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Martyrdom   /mˈɑrtərdəm/   Listen
Martyrdom

noun
1.
Death that is imposed because of the person's adherence of a religious faith or cause.
2.
Any experience that causes intense suffering.  Synonym: calvary.






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"Martyrdom" Quotes from Famous Books



... of hypnotism, with Mr. Newman rigid in trances, while Carrick groped, as it were, among the springs of his mind. The pair of them had incurred the indignation of European authorities, writing in obscure and costly little journals whose names the general public never heard. The bond of martyrdom...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... Herbert at least had acquired by a profound study of the works of their great founder; the pupil of Doctor Masham at length deemed himself qualified to enter that world which he was resolved to regenerate; prepared for persecution, and steeled even to martyrdom. ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli

... the intensity of Mrs. Baines's suffering. She had no confidant; she was incapable of showing a wound. But when she lay awake at night by the organism which had once been her husband, she dwelt long and deeply on the martyrdom of her life. What had she done to deserve it? Always had she conscientiously endeavoured to be kind, just, patient. And she knew herself to be sagacious and prudent. In the frightful and unguessed ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... consequence. But his virtue was more than this. It was of that daring, intrepid kind that, seizing principle with a giant's grasp, assumes responsibility at any hazard, suffers sacrifice without pretense of martyrdom, bears calumny without reply, imposes superior will and understanding on all around it, capitulates to no unworthy triumph, but must carry all things at the point of clear and blameless conscience. Scorning all manner of meanness and cowardice, his bursts of wrath at their exhibition heighten ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various

... their advantage. If the gallows instead of the counter, and the galleys instead of the fines, were the reward of going to a conventicle, to preach or hear, there would not be so many sufferers—the spirit of martyrdom is over. They that will go to church to be chosen sheriffs and mayors, would go to forty churches rather than be hanged." "Now let us crucify the thieves," said the author of this truculent advice in conclusion, ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto

... goodness, grant us to exterminate these Christians; it is for thy glory we fight, and our death is a martyrdom for thy name. And then, offering ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney

... was sensitive, femininely sensitive, to a degree which might be considered a fault, and it will be clear that leadership to such a man may be almost a martyrdom, and that the confidence so necessary between leader and followers, which must of necessity be based upon mutual knowledge and trust, becomes in itself more difficult. It wanted an understanding man to appreciate Scott quickly; to ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... hour, Theophilus was condemned to death by the enraged Prefect; and on the spot where Dorothy had been beheaded, he too poured forth his blood, and obtained the crown of martyrdom. ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools

... dreaminess of the primitive Italians. Certainly these pictures, though finished to the minutest and most delicate detail, are lacking in realism actually to a degree that borders on a delicious absurdity. St. Ursula and her maidens—whether really eleven thousand or eleven—in the final scene of martyrdom await the stroke of death with the stoical placidity of a regiment of dolls. "All the faces are essentially Flemish, and some of the virgins display to great advantage the pretty national feature of the slight curl in one or ...
— Beautiful Europe - Belgium • Joseph E. Morris

... side will despise the man, Deeming him one that thro' the fear of death Gave up his cause, except he seal his faith In sight of all with flaming martyrdom. ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... published, in prose, 1728, a true Estimate of Human Life, dedicated, notwithstanding the Latin quotations with which it abounds, to the queen; and a sermon preached before the house of commons, 1729, on the martyrdom of king Charles, entitled, an Apology for Princes, or the Reverence due to Government. But the Second Discourse, the counterpart of his Estimate, without which it cannot be called a true Estimate, though, in 1728, it was announced as "soon to be published," ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... and sees alike the ill-healed wounds of the martyrdom and the rough scars of sin's scourges, and does not understand. Clare Bowring smiled, without definite expression, just because her mother had spoken and seemed to ask for sympathy; and then she looked away for a few ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford

... he is dead, his martyrdom will reap Late harvests of the palms he should have had in life. ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell

... internal evidence of their want of correctness, and, in the condition in which they have come down to us, the date of their compilation cannot be set before the beginning of the fifth century. At the very outset two facts stand in open opposition to their statements. The martyrdom of St. Cecilia is placed in the reign of Alexander Severus, whose mildness of disposition and whose liberality towards the Christians are well authenticated. Again, the prefect who condemns her to death, Turchius Almachius, bears a name unknown to the profane historians ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various

... day began his martyrdom. He worked hard under his overseer, but ran away again and again, only to be brought back and tied up. Sometimes, as he toiled, he would look longingly across the narrow strait of sunlit water at the bright green little island of Manono, six miles away; and twice he stole down to the shore at ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke

... touching the social cabal formed against him; she would not have him ignorant of the perils besetting his career as a man of genius, nor of the obstacles insurmountable to weaklings. She drew a lesson from the recent victory. Her white hands pointed him to glory that lay beyond a prolonged martyrdom; she spoke of stakes and flaming pyres; she spread the adjectives thickly on her finest tartines, and decorated them with a variety of her most pompous epithets. It was an infringement of the copyright ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac

... military leaders have adopted the career of conquering heroes wholesale murder, wholesale robbers called national aggrandizement. Prison for me is like martyrdom to me, like going to war. Before me is the spirit of George Washington, behind me, that ...
— The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt • Oliver Remey

... the whole world righteousness, and for that end travelled even to the utmost bounds of the West; he at last suffered martyrdom by the ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake

... the metropolis proposed to form a "protection association" (October, 1850). In their manifesto they collected all the epithets calculated to wound the feelings of "their people," for so they called them, and drew out columns of "grievances"—in the mock sentimental style of pseudo martyrdom. "Such," said they, "is our truly melancholy condition: but the time has arrived to rescue our people." "We know the silent grandeur of our strength." They proposed to put down the abolition press, to send emancipists to the Council, and to assert the majesty of their numbers against their emigrant ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... one case, at least, the spirit of reformation was at work in good earnest. Rahere, repenting of his wasted life, thereupon started on a pilgrimage to Rome, to do penance for his sins on the ground hallowed by the martyrdom of St. Paul, some three miles from the city. The spot known as the Three Fountains, now rendered more or less sanitary by the free planting of eucalyptus, was then and long afterwards particularly unhealthy, and while there Rahere was attacked by malarial ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley

... Hath pushed aside his faithful wife, nor lets Or dame or damsel enter at his gates Lest he should be polluted. This gray King Showed us a shrine wherein were wonders—yea— Rich arks with priceless bones of martyrdom, Thorns of the crown and shivers of the cross, And therewithal (for thus he told us) brought By holy Joseph thither, that same spear Wherewith the Roman pierced the side of Christ. He much amazed us; after, when we sought The tribute, answered "I have quite foregone All matters of this world: ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson

... with deep sorrow, this account of the martyrdom of their beloved friend and minister; but they were comforted with the knowledge that he had exchanged a life of trial and suffering for a glorious ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston

... cowed by abuse; never was put out by noise—although he frequently was by the police; nor put down by reason—though he sometimes was by force; spoke everywhere, on all subjects, against the opinions (apparently) of everybody; and lived a life of perpetual public martyrdom and protest. ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne

... earthquake chasms that engulfed him, the inundations that drowned him out of his miserable hiding-places, the pestilences that lay in wait for him, the unequal strife with ferocious animals! I need not sum up all the wretchedness that goes to constitute the "martyrdom of man." When our forefathers came to this wilderness as it then was, and found everywhere the bones of the poor natives who had perished in the great plague (which our Doctor there thinks was probably the small-pox), they considered this destructive malady as a special mark ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... in vain that I had come to this place to get rid of my head. There was no guillotine, no barricade, not the slightest opportunity for cheap martyrdom; and as for the volunteer legion, why, that was a veritable life ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai

... horizontal bands of green (top), white, and red; the national emblem (a stylized representation of the word Allah in the shape of a tulip, a symbol of martyrdom) in red is centered in the white band; ALLAH AKBAR (God is Great) in white Arabic script is repeated 11 times along the bottom edge of the green band and 11 times along the top ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... of my time there in being bored to extinction by the Director thereof, who today spouted Aeneas Sylvius' Commentaries for three-quarters of an hour without taking breath. From this sort of martyrdom (what are the sensations of a former racehorse being driven in a cab? If you can conceive them, they are those of a Pole turned Prussian professor) I take refuge in long rambles through the town. This town is a handful of tall ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee

... cannot help thinking that, in one particular, he resembled that famous "copper-bottomed" squire. This we will leave to our reader's discrimination. Dick bore his fatigues wonderfully. He suffered somewhat of that martyrdom which, according to Tom Moore, occurs "to weavers and M. P.'s, from sitting too long;" but again on his courser's back, he ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... from light to light, Upon my praises following, of the eighth Thy thirst is next. The saintly soul, that shows The world's deceitfulness, to all who hear him, Is, with the sight of all the good, that is, Blest there. The limbs, whence it was driven, lie Down in Cieldauro, and from martyrdom And exile came it here. Lo! further on, Where flames the arduous Spirit of Isidore, Of Bede, and Richard, more than man, erewhile, In deep discernment. Lastly this, from whom Thy look on me reverteth, was the beam Of one, whose spirit, on high musings ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... women do not say these things in words, but their looks are most expressive, and I understand. I serve them tea and cake, of which they take most sparingly, and when the proper time has come they rise, trying not to look relief that their martyrdom is over. I conduct them to the doorway, or, if the woman is the wife of a great official, to the outer entrance. Then I return to my own rooms midst the things I understand; and I fear, I fear, Mother mine, that I gossip with my household upon the ways and dress ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper

... courageous behavior, showing off through ornament and dress, the pomp of kings, the display of opinions and knowledge, the possession of special attainments—in the arts, for example. It is expressed alike in arrogance and in humility, even in martyrdom. Certain modes of seeking recognition we define as "vanity," others as "ambition." The "will to power" belongs here. Perhaps there has been no spur to human activity so keen and no motive so naively avowed as the desire for "undying fame," ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... day after day, of mean, bitter, low, harassing servitude, every nerve dampened and depressed, every power of feeling gradually smothered,—this long and wasting heart-martyrdom, this slow, daily bleeding away of the inward life, drop by drop, hour after hour,—this is the true searching test of what there may be ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... But the martyrdom was at an end. A woman, hurrying past, bareheaded, was greeted by a cry of delight from Lolita, who released Hedrick and ran to her ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington

... recalled the touching story of St. Peter flying from persecution and meeting our Lord: "Lord, whither art thou going?" asked the apostle. "To be crucified a second time," replied the Saviour, and Peter was ashamed of his weakness and returned to martyrdom. Montfanon himself had related that episode to the novelist, who again began to reflect upon the Marquis's character and the best means of approaching him. He forgot to glance at the vast solitude of the Roman suburbs before ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... did not; at any rate not to know it. She really kept very busy indoors; and in other doors so did he. More than that, there was his father. When the two first came to the city St. Pierre endured the town for a week. But it was martyrdom, doing it. Claude saw this. Mr. Tarbox was with him the latter part of the week. He saw it. He gave his suggestive mind to it for one night. The next day St. Pierre and he wandered off in street-cars and on foot, ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... school of sacred learning which he established at Caesarea in Palestine. Here he gathered together about 30,000 volumes, almost all consisting of the works of the Fathers. His personal labour was given to the works of Origen, in whose mystical doctrine he had become a proficient at Alexandria. The martyrdom of Pamphilus prevented the completion of his own elaborate commentaries. He left the library to the Church of Caesarea, under the superintendence of his friend Eusebius. St. Jerome paid a visit to the collection ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton

... I—fanatic—dreamer—enthusiast, as I may be called, whose whole life has been one unremitting struggle for the opinion I have adopted, am at least not so blinded by my infatuation, but I can see the mockery it incurs. If I die on the scaffold to-morrow, I shall have nothing of martyrdom but its doom; not the triumph—the incense—the immortality of popular applause: I should have no hope to support me at such a moment, gleaned from the glories of the future—nothing but one stern and prophetic conviction of the vanity of that tyranny by which my sentence will be pronounced." ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... and put aside this apology with a gesture. The queen of France had knelt and kissed his mutilated hands, and the courtiers of Louis had praised his martyrdom. But such ordeals of compliment were harder for him to endure than the teeth and knives ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... the Apostles in Jerusalem, 52 The disciples have all things common, ib. The appointment of the deacons, 54 The Apostles refuse to obey the rulers of the Jews, 55 The date of the martyrdom of Stephen, ib. The gospel preached in Samaria, 56 The baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch, and of Cornelius the centurion, 57 The conversion of Saul, his character, position, and sufferings, 59 His visit to Jerusalem, and vision, 62 His ministry ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... a few slips in the Latin quotations such as concedunt for comedunt) is very accurate, and the frontispiece, a view of Hermitage Castle in the rain, has the interest of presenting what is said to have been a very faithful view of the actual state of Lord Soulis' stronghold and the place of the martyrdom of Ramsay, attained by the curious stages of (1) a drawing by Scott, who could not draw at all; (2) a rifacimento by Clerk, who had never seen the place; and (3) an engraving by an artist who was ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury

... might not be disgraced in Sidonia. "He had ever been a faithful feudal vassal to her princely house, and had not even scrupled to bring the secret wicked deeds of his cousin before the light of day, though it was like a martyrdom of his own flesh and blood for ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold

... in 743, was made archbishop of Meniz, and primate. But his Christian ardor moved him to carry the gospel in person to the savage Frisians, by whom he was slain. He thus crowned his long career with martyrdom. ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... discern—as Huxley suggested—in man's "long progress through the past, a reasonable ground of faith in his attainment of a nobler future." and Winwood Reade, a young African traveller, exhibited it in a vivid book as a long-drawn-out martyrdom. But he was a disciple of Spencer, and his hopes for the future were as bright as his picture of the past was dark. THE MARTYRDOM OF MAN, published in 1872, was so widely read that it reached an eighth edition twelve years later, and may be counted as one of ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury

... Debauch—the trunk of the sea-faring patriarch naked, And the garment, borne backward to cover it, fearfully tattered; Abraham offering Isaac—no visible Isaac, and only Abraham's lifted knife held back by the hovering angel; Martyrdom of Saint Stephen—a part of the figure of Stephen; And the Conversion of Paul—the greaves on the leg of a soldier Held across the back of a prostrate horse by the stirrup; But when I looked at the face of that tearful and beauteous figure,— Eve in the fresco ...
— Poems • William D. Howells

... all day in the heat, sleeps on the stones and eats anything—quick, gentle and noiseless and fiercely jealous. If I speak to any other boy he rushes at him and drives him away, and while black Khayr was in the house, he suffered martyrdom and the kitchen was a scene of incessant wrangle about the coffee. Khayr would bring me my coffee and Achmet resented the usurpation of his functions—of course quite hopelessly, as Khayr was a great stout black of eighteen and poor little Achmet not ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... close, peering together over its columns. Now and then, furtive glances reconnoitre the ingle-side, Where before a bed of coals, rows of red apples are roasting, Spitting out their life-juices spitefully, in unwilling martyrdom. Finished, and drawn back, the happy group wait a brief interval, Thinking some neighbor might chance to come in and bid them good even, Heightening their simple refection, for whose sake would be joyously added The mug ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney

... to thought, was now employed to muddy the stream, as it became painful to contemplate what was at the bottom of it. By his exclusion, therefore, from Parliament, he was, perhaps, seasonably saved from affording to that "Folly, which loves the martyrdom of Fame," [Footnote: "And Folly ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... given him courage. He would turn the same battery on Phillida. No; not the same. He could not ridicule her. She was never quite ridiculous. Her plane of motive was so high that his banter would be a desecration. It was not in his heart to add to the asperity of her martyrdom by any light words. But perhaps he could find some way to bring her to a more ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... to Balliol College of the scene of Cranmer and Ridley's martyrdom, must have turned the brain of the Regius Professor of Greek!—Let him be well assured however that not rational "Inquiry," but irrational assumption; not the modest cogitations of "a philosophical mind," but the arrogant dreams of a weak and confused intellect, are what ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... to act. Alas! in ancient days it happened in this way, that Christians who were brought before their heathen persecutors for punishment, because they were Christians, sometimes came short of the crown of martyrdom, "having loved this present world[4]," and so lost their way in the mazes ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman

... Philippi will pray for him, and that through their prayers he will receive a 'supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ,' which shall be enough to secure his steadfastness. His expectation is not that he will escape from prison or from martyrdom, both of which stand only too clearly before him, but that whatever may be waiting for him in the future, 'all boldness' will be granted him, so that whether he lives he will live to the Lord, or whether he dies, he will die to the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... Jesuit church seized by Francisans; missionaries receive patent; Martyrs' Mount; execution of De l'Assumption and Machado; "Great Martyrdom"; trade; Pessoa at; Dutch and English confined to; Dutch factory; Russians come to (1804); Glynn and the Preble; Americans allowed to trade; military ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... had gone by. Printed on small pica it would run to eight hundred pages, and could never pay. Begged therefore to be excused. Loved and honoured the true church from his soul; and, had it been a sermon on the martyrdom, or any twelve-penny touch—why I would venture something for the honour of the cloth. But come, let's see the other. 'Right Hereditary righted!' ah, there's some sense in this! Hum—hum—hum—pages so ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... Russian peasantry. And yet, who can pity the moujik? His cheeks are altogether too round, and his morals too superbly bestial; he has clearly been created to sing and starve by turns. But the Italian peasant who speaks in the tongue of Homer and Virgil and Boccaccio is easily invested with a halo of martyrdom; it is delightful to sympathize with men who combine the manners of Louis Quatorze with the profiles of Augustus or Plato, and who still recall, in many of their traits, the pristine life of Odyssean days. Thus, they wear to-day the identical "clouted ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... not, however, excite pity; and he was delivered over to the civil power for martyrdom. When surrounded by blazing fagots, he cried out, "O Lord God, have mercy upon me!" and a little afterwards, "Thou knowest how I have loved thy truth." With cheerful countenance he met his fate; and, observing the executioner about to set fire to the wood behind his back, he cried ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... in the second century—not many that are well attested—and Christians courted the pain and glory of martyrdom. There is evidence to show that when they were arrested their escape was often connived at. In general, the persecution of the Christians was rather provoked by the populace than desired by the authorities. The ...
— A History of Freedom of Thought • John Bagnell Bury

... in which Mr. Choate would seem to assume to himself and those who agree with him the honors of martyrdom. This shows a wonderful change in public opinion; though the martyrs in the "Legenda Aurea" and Fox seem to have had a harder time of it than we supposed to be the case with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... alms-basins, of latten; They appear to be of Flemish workmanship, and, from inventories of the church goods, made at different times, we may gather that they were given for their present use during the seventeenth century. They represent:—1. The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian; 2. The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin; 3. The Temptation in Eden; and 4. The Spies bearing the Grapes. Around each of these subjects is a legend in foreign characters, "DER. INFRID. GEHWART." I have submitted this inscription ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.11.17 • Various

... Westminster, which he then dedicated to the blessed Peter, in which the king himself in the xv^{th} year of his reign is entombed. In the year dcxxxv, the coronation of king Oswald, who after reigning nine years is crowned with martyrdom. In the year dcxxxvj the coronation of king Oswyny, who in the ix^{th} year of his reign being martyred, lies at Tynmouth. In the year dcclxxvj the coronation of king Ethelbrist, who in the viij^{th} year of his reign being made a martyr, was ...
— A Chronicle of London from 1089 to 1483 • Anonymous

... the light of bravado in her face, as if, though struck while the words came with the monstrosity of what she had done, she was incapable of abating a jot of it. "I notified her that he had faults and peculiarities that made mamma's life a long worry—a martyrdom that she hid wonderfully from the world, but that we saw and that I had often pitied. I told her what they were, these faults and peculiarities; I put the dots on the i's. I said it wasn't fair to let another person ...
— The Marriages • Henry James

... As soon as she had heard the words she forgot them, and let her thoughts rush back to the arena of their martyrdom. Hannaford took her hand and laid it on his arm. She allowed it to rest there, depending unconsciously on the support he gave. They did not speak again until they had reached the top of the hill, turned the corner, and arrived at the steps ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... other reasons equally good; so that she could not endure the thoughts of leaving the poor things behind her exposed to the mercy of Western, who, she doubted not, would in his rage make them suffer martyrdom. ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... preaching, and he wrote books. The only one of his works that I ever read was his Rules, and they are elegant. One of Jonathan's rules I learned by heart: 'When you feel pain, think of the pains of martyrdom and of hell.' You might try that. But whatever you try, don't forget the bitters—fruit of the cucumber tree in ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... we are told, was wont to bestow, as a mark of his special favor, presents of keys, in which had been worked up some filings of Saint Peter's chains, accompanied with a prayer that what had bound the apostle for martyrdom, might release the recipient ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence

... a juryman asked two searching questions of a witness, she showed no sign of perturbation, and avoided meeting the eyes in the jury-box, as though they belonged to basilisks. Was it only three days since the beginning of this excruciating martyrdom of soul; and how much longer could she endure ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... each parish gathered closer round their minister, who looked calmly upward and assumed a more apostolic dignity, as well befitted a candidate for the highest honor of his profession—a crown of martyrdom. It was actually fancied at that period that New England might have a John Rogers of her own to take the place of that worthy ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... olden Ghetto of the Eternal City; yet no lack of signs external by which one may know it, and those who dwell therein. Its narrow streets have no specialty of architecture; its dirt is not picturesque. It is no longer the stage for the high-buskined tragedy of massacre and martyrdom; only for the obscurer, deeper tragedy that evolves from the pressure of its own inward forces, and the long-drawn-out tragi-comedy of sordid and shifty poverty. Natheless, this London Ghetto of ours is a region where, amid uncleanness and squalor, the rose of ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... incense, the comfortable doctrines, often taught in the Scriptures, are here illustrated. First, That the redemption of the sinner is by the atoning sacrifice of Christ. Second, That after death,—especially by martyrdom, the soul is safe "under the altar,"—in fellowship with the Saviour. Third, That the soul, "made perfect in holiness," retains a deep conviction, that "vengeance belongs to God," (ch. xviii. 20; xix. 1-3.) Fourth, That "the spirits ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele

... exterminate the seeds of liberty when it has germinated in the blood of brave men. Our religion of to-day is still that of martyrdom; to-morrow it will ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... feelings of Dickens toward St. Francis and St. Sebastian, as the "Mounseer Tonsons" of Catholic art. St. Sebastian I have not been so tired of, for the beauty and youth of the figure make the monotony with which the subject of his martyrdom is treated somewhat less wearisome. But St. Francis is so sad, and so ecstatic, and so brown, so entirely the monk,—and St. Clara so entirely the nun! I have been very sorry for her that he was able to draw her from the human to the heavenly life; she seems so sad and so worn out by the effort. ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... experts in humanity. There he had seen what Love could do when it could rise higher than its human channels; he had seen young men, scarcely older than himself, set out for England, as for their bridals, exultant and on fire; and back to Rheims had come again the news of their martyrdom: this one died, crying to Jesu as a home-coming child cries to his mother at the garden-gate; this one had said nothing upon the scaffold, but his face (they said who brought the news) had been as the face of Stephen at his stoning; ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson

... word, at the tone of loathing, of abhorrence, of almost terror, in which he said it, but she held her terrible ground. She had begun her martyrdom, her agony of atonement for the sake of truth and love, and she must go through now to the end. "Yes," she said, "I am a murderess. Now you know all, and why you must ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various

... simple, and a life so private that it seems almost a wrong to speak of them publicly, yet a character so firm and tranquil and self-possessed that if necessary it would have met without doubt or hesitation any form of martyrdom, can hardly be described without apparent exaggeration. She was born, in our familiar phrase, a lady, and from the beginning, throughout a long life, she was surrounded with perfect ease of circumstance. She was singularly ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis

... now Vallandigham resolved to win the martyr's crown in very fact. In June, 1864, he prepared for the dramatic effect by carefully advertising his intention and came home. But to his great disappointment Lincoln ignored him, and the dramatic martyrdom which he had planned did ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson

... Mirabeau in the Pantheon, only to dig up his dishonoured remains and trundle them under an unmarked stone at the meeting of four streets, that it should set Bailly on a civic throne, only to drag him forth, under a freezing sky, to his long and dismal martyrdom amid a howling mob, that it should acclaim Lafayette as the Saviour of France, only to hunt him across the ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... attentions gradually ceasing, he had left her quite free to do what she pleased. She had never liked him, had always feared him. The long intermittent thraldom to his power had been an abomination to her, and it was martyrdom to ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... me," said she, "an' I will let him in." She walked to the door, stepping on buttons as she went, and conscious, when she broke them, of a bitter pleasure. It added to her martyrdom. ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown

... equipments you add goodness of heart, sincerity of conviction, and martyrdom for your opinions; you are, it would seem, like many others of us, the best fellow and greatest man of your acquaintance. Permit me to remind you that we are not talking of goodness of heart, of strength or beauty of character, but of success, which is a thing ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne

... mentioned above that it is quite clear that at that time, art had all but entirely disappeared. The edifices erected in Tuscany at the same time bear out this view to the fullest extent. The church outside the walls of Arezzo, built to St Donato, bishop of that city, who suffered martyrdom with Hilarion the monk, under the same Julian the Apostate, is in no way superior to the others, and this is only one of many. It cannot be contended that such a state of affairs was due to anything but the lack of good architects, ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari

... a man I hated. I hated him more after I married him than I did before. I lived three years in martyrdom. One day there came into my life a man whom I loved. He demanded that I should marry him, he asked me to fly with him to a heaven of happiness and love. He was a man of exceptional character, high and noble, whose only fault was that he loved me too much. Had I told him: 'I have deceived ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... upon the Stage, as your ingenious Correspondent phrases it, Mrs. Oldfield might still have spoke a merry Epilogue. We have an Instance of this in a Tragedy [2] where there is not only a Death but a Martyrdom. St. Catherine was there personated by Nell Gwin; she lies stone dead upon the Stage, but upon those Gentlemen's offering to remove her Body, whose Business it is to carry off the Slain in our English Tragedies, she breaks out into that abrupt Beginning of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... was roused to indignation by slanders against the character of Elizabeth; and he held, as almost every one now holds, that the attempt to make an innocent saint of Mary Stuart was futile. Even More and Fisher he refused to accept as candidates for the crown of martyrdom. They were both excellent men. More was, in some respects, a great man. They were certainly far more virtuous than the king who put them to death. But they were executed for treason, not for heresy, and to clear their memory it is necessary to show that ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... friend to the British government, as it exists in our beautiful island. I must say, though much I would like to live, that I cannot regret dying in the cause of Liberty and Ireland. It has been made dear to me by the sufferings of its people, by the martyrdom and exile of its best and noblest sons. The priest, the scholar, the soldier, the saint, have suffered and died, proudly, nobly: and why should I shrink from death in a cause made holy and glorious ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown

... trespassing imprudence, and knowing himself, by testimony of his household, his tenants, and the neighbourhood, and the world as well, amiable when he received his dues, he contemplated her with an air of stiff-backed ill-treatment, not devoid of a certain sanctification of martyrdom. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the sable and rugged furze, form an awful back-ground to this tragical scene, every way appropriate to the subject. The heavenly messengers seen in the glory above, bearing the palm branches as the emblem of reward for martyrdom, form the second light; the first being the sky and cloud, which gives relief to the black drapery of the wounded companion; while the rays of light from the emanation above, sparkling on the dark branches of the trees as so many diamonds, tie together by their light all ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt

... all Christmas atrocities were those perpetrated by the tyrant Diocletian, who became Emperor A.D. 284. The early years of his reign were characterised by some sort of religious toleration, but when his persecutions began many endured martyrdom, and the storm of his fury burst on the Christians in the year 303. A multitude of Christians of all ages had assembled to commemorate the Nativity in the temple at Nicomedia, in Bithynia, when the tyrant Emperor had the town surrounded ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... For in truth they both felt that in London Tib might at any time be laid hands on, and suffer at Smithfield for his opinions. The hope of being a comfort to Ambrose was perhaps the only idea that could have counterbalanced the sense that he ought not to fly from martyrdom; and as it proved, the invitation came only just in time. Three days after Tibble had been despatched by the Southampton carrier in charge of all the comforts Dennet could put together, Bishop Stokesley's grim "soumpnour" ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... forehead, and his breath came in shorter gasps. Malcolm and Lilias, standing near, likewise felt a sense of strange awe, for they too had heard of this relic, a supposed fragment of St. Andrew's own instrument of martyrdom, which had belonged to St. Margaret, and had been thought a palladium to the royal ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Prague, and its picturesque position, afforded great pleasure to her. The stirring and romantic history is well described—history, as Shelley truly says, is a record of crime and misery. The first reformers sprang up in Bohemia. The martyrdom of John Huss did not extinguish his enlightening influence; and while all the rest of Europe was enslaved in darkness, Bohemia was free with a pure religion. But such a bright example might not last, and Bohemia became a province ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti

... Christians numbered about one million, the fruit of half a century of apostolic labor accomplished in the midst of comparative peace. Another half-century of persecution was about to ruin this flourishing church, to cut off its pastors, more than two hundred of whom suffered martyrdom, and to leave its laity without the offices of religion.... The edicts ordering these measures remained in force for over two centuries." Tens of thousands of Christians preferred death to perjury. It was supposed that Christianity was entirely exterminated by the fearful and prolonged ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick

... thinks[730].' MAYO. 'Then, Sir, we are to remain always in errour, and truth never can prevail; and the magistrate was right in persecuting the first Christians.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, the only method by which religious truth can be established is by martyrdom. The magistrate has a right to enforce what he thinks; and he who is conscious of the truth has a right to suffer. I am afraid there is no other way of ascertaining the truth, but by persecution on the one hand and enduring it on the other[731].' GOLDSMITH. 'But how is a man to act, Sir? ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... knew I should!" she exclaimed. She quivered, and a kind of sob shook her; but even to have made Katharine angry was some relief, and allowed her to feel some of the agreeable sensations of martyrdom. ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... day was to be the first and last of her experience as a lady's-maid. Starvation itself should not compel her to hold such a humiliating post for another instant. 'Ah,' she thought, with a sigh, at the martyrdom of her last little fragment of self-conceit, 'Owen ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy

... was still more critical, was persuaded by Schuyler that his only safety was in going with him to Albany, which he did; and on this the Onondagas, excited by rum, plundered and burned the Jesuit mission-house and chapel.[128] Clearly, the two priests at Onondaga were less hungry for martyrdom than their murdered brethren Jogues, Brebeuf, Lalemant, and Charles Garnier; but it is to be remembered that the Canadian Jesuit of the first half of the seventeenth century was before all things an apostle, ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman

... But never that she was a creature to jump herself down into a gulf and be lost for ever. She's gone, extinguished—there she is, under the penitent's hoodcap with eyeholes, before the faggots! and that's what she has married!—a burning torment, and none of the joys of martyrdom. Oh! I'm not awake. But I never dreamed of such a thing as this—not the hard, bare, lump-of-earth-fact:—and that's the only thing to tell me I'm not ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... religious rite, and her short sleeves displayed her strong, little, despotic hands and arms, and when the servants ran about incessantly, bustling about the jam which they would never taste, there was always a feeling of martyrdom in the air. ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... dangerous; he's sincere—the most dangerous type of politician in the world—the honest visionary, in love with an abstract theory, capable of offering himself for martyrdom. Watch ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy

... antique—a hero that might have stepped forth into the sixteenth century from the page of Plutarch[8]—remained in the town serenely to await the death which he foreknew. On the day of the duke's entrance Bonivard, who had no such relish for martyrdom for its own sake, put himself between two of his most trusted friends, the lord of Voruz and the abbot of Montheron of the Pays de Vaud, and galloped away disguised as a monk. "Come first to my convent," said the abbot, "and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... established at an early date, for it was to Roman Christians that St. Paul addressed one of the Epistles now preserved in the New Testament. St. Paul visited Rome, as we know from the Acts of the Apostles, and there he is said to have suffered martyrdom. Christian tradition, very ancient and very generally received, declares that St. Peter also labored in Rome, where he met a martyr's death, perhaps during the reign of the emperor Nero. To the early Christians, therefore, the Roman Church must have seemed in the highest degree sacred, for ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... Christian churches throughout the Persian dominions, and by the arrest and punishment of all those who acknowledged themselves to believe the Gospel. A fearful slaughter of the Christians in Pergia followed during five years; some, eager for the earthly glory and the heavenly rewards of martyrdom, were forward to proclaim themselves members of the obnoxious sect; others, less courageous or less inclined to self-assertion, sought rather to conceal their creed; but these latter were carefully sought out, both in the towns and in the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson

... down in the dust and mire as stepping-stones, that those who come after may go over dryshod? Is the individual not to be considered, but only the good of the mass? Can there be justice and righteousness in a plan that requires the lifelong martyrdom of a few? Have not these few as much right to a full and free development, to liberty to work out their own ambitions, as have any of the multitude who reap the benefit of their sacrifices? But peace: this little existence is not all there is of life, and in the sphere of wider opportunities and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... reported: I was prayed at to move my spirit, and flogged to exercise my flesh. The prayers I soon learnt to laugh to scorn. The floggings, after they were over, crowned me with delicious sensations of martyrdom. Even while the sting lasted I could say, it's for Heriot and Julia! and it gave me a wonderful penetration into—the mournful ecstasy of love. Julia was sent away to a relative by the sea-side, because, one of the housemaids told me, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... suddenly, passing through a thick forest, there met him a monstrous lion, from whom he thought it impossible to escape, and having uttered a prayer for the happiness of his beloved, and repeated the testimony of martyrdom, he resigned himself to his fate, and waited the spring of his expected devourer. What was his surprise when the majestic animal, instead of making him his prey, on approaching close to him, having looked compassionately in his face, licked his hands, and ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... fruit. We never could believe that slavery in our land would be a perpetual curse; but we felt, and felt deeply, that there must be a terrible struggle before we could be delivered from it, and that there must be suffering and martyrdom in this cause, as in every other great cause; for a struggle of eighteen years had taught us its strength. And, under God, we rely very much on the Christian public of Great Britain; for every expression of feeling from the wise and good of this ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe

... contradicted so emphatically what Dr. Gunnip had told her she says she felt as if she had been dead and buried all those dreadful weeks and had come back to life. Miss Crilly insists that if it hadn't been for Miss Twining's "martyrdom" we never should have had "spunk" enough to go to Mr. Randolph with our awful story. I guess she is right. That stirred us up to do something. Miss Twining is pretty well now. She writes nearly every day, and as she ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd

... her father was exceeding the bounds of necessary hospitality. She felt, too, that the length of Dalton's first call was inexcusable. But she did not go to bed. As long as Becky was there, she should stay to chaperon her. With a sense of martyrdom upon her, Mrs. Beaufort sat ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey

... something real and eternal behind the transient flow of appearance, is religion. The desire to force upon others by violence, by trickery, by fire, by sword, by persecution, by magic, by persuasion, by eloquence, by martyrdom, an idea which is more important to us ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys



Words linked to "Martyrdom" :   calvary, affliction, death, decease, martyr, expiry



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