"Religious ceremony" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a trustworthy person," answered he, "told me how ye sacrifice children. Once a storm wrecked a number of tens of your vessels. Immediately the Tyrian priests announced a religious ceremony at which throngs of people collected." The prince spoke with evident indignation. "Before the temple of Baal situated on a lofty place was an immense bronze statue with the head of a bull. Its belly was red hot. At command of your priests the foolish Phoenician mothers put their most beautiful ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... being a representation of spiritual existence and a symbol of the continued life of the soul. The Russians have adapted this idea so completely that there is no marriage, betrothal, consecration, or burial, in fact no religious ceremony whatever without the use of lamp ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... centres for amusement, although the people look to them as their great pleasure of the year, it must not be forgotten that they are essentially religious feasts, holy days. Though there be no great ceremony of prayer, or of thanksgiving, no public joining in any religious ceremony, save, perhaps, the giving of alms to the monks, yet religion is the heart and soul of them. Their centre is the pagoda, their meaning is a ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... immense cortege resumed its march to the place where Louis XVI. had brought his head to the sacrilegious scaffold. The day chosen for the expiatory solemnity was the 3d of May, the anniversary of the return of Louis XVIII. to Paris in 1814, and then a political idea was connected with the religious ceremony. A vast pavilion surmounted by a cross hung with draperies in violet velvet, and enclosing an altar, which was reached on four sides by four stairways of ten steps each, occupied the very place where, the 10th of January, 1793, the scaffold of the ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... their form of worship and religious rites but also in that they breed lions as other people breed cattle. You have seen how they use some of these lions but the majority of them they fatten and eat. At first, I imagine, they ate lion meat as a part of their religious ceremony but after many generations they came to crave it so that now it is practically the only flesh they eat. They would, of course, rather die than eat the flesh of a bird, nor will they eat monkey's meat, while the herbivorous animals they raise only for milk, hides, and ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... ahaaina or luau, was made the opportunity for the exhibition of this dance. It seems to have been an expression of pure sportiveness and mirth-making, and was therefore performed without sacrifice or religious ceremony. While the king, chiefs, and aialo—courtiers who ate in the king's presence—are sitting with the guests about the festal board, two or three dancers of graceful carriage make a circuit of the place, ambling, capering, ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... Band for my Husband! My prayers and remonstrances were vain. They cast lots to decide to whose possession I should fall; I became the property of the infamous Baptiste. A Robber, who had once been a Monk, pronounced over us a burlesque rather than a religious Ceremony: I and my Children were delivered into the hands of my new Husband, and He conveyed us immediately ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... day. The third change was the enlarged range of subjects. The lyric dithyramb-tales were necessarily about Dionysus, and the interludes had, of course, to follow suit. Nothing in the world so tenaciously resists innovation as religious ceremony; and it is interesting to learn that the Athenian populace (then, as ever, eager for "some new thing'') nevertheless opposed at first the introduction of other tales. But the innovators won; or other-wise there would have been no Attic ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... completion of this religious ceremony, Camaranca approached with a numerous train. Azambuja, sumptuously dressed, and ornamented by a rich golden collar, prepared to receive the Negro chief, seated on an elevated chair, having all his retinue arranged before him, so as to form an avenue. The Negroes ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... not among unspoiled savages) in the case of that most shameless member of the community—the little boy." He adds that the native dances are only an apparent exception, being serious in character, though indecent to our eyes, almost constituting a religious ceremony. The only really indecent dance indigenous to Central Africa "is one which originally represented the act of coition, but it is so altered to a stereotyped formula that its exact purport is not obvious until explained somewhat ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... been settled to everybody's satisfaction, there was a religious ceremony such as had never before been seen under the canopy of heaven. The Pope and all his cardinals, in their robes of scarlet and gold, came across the Alps to anoint him with holy oil, and he was crowned Emperor, in the presence of the army ...
— Folk-Tales of Napoleon - The Napoleon of the People; Napoleonder • Honore de Balzac and Alexander Amphiteatrof
... The religious ceremony in the temple of the Guebres is very interesting, the officiating priests being dressed up in a long white garment, the sudra, held together by a sacred girdle, and with the lower portion of the face covered by a square piece of cloth like a handkerchief; ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... complain that cricket is becoming a business more than a game, as if that were not the most fortunate thing that could happen. When it ceases to be a mere business and becomes a religious ceremony, it will be a sign that the millennium is at hand. The person who regards cricket as anything less than a business is no fit companion, gentle reader, for the likes of you and me. As long as the game goes in his favour the cloven hoof may not show itself. But give him a good steady ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... took place between nine and ten in the morning, and was quite unlike any thing I had seen before. A stranger might have supposed it to be a religious ceremony, and the image the object of worship. Such, however, I am convinced was not the case, although I believe it to have had some connection with their superstitions, and that it was regarded in the light of ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... hands toward the roaring flame back there by the cliff, and all inclined themselves thereto, the only trace of any religious ceremony still ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... their morals are in the lowest state, grave crimes are seldom committed. Our government have made most laudable attempts to reclaim them, and in many instances, seconded by the devoted efforts of the missionaries, have met with great success. When I said they have no religious ceremony, I ought to have mentioned that when they are sick, they fancy that they are affected by an evil spirit, and so they send for a devil-dancer to drive it away. Something eatable is made as an offering to the evil spirit, and placed on a tripod of sticks. Before this the devil-dancer, who has ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... shameful flight their Caesar-king; and it is not uninteresting for the English traveler to remember, as he walks through the vast arcades of shops, in the form of a cross, by which the Milanese of to-day express their triumph in liberation from Teutonic rule, that the "Baldacchino" of all mediaeval religious ceremony owed its origin to the taste of the milliners of Milan, as the safety of the best knights in European battle rested on the ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... the lunch counter in the railroad eating- house, where he had boarded for ten years, and watch a stranger taking cash. He had watched Donna's mother so long that the vigil had become a part of his being—a sort of religious ceremony—and in this little tragedy of life no understudy could ever star for Harley P. Her beautiful sad eyes were closed forever now and the tri-daily joy of ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... must observe herself and which others must observe towards her. She may not touch any food which is to be preserved by salting, whether it be fish, flesh, or vegetables; for were she to touch it the food would putrefy. She may not enter any sacred place, she may not be present at any religious ceremony. The linen which she wears at such times must be washed by herself at sunrise, never at night. On reaching puberty girls may not touch flowers or the fruits of certain trees, for touched by them the flowers ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... to themselves 'Njais,' or house-keepers. The same thing is done in other colonies, at least in provinces far removed from European society, when native customs allow it. The ancient customs of the Malays and Javanese did not prescribe any religious ceremony for marriages; they had their 'adat,' or customs, which were as strictly adhered to as if they had been religious, but there was nothing consecrating the marriage tie. Moreover, their notions of hospitality, ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... could you imagine that I should be satisfied with a civil ceremony? My father also insists upon a religious ceremony; and my Athanase told him he was willing to marry me in every church in America. I am not Gertrude Kippon! No, indeed! I insist on everything being done in a moral and respectable manner. My father spoke of Doctor Kunz ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... a marriage is proposed whether he ties a knot in the right or left half of his Shikha or scalp-lock during his prayers and whether he washes his right or left foot first in the performance of a religious ceremony. ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... Third was conceived as a Song of the Great Pan—his "gaya scienza," Mahler would have liked to call it. In the Fourth he sought to open the heart of a child; in the Sixth, to voice his desolation and loneliness and hopelessness; in the Eighth, to perform a great religious ceremony; in "Das Lied von der Erde" to ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... part of the religious ceremony? thought Deronda, not knowing what might be expected of the ancient hero. But he heard a "Yes" from the next room, which made him look toward the open door; and there, to his astonishment, he saw the figure of the enigmatic Jew whom he had this morning met with in the book-shop. ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... had never heard the word "exorcised" uttered aloud before, though he had, of course, come across it in books. "Do you mean driving out the devil by means of a religious ceremony?" ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... met at night, and by the fitful light of the moon they pledged themselves to the rash and fanciful contract, and confirmed and consecrated it the next morning, by a religious ceremony. After this they were able to look the approaching separation in the face more manfully, and Edward strove hard to quell the melancholy feeling which had lately arisen in his mind on account of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... of savage religious ceremony, your Majesty. According to the admiral, the dunes by the seashore where he landed were covered with a multitude of men behaving just as this man is doing. They had sticks in their hands and they struck with these at small round objects. And every ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... Nobili's lawyer three days to decide. At the expiration of that time Signore Guglielmi met him again. Count Nobili's lawyer declared that with the utmost difficulty he had prevailed upon his client to make good the contract by the religious ceremony of marriage. Let every thing therefore be ready for the ceremony. This letter is private. You will say nothing further to my niece than that Count Nobili will arrive at Corellia at two o'clock the day after to-morrow to ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... was conducting some religious ceremony, and looked on with appropriate solemnity, but, on being informed of the mistake, Grabantak smiled graciously and requested a "whiff." He received one, and immediately made such a hideous face that Anders could not restrain a short laugh, whereupon the chief hit him over the head ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... great respect and then with due solemnity enacted their form of sacred worship. Quite to the astonishment of the white people, this ceremony consisted of the open performance of the sexual act by a young Indian man and woman. This was entirely a religious ceremony, and was fittingly respected by all the ...
— The Sex Worship and Symbolism of Primitive Races - An Interpretation • Sanger Brown, II
... were paid to his memory at many other places through Greece. At Salona, where the Congress had assembled, his soul was prayed for in the Church; after which the whole garrison and the citizens went out into the plain, where another religious ceremony took place, under the shade of the olive trees. This being concluded, the troops fired; and an oration, full of the warmest praise and gratitude, was pronounced by the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... sea-horses, and driven by a sea god: the train followed in the persons of the lawyers, barbers, and painters. The whole pageant was well dressed, and going in procession, fully as picturesque as any antique triumphal or religious ceremony; the fine forms of some of the actors struck me exceedingly. I never saw marble more beautiful than some of the backs and shoulders displayed; and the singular clothing to imitate fishes instead of legs, and seaweed skirts, which they had all ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... regulation of tolls in. Markets, citizens of London forbidden to trade in. Marlborough, statute of. Marriage (see also Miscegenation), jurisdiction over first in church; is a sacrament by Roman view; creates a status; not a mere contract at common law; forbidden between English and Irish; religious ceremony first dispensed with under Cromwell; between first cousins invalid in Pennsylvania; modern legislation; may be forbidden to parties of different races; discussion of the common-law marriage; now abolished in New York; the ceremony; chapter concerning, chapter ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... collect and raise up in place the stone, and earth, and adobe material of these pyramids, and to make the great levellings and excavations upon these inaccessible summits. They were cities, as well as mere places of religious ceremony, and a large number of people must have dwelt in ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... a civil contract has to precede any religious ceremony that may be desired. In England the marriage is either religious or civil, though in order to make the union valid certain legal formalities must be observed with every religious ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... establish or endow any religion, or prohibit the free exercise thereof, or give a preference, privilege, or advantage, or impose any disability or disadvantage, on account of religious belief or religious or ecclesiastical status, or make any religious belief or religious ceremony a condition of ...
— Home Rule - Second Edition • Harold Spender
... of Anne Boleyn, though his feelings afterward were entirely changed. He determined on giving to the infant a very splendid christening. The usage in the Church of England is to make the christening of a child not merely a solemn religious ceremony, but a great festive occasion of congratulations and rejoicing. The unconscious subject of the ceremony is taken to the church. Certain near and distinguished friends, gentlemen and ladies, appear as godfathers and godmothers, as they are termed, to the child. ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... The religious ceremony was finished. The priests retired first, then the pious followed; the indifferent and curious remained till the last. Among this number were several women. Buvat asked if there was none among them who knew a good sick-nurse. One of them presented herself ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... cloister and the finishing of further business before they assembled again in time to go into church for the high mass, at which the work and prayers of the day were gathered up and consecrated in a supreme offering. Even the dinner that followed was a religious ceremony; it began by a salutation of the Christ in glory that was on the wall over the Prior's table, and then a long grace was sung before they took their seats. The reader in the stone-pulpit on the south wall ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... punishment of death is decreed against all concerned in a fatal duel. The bodies of those killed, and of those who may be executed in consequence, are to be buried in unconsecrated ground, and without any religious ceremony; nor is any monument to be erected on the spot. The punishment for duels in which either, or both, are wounded, and for those in which no damage whatever is done, varies according to the case, and consists of fine, imprisonment, loss of rank and honours, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... look at his canvas on the sudden, actually moving their mouths, to laugh and speak and munch their crusts, all at once) the scene in the Lysis of the dice-players. There the boys are! in full dress, to take part in a religious ceremony. It is scarcely over; but they are already busy with the knuckle-bones, some just outside the door, others in a corner. Though Plato never tells one without due motive, yet he loves a story for its own sake, ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... not have come to pass if people had clear ideas of what Marriage really is. Marriage is a great deal more than simply a civil contract. It is a divine institution, "an honorable estate, instituted {182} by God in the time of man's innocency." It is a religious ceremony and is sacramental in character. It ought, therefore, to be clearly understood that marriage simply by a "squire" or other legal officer, detracts from the sacredness and dignity of "this holy estate," and belittles the binding character of the "marriage tie." Even a secular paper could declare, ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller
... indirectness, reached a somewhat singular conclusion. She would hear nothing of a civil marriage, because a civil marriage was no marriage in the eyes of Pope and prelate. On the other hand, she did not wish Gambetta to mar his political career by going through a religious ceremony. She had heard from a priest that the Church recognized two forms of betrothal. The usual one looked to a marriage in the future and gave no marriage privileges until after the formal ceremony. But ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... female saint, and screaming in chorus with all their might. Those who had no candles, ran about with little dishes, vociferously begging money to buy some; and in spite of the respect with which one would wish to consider whatever fellow Christians choose to denominate, in pure earnest, a religious ceremony, it was impossible not to be reminded, by the petitions of these sucking Catholics, of Guy Fawkes's little votaries on the fifth of November. We thought involuntarily of a boy who had followed us that very morning into the church of St. Didier, tossing ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... affront the ruling powers on this day of general good-will and rejoicing?" sternly demanded the bailiff, when the minions of the law and their captives stood fairly before him. "Do ye not know, knaves, that this is a solemn, almost a religious ceremony at Vevey—for so it would be considered by the ancients at least—and that a crime is doubly a crime when committed either in an honorable presence, on a solemn and dignified occasion, like this, or against the authorities;—this last being always ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... praesenti in faciem ecclesiae is termed 'nguaggiarisi (and hence the dress above mentioned, l'abitu di lu 'nguaggiu), but the contracting parties are not yet man and wife; and to become so it is necessary to undergo another religious ceremony, which consists in hearing mass and kneeling before the altar holding a lighted wax candle while the priest bestows on them the benediction pro sponso et sponsa. The old legal grants (concessi) to young girls who married could not, nor can they now, be claimed without this ceremony; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... all French parents give a dot of some kind to their children, and whatever the sum is, either five hundred francs or two thousand, it is always scrupulously paid over to the notary. The wedding-day is a long one. After the religious ceremony in the church, all the wedding party—members of the two families and a certain number of friends—adjourn to the hotel of the little town for a breakfast, which is long and most abundant. Then comes the crowning glory ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... friendly manner, and break their bread together, in remembrance of their last supper with him, or if as Jews, they could not all at once leave off the custom of the passover, in which they had been born and educated as a religious ceremony, to celebrate it, as he had then modified and spiritualized it, with a ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... a religious ceremony, which all the crowned heads and other great personages were expected to attend. Two of the sovereigns or heirs-apparent present were Roman Catholics, one was a Protestant, and one a Mohammedan. The Crescent and the Cross for the first ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... dissatisfaction with his daughter Matilda, and had expressed his intention of leaving the Count of Boulogne heir to all his dominions [d]. [MN 1135. 22d. Dec.] William, either believing, of feigning to believe, Bigod's testimony, anointed Stephen, and put the crown upon his head; and from this religious ceremony that prince, without any shadow either of hereditary title, or consent of the nobility or people, was allowed to proceed to the exercise of sovereign authority. Very few barons attended his coronation [e]; but none ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... May arrived. Thinking a religious ceremony unnecessary, as they had issued no invitations, the couple were married at a magistrate's and took the six o'clock train ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... welfare services for their members, made some attempts towards standardization of products and prices, imposed taxes upon their members, kept their streets clean and tried to regulate salaries. Apprentices were initiated in a kind of semi-religious ceremony, and often meetings took place in temples. No guild, however, connected people of the same craft living in different cities. Thus, they did not achieve political power. Furthermore, each trade had its own guild; in Peking in the nineteenth century there existed ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... Bryhim, the old governor of Mogodor, had twelve or more children, and four wives, who were all attacked, and died (except only one young wife); he attended them successively to the grave, and notwithstanding that he assisted in performing the religious ceremony of washing the body, he never himself caught the infection; he lived some years afterwards, and out of the whole household, consisting of wives, concubines, children, and slaves, he had but one person left, which was the before-mentioned young wife: this lady, however, had received the infection, ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... private cults. Divination by means of the liver was an official cult and bore only on public affairs, and there was in its determination a ritual. Astrology, on the contrary, was largely a private affair, and needed but an observation of the heavens, which was done without religious ceremony. When, however, a cult became very popular, the priests were not slow to add ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... about ten yards of ground, there was no appearance of any shape in their arrangement. I am still puzzled, to determine whether they were merely the results of childish amusement, or had performed their part in some magical incantation or religious ceremony of the natives. I am the more inclined to think it was the latter, as there was a native grave near, covered with the same kind of flat stones, to the height of about three feet. We had not before observed anything like it, neither did we afterwards. ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... when he was praising Rameau's chorus of "Castor and Pollux," an admirer of his flattered him with the remark, "But what a difference between this chorus and that of your 'Iphigenie'!" "Yet it is very well done," said Gluck; "one is only a religious ceremony, the other is a real funeral." He was wont to say that in composing he always tried to forget ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... you now by what arguments Dr. Voss, at first merely my benefactor, sparing me a portion of his small modicum, at length persuaded me to become his wife. His wife he called it, I called it; for we went through the religious ceremony too much slighted at the time, and as we were both Lutherans, and M. de la Tourelle had pretended to be of the reformed religion, a divorce from the latter would have been easily procurable by German law both ecclesiastical and legal, ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... speaking, the husbandman should plough with not fewer than four bullocks; but few can afford this. If he plough with a cow or a bullock, and not with a bull, the rice produced by his ground is unclean, and may not be used in any religious ceremony. ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... this promise of the 'Solitary,' and long after, it was my wish, and I might say intention, that we should resume our wanderings and pass the borders into his native country, where, as I hoped, he might witness, in the society of the 'Wanderer,' some religious ceremony—a sacrament say, in the open fields, or a preaching among the mountains, which, by recalling to his mind the days of his early childhood, when he had been present on such occasions in company with his parents and nearest kindred, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... story. This young woman committed suicide, and that is the reason why she cannot be buried with any religious ceremony. The gentleman who is walking first, and who is crying, is ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... rejected suitor bore the blow like a stoic. He would conquer, he said, such disturbing earthly emotions; why should they be a thicket in the way of his work for Christ? The betrothal was sealed in a religious ceremony. Young Zinzendorf composed a cantata for the occasion {March 9th, 1721.}; the cantata was sung, with orchestral accompaniment, in the presence of the whole house of Castell; and at the conclusion of the festive scene ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... fixed for the beginning of the work on the new city—the 21st of April—was a day of religious ceremony and festival among the shepherds. On this day they offered sacrifices of cakes and milk to their god Pales, asked for blessings on the flocks and herds, and implored pardon for all offences against the dryads of the woods, the nymphs of the streams, and other deities. They purified themselves ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... had recently been executed. Minna von Stachelberg left her hospital, with some one else in charge, and insisted on accompanying Vivie to the interment. This might have been purely "laic"; not on account of any harsh dislike to the religious ceremony on Vivie's part; only due to the fact that she knew no priest or pastor. But there appeared at the grave-side to make a very suitable and touching discourse and to utter one or two heartfelt prayers, a Belgian Baptist minister, ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... and wiped it on the napkin. It wuzn't very dirty, I spoze; his folks had tended to that, and got off the worst of it. But he had had his foot washed by a Emperor, and I spoze he felt his oats more or less, as the sayin' is in rural districts, though he orten't to, seein' it wuz a religious ceremony to inculcate humility, and the old man ort to felt it too, as well as the Emperor. But howsumever, the hull twelve on 'em had their feet washed and wiped by nobility. And that bein' done, the Emperor, Crown Prince, and all the arch dukes, etc., ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... to reject those candidates who might prove, by any scar or blemish not to come expressly within the meaning of the old king's will. Twelve old fakirs, and twenty-four mollahs with spectacles, were appointed as examining officers. It was supposed, as this was a religious ceremony, that all the females of Souffra, who were remarkable for their piety, would not fail to attend—and all the world were eager for the commencement of the examination. O then it was pleasant to see the running, and mounting, and racing, among the young Souffrarian rayahs, who were expected to be ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the marriage carried out, devoid of all but its religious ceremony. I want to spend one month in the home prepared for us, and then I will submit to the ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... manifestations of themselves. Apollo for ninety generations had spoken in Delphi. At Epidauros there was a shrine of Asclepias. Its monuments have been collected and edited by Dr. Caton of Liverpool. There sick men and women came, lived a quiet life of diet and religious ceremony, preparing for the night on which they should sleep in the temple. On that night the god came to them, they said, in that mood or state where they lay "between asleep and awake, sometimes as in a dream and then as in a waking ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... ears, after the fashion of many years ago in the United States. They all wore ornaments in their ears, and around their ankles. The material of their dresses was various, some of it quite rich, with pearls and gold in places. They looked quite serious, as though they were about to engage in a religious ceremony, though it had no such connection. Some of them were decidedly pretty, though their style of beauty was not entirely to the taste of the Americans. They had black eyes, and they looked the visitors full in the ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... A religious ceremony was first held, and then the duke rose to his feet and addressed the barons. He first recalled to them the promise that Edward of England had made to him, and then went on: "The saints have worked in my favour," ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... almost a religious ceremony, as well as a remedy for certain maladies or states of mind. The "pipe of peace" has become proverbial. Nevertheless tobacco was still unknown in the eighteenth century to many of the Pacific-coast and far-north-west tribes, as to the primitive Eskimo. ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... a complete loss of faith: secondly, that I was beyond the pale of the Church; thirdly, that in consequence I could not partake of any sacrament, and that he advised me not to take part in any outward religious ceremony; fourthly, that I could not without being guilty of deception, continue another day to pass as an ecclesiastic, and so forth." In all that did not relate to the appreciation of my condition, he was as kind as any one possibly could be. The priests of St. Sulpice and M. Gratry were ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... was received honourably by that saint. And the king seated himself near the ascetic, and entered into a delightful conversation of an auspicious kind. Then, O king, the son of Bhrigu spake to the king these words of a soothing nature: 'I shall, O king, officiate at a religious ceremony to be performed by thee: let the requisite articles, therefore, be procured.' Thereat, that protector of earth Saryati, experienced the very height of joy, and O great king, he expressed his approbation of the proposal made by Chyavana. And on an auspicious day, suitable ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... acting in masks, which, as they bore only a caricature resemblance of their own faces, showed that the poet, in his observations, did not mean to be taken literally. Like tragedy, comedy constituted part of a religious ceremony; and the character of the deity to whom it was more particularly dedicated was stamped at times pretty visibly upon the work which was composed in his honor. The Dionysian festivals were the great ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... Fortunately he was rescued, and the shock did not stay his return to mental soundness. One incident of this painful episode is worth mentioning. Lamennais, then in the height of his Catholic exaltation, persuaded Comte's mother to insist on her son being married with the religious ceremony, and as the younger Madame Comte apparently did not resist, the rite was duly performed, in spite of the fact that the unfortunate man was at the time neither more nor less than raving mad. To such shocking ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 10: Auguste Comte • John Morley
... chief incidents of our pleasant sojourn was afforded by Governor Ivanoff. We were invited to head the procession of the Cossacks on their annual departure for their summer encampment in the mountains. After the usual religious ceremony, they filed out from the city parade-ground. Being unavoidably detained for a few moments, we did not come up until some time after the column had started. As we dashed by to the front with the American and Russian flags fluttering side by side ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... civil formalities and the religious ceremony the wedding party went to Anna's house. Among those whom the Tailles had brought was a cousin of a certain age, a Monsieur Sauvetanin, a man given to philosophical reflections, serious, and always very self-possessed, and Madame ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... the coronation was drawing near. Napoleon, who had already received the official recognition of foreign powers, was anxious to have his Imperial title consecrated by a great religious ceremony, the fame of which should resound throughout the whole Catholic world. The first date proposed for the solemnity was the 26th Messidor, Year XII. (July 14, 1804), then that of the 18th Brumaire, Year XIII. (Nov. 9, ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... first hung up by the hind legs, its throat was cut, care being taken, in effecting this, not to wound the windpipe. The blood, as it flowed, was caught in a calabash, and then given to the priest, probably to be reserved for some religious ceremony. The next process was to skin the animal, in doing which the operator commenced with a fore leg, then the corresponding hind one, then the other fore leg, and so on; he then proceeded to the abdomen, and afterwards completed the operation in the usual manner. The gall-bag and bladder were ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... already prepared all his officers, who were entirely devoted to his service, and received every impression he gave them. He then came suddenly into the assembly with a crown upon his head, dressed in a magnificent habit, and with the air and behaviour of a man who was going to perform some religious ceremony, and addressing himself to the assembly: "When we," says he, "left Syracuse, and were warmly pursued by the enemy; in this fatal necessity I addressed myself to Ceres and Proserpine, the tutelar divinities of Sicily; and promised, that if they would free us from this imminent danger, I would ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... substantial dinner. The whole hall was filled with people, all with their hats on, chattering and jostling, and more like a ring of blacklegs and blackguards at Tattersall's than respectable company at a religious ceremony in the palace of the Pope. There remained the cardinals' dinner, but I had had more than enough, and came away hot, jaded, and ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Coupeau's comrades who frequented the "Assommoir." The day was excessively hot. At the mayor's they had to wait their turn and thus were late at the church. On the way the men had some beer and after the religious ceremony they adjourned to a wine-shop. Then a heavy storm preventing a proposed excursion into the country before dinner, they went to the Louvre. The general opinion was that the pictures were quite wonderful. Shut out of the galleries with still two hours to spare, the party decided to take a short ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Craft in the thing, for whatever Provisions were put there it appeared very plain to us that there it remain'd until it consumed away of itself. It is most likely that we shall see more of this before we leave the Island, but if it is a Religious ceremony we may not be able to understand it, for the Misteries of most Religions are very Dark and not easily understood, even by those who ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... public religious ceremony. They acknowledge two superior beings—a good one and a bad one. They pray to the latter not to hurt them, and they are of opinion that the former is too good to do the man injury. I suspect, if the truth were known, the individuals of the village never offer up a single prayer ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... in the church some great religious ceremony had been going forward; the organ playing and the white-robed priests bowing, gesticulating, and making Latin prayers at the high altar, where at least a hundred wax tapers were burning in constellations. Everybody knelt, except ourselves, yet seemed not to be troubled by the ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the great room of Cedar House. To have permitted the cook to make the morning coffee in the kitchen, would have been in Miss Penelope's eyes, to relegate a sacred rite to profane hands in an unconsecrated place. Her own making of the morning coffee had indeed much of the solemnity of a religious ceremony—or would have had, if those who looked on, had been unable to hear, or even slightly dull of hearing. For the sound of Miss Penelope's voice was charming when the listener could not hear what it said. And her dulcet tone always ran through the whole performance like the faint, ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... sound of carriages that could be heard came up from Beaumont-la-Ville, the new town on the banks of the Ligneul, where many of the factories were not closed, as the proprietors disdained taking part in this ancient religious ceremony. ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... at serious things from their absurd and ridiculous side, he feared he had done the same with regard to some religious ceremony, he at once hastened to explain himself. Thus he writes to ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... evening, after visiting the palaces, Mr. Robinson carried Mr. West to see a grand religious ceremony in one of the churches. Hitherto he was acquainted only with the simple worship of the Quakers. The pomp of the papal ceremonies was as much beyond his comprehension, as the overpowering excellence of the music surpassed his utmost expectations. Undoubtedly, ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... of another of the Hagia Triada finds arises from the fact that it appears to represent a religious ceremony in honour of the dead. The object in question is a limestone sarcophagus covered with plaster, on which various funerary ceremonies are painted. The artistic merit of the work is small, for the figures are badly drawn and carelessly painted, and in all likelihood represent ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... Professor's encomium. Rearranging their quarters. Putting up new buildings. The barley thief. Making bread. The chief at Cataract. Crutches. The novelty to him. Learning to walk. His amazement at the workshop. Trying to talk. Threshing barley. The grist mill. The home-made violin. Dancing. A religious ceremony. Different national customs ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... in the white robes of a sacrificer, took his sacred images in his arms, and went out of the Capitol, through the midst of the enemy, through the ruins to the accustomed alter, and there preformed the regular rites. The Gauls, seeing that it was a religious ceremony, let him pass through them untouched, and he returned in safety; but Brennus was resolved on completing his conquest, and while half his forces went out to plunder, he remained with the other half, watching the moment to effect an entrance into the Capitol; and how were the defenders, worn ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... said, Imus, passing through Zapote and Bacoor on the afternoon of the eighth, and we were there till the thirteenth of the same month of April, without having in all this time any religious ceremony, except on Palm Sunday, when we had a mass said by an Augustino; one of those who had come from Manila to take charge of ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... the social and religious life of the people. No marriage can be performed unless the horoscope of the bride and the bridegroom harmonize. No social or domestic event of importance, and specially no religious ceremony of any consequence, can be carried on save during what are called auspicious days and moments. Astrology is the right hand of Hinduism, and it has supreme authority in the direction of ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... scarcely less than the mystery of conception. Some uncivilized tribes believed that the after-birth was animated like the child; consequently they spoke of it as "the other half," and often saved it to give to the child in case of sickness. But generally the after- birth was buried with religious ceremony, and was occasionally unearthed later to discover whether the woman would have other children; the prophecy was made according to the manner of disintegration or some other ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... procession he has "wept abundantly." How English, in truth, all this really is! It reminds one how some of the most popular of English writers, in many a half-conscious expression, have witnessed to a susceptibility in the English mind itself, in spite of the Reformation, to what is affecting in religious ceremony. Only, in religion as in politics, Browne had no turn for disputes; was suspicious of them, indeed; knowing, as he says with true acumen, that "a man may be in as just possession of truth as of a city, and yet be forced to surrender," even in controversies not [132] necessarily ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... Thus, in Cat. Br. vi. 2. 1. 18: "He kills a man first.... The cord that holds the man is the longest." It is noteworthy that also among the American Indians the death of a human victim by fire was regarded as a religious ceremony, and that, just as in India the man to be sacrificed was allowed almost all his desires for a year, so the victim of the Indian was first greeted as brother and presented with gifts, even ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... scale, was, to a professional man, not to be slighted; and accordingly I determined upon making the most of the spectacle before me. Looking accidentally down my favourite crypt, I observed that some religious ceremony was going on there. The northern grate, or entrance, being open, I descended a flight of steps, and quickly became an inmate of this subterraneous abode. The first object that struck me was, the warm glow of day light which darted upon the broad pink cross of the ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... and affable that Mr. Barnum at length ventured to ask a favor of him. The Longchamps celebration was close at hand—a day once devoted to religious ceremony, but now conspicuous for the display of court and fashionable equipages in the various drives and parks—and after the King had conversed with Mr. Barnum on various topics in a familiar manner, the diplomatic showman remarked that he had hastened his ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... spoken of in the past tense also are, I fear, the Christ-tide customs of Wales—the Mari Lhoyd, or Lwyd, answering to the Kentish Hodening, and the Pulgen, or the Crowning of the Cock, which was a simple religious ceremony. About three o'clock on Christmas morning the Welsh in many parts used to assemble in church, and, after prayers and a sermon, continue there singing psalms and hymns with great devotion till it was daylight; and if, through age or infirmity, any were disabled from attending, they never failed ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... words were uttered, he stood up and bared his head as the guide had done. When Marco gave the Sign in some quiet place to a man who was alone, he noticed that they all did this and said their "God be thanked" devoutly, as if it were part of some religious ceremony. In a small town a few miles away he had to search some hours before he found a stalwart young shoemaker with bright red hair and a horseshoe-shaped scar on his forehead. He was not in his workshop when the boys first passed it, because, as ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... steamer, being of the best quality, and highly valued. Their exportation is prohibited by the African [154] authorities at Tafilat, unless the fruit crop has been large enough to allow thereof after gathering the harvest with much religious ceremony. ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... or walk on red-hot bricks or glowing coals, is a sort of religious ceremony practiced in the Indies, in some of the Polynesian islands, in Mauritius and elsewhere. As the result of incantations uttered by the high priest, the bare feet of the faithful who follow him upon the bed of burning pebbles or brands ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... the body to be brought to the church, despite the distracted entreaties of the two women. The baron was interred at twilight without any religious ceremony. ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... and soap is only to convince them that you do not care whether they live or die, and wish to save money at their expense. So you perform the incantation; and back they go to their houses, satisfied. A religious ceremony—a poetic blessing of the threshold, for instance—would be much better; but unfortunately our religion is weak on the sanitary side. One of the worst misfortunes of Christendom was that reaction against the voluptuous bathing ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... that perpetual blackness there was no such thing as day. We saw no one save Desiree and the serving men. Once a messenger appeared carrying a bundle of quipos; I was able to decipher their meaning sufficiently to understand that we were invited to some religious ceremony in the great cavern. But I thought it injudicious to allow a meeting between Harry and the king, ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... and other sources the wealth which poured in upon the Church was enormous. Individual gifts in money or in kind as thank-offerings on all sorts of occasions reached no small of the total; while no religious ceremony, from baptism to extreme unction and burial, could be carried out apart from the payment of an appropriate fee. The clergy constantly complained of spoliation, and no doubt individuals suffered ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... schools have been founded: One of the principal teachers died, and over her grave her husband pronounced these words,—"I will tell you, for it is my duty to tell you, that if this funeral is that of a free-thinker" [unaccompanied by any religious ceremony], "it is so not only by my wish, but also and chiefly because such was the desire of my dear wife." He adds that she had devoted herself to "the great work of spreading education and morality without religion, ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller |
