful to have seen. In a Europe abounding in volcanic Italians, nervous Germans, and exasperated Frenchmen, it was comforting, it was edifying to see those Castilian peasants so self-respectfully self-possessed ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... the Marble Arch and giving him a nasty fall, he became incapacitated for a month. Sir W. Robertson thereupon called me in to act as locum tenens. From many points of view this proved to be a particularly edifying and instructive experience. One could not fail to be impressed with the smoothness with which the military side of the War Office was working under the system which Sir William had introduced, and one furthermore found oneself behind the scenes in respect to the ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... Par G. Lues d'Aramon, Ambassadeur de France a Constantinople. Paris, 1739. 3 vols. 4to.—This relates chiefly to the manners and customs; other pieces are contained in these volumes, which relate, in a manner more minute than important and edifying, the various journies in France, of the Kings of France, from Louis the ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... nowise edifying instance turns upon Paris fashions. That Berlin, like Vienna, should seek to vie with Paris in setting the fashion of feminine finery to the world is conceivable and legitimate. But that Germans should compete with Paris in Paris fashions connotes a ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... Miss Paget's departure Mr. Sheldon came home from the City rather earlier than usual, and found Charlotte alone in the drawing-room, reading a ponderous volume from Mudie of an instructive and edifying character, with a view to making herself clever, in order that she might better understand that prodigy ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... and impersonal board of trustees sitting around a green baize table. That detestable class, however, who thrive on opening their hearts and dilating on their spiritual experiences, could talk to him, as he would say, in a "most edifying and godly manner," and through him, in consequence, reap all the pecuniary advantages within his power ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... that it is possible for a writer to create a conventional world in which things forbidden by the Decalogue and the Statute Book shall be lawful, and yet that the exhibition may be harmless, or even edifying. For example, we suppose, that the most austere critics would not accuse Fenelon of impiety and immorality on account of his Telemachus and his Dialogues of the Dead. In Telemachus and the Dialogues of the Dead we have ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... edifying chapter was ended, Mr. Effingham commenced the solemn rites for the dead. At the first sound of his voice, a calm fell on the vessel as if the spirit of God had alighted from the clouds, and a thrill passed through the frames of ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... honeymoon—an event which must have taken place in the 'sixties or thereabouts. She is dead now. So is her husband, the prince of moralizers, the man who first taught me how contemptible the human race may become. Doubtless he expired with some edifying platitude on his lips and is deblatterating them at this very moment in Heaven, where the folks may well be seasoned to that kind of ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... the Supreme Court could not issue the writ of mandamus in suits begun in it by individuals, neither could it issue the writ of quo warranto in such suits. Yet again Marshall scored in exhibiting the Court in the edifying and reassuring light of declining, even from the hands of Congress, jurisdiction to which it was not entitled by the Constitution, an attitude of self-restraint which emphasized tremendously the Court's claim to the function of judicial ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... Lady A.... were the most forward. Then Lord A... rang the bell, and told his valet he might go out for the night, and his house-keeper and maid they might go to bed, which they did at the top of the house, as we supposed. The sequel proved that to be doubtful, and that they must have had a most edifying night. ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... convent there. Since then he had come into the world again, much to his annoyance and repentance; having fallen desperately in love in his old age with a French actress, who had done, as most ladies of her character do,—ruined him, left him, and laughed at him. His repentance was very edifying. Under the guidance of Messieurs of the Irish College, he once more turned his thoughts towards religion; and his only prayer to me when I saw him and asked in what I could relieve him, was to pay a handsome fee to the convent into which he proposed ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... books which are printed in the country. Here is one selected at random, 'The Life of St. Jacintha.' It lies on a young girl's work-table. A knitting-needle marks the place at which the gentle reader left off this morning. Let us turn to the passage. It is sure to be highly edifying. ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... matter, but would have held themselves free to consider whether the district in which martial law was exercised was materially affected by the state of war or not. The legal controversy ended in a manner hardly edifying to the layman; in the course of 1865 the Supreme Court solemnly tried out the question of the right of one Milligan to a writ of habeas corpus. At that time the war, the only ground on which the right could have been refused him, ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... anecdotes which do not touch the story itself. The wicked man's career is not brought to the abrupt or sensational issues so much in favour with ordinary didactic tale-writers. Such issues are the exception, not the rule, and the edifying story loses its effect when the reader turns from it to actual life, and perceives that the majority are not punished in any such way. Bunyan conceals nothing, assumes nothing, and exaggerates nothing. He makes his bad man sharp and shrewd. He allows sharpness ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... all bodies to approach one another with a strength proportion to the quantity of matter they contain— the quantity of matter they contain being ascertained by the strength of their tendency to approach one another. This is a lovely and edifying illustration of how science, having made A the proof of B, makes B the ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... magnificent regatta of all was that given to the city in the year 1686, by Duke Ernest of Brunswick. This excellent prince having sold a great part of his subjects to the Republic for use in its wars against the Turk, generously spent their price in the costly and edifying entertainments of which Venice had already become the scene. The Judgment of Paris, and the Triumph of the Marine Goddesses had been represented at his expense on the Grand Canal, with great acceptance. And now the Triumph of Neptune formed a principal feature in the gayeties of his regatta. ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... villages in the township, some of them summer settlements, some of them animated by an all-the-year-round life. But compared with the other towns along this historic route, Weymouth as a whole is little known and little appreciated. And yet the history of Weymouth is not without amusing and edifying elements, and the scenery of Weymouth is worthy of the detour ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... and regular life. He has a sanctimonious expression of face, he reads nothing but religious and edifying books, but at the christening party, in his delight that Lyubov Spiridonovna had passed through her confinement successfully, he had permitted himself to drink four glasses of vodka and a glass of wine, ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... voice she should sing so as to produce an effect without, however, startling the little congregation. The sermon seemed to her very long; she was unable to fix her attention, and though all Father Daly said was very edifying, her thoughts wandered, and wonderful legends and tales about a voice heard for one week at the Wimbledon Convent thronged her brain, and she invented quite a comic little episode, in which some dozen or so of London managers ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... almost better for one to overstate the possibilities of sanctification in his eager grasp after holiness, than to understate them in his complacent satisfaction with a traditional unholiness. Certainly it is not an edifying spectacle to see a Christian worldling throwing stones ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... been nothing, and the negotiator of that treaty less than nothing." The quickness and fitness of this at once banished every doubtful or unfriendly feeling. The company clustered around the magnate, whose sprightly and edifying conversation never failed to excite admiration, and the remainder of the evening was spent in a manner most agreeable ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... assertions. Ask anyone of sound, natural judgment, how many sensible, edifying, worthy women are found at once in a ball-room or concert-room, or any other rendezvous of fashionable society. The answer, if not convincing, would at least be surprising. And yet, every year, numbers of ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... talker. He was brought up with the idea that to be beautiful was to make good. His conversation was about as edifying as listening to a leak dropping in a tin dish-pan at the head of the bed when you want to go to sleep. But he and me got to be friends—maybe because we was so opposite, don't you think? Looking at the Hallowe'en ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... secure this small but wonder-working book. It contains not one but half a dozen things that have in them the germ of permanence. It is not too much to say that Mr Masefield (great as his achievement has been) has produced nothing finer or more edifying."—Dundee Advertiser. ...
— A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various
... Jesse, famous as the work of Engrand le Prince, about 1570 or 1580, in whose branches, among the fourteen ancestors of the Virgin, three-fourths bore features of the Kings of France, among them Francis I and Henry II, who were hardly more edifying than Kings of Israel, and at least unusual as sources of divine purity. Compared with the still more famous Tree of Jesse at Chartres, dating from 1150 or thereabouts, must one declare that Engrand le Prince proved ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... that one author wrote in the Grand Style and that another showed the Note of Provinciality—that also was his right. To pronounce that a passage from Sophocles was religious poetry of the highest and most edifying type,[51] whereas the Eternal Power was displeased by "such doggerel ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... in society. There is no use in saying what you really know regarding her and her goings on. There is Diana Hunter—what a little haughty prude it is; and yet WE know stories about her which are not altogether edifying. I say it is best for the sake of the good, that the bad should not all be found out. You don't want your children to know the history of that lady in the next box, who is so handsome, and whom they admire so. Ah me, what would life be if we were all found ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... censure and penance. In England the first civil law against bigamy was I James I, chapter 11. Never until 1563 (Council of Trent) was any ecclesiastical act necessary to the validity of a marriage even in the forum of the church. Marriage was in the mores. The blessing of the church was edifying and contributory. It was not essential. Marriage was popular and belonged to the family. In the ancient nations sacrifices were made for good fortune in wedlock. In the Middle Ages Christian priests blessed marriages which had been concluded by laymen and had already ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... steel-bowed glasses resting on his nose, and the good man's dressing-gown trailing magnificently behind. Bub's manner showed that he felt his consequence much increased by his clerical outfit, and the benignant gravity of his face was edifying to behold. ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... discouraged from proceeding. The description given by Daniel Prince, a respectable old bookseller at Oxford, of the state in which his brother's rooms were found at his decease, and of the fate that befell his manuscripts and his property, may be edifying to some future fellow of a college, who shall employ himself in similar pursuits.[3] "Poor Thomas Warton's papers were in a sad litter, and his brother Joe has made matters worse by confusedly cramming ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... talents—by the old and wayward Wycherley, by the cynical Swift, the rough Atterbury, the gentle Spence, the stern attorney-bishop Warburton, the virtuous Berkeley, and the "cankered Bolingbroke." Bolingbroke wept over him like a child; and Spence's description of his last moments is at least as edifying as the more ostentatious account of the deathbed of Addison. The soldier Peterborough and the poet Gay, the witty Congreve and the laughing Rowe, the eccentric Cromwell and the steady Bathurst, were all his intimates. The man who could conciliate ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... Augustins, all preferring to leave.—Montalembert, "Les Moines d'Occident," introduction, pp. 105-164. Letter of a Benedictine of Saint-Germain-des-Pres to a Benedictine of Vannes. "Of all the members of your congregation which come here to lodge, I have scarcely found one capable of edifying us. You may probably say the same of those who came to you from our place."—Cf. in the "Memoires" of Merlin de Thionville the description of the Chartreuse ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... his mother. Home ties, or home relationships, hardly seemed in harmony with the Rat! Still, in this case, it was perhaps very debatable ground as to which was the more pernicious, the old woman or the son! Ostensibly, she kept a little variety store; but her business, if report were true, was the edifying occupation of school mistress—the children graduating under her tuition being ranked by common consent as the ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... many instances the Fathers would first win the Indians' confidence by giving them blankets, beads and such things as attracted them, then by degrees unfolded the tenets of religion and mysteries of faith, to which in most cases these erstwhile savages clung with firmness and gave many edifying signs of true and sincere christianity. A band of white beads around the head distinguished the ...
— Chimes of Mission Bells • Maria Antonia Field
... been previously informed?" he said to the Egyptian; and receiving some sign of negation from her, he closed the book, and leading me apart into a corner of the apartment, discovered the matter in a very pious and edifying manner. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... the arrival of the Vice-Chancellor. When he came, our freshman and two other white-tied fellow-freshmen were summoned to the great man's presence; and there, in the ante-chamber of the Convocation House, the edifying and imposing spectacle of Matriculation was enacted. In the first place, Mr. Verdant Green took divers oaths, and sincerely promised and swore that he would be faithful and bear true allegiance to her Majesty Queen Victoria. He also professed (very ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... were tolling, the people were trooping into the handsome church, the carriages of the inhabitants of the lordly quarter poured forth their pretty loads of devotees, in whose company Pen and his uncle, ending their edifying conversation, entered the fane. I do not know whether other people carry their worldly affairs to the church door. Arthur, who, from habitual reverence and feeling, was always more than respectful in a place of worship, thought ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the Konigstadt theatre. This theatre was under the direction of one of the most curious creatures in Berlin: he was called 'Cerf,' and the title of Commissionsrath had been conferred upon him by the King of Prussia. To account for the favours bestowed upon him by royalty, many reasons of a not very edifying nature were circulated. Through this royal patronage he had succeeded in extending considerably the privileges already enjoyed by the suburban theatre. The decline of grand opera at the Theatre Royal had brought light opera, which was performed with great success at the Konigstadt theatre, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... the plain man on such matters as these are not very clear, and what he says about sensations and things is not always edifying. But it is clear that he feels strongly that the man who would identify them is obliterating a distinction to which his experience testifies unequivocally. We must not hastily disregard his protest. He is sometimes right in his feeling that things ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... to believe that we have the grace of Christ for that which puffeth us up, but have it not for that which edifieth, since each is the gift of God, both to know what we ought to do, and to love it so as to do it; so that wisdom cannot puff us up while charity is edifying us. For as it is written of God, "Who teacheth man knowledge," so also it is ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... is time to ring down the curtain. The last days of the fair were not edifying. Scenes of riot and debauch, of violence and lawlessness disgraced the assembly. Its usefulness as a gathering for trade purposes had passed away. It became a nuisance and a disgrace to London. In older days the Lord Mayor used to ride in his grand coach to our old gateway, ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the corner-stone. Well; we cannot have two foundations, so we can have no more Apostles nor Prophets:—then, as for the other needs of the Church in its edifying upon this foundation, there are all manner of things to be done daily;—rebukes to be given; comfort to be brought; Scripture to be explained; warning to be enforced; threatenings to be executed; charities to be administered; and the men who do these things are called, and call themselves, ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... impress you with a sense of the deep practical influence which a belief in the survival of the human soul after death exercises on the life and conduct of the Central Melanesian savage. To him the belief is no mere abstract theological dogma or speculative tenet, the occasional theme of edifying homilies and pious meditation; it is an inbred, unquestioning, omnipresent conviction which affects his thoughts and actions daily and at every turn; it guides his fortunes as an individual and controls his behaviour as a member ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... have a strong hold of the English language." The delight of the host must have been at least equalled by the delight of the guest in conversation which was thus ever taking new turns, branching into topical surprises, and at all turns and on every topic was luminous, high, edifying, full. ...
— Burke • John Morley
... which Dr Johnson delivered those excellent arguments for a form of prayer which he has introduced into his Journey. I am myself fully convinced that a form of prayer for publick worship is in general most decent and edifying. Solennia verba have a kind of prescriptive sanctity, and make a deeper impression on the mind than extemporaneous effusions, in which, as we know not what they are to be, we cannot readily acquiesce. Yet I would allow also of ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... the fifty years from 1470 to 1520, and |147| they were performed, like the divozioni, by confraternities of religious laymen. The actors were boys belonging to the brotherhoods, and the plays were intended to be edifying for youth. They are more refined than the northern religious dramas, but only ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... "My dear young lady, no one that beholds you can be severe upon you, it is true; but remember, it is your duty to keep watch over your soul, that it may be ever in harmony with that of your wedded husband." "Soul!" cried Undine, laughing; "that sounds very fine, and for most people may be very edifying and moral advice. But if one has no soul at all, pray how is one to keep watch over it? And that is my case." The Priest was deeply hurt, and turned away his face in mingled sorrow and anger. But she came up to him beseechingly, ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... tragedian, and my uncle was also a great tragedian, and that we had a baby in the nursery who I thought must be a great tragedian too, for she did nothing but cry, and what was that if not tragedy?—which edifying discourse found its way back to my mother, to whom Talma laughingly repeated it. I have heard my father say that on the occasion of this visit of Talma's to London, he consulted my uncle on the subject of acting in English. ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... character, ain't he, Doctor?" sarcastically remarked Quick, who had been watching this edifying scene. "Nasty Eastern temper all gone; no Hebrew talk of eye for eye or tooth for tooth, but kisses the fist that smote him in the best Christian spirit. All the same, I wouldn't trust the swine further than I could kick him, especially in the dark, which," he added meaningly, ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... after the Apostle had said (Eph. 4:7): "To every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the giving of Christ," having enumerated the various graces, he adds (Eph. 4:12): "For the perfecting of the saints . . . for the edifying of ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... for certain why those two did not turn to worms," she went on, "almost I would choose to die now, while I am beautiful! Think of the fogy museum men! (She called them by a far less edifying name, really, for the East is frank in that way, especially in its use of other tongues.) "What would they say, think you, King sahib, if they found us two dead beside those two? Would not that be a mystery? ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... it is," answered Albert, "it comes to the same thing in the end. Perhaps by the time you return to Paris, I shall be quite a sober, staid father of a family! A most edifying representative I shall make of all the domestic virtues—don't you think so? But as regards your wish to visit our fine city, my dear count, I can only say that you may command me and mine ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... delightful and edifying sight it is, to see hundreds of the most able doctors, all stripped for the combat, each closing with his antagonist, and tugging and tearing, tooth and nail, to lay down and establish truths which have been floating in the air for ages, ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... waterproof, which fell forward over his hands. Basil Ransom noticed all these things, and noticed also, opposite, the waiting face of his cousin, fixed, from her sofa, upon the closed eyes of the young prophetess. He grew more impatient at last, not of the delay of the edifying voice (though some time had elapsed), but of Tarrant's grotesque manipulations, which he resented as much as if he himself had felt their touch, and which seemed a dishonour to the passive maiden. They made him nervous, they made ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... are! Say, I've got to be in Omegon by ten o'clock. I'll sue this infernal road," snarled the irascible party, snapping the curtains together. It transpired that he was an agent for a medical college, travelling to Omegon on a most unwholesome but edifying mission. He was going up to take possession of the body of a man who had willed his carcass to the school. As the poor chap was not yet dead, but hopelessly ill, the desire for haste on the part of the agent may ...
— The Flyers • George Barr McCutcheon
... forgot not his disguise:—along The galleries from room to room they walk'd, A virgin-like and edifying throng, By eunuchs flank'd; while at their head there stalk'd A dame who kept up discipline among The female ranks, so that none stirr'd or talk'd Without her sanction on their she-parades: Her title was ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... bodies. We, coz, are the spoilt, the cockered children of the formation: and this is why the common rabble of nature are so malicious and envious toward us. Their slim wretched fashion is next door to the slimy eel: there is nothing edifying in such an edifice. From that piece of monotony to the prawn is already a good step; and how far above that is the seal! how do we surpass them both, as well as the seastar, the crab, and the lobster, my trustiest ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... not sure whether any one had been killed) by the irruption. Of course there had been arrests and incarcerations, and the "Intransi- geant" and the "Rappel" were filled with the echoes of the explosion. The tone of these organs is rarely edifying, and it had never been less so than on this occasion. I wondered, as I looked through them, whether I was losing all my radicalism; and then I wondered whether, after all, I had any to lose. Even in so long await ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... at whose table he could find his daily bread for a reasonable consideration. Loring, as has been seen, was a man to whom the converse of his fellow-men, as found upon our frontier, was neither edifying nor improving. He preferred the society of his own thoughts. The rector, the General (Colonel Newcome, it will be remembered, always accorded the head of column to the church), the adjutant-general of the new department and one solitary subaltern of cavalry were the only men he had met since ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... gratitude and joy. She will refrain, however, on account of her niece. She will ask me to relinquish my claim on Madeleine's hand, now that I am rich. I will roundly tell her, No. I will make this an opportunity for an edifying display of magnanimity and disinterestedness. I will say, 'Madame, you have accused me of cupidity. I am now able to prove your injustice. I have been infatuated, as every man must be, by the beauty, grace, and intelligence of Mlle. Madeleine; ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... induces him to turn Christian on the supposition of being his companion; and then gives him the slip. The neophyte's expressions on the occasion are not wholly edifying. ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... which he snatched from the laboratories of others to deaden his remorse, and enable him to look with desperate calmness to the blotted Past and the lowering Future. At this stage of his career, he became acquainted with Bishop Burnet, who has recorded his conversion and edifying end in a book which, says Johnson, 'the critic ought to read for its elegance, the philosopher for its arguments, and the saint for its piety.' To this, after Johnson's example, we refer our readers. Eochester died July 26, 1680, before he had completed his thirty-fourth year. He ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... preaching temperance and moderation, the practice of the preacher, as sometimes happens, falls very short of his precept. The example of moderation presented to me by my clerical critic does not seem to me very edifying, his impartiality does not appear to be beyond reproach, and in his tone I fail to recognise any of the [Greek: epieikeia] which Mr. Matthew Arnold so justly admires. I shall not emulate the spirit of that article, and ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels
... now recall the edifying deaths of the sons of Loyola, who brought the glad tidings of the gospel to the Hurons?—Father Jogues, who returned from the banks of the Niagara with a broken shoulder and mutilated hands, and ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... nothing seemed to give him greater pleasure than the presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who attended him, and from whose hands he received the sacrament. His deportment at this solemn ceremony, as related by a church dignitary, was fully edifying. He says:—"His majesty had already experienced the blessed consolations of religion, and removed the doubts his anxious attendants were entertaining, by eagerly desiring the queen to send for the archbishop, seeming, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... with the scrutinio, or, as we should term it, the ballot. Each cardinal writes his own name and that of his candidate on a ticket. Then, with many ceremonies and genuflections, not very edifying to profane eyes, if profane eyes were permitted to see them, but each of which has its mystical interpretation, he ascends to the altar and lays his ticket on the communion-plate, whence it is transferred to the chalice,—communion-plate and communion-cup playing a part in the ceremony which ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... that the above edifying and idiomatic homily was intended for some sporting contemporary, but, with his accustomed courtesy, he gives it for what it ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 7, 1891. • Various
... courts in Liverpool which at night-time were absolutely in the dark. Not a single ray of gaslight illuminated them. The doers of evil liked such places; and the courts at nightfall were often full, and sounds the reverse of edifying were apt ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... two.... Both were at the same time, at Altona, accepted as members of the body of Christ [the Labadist church].... She loved her husband tenderly, but when God called him elsewhere, to the service of His work and children, she embraced His will therein with much love; which was especially edifying in her, since before this, when she was living in the world, she was wont to be in great anxiety whenever he was away from home on their own concerns. At Bremen, when a portion of our community was there, then at Altona, and here in Friesland, God visited her with great sufferings," and she died ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... Book. The book containing the writings of Ben Sira was known under a variety of titles. The Latin Church followed the Greek in calling it Ecclesiasticus. This term was applied to those books which were not in the canon, but were held to be edifying and proper for public use in the churches. The Hebrew text of Ben Sira enjoyed wide currency, was frequently quoted by the later rabbis, and was often referred to by later Jewish and Christian writers. ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... authority that a distinguished informer of antiquity seized with remorse, threw away his blood-money, 'went forth and hanged himself.' We know that in times within the memory of living men a government actually set the edifying and praiseworthy example of hanging an informer when they had no further use of his valuable services—thus dropping his acquaintance with effect. I have no wish for such a fate to any of the informers who have cropped out so luxuriantly ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... to deal with countless numbers of families, and what he saw was not always edifying. Home was a conception which was only now forcing its way downward from the middle classes. Even in periods of normal employment the workers earned little enough when it came to providing a decent family life, ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... when discovered) was not frequent among the chosen people, who enjoyed such peculiar manifestations of the Almighty's presence. The Scriptures seem only to have conveyed to us the general fact (being what is chiefly edifying) of the interview between the witch and the King of Israel. They inform us that Saul, disheartened and discouraged by the general defection of his subjects, and the consciousness of his own unworthy and ungrateful ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... dollars for him.' (Every one familiar with the South, must have heard similar encomiums hundreds of times: each household appears to pride itself on the possession of some singularly admirable negro, whose capacity, honesty, and fidelity are vaunted with an air of conscious magnanimity edifying to witness. The desired inference is that the institution, productive of so much mutual appreciation, must be excellent. It never seems to occur to the eulogists that the good is exceptional, or that the praised characteristics might be alleged ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... efforts to dissuade Charles from making his descent upon Italy, had appealed for aid to Bajazet. For so doing he has been severely censured, and with some justice, for the picture of the Head of Christianity making appeal to the infidel to assist him against Christians is not an edifying one. Still, it receives some measure of justification when we reflect what was the attitude of these ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... he was reproved for this he said: "Vex me not with this thing; but give me a simple cross that I may adore it, both as it is, and as I can figure it in my mind." When this was done, it is said that he died in a most edifying manner. ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... It had become clear, at an early stage of their community, that they should never desire the same thing at the same moment, and this appearance had prompted her to rescue disagreement from the vulgar realm of accident. She did what she could to erect it into a law—a much more edifying aspect of it—by going to live in Florence, where she bought a house and established herself; and by leaving her husband to take care of the English branch of his bank. This arrangement greatly pleased her; it was so felicitously definite. It struck her husband ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... inconsistent. I swore they were not, and that the Ten Commandments had been the foundation of all the codes of law on the earth. Shelley denied it. I affirmed they were, neither of us using an atom of logic.' This edifying controversy continued until all parties grew very warm, and said unpleasant things to one another. After this dinner, Haydon made up his mind to subject himself no more to the chance of these discussions, but gradually to withdraw from this ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... "Stimulating, edifying, interesting, horrifying in turns, the book has not a dull moment. As it is the best, it will surely prove the most prized and popular of modern books on London."—Notes ...
— Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... Jesus loved. The Church of England, though she asked for the intercession of no created being, still set apart days for the commemoration of some who had done and suffered great things for the faith. She retained confirmation and ordination as edifying rites; but she degraded them from the rank of sacraments. Shrift was no part of her system. Yet she gently invited the dying penitent to confess his sins to a divine, and empowered her ministers to soothe the departing soul by an absolution which breathes the very spirit of the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... chronique scandaleuse. To penetrate the thin disguises in which the author has dressed his notabilities and to sort the composite or hybrid personalities into their component parts should provide the initiated with congenial if not very edifying occupation. The reader who is also a DICKENS enthusiast will be, according to temperament, delighted or outraged to find that Sir HARRY JOHNSTON has made his book as it were a continuation of Dombey and Son. Many of his characters are either the creations of Boz or ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 11, 1919 • Various
... period. The Captain, a noted reprobate, renowned on shore for his knowledge of erotic verse and admiration of the fair sex, prayed with fervour: he was joined by several of the crew, who apparently found the charm of novelty in the edifying exercise. About midnight a Sultan el Bahr or Sea-king—a species of whale—appeared close to our counter; and as these animals are infamous for upsetting vessels in waggishness, the sight elicited a yell of terror and a ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... of unquestioned zeal; but I am inclined to think his extraction was similar to that of Macfarlane, for he combined patriotism with profit in a most edifying manner. He shaved the German officers during the whole of their stay in St. Meuse; he accompanied them on their march to the frontier; he earned the last centime in Conflans; and then, driving forward to the ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... compensations, and the nuns envied them. The abbess, too, saw her brother, the archbishop and titular cardinal of Subiaco, when the princely prelate came out from Rome for the coolness of the mountains in August and September, and his conversation was said to be not only edifying, but fascinating. The cardinal was a very good man, like many of the Braccio family, but he was also a man of the world, who had been sent upon foreign missions of importance, and had acquired some worldly fame as ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... service on Sunday, November 7, 1841, in Nauvoo, an elder named Clark ventured to reprove the brethren for their lack of sanctity, enjoining them to solemnity and temperance. "I reproved him," says the prophet, "as pharisaical and hypocritical, and not edifying the people, and showed the Saints what temperance, faith, virtue, charity, and truth were. I charged the Saints not to follow the example of the adversary non-ormons in accusing the brethren, and said, 'If you do ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... etc.," by Portalis, p. 40.—Emile Ollivier, "Nouveau manuel de droit ecclesiastique," P.193. (Reply by Portalis to the protests of the Holy See, Sep. 22, 1803.) Before 1789 Portalis writes: "The spectacle presented by the monks was not very edifying.. .. The legislature having decided that religious vows could not be taken up to twenty-one years of age,... this measure keeps novices away; the monastic orders, sapped by the state of morals and by time, could obtain no recruits; they languished in a state of inertia and of disfavor which ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... money on such vanities as novels or short stories, but she read the edifying romances in the Sunday-school paper and an occasional book from the Sunday-school library, mainly about children whose angelic qualities gave her a picture of child life that would have contrasted strongly ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... edifying argument went on, or rather round, very much after the style of a dog trying to catch his tail, and at its close Parson and Telson stood as far from ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... Ulema). He is the real original Kadee of the Thousand and One Nights. Did ever Kadee tow an Englishwoman round a Sheykh's tomb before? but I thought his determination to show the people that he considered a Christian not out of place in a Muslim holy place very edifying. ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... Parson's Tale is believed to be a translation, more or less free, from some treatise on penitence that was in favour about Chaucer's time. Tyrwhitt says: "I cannot recommend it as a very entertaining or edifying performance at this day; but the reader will please to remember, in excuse both of Chaucer and of his editor, that, considering The Canterbury Tales as a great picture of life and manners, the piece would not have been complete if it had not included the religion of the time." The ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... shake, sometimes with a ponderous lodgment against a door, which, unable to resist the shock, flew open, and landed the belligerents at their full length on the floor, where they rolled over one another in a very edifying and picturesque manner. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... contemplatively from its squalor at the inspiring view of Nouvelle Orleans, with the freighters, granaries and steamboats, three stories high, floating past; comparing its own inertia—if a city can be presumed capable of such edifying consciousness!—with the aspect of the busy levee, where cotton bales, sugar hogsheads, molasses casks, tobacco, hemp and other staple articles of the South, formed, as it were, a bulwark, or fortification of peace, for the habitations behind it. Such was the external appearance—suggestive ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... fair example of the artifice used by the clergy in transforming old heathen charms into edifying ceremonies. Men are here led to pray; to exercise themselves in some of the chief liturgical formularies of the Catholic Church; to accept Christian versions of their old incantations; to profess good will to their neighbours, ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... to be no thought taken for those who are won to Christ already? to whom He is in Himself the all-sufficient attraction, and these veils and gewgaws are but annoyances, or at least superfluities? Where is the building up of the saints, the edifying of the Body of Christ? Once was it said to Peter, "Feed My lambs;" but twice "Feed My sheep." How is it that so many are satisfied with a state of things in which the sheep of Christ are starved and disgusted for the sake of the lambs, or in many cases ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt
... last remark is Xenophon-Hellenic, but less edifying; fortunately it is only the penultimate, for there is the final {khairete} [good-bye] and message to his wife. Why was she not present? I suppose she was at home ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... years, at least considerably exceeded what it had been in the previous season, which I had spent in the Highlands, and during which I had perused only three volumes—one of the three a slim volume of slim poems, by a lady, and the other, that rather curious than edifying work, "Presbyterian Eloquence Displayed." The cheap literature had not yet been called into existence; and, without in the least undervaluing its advantages, it was, I daresay, better on the whole ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... Sunday morning the yellow omnibus was waiting for some of us as we dawdled about in the school-room, titivating; the masters nowhere, as usual on a Sunday morning; and some of the boys began to sing in chorus a not very edifying chanson, which they did not "Bowdlerize," about a holy Capuchin friar; it ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... parts. At New-York, for instance, the infringement on civil or domestic liberty is become notorious, notwithstanding the political controversies of the inhabitants in praise of liberty; but no panegyric on this subject (howsoever elegant in itself) can be graceful or edifying from the mouth or pen of one of those provincials, because men who do not scruple to detain others in slavery, have but a very partial and unjust claim to the protection of the laws of liberty; and indeed it too plainly appears that they ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet
... were mainly young painters, sculptors, architects, medical students; but they were, Chad sagely opined, a much more profitable lot to be with—even on the footing of not being quite one of them—than the "terrible toughs" (Strether remembered the edifying discrimination) of the American bars and banks roundabout the Opera. Chad had thrown out, in the communications following this one—for at that time he did once in a while communicate—that several members of a band of earnest ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... cover of a slim parchment volume he deciphered the faded legend, hand-written, in rust-coloured ink, "De tintinnabulis by Jerome Magius, 1664"; then, pell-mell, there were: A curious and edifying miscellany concerning church bells by Dom Remi Carre; another Edifying miscellany, anonymous; a Treatise of bells by Jean-Baptiste Thiers, curate of Champrond and Vibraye; a ponderous tome by an architect named Blavignac; a smaller ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... previous chapter (p. 120) artificial birth control was originally based on Atheism, and on a philosophy of moral anarchy. Further proof of this fact is to be found in the course of a most edifying dispute between two rival Neo-Malthusians. This quarrel is between Dr. Marie C. Stopes, President of the Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress, who is not a Doctor of Medicine ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland
... latter, with edifying coolness;—"and will think no more of taking the scalps of thee two poor women than of digging off ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... and prepared to depart. 'Where are you going?' demanded Lewis. 'I am going home;' said Kyle. 'Then I will pay you nothing for what you have done,' retorted the slave driver, 'unless you complete your contract.' The carpenter went away with this edifying declaration, 'I will not stay here a day longer; for I expect the fire of God will come down and burn you up altogether, and I do not choose to go to hell with you.' Through hush-money and promises not to whip ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Eimuck camp, I come suddenly upon a people who use it to the total exclusion of the Persian word. The change from the "balli sahib" of the Tabbas villagers to the "O, O, O" of the Afghan nomads is novel and entertaining in the extreme, and I sit and listen with no small interest to the edifying conversation of the khan, the mirza, and the mudbake on the one side, and the Eimuck chieftain and prominent members of ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... stereotyped forms, and to insist on analysis and verification. Evidently all forms of suggestion tend to create an atmosphere of delusion. Pathos increases the atmosphere of delusion. It introduces elements which corrupt the judgment. In effect, it continues the old notion that there are edifying falsehoods and useful deceits. The masses always infuse a large emotional element into all their likes and dislikes, approval and disapproval. Hence, in time, they surround what they accept with pathos which it is hard ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... beings; and the votaries of this sanguinary worship devoured, in solemn banquets, the quivering limbs of the victims. Let us not look for examples too far removed from the civilization which has produced our own. In the Greek and Roman world, the stories of the gods were not very edifying, as every one knows: the worship of Bacchus gave no encouragement to temperance, and the festivals of Venus were not a school of chastity. It would be easy, by bringing together facts of this sort, to form a picture full of sombre coloring, and to conclude that our idea of God, the idea of the ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... stood towering above us with his hands in his pockets; but when we came to the Temptation of Eve, Dora broke out into an exclamation that excited my curiosity too much not to be pursued, though it was hardly edifying. ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... uttering words "unbecoming an officer and a gentleman;" for "being overhauled by a girl" after he had "made a confounded fool of himself trying a land-lubber's stunt" was not a role which seemed in any degree an edifying one to him. ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... 'Yes, Sir,' some great pundit may be telling a disciple at this moment, 'Wells is one of the best. Galsworthy is one of the best, if you except his concern for delicacy of style. Mrs. Ward has a very firm grasp of problems, but is not very creational.—Caine's books are very edifying. I should like to read all that Caine has written. Miss Corelli, too, is very edifying.—And you may add Upton Sinclair.' 'What I want to know,' says the disciple, 'is, what English novels may be selected as specially ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... shows more sanity than the papists, in that his allegories conform to moral standards, as a rule. Yet, he ought to have kept in view the rule laid down by Paul, who demands that prophesy is to be the guardian of faith; for faith is edifying and the proper sphere of the Church. Rules governing morals can be laid by even heathen philosophers who ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... rose and stretched. Ferguson rolled lazily off the couch. "Well," he said with a yawn, "this has been very edifying. I've heard it all before in a hundred bull sessions, and I suppose I'll hear it all again. I don't know why I've hung around. There's a little dame that I've got to write a letter to, and, believe me, she's a damn ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... think of a child and a story, without thinking of the fairy tale. Is this, as some would have us believe, a bad habit of an ignorant old world? Or can the Fairy Tale justify her popularity with truly edifying and educational results? Is she a proper person to introduce here, and what are her ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... of the relative value of "national character" as compared with the precious metals, will be very edifying to the ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... in this edifying fashion, the table had been laid, and we sat down to supper. She ate for two and I for four, our excellent appetite being excited by the delicate cheer. A sumptuous dessert was served in splendid silver-gilt plate, similar to the two candlesticks ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... given of the Newry Experiment, the boys were equally ready in applying for their own benefit the lessons they had drawn from their knowledge of anatomy and physiology. The account says, that "the most interesting, as well as the most edifying part of the examination, and which exhibited the great value of this method of teaching the sciences to the young, was the application of these lessons to the circumstances of ordinary life. Circumstances ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... without which our religious ancestors never ventured to open a book of business, or bill of lading—the costly vellum covers of some of them almost persuading us that we are got into some better library,—are very agreeable and edifying spectacles. I can look upon these defunct dragons with complacency. Thy heavy odd-shaped ivory-handled penknives (our ancestors had every thing on a larger scale than we have hearts for) are as good as any thing from Herculaneum. The pounce-boxes of ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... soon evident that the dismissal of this youth and his cattle was a sine qua non, as cautions were vain. But on a sum being offered which he considered less than his due, having come about a mile, he took his own part in a manner most edifying in one so young; and had the retainers of our party not been as well provided as he, I believe he would have pistolled the whole of us. At length, finding his efforts fruitless, he sprang on the pony, and putting her to her best pace, was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... my Lord. You lied to me, and I to you. Oh, I know that were I a man you would kill me within the moment. But you respect my womanhood. Ah, goodness!" the girl cried, shrilly, "what very edifying respect for womanhood have you, who burned those papers because you believed my dearest Marian had stooped ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... we had several solemn and edifying occasions; and as our being there became more known the attendance increased, so that the last gathering was quite a large one, and peculiarly quiet and satisfactory. Among some meetings which we appointed in the neighborhood two were held in the temple of the Protestant Church, which was a ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... feature from the negroes. They maintain their purity of descent by marrying only with the women of their own or of kindred tribes. Curious as is the picture Burckhardt draws of the character and manners of this tribe, it is not at all edifying. It would be difficult to convey an idea of the corruption and degradation of the Berbers. The little town of Wady-Berber, a commercial centre, the rendezvous for caravans, and a depot for slaves, is a regular ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... visitors, who had also arrived by the steamer and who had hitherto not left them an ideal privacy. But the others gradually dispersed; they circled about a kind of showman who was the authorised guide, a big slow genial vulgar heavily- bearded man, with a whimsical edifying patronising tone, a tone that had immense success when he stopped here and there to make his points—to pass his eyes over his listening flock, then fix them quite above it with a meditative look and bring out some ancient ...
— Pandora • Henry James
... war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen, he was second to none in the humble and endearing scenes of private life; uniform, dignified, and commanding, his example was as edifying to all around him as were the effects ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... attitude of this, one of America's wealthiest and most influential men, was edifying but scarcely convincing. The newspaper men looked at one another dubiously. Perhaps, they thought, when the Senator's magnificent house in the West End was completed, and his wife and daughters came over from Paris, the ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... ago, his sexton said to the writer: "I never opened the church in the morning that I did not find Father MacDonald kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament." What time he entered it, no one knew. How edifying this must have been to the poor factory hands, who were wont to beg God's blessing on their daily labor, in the short, scorching summer, and the bitter cold of the long winter, for at that time the church was not heated. Never ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... injected some bright thoughts, and the displays of learning relieve the general monotony, while considerable intellectual energy is displayed in the discussions; but to see a conclave of learned professors devoting their time to the examination and discussion of Aristotle's writings is about as edifying as to see a geographical society devoting its time to ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... never been away from Teignmouth on the Lord's day, I had to pray much, before I came to the conclusion to comply with the request. At last I had the fullest assurance that I ought to preach at Chard. I have since heard that the Lord used me in edifying the brethren, and through a general exhortation to all, to read the Scriptures with earnestness, a woman was stirred up to do so, and this was the means of her conversion. As to myself, I had a most refreshing season. I mention this circumstance to show how important ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, First Part • George Mueller
... to which my husband was introduced an hour afterwards, I will not trust myself to write. I was not, of course, in a very agreeable humor; and the record of what I said and did, and of how I looked, would be in no way flattering to my own good opinion of myself, nor prove particularly edifying ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... these views on the drama wholly edifying. Circuses and sassafras tea were within the range of her experience, and finding that she had struck a point of contact, Mrs. Owen expressed her pity for any child that did not enjoy a round of sassafras tea every ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... indifferent when scandal riseth out of it: Rom. xiv. 21, "It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak;" yea, though it do not weaken, if it be not expedient for edifying our brother, be it never so lawful or indifferent in its own nature, the law of charity bindeth us to abstain from it: Rom. xiv. 19, "Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and the things wherewith one may edify another;" Rom. xv. 2, "Let every ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... Helen returned with Fanny—she had taken her into the upper galleries. Yet the private dreams of Miss Winchelsea, already vivid and concrete enough, became now realistic in the highest degree. She figured that pleasant young man lecturing in the most edifying way to his students, herself modestly prominent as his intellectual mate and helper; she figured a refined little home, with two bureaus, with white shelves of high-class books, and autotypes of the pictures of Rossetti ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... the before-named university for ever, in the form and manner which the following chapter shall declare. Wherefore the sincere love of study and zeal for the strengthening of the orthodox faith to the edifying of the Church, have begotten in us that solicitude so marvellous to the lovers of pelf, of collecting books wherever they were to be purchased, regardless of expense, and of having those that could not ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury
... month, and when ten thousand went the others came home, and so two months were they at home, and Adonias was overseer and commander on them. Solomon had seventy thousand men that did nothing but bear stone and mortar and other things to the edifying of the temple, and were bearers of burdens only, and he had eighty thousand of hewers of stone and masons in the mountain, without the prefects and masters, which were three thousand three hundred that did ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... reminded her of her lesson-books, and of the stupid Greeks and Romans, whose dates she could never recall. She hoped she should never be anything so dull as an historical personage! And besides, greatness was for the men—it was enough for a princess to be virtuous. And she looked as edifying ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... appendix. Historically it is of unique interest and value: it has no fellow within the New Testament or without it. The so-called Apocryphal Acts of certain apostles, while witnessing to the impression produced by our Acts as a type of edifying literature, only emphasize this fact. It is the one really primitive Church history, primitive in spirit as in substance; apart from it a connected picture of the Apostolic Age would be impossible. With it, the Pauline Epistles are of priceless historical value; without it, they would remain bafflingly ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... reverence and terror. "A strange person, your master," observed I. "Signor," replied the faithful Sancho Panza, "e veramente grand uomo, ma da non potersi comprendere." "He is truly a great man, but quite incomprehensible." It was edifying to observe the awful importance with which Antonio bore the instrument nightly intrusted to his charge to carry to and from the theatre. He considered it an animated something, whether demon or angel he was unable to determine, but this he firmly believed, that it could speak in actual dialogue ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... standing so far below it! I, too, have on my bureau a bust of our great Poquelin, but Madame Desvanneaux thinks that this author's style is somewhat too pornographic, and has ordered me to replace his profane image by the more edifying one of our charitable patron, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... practised the austerities of monkish life, Saint Martin drew his inspiration for the monasticism of the West. But it was not until the last of the IV century that he founded, near Poitiers, the first great monastery in France. The success of this form of pious life, if not altogether edifying, was immediate. Devotional excesses were less common in the temperate climate of France than under the exciting oriental sun, yet that most bizarre of Eastern fanatics, the "Pillar Saint," had at least one disciple in Gaul. ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... sojourn to be selected for the lady's accouchement, the burlesque deed which records this compact being actually set out at full length. Thence, again, we are beckoned away by the jester to join him in elaborate and not very edifying ridicule of the Catholic doctrine of ante-natal baptism; and thence—but it would be useless to follow further the windings and doublings of this ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... of tents and tepees around the town. It was a great occasion for them, an Indian powwow, for by the law all Indians who had lands in severalty were to be permitted to vote the following year. They were present, therefore, to study the ways of the white man, and an edifying exhibition of these was ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... Gerald, you know he's a virtuous fool, as I have heard you all declare. There is nothing in the world that I can see to prevent him keeping his living and doing as he pleases, as most parsons do. However, that's his own business. It is Frank's case which is the edifying case to me. If my convictions of sin had gone just a step farther," said the pitiless critic, "if I had devoted myself to bringing others to repentance, as is the first duty of a reformed sinner, my aunt Leonora would not have hesitated ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... but a Hindu, the picture seems not only incongruous but highly absurd and disgusting. One can hardly imagine that any mortal, to whom a vision of the divine being had been granted, could fail so utterly to furnish us with an edifying ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... of lank-haired hypocrites, one on each side of the reprobate, praying till the perspiration streamed down their foreheads, to pray the devil out of him. The ohs! and the groanings of the audience were terrible; and the whole scene, though very edifying to the elect, was disgraceful to any sect who lived within the pale ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... we rode through a crowd, murmuring hymns, pouring from the chapel, where, no doubt, they had heard some edifying discourse about the "sweet Jesus," and "sweet experiences," and "new birth," the omnipotence of faith to salvation, and all and every topic but a man's just indignation, and a religious man's most solemn denunciation against the bloody and felonious outrages ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... 'tis for want of a little Virginia Breeding: how much more like a Gentleman 'tis, to drink as we do, brave edifying Punch and Brandy.—But they say, the young Noblemen now, and Sparks in England, begin to reform, and take it for their Mornings draught, get drunk by Noon, and despise the ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... through, any quantity of heat and never have a sunstroke; it is stoical, cold, firm, and very stony; has a bodkin-pointed spire, ornamented with round holes and circular places into which penetration has not yet been effected; and its "tout ensemble" is in no way edifying. It is neither ornate nor colossal. Strength, plainness, and smallness, with a strong dash of general rigidity, are its ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... the arts, perpetually increasing, activity. The Grecian gods seem indeed to have been personally more innocent, although it cannot be said, that as far as temperance and chastity are concerned, they gave so edifying an example as their successor. The sublime human character of Jesus Christ was deformed by an imputed identification with a Power, who tempted, betrayed, and punished the innocent beings who were called into existence by His sole will; and for the period of a thousand ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... subject of Forefathers' Day, like a Rugby ball, into my hands—after making elegant play with it himself—and, frightful as the responsibility is, I realize that I've got to do something with it—and do it mighty quick. [Laughter.] This is a festive hour, and even a preacher mustn't be any more edifying in his remarks, I suppose, than he can help. And I promise accordingly to use my conscientious endeavors to-night to leave this worshipful company no better than ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various |
