"Stumbling-block" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... days of enlightenment and progress, while humane feelings are taking the place of spite and hatred among the civilized nations, and religious prejudice is giving way to good will and tolerance, Rome is, from the Vatican point of view, the stumbling-block of every honest effort in the purification of the individual heart and the uplifting of the millions of souls that are downtrodden under the sandals of hyenical monks. When the Pope, a few months ago, rejected ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden
... they be charged with disobedience if they were just doing what they were appointed to do? If Christ was put before those unbelievers for the purpose of making them disobey, then would not this be to put a stumbling-block in their way? Surely such conduct is infinitely the opposite ...
— The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election • Robert Wallace
... them.' 'There shall be no stumbling-block to them.' The higher love casts out the lower. It is well, when, by reinforcing conscience by considerations of duty, or even sometimes by the lower thoughts of consequences, a man is able to pass by a temptation ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... answered, 'there is no stumbling-block. I would marry you to-morrow, if I felt that I could love you as a wife ought to love her husband. I said once—only a little while ago—that I would marry for money. I find that I am not so ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... yellow oxalis and the creeping white houstonia; and from a crevice in the wall, out of reach, leaned a stalk of goldenrod in full bloom. The reader may smile, if he will, but this last flower was a surprise and a stumbling-block. A vernal goldenrod! Dr. Chapman's Flora made no mention of such an anomaly. Sow thistles, too, looked strangely anachronistic. I had never thought of them as harbingers of springtime. The truth did not break upon me till a week or so afterward. Then, on the way to the beach at Daytona, where ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... "we have the habit of studying closely the things which chance to lie at our feet, giving but a look at the greater objects in the distance. Thou seest now but the title—KING OF THE JEWS; wilt thou lift thine eyes to the mystery beyond it, the stumbling-block will disappear. Of the title, a word. Thy Israel hath seen better days—days in which God called thy people endearingly his people, and dealt with them through prophets. Now, if in those days he promised them the Savior I saw—promised him as KING OF THE JEWS—the appearance ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... God to me, a poor worthless worm! After the prayer-meeting, two of the friends begged me in future to engage occasionally in public prayer. I have not done so latterly, because it is a mighty effort to me. But God forbid that my silence should be a stumbling-block to any. At the morning prayer-meeting, unasked, but not unmoved, I feebly opened my mouth, believing it to be my duty; and was blest in so doing.—This morning I awoke with 'Give unto the Lord of Thy substance.' Being about to purchase wearing apparel, I ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... but ill to this interpretation, but texts never present difficulties to any one but the pundits; the poetry of the people is more subtle than science: it can never be held in check, and it overcomes the obstacles which prove a stumbling-block to criticism. By a happy turn of the imagination popular fancy has welded the two Marys together and thus created the marvellous type of Mary Magdalen. It has been made sacred by legend, and it ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France
... reputation, contributed to increase his influence, although it laid the foundation of many evils. Nor is it possible for a republic to enact a law more pernicious than one relating to matters which have long transpired. Piero having favored this law, which had been contrived by his enemies for his stumbling-block, it became the stepping-stone to his greatness; for, making himself the leader of this new order of things, his authority went on increasing, and he was in greater favor with the Guelphs ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... would be good to him all might yet be well. He had come by that time to lose his assurance. He had recognized Harry Annesley as his enemy, as has been told often enough in these pages. Harry was to him a hateful stumbling-block. And he had not been quite as sure of her fidelity to another as Harry had been sure of it to himself. Tretton might prevail. Trettons do so often prevail. And the girl's mother was all on his side. So he had gone to Cheltenham, true ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... avoid this stumbling-block. They know nothing of the delights of contemplation, from which arise ripe resolutions ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke
... privilege to have it; but how few of us have that royal nature which claims all our rights! The cross of Christ! There are still Jewish minds to whom it is a stumbling-block; and still more minds of the Greek type to ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... and that a Hindu might escape paying it by staying at home, yet argued that as the making of pilgrimages constituted a part of the Hindu religion, and was, in a sense, a Hindu form of rendering homage to the Almighty, it would be wrong to throw the smallest stumbling-block in the way of this manifestation of their submission to that which they regarded as a divine ordinance. He ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... I set it forth aright, I know not, but thus it looks to me. And one thing I cannot forget—it meets me in the face—that some at least,—who knows if not all?—of the purest of men have counted themselves the greatest sinners! Neither can I forget that other saying of our Lord, a stumbling-block to many—our Lord was not so careful as perhaps some would have had him, lest men should stumble at the truth—The first shall be last and the last first. While our Lord spoke the words: The time cometh that whosoever killeth ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... this the political theorists who regard sovereign representation and perpetual tenure of office as essential conditions of monarchy. But the inconsistency of the ideas is as glaring as the parity of the doctrines is exact: consequently the dogma of immortality soon became the stumbling-block of philosophical theologians, who, ever since the days of Pythagoras and Orpheus, have been making futile attempts to harmonize divine attributes with human liberty, and reason with faith. A subject of triumph for the impious! . . ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... it would be different. There would lie the stumbling-block; but with all danger from the Browning ended, the girl was in no mood to borrow trouble for the future, even a future already rushing into the arms ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... to find myself studying my subject under the international arcades, or yet (I will go the length of saying) in the solemn presence of the church. For indeed in that case I foresee I should become still more confoundingly conscious of the stumbling-block that inevitably, even with his first few words, crops up in the path of the lover of Venice who rashly addresses himself to expression. "Venetian life" is a mere literary convention, though it be an indispensable figure. The words have played an effective ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... the agent. The first seeks that happiness in external circumstances; the second and third in psychological conditions. There is, however, a fourth kind of motive which may be urged, and which is the peculiar characteristic of the intuitive school of moralists and the stumbling-block of its opponents. It is asserted that we are so constituted that the notion of duty furnishes in itself a natural motive of action of the highest order, and wholly distinct from all the refinements and modifications of self-interest. The coactive force of this motive is altogether ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... should have said more; but here again his lack of moral courage proved his stumbling-block, and he weakly evaded a frank expression of his true feelings. "Life," he began somewhat haltingly, to break the embarrassing pause, "is only serious when we make it so; and as soon as we make it serious it makes us unhappy. So I've adopted one invariable ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... morbid care this severity of dress and surroundings. There were moments when she could hardly tolerate the pale autumnal beauty which her glass reflected, when even this phantom of youth and radiance became a stumbling-block to her spiritual pride. She was not ashamed of being the Duke of Pianura's mistress; but she had a horror of being thought like the mistresses of other princes. She loathed all that the position represented in men's minds; she had refused all that, ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... think, as I re-read it, demands a KEY, lest it prove a stumbling-block to the muddle-headed and a perplexity to the foolish. Here ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... Deuteronomy {21} and Numbers. {22} And from the relation repeated in Numbers, {23} it appears, that Balaam was the contriver of the whole matter. It is also ascribed to him in the Revelation, {24} where he is said to have taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... Pawcett and Hungerford have their mission on board of this steamer in connection with the Scotian and the Arran. I will not stop now to explain why I have this idea, for I shall obtain more evidence as we proceed. At any rate, I thought I would put the ghost of a stumbling-block in the path of these conspirators; and this is the reason why I have put thirteen American seamen on board of each of the expected steamers. If my conjectures are wrong the stumbling-block will be nothing but a ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... test should settle the question of lengthened vitality between us. There is no miracle about this matter at all, and science finds no stumbling-block in the way of a complete explication of this riddle, if, in the light of nature, there be any such riddle. We claim there is not, when we interpret nature in the light of nature's God. Let the earth, or rather its silicious and other ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... child, he thinks himself worthy of praise. A lad is too much terrified to march that path, which is marked out by the rod. If the way to learning abounds with punishment, he will quickly detest it; if we make his duty a task, we lay a stumbling-block before him that ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... the light of this double way of viewing the right balance of the mind, the better understand the combination of earnestness with tolerance which inconsiderate persons are apt to find so awkward a stumbling-block in the scheme of philosophic liberalism. Many people in our time have so ill understood the doctrine of liberty, that in some of the most active circles in society they now count you a bigot if you hold any proposition to be decidedly and ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley
... that's the chapel we've got. We did think as perhaps a younger man might do something to counteract church-influences; but there don't seem any sign of betterment yet. In fact, thinks looks worse. No, sir! it's the chapel as is the stumbling-block. What has religion got to do with what's ugly and dirty! A place that any lady or gentleman, let he or she be so much of a Christian, might turn up the nose and refrain the foot from! No! I say; what we want is ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... on his now helpless knees, never the Bible; but he almost always has some Bible difficulty ready for me. It is pleasant to be able this afternoon to show him, holding the page up before his eyes, that his last stumbling-block is one of his own (or his friends') bold invention. He meets civility always civilly, and never resents a natural transition from the last bit of politics to the Gospel. But it is a hard, sad case. The Lord only knows how the apparently ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... my stumbling-block; I learned of it from old Sir Rupert Frampton, our minister to Aquazilia, who was travelling back to his post ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... something unpleasant," he cried with aversion. "Tfoo! How vexed I am that when I was expounding our system, I referred prematurely to the question of personal privacy! It's always a stumbling-block to people like you, they turn it into ridicule before they understand it. And how proud they are of it, too! Tfoo! I've often maintained that that question should not be approached by a novice till he has a firm faith in the system. And tell me, please, what do you ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... account of the voyages of the whole squadron. We have been more precise on this part of our subject than might seem necessary; but by being so, we have smoothed over an inequality that has been a stumbling-block to almost all previous writers ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... worst, were not by any means the only stumbling-block in the way of pure and well-ordered government. The administration of the estates of the Crown,—the Principality, the Duchy of Cornwall, the Duchy of Lancaster, the County Palatine of Chester,—was an ...
— Burke • John Morley
... Perhaps the greatest stumbling-block of the young is a disposition not to yield to their belief unless it conforms to their own crude notions of propriety and reason. If the powers of man were equal to analyzing the nature of the Deity, to comprehending His being, and power, and motives, there would ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... those two minutes; then he was fully awake to the shouting and struggling going on around and over him. Naturally objecting to be trampled, jumped upon, and used as a stumbling-block for friends and enemies to fall over, he exerted himself to get out of the way, rolled over and found his dirk beneath him, rose to his feet, aching, half-stunned, and, in pain intense enough to enrage him, he once more rushed at the nearest man, roaring to his ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... that tends to lessen respect for father or mother, is included in this judgment. In this chapter we have still further directions for race and family purity. I suppose in the 21st verse we have that stumbling-block in the British Parliament whenever the deceased wife's sister's bill comes up for passage. Here, too, those who in times past have persecuted witches, will find justification for their cruelties. The actors in one of the blackest pages in human history, claim Scripture authority for their infernal ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... found ourselves raised upon embankments ten or twelve feet high; we then came to a moss, or swamp, of considerable extent, on which no human foot could tread without sinking, and yet it bore the road which bore us. This had been the great stumbling-block in the minds of the committee of the House of Commons; but Mr. Stephenson has succeeded in overcoming it. A foundation of hurdles, or, as he called it, basket-work, was thrown over the morass, and the interstices were filled ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... not science which is undermining the future of institutional religion. There is a new enemy, more subtle and more powerful. It is the growing consciousness of an intolerable inconsistency between religious theory and practice. The war thus becomes a stumbling-block to faithfulness to conventional Christianity, and the glee of the rationalist is pardonable. ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... substantial safeguards, wisely exchanged for one life, already the mark for a thousand bullets? Milton did not reflect, or he kept his reflections to himself. The one point on which he does seem nervous is lest his hero should call himself what he is. The name of Protector even is a stumbling-block, though one can get over it. "You have, by assuming a title likest that of Father of your Country, allowed yourself to be, one cannot say elevated, but rather brought down so many stages from your real sublimity, ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... hero indeed, and has won himself a knightly steed." And, on her further interrogation, he added, that an unusually rich but small company had been reported by Jobst the Kohler to be on the way to the ford, where he had skilfully prepared a stumbling-block. The gracious Baroness had caused Hatto to jodel all the hay-makers together, and they had fallen on the travellers by the straight path down the crag. "Ach! did not the young Baron spring like a young gemsbock? And in midstream down came their pack-horses and their wares! Some of ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a very natural one. The fact of Charles being a Protestant had been the stumbling-block in the way of the match. A dispensation for the marriage of a Catholic princess with the Protestant prince of England had been asked from the pope, but had not yet been given. Charles had come to Madrid with the empty hope that his presence would cut the knot ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... and be killed. Then it was that Simon made his grave mistake in seeking to hold his Master back from the cross. "Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall never be unto thee," he said with great vehemence. Quickly came the stern reply, "Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art a stumbling-block unto me." Simon had to learn a new lesson. He did not get it fully learned until after Jesus had risen again, and the Holy Spirit had come,—that the measure of rank in spiritual life is the measure of ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... as to space have been a great stumbling-block to realists. When two men look at the same table, it is supposed that what the one sees and what the other sees are in the same place. Since the shape and colour are not quite the same for the two men, this raises a difficulty, hastily solved, ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... figures were to her so many disagreeable automata, moved by springs she could not possibly conceive, and doing perpetually the most futile and foolish things. She knew, moreover, by a sure instinct, that she had been unwelcome to them from the first moment of her appearance, and that she was now a stumbling-block and a grievance ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... is a spring-board at one time and a stumbling-block at another. It was with me more often the stumbling-block than the spring-board. "Monseigneur le Duc," said I, haughtily enough, and rather in too loud a tone considering the chamber was pretty full, "in no court ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... for the constant correction of his process. He must not only test and guide his achievement by human experience, but he must succeed or fail in proportion as he has incorporated that experience with his own. Otherwise his own achievements become his stumbling-block, and he comes to believe in his own goodness as something outside of himself. He makes an exception of himself, and thinks that he is different from the rank and file of his fellows. He forgets that it is necessary to know of the lives of our contemporaries, ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... of her sympathy for Calderwell, was conscious of a throb of relief that at least one stumbling-block was removed from Arkwright's possible pathway ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... he had so stuffed her mind with the flagrant sin of that journey, with the peculiar wickedness of our having lived for two nights under the same roof, with the awful fact that we had travelled together in the same carriage, till that had become the one stumbling-block ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... forgive mysel, if my wicked words to-night are any stumbling-block in your path. See how the Lord has put coals of fire on my head! O Mary, don't let my being an unbelieving Thomas weaken your faith. Wait patiently on the Lord, whatever ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... profoundest needs of the Church, therefore, in this new and growing world, is the achievement of such worthy ways of thinking about God and presenting him as will make the very idea of him a help to faith and not a stumbling-block to the faithful. In the attainment of that purpose we need for one thing to approach the thought of God from an angle which to popular Christianity is largely unfamiliar, although it is not unfamiliar in the historic tradition of the Church. ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... Hebrew and Greek originals for our word "Satan" is that of an adversary, or "one who places himself in another's way and thus opposes him." (Zenos.) The expression "Thou art an offense unto me" is admittedly a less literal translation than "Thou art a stumbling-block unto me." The man whom Jesus had addressed as Peter—"the rock," was now likened to a stone in the path, over which the unwary ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... said. All that matter in religion which has been nicknamed other-worldliness was strictly in his gamut; but a rule of life that should make a man rudely virtuous, following right in good report and ill report, was foolishness and a stumbling-block to Pepys. He was much thrown across the Friends; and nothing can be more instructive than his attitude towards these most interesting people of that age. I have mentioned how he conversed with one as he rode; when he saw some brought from a meeting ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he said that he used to hold hands with his mother until he went to sleep and that when he awoke it was to find that the clasp still held. It was a long time before he realized that what to him were whimsical pranks, were in the nature of tragedies to his parents. If he put a stumbling-block in one of their paths, it upset the whole fabric of their daily life, made them feel, I suppose, that they were losing such faculties as they possessed: memory and the sense of touch—and they would be obliged ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... [barrier to vehicles] turnstile, turnpike; gate, portcullis. beaver dam; trocha[obs3]; barricade &c. (defense) 717; wall, dead wall, sea wall, levee breakwater, groyne[obs3]; bulkhead, block, buffer; stopper &c. 263; boom, dam, weir, burrock[obs3]. drawback, objection; stumbling-block, stumbling-stone; lion in the path, snag; snags and sawyers. encumbrance, incumbrance[obs3]; clog, skid, shoe, spoke; drag, drag chain, drag weight; stay, stop; preventive, prophylactic; load, burden, fardel[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... performing the simple operation of walking across the room. This book is written out of a mind so full of wit and wisdom that it overflows at the gentlest touch. It has more sense and learning and power than go to the making up of a dozen ordinary novels. The very prodigality of its resources is a stumbling-block. Its great fault is its muchness, if we may borrow a term from Hawthorne's mint. It is like a young minister's first sermon, into which he frantically attempts to cram the whole body of divinity. Especially in the early part of the book, we are constantly drawn away front the story by delightful ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... little qualified to govern Rigganites, as was the present rector, the Reverend Harold Barholm. A man who has mistaken his vocation, and who has become ever so faintly conscious of his blunder, may be a stumbling-block in another's path; but restrained as he will be by his secret pangs of conscience, he can scarcely be an active obstructionist. But a man who, having mistaken the field of his life's labor, yet remains amiably ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... seemed to come to him now from the mere thought of the North. Soon he would be in the midst of it, moving briskly, talking to wide- awake men to whom a slightly unusual English word would not form a stumbling-block to conversation. He set out down the crescent and across the Big Hill at a swinging stride. He was ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... Bari natives assured Mr Baker that there was a large depot of slaves in the interior, belonging to the traders, that would be marched to Gondokoro for shipment a few hours after his departure. He was looked upon as a stumbling-block to the trade. Several attempts were made to shoot him, and a boy was killed by a shot from the shore, on board his vessel. His men were immediately tampered with by the traders, and signs of discontent soon appeared among them. They declared that they had not sufficient meat, and ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... cried, 'There was wheat, and wheat alone;' and so religious men have hindered the very cause for which they fancied that they were fighting; and have gained nothing by disobeying God's command, save to weaken their own moral influence, to increase the divisions of the Church, and to put a fresh stumbling-block in the path of the ignorant ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... everything else, preparedness is all essential. I learned the value of carrying proper credentials during the war, when every frontier and police official constituted himself a stumbling-block to progress. For the South African end of my adventure I provided myself with letters from Lloyd George and Smuts. In the Congo I realized that I would require equally powerful agencies to help ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... a formidable one. It is the stumbling-block of the economists, as well as of the defenders of equality. It has led the former into egregious blunders, and has caused the latter to utter incredible platitudes. Gracchus Babeuf wished all superiority to be STRINGENTLY REPRESSED, and even PERSECUTED ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... 4:18), "Perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment." In this last instance, it is evident that the idea of punishment is not found, but only that of suffering. In the LXX. (Ezek. 14:3, 4, 7) it is translated "stumbling-block," and means, says Schleusner (Lexicon in LXX.), "all that is the source of misfortune or suffering." Donnegan gives as its meaning, "the act of clipping or pruning; generally, restriction, restraint, reproof, check, chastisement; lit. ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... STOCK is for some inscrutable reason a stumbling-block to average cooks, and even by experienced housekeepers is often looked upon as troublesome and expensive. Where large amounts of fresh meat are used in its preparation, the latter adjective might be appropriate; but stock in reality is the only mode by which every scrap ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... mind that; but I am afraid that there is some hidden mystery which will place a fresh stumbling-block in our ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... was no more than a confession that the Association, originally designed as a finely chiseled stepping-stone to reconciliation, was likely to prove a stumbling-block unless the King graciously extended his royal hand to give a hearty lift. It presently appeared that the King refused to extend his hand. October 31, 1775, information reached America that Richard Penn and Arthur Lee, having presented the petition to Lord Dartmouth, were informed that the King ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... which we call "the understanding." By this we are enabled to see things in common life which are consistent or inconsistent; so even in religious matters there may be asserted some things so shockingly inconsistent as may affront even what we call common sense, and perhaps may be a stumbling-block in the way of many. Should the legislative power of England give out laws or acts of parliament to be obeyed, and rewards promised to the obedient, and punishments denounced to the disobedient; but at the same time, by some secret springs of management, should so order it, that ...
— A Solemn Caution Against the Ten Horns of Calvinism • Thomas Taylor
... did), and thought with an uplifted heart of the train of circumstances which had delivered the old gentleman into his hands for the confusion of evil-doers and the triumph of a righteous nature, he always felt that Mary Graham was his stumbling-block. Let the old man say what he would, Mr Pecksniff knew he had a strong affection for her. He knew that he showed it in a thousand little ways; that he liked to have her near him, and was never quite at ease when she was absent long. That he had ever really sworn to ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... "The entire West demands united national organization for the Sixteenth Amendment, this very congressional session, and so does Susan B. Anthony." Mrs. Stanton wrote to the conference: "I will do all I can for union. If I am a stumbling-block I will gladly resign my office. Having fought the world twenty years, I do not now wish to turn and fight those who have so long stood together through evil and good report. I should be glad to have all united, with Mr. Beecher ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... that this type of bacterial action is concerned in the ripening of cheese. This group of bacteria is, under ordinary conditions, unable to liquefy gelatin, or digest milk, or, in fact, to exert, under ordinary conditions, any proteolytic or peptonizing properties. This has been the stumbling-block to the acceptance of this hypothesis, as an explanation of the breaking down of the casein. Freudenreich has recently carried on experiments which he believes solve the problem. By growing cultures of these organisms in milk, to which sterile, ...
— Outlines of Dairy Bacteriology, 8th edition - A Concise Manual for the Use of Students in Dairying • H. L. Russell
... hath befallen me." And he wept and groaned and complained. Replied Abu al-Hasan, "O my brother, I meant thee naught but good; but I feared to tell thee this, lest such transport should betide thee as might hinder thee from foregathering with her, and be a stumbling-block between thee and her. But be of good cheer and keep thine eyes cool and clear;[FN177] for she to thee inclineth and to favour thee designeth." Asked Ali bin Bakkar, "What is this young lady's name?" Answered Abu al-Hasan, "She is hight Shams al-Nahar, one of the favourites ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... unfortunate name was a great stumbling-block. Borrow spelt it many ways, varying from Lipoffsky to Lipofsoff. It has been thought advisable to adopt Mr Lipovzoff's OWN spelling of his name, in order to preserve ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... the Princess's religion was, no doubt, a stumbling-block which might well have caused greater anxiety to Clarendon, and which might have fretted the prejudices of the English people. But here, as on many other occasions, he seems to have forced himself, against what to ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... sides of the water, or even in this country alone, would redeem our common language from some of the gross anomalies and grievous confusion which now make it a monster among the graphic systems of the world, and a stumbling-block and stone of offence to all who undertake to learn it. Furthermore, it must be conceded that almost all our lexicographers have been nearly or quite as ready as Dr. Webster to attempt improvements in orthography, though they may have shown more discretion than he. It is not generally known, we ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... the earth no goal But starting point of man ... To try man's foot, if it will creep or climb 'Mid obstacles in seeming, points that prove Advantage for who vaults from low to high And makes the stumbling-block a stepping-stone. ...
— Mysticism in English Literature • Caroline F. E. Spurgeon
... from the Indian wigwams, no small consideration to so weakly a man, thus poorly fed. However, the Indians were pleased with his addresses, and seemed touched by them; but the evil habits of the White men were the terrible stumbling-block. Parties of them would come into the town, and vex the missionary's ears with their foul tongues, making a scandalous contrast to the grave, calm manners of the Indians. More than ever did he love solitude, and when with his own hands he ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... admitted as unexceptionably valid, the requirements of the understanding, which recognizes nothing but nature in the region of phenomena, are satisfied, and our physical explanations of physical phenomena may proceed in their regular course, without hindrance and without opposition. But it is no stumbling-block in the way, even assuming the idea to be a pure fiction, to admit that there are some natural causes in the possession of a faculty which is not empirical, but intelligible, inasmuch as it is not determined ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... are thus confirmed by the Roman and the Jewish historians. But, indeed, the event itself is not the subject of controversy. It is the conclusions drawn from it by the followers of Christ that are disputed. "Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness,"[081] still ...
— Exposition of the Apostles Creed • James Dodds
... it fails to return in an acute form, though its form is sometimes very acute—is not the simple, ignorance of ill, but something vastly more complex, including natural evil as one of its elements, but finding natural evil no such stumbling-block and terror because it now sees it swallowed up in supernatural good. The process is one of redemption, not of mere reversion to natural health, and the sufferer, when saved, is saved by what seems to him a second birth, a deeper kind of conscious being ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... if that were the stumbling-block, might it not be well that the first overture should come from her? Could she not find words to tell him that it might all be his? Could she not say to him, "Harry Clavering, all this is nothing in my hands. Take it into your ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... promised, contributed to the outbreak which was quelled when troops arrived from the mainland, but the ministers were blamed for not having taken better precautions against its occurrence. Another stumbling-block lay in the path of Ricasoli, namely, the application of the law for the suppression of religious houses, and the expropriation of ecclesiastical property. After an unsuccessful endeavour to cope with it, he dissolved the Chamber, ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... intricacies of this affair, at once the scandal and the stumbling-block of the Spanish historians, have been unravelled by Senor Clemencin, with his usual perspicuity. See Mem. de la Acad., tom. vi. pp. ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... the children with her, and find John in his office. That very day the tickets should be bought. If Wallace cared enough for his family to come home in the meantime, she would tell him what she was doing. But Martie hoped that he would not. The one possible stumbling-block in her path would be Wallace's objection; the one thing of which she would not allow herself to think was that he MIGHT, by some hideous whim, decide to accompany them. Thinking of these things, she went ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... with the multitude, I ask not to read my book; nay, I would rather that they should utterly neglect it, than that they should misinterpret it after their wont. (56) They would gain no good themselves, and might prove a stumbling-block to others, whose philosophy is hampered by the belief that Reason is a mere handmaid to Theology, and whom I seek in this work especially to benefit. (57) But as there will be many who have neither the leisure, nor, perhaps, the inclination to read through all I have written, I feel bound ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza
... conversation with Jemmy Burke, who repeated his anxiety for the match as the best way of settling down his son, and added, that he would lay the matter before Hycy himself, with a wish that a union should take place between them. This interview with old Burke proved a stumbling-block in the way of M'Mahon. At length, after a formal proposal on the behalf of Bryan, and many interviews with reference to it, something like a compromise was effected. Kathleen consented to accept the latter in marriage, ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... time to settle what they are. Great projects are at work, and hatching now. The Imperial house seeks to extend its power. Those vast designs of conquest which the sire Has gloriously begun, the son will end. This petty nation is a stumbling-block— One way or other, it must be ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... for human proportions has proved a great stumbling-block for so-called classical or academic artists. It is usually taken to mean an absolutely right or harmonious proportion, any deviation from which cannot fail to result in a diminution of beauty. According to their thoroughness, ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... aloof as entirely as he or even his friends desired, since it was usual with some members of the Society to seek from him elucidations of obscure passages which, without these, it was declared, would be a stumbling-block to future readers. But he disliked being even to this extent drawn into its operation; and his help was, I believe, less and less frequently invoked. Nothing could be more false than the rumour which once arose that he superintended those ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... whose character was antagonistic to his own in every way, never lost an opportunity of what he called "putting him in his place," perhaps because something warned him that this awkward, handsome boy would become a stumbling-block to ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... kindness for a time with energetic enthusiasm. Never did I feel this so strongly as on the night which parted us. But I could not help rejoicing when he was swept from my path—could not help sorrowing when he was again restored to be a stumbling-block in my paths." ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... studying of this one truth, in reference to a closing with it as our life, is an infallible mark of a soul divinely enlightened, and endued with spiritual and heavenly wisdom; for though it be unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness, yet unto them who are called, it is Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. O what depths of the manifold wisdom of God are there in this mystery! The more it ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... "How confusing it all is, to be sure! But you haven't mentioned the biggest stumbling-block of ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... tribute to Judaism, does this unfettered thinker imagine that the last word is with Christianity? Eucken, too, would call the future Christian, though he rejects the Incarnation and regards the Atonement as injurious to religion, and the doctrine of the Trinity as a stumbling-block rather than a help. Abraham Lincoln being only a plain man, was not able to juggle with himself like a German theologian, and with the simplicity of greatness he confessed: "I have never united myself to any Church, because ...
— Chosen Peoples • Israel Zangwill
... which is a stumbling-block to the simple theory-monger. It is in fashion among a tribe of bats to which belongs the so-called vampire of India. This monster is fond of coming into your bedroom at midnight through the open windows, but not to suck your blood, for it has ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... and one shepherd, never one uniform culture for all mankind, never universal nobleness. Our virtue and happiness can only flourish amid an active conflict with wrong. If every stumbling-block were smoothed away, men would no longer be like men, but like a flock of innocent brutes, feeding on good things provided by nature as at the very beginning of their course. [Footnote: Microcosmus, Bk. vii. 5 ad fin. (Eng. trans. p. 300). The first German edition (three vols.) appeared ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... understand how heartbreaking all this is to the preacher and how wearing on his human nerves. There have been times when I should have been almost willing to see William lose patience and expend about two pages of fierce Plutonian vocabulary on some old stumbling-block in the church. But he never did. And it will serve them right if the ten thousand prayers he made, asking God to soften their obdurate hearts, are registered against them somewhere in the debit column ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... be a stumbling-block in the way of your tender conscience. I am going to Killpatricks-town, where you'll be as welcome as light. You know them, they know you; at least you shall have a proper letter of invitation from my Lord and my Lady Killpatrick, and all that. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... grammatical rules is least required. Its grammar is very straightforward; its construction, in the best writers, is seldom involved; its words will in most cases be intelligible to people who know any Latin or French. The prepositions and their uses offer almost the only stumbling-block which cannot be surmounted by the aid of a pocket-dictionary; and even here the difficulty is more likely to be apparent in writing Italian. In reading, the context will usually be a guide to the meaning when the ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... imperfectly acquainted, and in order to enter which she did nothing but submissively abandon herself to the will of God. Our Lord was pleased about this time to imprint upon her virginal body the stigmas of his cross and of his crucifixion, which were to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Gentiles folly, and to many persons who call themselves Christians, both the one and the other. From her very earliest childhood she had besought our Lord to impress the marks of his cross deeply upon her heart, that so she might never forget ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... stumbling-block to the construction of larger telescopes is the fact that the unsteadiness of the air will be increasingly magnified. And further, the larger the tubes become, the more difficult will it be to keep the air within them at one constant ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... and laity of Alexandria, Egypt, Libya, and the Pentapolis, and is an agreement between the emperor and the bishops who countersigned it, that neither party should ever mention the decrees of the council of Chalcedon, which were the great stumbling-block with ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... the sacraments, which they are compelled to acknowledge to have been taught as fully in the early Church as it is now taught by the Roman Catholics, has long been the stumbling-block to Protestants. It was the very essence of Christianity itself. Unless the body could be purified, the soul could not be saved; or, rather, as from the beginning, soul and flesh were one man and inseparable, without his flesh, ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... to the Doctor's household; the children were calmed, manageable; they stood in awe of their governess, but they liked her; in the staid Canonbury house Miss Boucheafen was popular. Her name was the only stumbling-block. Her pupils could not pronounce it, the servants blundered over it, and Mrs. Jessop declared it "heathenish." By slow degrees it was dropped, and she ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
... the saints, which had once been a stepping-stone to higher things, was now widely regarded as a stumbling-block. Though far from a scientific conception of natural law, many men had become sufficiently monistic in their philosophy to see in the current hagiolatry a sort of polytheism. Erasmus freely drew the parallel between the saints and the heathen deities, and he and others scourged ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... acknowledge the truth of what I am saying, will often feel himself tempted by the difficulties of language to tell himself that some one little doubtful passage, some single collocation of words, which is not quite what it ought to be, will not matter. I know well what a stumbling-block such a passage may be. But he should leave none such behind him as he goes on. The habit of writing clearly soon comes to the writer who is ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... each of these points, it may be expedient to premise somewhat concerning the divine providence of the Lord in regard to the rise of Mahometanism. That this religion is received by more kingdoms than the Christian religion, may possibly be a stumbling-block to those who, while thinking of the divine providence, at the same time believe that no one can be saved that is not born a Christian; whereas the Mahometan religion is no stumbling-block to those who believe that all things are of the ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... angles and side views of thought, and one to begin with is this: It is very interesting to notice how, as his life went on, and his inspiration became more full, this Apostle got to understand, as being the very living and heart centre of his religion, the thing which at first was a stumbling-block and mystery to him. You remember when Christ was here on earth, and was surrounded by all His disciples, the man who actually led antagonism to the thought of a saving Messiah, was this very Apostle Peter. How he displayed ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... that Schumann heard Chopin play his Ballade in private and that there was no stormy middle measures? I've forgotten the source, possibly one of the greater Chopinist's—or Chopine-ists, as they had it in Paris. What a stumbling-block that A minor explosion was to audiences and students and to pianists themselves. "Too wild, too wild!" I remember hearing the old guard exclaim when Rubinstein, after miraculously prolonging the three A's with those singing fingers of his, not forgetting the pedals, ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... others. This was amusingly the case, for instance, with one phrase in the popular camp-song of "Marching Along," which was entirely new to them until our quartermaster taught it to them, at my request. The words, "Gird on the armor," were to them a stumbling-block, and no wonder, until some ingenious ear substituted, "Guide on de army," which was at once accepted, and ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... dearly bought, and the downfall of the other incomplete. Populations formed in the ideas and habits of a feudal monarchy, and controlled by a hierarchy profoundly hostile to freedom of thought, would have remained a hindrance and a stumbling-block in the way of that majestic experiment of ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... angrily, "I can't. And that's the rotten side of money. That's the stumbling-block for everybody who succeeds in collecting a lot of it. The distribution is infinitely harder than the collecting. I think we'd better pull up stakes, go back to New York, ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... is a stumbling-block, and perhaps one's best plan would be to conform to the custom of the table where you may be. In eating it directly from the ear hold it in one hand only. Some hostesses provide small doilies with which to ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... his face, which was generally fiercer than his mind, was now far behind it in ferocity. He thought within himself, "Well, I am come to something, to have let such things be going on in a matter which pertains to my office—pigeon-hole 100! This comes of false delicacy, my stumbling-block perpetually! No more of ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... than a bit of potter's clay, and the master potter—God help me!—is my own father! It's all plain enough now. He saw that I wasn't going to fall in with the attorney-general scheme; or perhaps he saw that I might be a stumbling-block if I should; so he planned this thing with McVickar—planned it deliberately! There is no fight, after all; it's merely one of the moves in the game that the 'boss' and the railroad should seem to be fighting each other. Good God! I can't believe it, and yet I've got to believe ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... those great qualities which will secure him a place in our history not perhaps inferior even to Marlborough, the Duke of Wellington has one deficiency which has been the stumbling-block of his civil career. Bishop Burnet, in speculating on the extraordinary influence of Lord Shaftesbury, and accounting how a statesman, so inconsistent in his conduct and so false to his confederates, should have so powerfully controlled his country, observes, "HIS STRENGTH ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... it. They are probably religious men, by which I mean men with devout minds, who earnestly feel the need of belief. They become inquirers, run through the sects nearest at hand, and finally come before the Church and gaze upon her. Written on her front they see "Infallibility." Here lies their stumbling-block. They begin to question. Arguments are exhausted on each side, and if they be deeply imbued with the knowledge that there is a God, with the consciousness thence following of their fallen nature, and with an ardent hope to re-unite themselves to God, they will admit, ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... a personal narrative is the most wearying to the writer, if not to the reader; egotistical talk may be pleasant enough, but, commit it to paper, the fault carries its own punishment. The recurrence of that everlasting first pronoun becomes a real stumbling-block to one at last. Yet there is no evading it, unless you cast your story into a curt, succinct diary; to carry this off effectively, requires a succession of incidents, more varied and ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... the people, in fact, has proved a stumbling-block rather than an attraction. It is a new idea suddenly presented to people who have never considered the subject of recreation at all, save in connection with skittles, so to speak. Now it seems hardly necessary to erect a splendid palace for the ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... human! It is a strange thing, sir," he went on, smiling and shaking his head, "that this, my one indulgence, should breed me more discredit than all the cardinal sins, and become a stumbling-block to others. Only last Sunday I happened to overhear two white-headed old fellows talking. 'A fine sermon, Giles?' said the one. 'Ah! good enough,' replied the other, 'but it might ha' been better—ye see—'e smokes!' So I am seriously thinking ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... century Dante could hardly have found an illustrator. Botticelli's illustrations are crowded with incident, blending, with a naive carelessness of pictorial propriety, three phases of the same scene into one plate. The grotesques, so often a stumbling-block to painters who forget that the words of a poet, which only feebly present an image to the mind, must be lowered in key when translated into form, make one regret that he has not rather chosen for illustration the more ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... up many amusing and what are called "intimate" details of private life and individual character. There was much talk of a house owned by the Bishop, but not inhabited by him in the town. Its tenant was apparently somewhat of a scandal and a stumbling-block to the reforming party. He was a disgrace, they wrote, to the city; he practised secret and wicked arts, and had sold his soul to the enemy. It was of a piece with the gross corruption and superstition ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... building up of the future mother's health by improved hygiene and careful, wise dieting and exercising and bathing during the last three months of pregnancy, which enables many a stumbling-block to be removed out of the way. Hence, the utility of pre-maternity wards wisely used. This is, one knows, a "counsel of perfection"; but every expectant mother should and could be taught how to treat herself ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... nothing so very monstrous or revolutionary about our proposals. I hope they may also begin to see why it is that Tariff Reformers are so persistent and so insistent upon their own particular view. There is something very attractive in the argument which says that, since Tariff Reform is a stumbling-block to many good Unionists, it should be dropped, and our ranks closed in defence of an effective Second Chamber, and in defence of all our institutions against revolutionary attacks directed upon the existing ...
— Constructive Imperialism • Viscount Milner
... Goetz. It is as a tale, a narrative, and not as a drama, that it is to be read if it is to be enjoyed without the sense of artistic failure. The anachronisms with which the piece abounds, and which Hegel caustically noted, have been a further stumbling-block to the critics.[106] In the second scene of the first Act, Luther is introduced for no other purpose than to expound ideas which come strangely from his mouth, but which were effervescing in the minds of Goethe and his contemporaries—the ideas which they had learned ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... is what that prophet counselled Balak to cast as a stumbling-block before Israel: For "the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab. And they called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods; and the people did eat and bowed down to their gods. And Israel joined himself unto Baal-peor," Num. 25:1-3. And Moses said of the women of Midian, ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... would be master soon. Indeed, he might have been master already but for that wife of his, that stumbling-block to his ambition, who practiced the housewifely virtues at Cumnor Place, and clung so tenaciously and so inconsiderately to life in spite of all his plans to relieve her ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... demi-monde always has been a stumbling-block to certain particularly good people. These women never register, never vote and never attend primaries except when compelled to do so. Their identity is often a secret even to their closest associates. It is almost impossible to learn their true names. All they ask is to be let alone. ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... barrier to the progress of the insurrectionary forces Westward and Northward. The provision in the Federal Constitution that no new State shall be formed within the jurisdiction of any other State without the consent of the Legislature of the State as well as of Congress, had always been the stumbling-block in the way of West Virginia's independence. Despite the hostilities and antagonisms of the two populations, Virginia would insist on retaining this valuable section of country within her own jurisdiction. But now, by the chances of war, the same men who desired to create the new State were ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... against his new tariff. Again, ten years later, when reciprocity with the United States was finding favor in Canada, imperialists urged the counterclaims of a policy of imperial reciprocity, of special tariff privileges to other parts of the Empire. The stumbling-block in the way of such a policy was England's adherence to free trade. For the protectionist colonies preference would mean only a reduction of an existing tariff. For the United Kingdom, however, it ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... church; and on one of the last days of the week, three of the most prominent men in the community openly identified themselves with the Protestants. One of these, named Sarkis Agha, became a very active and useful Christian. Feeling that he had been a stumbling-block to others, he lost no time in going to the market, and inviting twelve or fifteen of his most intimate friends, all men of influence, to his place of business, and telling them of his change of feeling. He expected only ridicule, but the majority were affected to tears, and requested him to read ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... the doctor's prescription we will not give at length. To some of his ordinances Sir Roger promised obedience; to others he objected violently, and to one or two he flatly refused to listen. The great stumbling-block was this, that total abstinence from business for two weeks was enjoined; and that it was impossible, so Sir Roger said, that he should abstain ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... of God, unmoved, 'if my shop is in truth a stumbling-block in this solemn hour, you shall ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... tongues: for their heart was not right with Him; neither were they stedfast in His covenant." And this stood between them and their acceptance: God tells the prophet Ezekiel as much; "Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their hearts, and put the stumbling-block of their iniquity before their face; should I be inquired of at all by them?" They come with their hearts full of their lusts; so many lusts, so many idols; and for this God refuseth to be inquired of by them: "should I be inquired of?" is as much as, "I ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... mean, "Quod stultos vertit." Fleamas, A.-S. (Lye), is fuga, fugacio, from flean, to flee. Pandarus, I think, does not mean to give the derivation of the word, but its application of fools, a stumbling-block, or puzzle. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 37. Saturday, July 13, 1850 • Various
... being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.' I wish to publicly thank God for this peace in my soul. Jesus saves me from my sins. I know that the verse, 1 John 1:8, is a stumbling-block to many, yet it is simple when understood. John was stating fundamental propositions. He began by saying that, 'if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all ...
— Around Old Bethany • Robert Lee Berry
... good reasons too," replied Poirot. "For a long time they were a stumbling-block to me until I remembered a very significant fact: that she and Alfred Inglethorp were cousins. She could not have committed the crime single-handed, but the reasons against that did not debar her from being an accomplice. And, then, there was that rather over-vehement ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... The stumbling-block at the outset that turned the unfaithful servant aside was his conception of the Lord as a hard master: it is the experience of the master's love that impels the servant forward in the path of duty. When we know God in Christ, we know him reconciled to ourselves. Christ, therefore, ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... speech he is about to deliver. Those who feel the advantage of these aids most strongly are the most likely to cultivate the use of numerical forms. I have read many books on mnemonics, and cannot doubt their utility to some persons; to myself the system is of no avail whatever, but simply a stumbling-block, nevertheless I am well aware that many of my early associations are ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... additional difficulty that each of the twelve made entirely different statements at different places, and that all the twelve called everything visible and invisible, sacred and profane, to witness, that they were a perfectly impregnable phalanx of unanimity. This, it was apprehended, would be a stumbling-block to ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... the direct opposition of those who are themselves pledged to follow him to the death; if that Church, which was to have been the clearest sign to the world of the truth of Christ's gospel, be now, in many respects, rather a stumbling-block to the adversary and unbeliever, so that the name of God is through us blasphemed among the heathen, rather than glorified; may we not humble ourselves before God in sorrow and in shame? and must we not confess, that through our sin, and the sin of our fathers, ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... care and attention; but I have no doubt she will find strength to bear any fresh burden which Providence may see fit to put upon her. Though our circumstances are comfortable, we are not surrounded by the luxuries which so often prove a stumbling-block to weaker brethren. I trust you may be happy in our humble home, and that you may find some opportunity of usefulness in this new state of life to ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... shown in the case of the Lauati scheme, no dweller in Samoa will give weight, for they know him to be as putty in the hands of his advisers. It may be right, it may be wrong, but we are many of us driven to the conclusion that the stumbling-block is Fangalii, and that the memorial of that affair shadows appropriately the house of a king who reigns in right of it. If this be all, it should not trouble us long. Germany has shown she can be generous; it now remains for her only to forget a natural but certainly ill-grounded ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... are as great a stumbling-block to modern thought as they were a help to the contemporaries of Jesus. The study of Jesus' life cannot ignore this fact, nor make little of it. It is fair to insist, however, that the question is one of evidence, not of metaphysical possibility. Men are wisely slow ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... kindness, and do it not, we do them ill. Non-activity for good is activity for evil. Surely, nothing can be plainer than the bearing of this teaching on the Christian duty as to intoxicants. If by using these a Christian puts a stumbling-block in the way of a weak will, then he is working ill to his neighbour, and that argues absence of love, and that is dishonest, shirking payment of a ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... new idea, an idea with promise; and when he went on, the reflective excursion had become a journey with a purpose. Chance had been good to him now and then in his hard-working career: perhaps it would be good to him again. Having let one woman put a stumbling-block in his way, perhaps it was going to even things up by making ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... apparently very serene. I shall be told, perhaps, that red cheeks are not incompatible with fanaticism and mysticism; but I fancy that Alyosha was more of a realist than any one. Oh! no doubt, in the monastery he fully believed in miracles, but, to my thinking, miracles are never a stumbling-block to the realist. It is not miracles that dispose realists to belief. The genuine realist, if he is an unbeliever, will always find strength and ability to disbelieve in the miraculous, and if he is confronted with a miracle as an irrefutable fact he would rather disbelieve ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... migration had taken place, the company off, awoke her from her happy security to a state of raving torture. Peckaby dodged out of her way, afraid. There is no knowing but Peckaby himself may have been the stumbling-block in the mind of Brother Jarrum. A man so dead against the Latter Day Saints as Peckaby had shown himself, would be a difficult customer to deal with. He might be capable of following them and upsetting the minds of all the Deerham converts, ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... to help Maurice, but her pride, always her chief fault, came as a stumbling-block in her way; she could not bear to go into the world and face strangers. And Maurice on his side could not endure the thought that his beautiful young wife should be exposed to slights and humiliations; so Nea's ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Stephen, Science of Ethics, p. 44: "The love of happiness must express the sole possible motive of Judas Iscariot and of his Master; it must explain the conduct of Stylites on his pillar or Tiberius at Caprae or A Kempis in his cell or of Nelson in the cockpit of the Victory."] have been a stumbling-block to many, we must pause to note their inaccuracy, while insisting that they are no part of a sound utilitarian, or eudemonistic, theory. Far from the desire for happiness being the universal motive, it is one of the less common springs ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... system, which is, that they all learn a trade, if they had not one before; and, when they leave the prison, have the means of obtaining an honest livelihood, if they wish so to do themselves, and are permitted so to do by others. Here is the stumbling-block which neutralises almost all the good effects which might be produced by the penitentiary system. The severity and harshness of the world; the unchristianlike feeling pervading society, which denies to the penitent what individually ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled. But meat commendeth us not to God: for neither if we eat are we the better; neither if we eat not are we the worse. But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumbling-block to them that are weak. For if any man see thee which hast knowledge, sit at meat in the idol's temple, shall not the conscience of him which is weak be emboldened to eat those things which are offered to idols; and through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish for whom Christ died? But when ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... But here was this stumbling-block of a Thurstane. In the presence of a handsome rival, who, moreover, had started first in the race, slow was far from being sure. Coronado had discovered, by long experience in flirtation and much intelligent meditation upon it, that, if a man wants to win a woman, he must ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... bear. Hence arises the deplorable condition of the natives, who are brought into contact chiefly with the lowest and worst of the Europeans, and who, beside many other hindrances, have the great stumbling-block of bad examples, and evil lives, constantly before them in their intercourse with the Christians. And, as though that were not enough, as though fresh obstacles to the conversion of these nations to God's truth were needed and required, our holy religion is presented to them, ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... and realistic conception is a stumbling-block to our modern idealistic metaphysicians and their theological colleagues. Fenced about with their transcendental and dualistic prejudices, they attack not only the monistic system we establish on our scientific ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.1. • Ernst Haeckel
... I relish my morning sole, after two years banishment from that delicious creature! How I savour my saddle of mutton! What a delightful thing I now know my English strawberry to be! But to the New South Welshman my doctrine is a stumbling-block and to the Victorian it is foolishness. Mr Sala preached it years ago and the connoisseurs of the Greater Britain of the ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... coarse-minded Dr. Dalrymple of Ayr, and the coarse-minded Mr. Lawrie of Loudon! This is not argument. Besides, it is perfectly gratuitous. The question, again, is not one of men—that ecclesiastical discipline has been an offence and a stumbling-block—either coarse minded or otherwise. It is a question of principle, and Burns fought for it ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... that I suspect the man who taught it to them was never born in the parish. But let bygones be bygones. One thing is clear,—you don't take kindly to my new pair of stocks! The stocks has been a stumbling-block and a grievance, and there's no denying that we went on very pleasantly without it. I may also say that, in spite of it, we have been coming together again lately. And I can't tell you what good it did me to see your children playing again on the green, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... said the alchemist, "the unbelief, gathered around thee like a frost-fog, hath dimmed thine acute perception to that which is a stumbling-block to the wise, and which yet, to him who seeketh knowledge with humility, extends a lesson so clear that he who runs may read. Hath not Art, thinkest thou, the means of completing Nature's imperfect concoctions in her attempts to form the precious metals, even as by art we can perfect ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... to outward accommodations; therefore the Lord useth to part us and our idol, that we may take hold of him the faster. It is union with himself that is our felicity, and it is that which God most endeavoureth. When he removeth beloved jewels, it is because they were a stumbling-block, and divorced the soul from God: when he seemeth to withdraw himself his going proclaimeth so much, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... Parliament at London William Brewer, one of the King's councillors, protested that it had been extorted by force and was without legal validity. "If you loved the King, William," the Primate burst out in anger, "you would not throw a stumbling-block in the way of the peace of the realm." The young king was cowed by the Archbishop's wrath, and promised observance of the Charter. But it may have been their consciousness of such a temper among the royal councillors that made Langton and the baronage demand ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... seem to have much objection to the doctrine of evolution in itself; it is the denial of teleology that he regards as the fatal element of Mr. Darwin's theory. "According to us," he says, "the true stumbling-block of Mr. Darwin's theory, the perilous and slippery point, is the passage from artificial to natural selection; it is when he wants to establish that a blind and designless nature has been able to obtain, by the occurrence of circumstances, the same results which man obtains by thoughtful ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... this, being only the Count's daughter and the wife of a vassal), I thought rather badly when I first read it thirty or forty years ago, and till the present occasion I have never read it since. Now I think better of it, especially as a story suggestive in story-telling art. The original stumbling-block, which I still see, though I can get over or round it better now, was, I think, the character of the heroine, who inherits not merely the tendency to play fast and loose with successive husbands, which is observable in both chanson ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... country. The Apostle Paul was the first great theologian of the Church; but his doctrine, as will happen in such a case, does not in all points spring out of the nature of the religion itself. The Pauline theology is an attempt to reconcile the facts of Christianity and especially that great stumbling-block to the Jews, the death of the Messiah, with the requirements of Jewish thought. Instead of seeing in the death of Christ, as the older apostles at first did, a perplexing enigma, St. Paul saw in it the principal manifestation of the compassion of the Saviour, and the great purpose for which he had ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies |
