"Edify" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... story—the whole "furnishing a striking lesson to posterity of the overruling hand of providence and the certainty of retribution." Clara Reeve was fifty-two years of age when she published her Gothic story, and she writes in the spirit of a maiden aunt striving to edify as well as to entertain the younger generation. When Edmund takes Fitzowen to view the fatal closet and the bones of his murdered father, he considers the scene "too solemn for a lady to be present at"; and his love-making is as frigid as the supernatural scenes. The hero is ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... doubtless the riotous conduct of these radicals that caused the resolution to be passed by the assembly in 1637, which stated, according to Winthrop: "That though women might meet (some few together) to pray and edify one another; yet such a set assembly, (as was then in practice at Boston), where sixty or more did meet every week, and one woman (in a prophetical way, by resolving questions of doctrine, and expounding scripture) took upon her the whole exercise, ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... the old convocation house, and another while in the Chapel at Westminster, when all the faith and religion that shall be there canonized is not sufficient without plain convincement, and the charity of patient instruction, to supple the least bruise of conscience, to edify the meanest Christian who desires to walk in the spirit and not in the letter of human trust, for all the number of voices that can be there made; no, though Harry the Seventh himself there, with all his liege tombs about him, should ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... They built to edify or bewilder; I build because I am a builder. Crescent and street and square I build, Plaster and paint and carve and gild. Around the city see them stand, These triumphs of my shaping hand, With bulging walls, ...
— Moral Emblems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Continent has already been seen. Prose tales were written in astonishing quantities, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, by those pious authors who, under pretext of edifying and amusing their readers at the same time, began by amusing, and frequently forgot to edify. They put into their collections all they knew in the way of legends, jokes, and facetious stories. England produced several such collections; their authors usually add a moral to their tales, but sometimes omit it, or else they simply say: ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... the proposition that while the function of Ethics is to instruct, that of Art is to delight. "I hold," he writes, "that Art's duty is to instruct as much as, if not more than, that of Ethics. Art to be great must elevate and edify." Hudson wrote: "The common view that the primitive ages of the world were ages of colossal individualism is grotesquely unhistorical; they were, on the contrary, ages in which group-life and group-consciousness were in the ascendant." "Quite ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... upon its heart. The moment it reads him right, a veil will seem to have been taken away from its heart; it will feel as though scales were fallen from its eyes.... The doctrine of Paul will arise out of the tomb where for centuries it has lain covered; it will edify the Church of the future; it will have the consent of happier generations, the applause of less superstitious ages. All, all, will be too little to pay half the debt which the Church of God owes to this 'least of the apostles, who was not fit to be called an apostle, because he persecuted ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... people daily among us, tearing up, as it were, the old plan of life, and laying the foundations of new social ties in the wilderness. Not a county is settled in the West, the initial steps of which does not furnish legitimate materials for an address which would edify the living generation, and instruct those which are to follow us. A single century hence, and how much tradition will sleep in the grave that might now be rescued! Somebody has written a book "How to Observe," but there is good need of another—"HOW ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... they would accept her; it was at her peril that she was to look, speak, or be silent. And even when she had entered on her dismal task of self-constraint in the society of three girls whom she was bound incessantly to edify, the same process of inspection was to go on: there was always to be Mrs. Mompert's supervision; always something or other would be expected of her to which she had not the slightest inclination; and perhaps the bishop would examine her on ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... Why do not these gifts accompany now the imposition of hands? I answer: Because they are no longer needed. The grace which the Apostolic disciples received was for their personal sanctification. The gift of tongues which they exercised was intended by Almighty God to edify and enlighten the spectators, and to give Divine sanction to the Apostolic ministry. But now that the Church is firmly established, and the Divine authority of her ministry is clearly recognized, these miracles are no longer necessary. ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... token," announced the elder Doane, crushingly, "thar's trash in Virginny thet don't edify Kaintuck folks none by movin' in ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... suppose the situation my friend Mrs Rooke is in at present, will furnish much either to interest or edify me. She is only nursing Mrs Wallis of Marlborough Buildings; a mere pretty, silly, expensive, fashionable woman, I believe; and of course will have nothing to report but of lace and finery. I mean to make my profit of Mrs Wallis, however. She has plenty of money, and I intend she shall buy all ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... [result of measurement of learning], score, marks; A,B,C,D,E,F; gentleman's C; pass, fail, incomplete. homework; take-home lesson; exercise for the student; theme, project. V. teach, instruct, educate, edify, school, tutor; cram, prime, coach; enlighten &c (inform) 527. inculcate, indoctrinate, inoculate, infuse, instill, infix, ingraft^, infiltrate; imbue, impregnate, implant; graft, sow the seeds of, disseminate. given an idea of; put up to, put in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... to the puff direct, and never indulges in the puff figurative, so much practised by his renowned predecessor, the late knight of the hammer, Christie, the elder, who by the superabundancy of his rhetorical 18flurishes, was accustomed from his elevated rostrum to edify and amuse ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... Stevenson, or if their lives were so fresh and vivid that we never found them dull, perhaps we should not read at all. But, as it is, we can satisfy our craving for knowledge of life only by extending our social world through fiction. Fiction may teach us, edify us, make us better men—it may serve all these purposes incidentally, but its prime purpose as art is to provide us with new objects for social ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... self-control unto their sons, and our tutors sound learning to their scholars, and the laws themselves lead the grown man to righteousness by putting him to sit in the place of penitence. But your mirth-makers, can you say they benefit the body or edify the soul? Can smiles make a man a better master or a better citizen? Can he learn economy or statesmanship ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... in knowledge and grace, and there seemed to be a call for some instruction fitted to confirm these new believers in the life of obedience. Mr. Muller accordingly followed these evangelists in England, Ireland, and Scotland, staying in each place from one week to six, and seeking to educate and edify those who had been led to Christ. Among the places visited on this errand in 1875, were London; then Kilmarnock, Saltwater, Dundee, Perth, Glasgow, Kirkentilloch in Scotland, and Dublin in Ireland; then, returning to England, he ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... and he early formed the purpose of doing something effectual for its illustration. Element by element the plan of the "Family Expositor" evolved, and he set to work on a New Testament Commentary, which should at once instruct the uninformed, edify the devout, and facilitate the studies of the learned. Happy is the man who has a "magnum opus" on hand! Be it an "Excursion" poem, or a Southey's "Portugal," or a Neandrine "Church History,"—to the fond projector there ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... another.' All metaphorical words tend to lose their light and colour, and the figure to get faint, in popular understanding. We all know that 'edifice' means a building; we do not all realise that 'edify' means to build up. And it is a great misfortune that our Authorised Version, in accordance with the somewhat doubtful principle on which its translators proceeded, varies the rendering of the one Greek word so as to hide the frequent recurrence of it in the apostolic ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... letters the Saracens embraced every topic that can amuse or edify the mind. In later times, it was their boast that they had produced more poets than all other nations combined. In science their great merit consists in this, that they cultivated it after the manner of the Alexandrian Greeks, not after the manner ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... well. Why do we keep so many else in Pension that ne'er drew Sword, but to talk, and rail at the malignant Party; to libel and defame 'em handsomly, with pious useful Lyes, Which pass for Gospel with the common Rabble, And edify more than Hugh Peter's Sermons; And make Fools bring more Grist to the publick Mill. Then, Sir, to wrest the Law to our convenience ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... very much a different matter and occupies a place in Mr. Belloc's work difficult to discuss. It is frankly a novel, written as novels are, to entertain, to edify and to perform the spiritual functions of poetry and good literature. It is also unique in that it contains a story of love, a motive largely absent from Mr. ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... is a bad woman," said Camors. "When we are a little more intimate with each other, you and I," he added, laughing, "I shall edify you on this character, I shall tell you ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... of St. Paul's, Milman, Harness, among our own personal friends, were there constantly, not to speak of my behind-the-scenes acquaintance, the Rev. A.F.] I should like to seduce an old Archbishop into a liking for the wickedness of my mystery, so I did my very best to edify him, according to my kind and capacity.... At the end of the play, as I lay dead on the stage, the king (Captain Shelley) was cutting three great capers, like Bayard on his field of battle, for joy his work was done, when his pretty dancing shoes ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... Appear in print were also occasioned by the work of his calling and of his office in the Wittenberg congregation. He had no other object in view than to edify his congregation and to lead it to Christ when, in 1517, he published his first independent work, the Explanation of the Seven Penitential Psalms. On Oct 31 of the same year he published his 95 Theses against Indulgences. These were indeed intended as controversial ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... warmth and kindliness of his dispositions. His pulpit discourses were elegantly composed, and largely impressed with originality and learning; but were somewhat imperfectly pervaded with those clear and evangelical views of Divine truth which are best calculated to edify a Christian audience. In private society, he was universally beloved. "His society," writes Mr Deans, "was courted by the rich and the poor, the learned and the unlearned. In every company he was alike kind, affable, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... the capital of old Touraine, is possessed of great and many charms for the seeker after new things. He may be passionately fond of churches; if so, the trinity here to be seen, and the history of their founders and prelates, and the important part which they played in church affairs, will edify him greatly. If romance fills his or her mind, there is no more convenient centre than Tours from which to "do" the chateaux of the Loire. If it be French history, or the study of modern economic ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... to the king, Kingo states that "he has written these hymns with the hope that they might serve to edify his fellow Christians, advance the teaching of the Gospel and benefit the royal household at those daily devotions which it is the duty of every Christian home to practice". He prays, therefore, he continues, that "the king will ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... had given him, and which he praised highly, and in relation to the professors of it, both pastors and people, in regard to which we satisfied him; but the son, who was neither as good nor as learned as his father, had more disposition or inclination to ridicule and dispute, than to edify and be edified. We told him what was good for him, and we regretted we could not talk more particularly to him. But the father remarked that if the professors were truly what they declared in the Confession, ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... go into the discussion of these points. The book, were it far more orthodox or far more heretical than it is, would not much edify or corrupt the present generation. The men of our time are not to be converted or perverted by quartos. A few more days, and this essay will follow the Defensio Populi to the dust and silence of the upper shelf. The name of its author, and the remarkable circumstances ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... not like the Tower, of any place: Did Iulius Csar build that place, my Lord? Buck. He did, my gracious Lord, begin that place, Which since, succeeding Ages haue re-edify'd ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... the other hand it would be stupid to assume that what is incredible to you or me now must always be incredible to mankind. What was foolishness to the Greeks of St. Paul's day spread mightily among them one or two hundred years later; and what is foolishness to the modernist of to-day may edify future generations. The imagination is suggestible and there is nothing men will not believe in matters of religion. These rational persuasions by which we are swayed, the conventions of unbelieving science ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... good; and you are like to edify much from a dumb preacher. This will not pass, I must examine the contents of him a little closer.—O thou confessor, confess who thou art, or thou art no friar of this world!—[He comes to LORENZO, who struggles with him; his ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... dear Mr. Dean—Your Pulpit Table-Talk has been sent here to gratify, delight, and edify me. A most entertaining book; and full of wise and admirable sentiments. All ministers and preachers should read and digest it. Age seems to have no more dulling effect on you than it had on Sir David Brewster, who retained, after he had turned the threescore and ten, all ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... seems he has no design but to appear respectable, and here he keeps a private book to prove he was not. You are at first faintly reminded of some of the vagaries of the morbid religious diarist; but at a moment's thought the resemblance disappears. The design of Pepys is not at all to edify; it is not from repentance that he chronicles his peccadilloes, for he tells us when he does repent, and, to be just to him, there often follows some improvement. Again, the sins of the religious diarist are of a very formal pattern, and are told with an elaborate whine. But in Pepys ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... of the country; the poorer classes were learning to read; and nothing in the shape of cheap literature was provided to meet their new craving, except mischievous broadsheets and worthless doggerel. Hannah More set to work to supply something healthy to amuse, instruct, and edify the new order of readers. She produced regularly every month for three years, three tracts—simple, pithy, vivacious, consisting of stories, ballads, homilies, and prayers. She was sometimes assisted by one of her sisters and two or three friends; but the burden of the work, including heavy ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... notions, and to draw in art and poetry nearer to real life. Where formerly 'Miracles and Moralities' were the delight of men, and Biblical utterances, put in the mouth of prophets and saints, served to edify the audience, there the wordy warfare and the fisticuffs exchanged between the Mendicant Friar and the Seller of Indulgences [8] or Pardoner, whose profane doings were satirised on the stage, became now the subject of popular enjoyment and laughter. Every ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... as much contempt of death as either Argyle or Rumbold: but his end did not, like theirs, edify pious minds. Though political sympathy had drawn him towards the Puritans, he had no religious sympathy with them, and was indeed regarded by them as little better than an atheist. He belonged to that section of the Whigs which sought for models rather among the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... my ladies, should wot either of your own knowledge or by report, there dwelt a worthy priest, and doughty of body in the service of the ladies: who, albeit he was none too quick at his book, had no lack of precious and blessed solecisms to edify his flock withal of a Sunday under the elm. And when the men were out of doors, he would visit their wives as never a priest had done before him, bringing them feast-day gowns and holy water, and now and again a bit of candle, and giving ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... things, it is the soul of all things. Beauty may clothe it on, whether it is false morality and an evil soul, or whether it is true and a good soul. In the one case the beauty will corrupt, and in the other it will edify, and in either case it will infallibly and inevitably have an ethical effect, now light, now grave, according as the thing is light or grave. We cannot escape from this; we are shut up to it by the very conditions of our being. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... house. After awhile the Queen said to her husband, "O King of the age, Hasan's lady-mother cannot take up her abode with her son and leave the Wazir; neither can she tarry with the Wazir and leave her son." "Thou sayest sooth," replied the King, and bade edify a third palace beside that of Hasan, which being done in a few days he caused remove thither the goods of the Wazir, and the Minister and his wife took up their abode there. Now the three palaces communicated ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... New York Tribune, descanting upon the recent national misfortune by which the writer's red right hand was quietly chewed by an envious bear, says it cannot commend the writer's example, but hopes "his next appearance in print may edify his readers on the dangers ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... commerce-mad, and Navy-mad, which is worst of all. How desirable it is that you should pursue that subject for us. From the porcupines of our country you will receive no thanks, but the great mass of our nation will edify, and thank you. ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... expound, to preach, etc. There were certain prophets and teachers in the church at Antioch, as Barnabas, Simeon, Lucius, Manaen, and Saul or Paul. Acts 13:1. They were public expounders of the Scriptures. Prophesy—to speak, to edify, exhort, and comfort. 1 Cor. 14:3. A few examples: Zacharias filled with the Holy Ghost prophesied. Luke 1:67-79. Compare this prophecy with Mary's words in Luke 1:46-55. "They spake with tongues and prophesied." Acts 19:6. "And Judas and Silas, being prophets also themselves, exhorted ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... historical criticism, and the object which with Spinoza was the basis of the investigation as a whole, were foreign to mediaeval Judaism—in fact, entirely modern and original. This object was to make science independent of religion, whose records and doctrines are to edify the mind and to improve the character, not to instruct the understanding. "Spinoza could not have learned the complete separation of religion and science from Jewish literature; this was a tendency which sprang from the ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... if the likeness can be considered correct when you give her no legs? You will see at the ballet that you are in error about women at present, Richard. That admirable institution which our venerable elders have imported from Gallia for the instruction of our gaping youth, will edify and astonish you. I assure you I used, from reading The Pilgrim's Scrip, to imagine all sorts of things about them, till I was taken there, and learnt that they are very like us after all, and then they ceased to trouble me. Mystery is the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... this is, not only that the course of Oxford education would suffer little if no professors at all existed, but also that, if the existing professors were ex abundanti to volunteer the most exemplary spirit of exertion, however much this spectacle of conscientious dealing might edify the university, it would contribute but little to the promotion of academic purposes. The establishment of professors is, in fact, a thing of ornament and pomp. Elsewhere, they are the working servants; but, in Oxford, the ministers corresponding to them bear another name,—they are ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... According to Chapter XVI of the constitution adopted 1829 for the District Synods, the annual Special Conferences were to meet for two days, especially in order "by practical preaching to awaken and convert sinners and to edify believers." (41.) In the following year the Hartwick Synod was organized, in order more fully to satisfy the craving of their members for revivals. At the convention of the General Synod at Frederick, 1831, a ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... me the seals of thy church; and for my temporal health, prosper thine ordinance, in their hands who shall assist in this sickness, in that manner, and in that measure, as may most glorify thee, and most edify those who observe the issues of thy servants, to their own ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... overthrows his system with his own hands. But let us not, by any means, endeavour to confound men that err and mistake, since we are men as well as they, and no less subject to error. Let us only pity them, study to light and inform them with patience, edify them, pray for them, and conclude ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... to you, assembled here; quiet, personal communication may very happily alternate with social recreations, and, above all things, we can take delight in Schiller's correspondence, since then you will also bring with you the letters of several years, and in the fruitful present we may edify and refresh ourselves with the fair bloom of by-gone days. Riemer sends his very best greetings; he is well; our relation is permanent, mutually beneficial, and profitable. Aulic Councillor Meyer has left for Wiesbaden; unfortunately, his health is ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... reader, with one of those startling bursts of "illustration," with which our most popular preachers are wont now to astonish and edify their hearers, and after starting with them at the opening of the sermon from the north-pole, the Crystal Palace, or the nearest cabbage-garden, float them safe, upon the gushing stream of oratory, to the ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... that the venerable Pontiff invited so many from Italy and all parts of the Christian world to take part with him in celebrating these canonizations, and, at the same time, the eighteen hundredth anniversary of the martyrdom of the blessed Apostles, the founders of the Church. His object was to edify, to place in contrast with, and in opposition to, the worldly and unbelieving spirit of the time the teachings and the solemn offices of religion, together with the power of holiness, so admirably shown ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... must permit me to lend you a copy of an essay I have with me, by that great philosopher, the Stoic Chrysippos,[39] although I cannot agree with all his teachings; and this copy of Panaitios, the Eclectic's great Treatise on Duty, which cannot fail to edify your ladyship." And he ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... Brother Sawny had better give his sperit backward for a few minutes, wol we've done wi' Brother Titus's." Soa Sawny gave ovver shakkin hissen, exceptin his heead, an' jumpin onto his feet, he sed, "If awve allus to give way to Titus, awm blow'd if awl come to edify yor lot ony longer." "Husht, husht!" says th' cheerman, "the sperit has takken possession o' Titus already. Will ony o'th' unbelievers ax it a few questions?" Soa aw thowt aw mud as weel be forrad as onybody else, soa aw stood ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... draw from them great influence. The heroic, the holy, I lack. They are contemptuous. They fail in sympathy with humanity. The voice of nature they bring me to hear is not divine, but ghastly, hard, and ironical. They do not illuminate me: they do not edify me." Is not this the German of to-day? If Emerson were with us now he would see, as we all see, how the age of idealism and spiritual power in Germany that gave the world the great composers and the great poets and ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... and I sigh in remembrance of her; and can only recover that cheerful frame, which the performance of those duties always gave me, by reflecting, that she is now reaping the reward of that sincere piety, which used to edify and ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... Sermon, and from a Priest so gay, It cannot chuse but edify. Do Holy men of your Religion, Signior, wear all this Habit? Are they thus young and lovely? Sure if they are, Your Congregation's all compos'd of Ladies; The Laity ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... friend, Josiah, will allow to be very babyish in a great fellow like me. But, Joe, to make my peace, I have brought you two small copies of verses for your scrap-book; and, as the subjects are serious, perhaps you will edify us all, by reading them aloud by the light ...
— The Little Quaker - or, the Triumph of Virtue. A Tale for the Instruction of Youth • Susan Moodie
... astray from the one thing needful. To whom, if not to the heathen Hellenes, do our great teachers owe, under God, the noble art of coordinating their loftiest feelings, and casting them in forms which are intelligible to the Christian and at once instruct, delight, and edify him? It was in a heathen school that each one of your pastors—that even I, the humblest of them—studied that rhetoric which enables me to utter with a flowing tongue the things which the Spirit gives me to speak to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... great fault, however. It will be impossible with such a structure to cause it to fly upside down. It does not present any means whereby dare-devil stunts can be performed to edify the grandstand. In this respect it is not in the same class with the ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***
... disguise myself in tartan plaid. When I came out, Duncan Cameron was in the gateway welcoming Cuthbert Grant and the Bois-Brules, as if pillaging defenceless settlers were heroic. Victors from war may be inspiring, but a half-breed rabble, red-handed from deeds of violence, is not a sight to edify any man. ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... too; My Sister Laura is a good pretty Wench, He loves her, and she likes him; And because this testy old Blade has done himself, Do you think I can bring him to consider? No, not for my Life, he won't consider, Sir; And now am I got drunk to see how that will edify him. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... let us follow after the things which make for peace, and things by which one may edify another. (20)For the sake of food destroy not the work of God. All things indeed are pure; but it is evil for that man who eats with offense. (21)It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... retained a much greater uniformity among the Presbyterians of the Southern States than among their brethren in the North, and there has been less yielding to the popular demand for those features in worship that appeal to the imagination, and which so often serve to entertain rather than to edify. ...
— Presbyterian Worship - Its Spirit, Method and History • Robert Johnston
... butt, under the most tryin' circumstances. My Mary's got a little lamb, and all the rist of the boys are lambs. But all the lambs are waned, and clusterin' round the milk pail. Ain't that touchin'? Come on, now, Ruben, ile up and edify us some more!" ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... prosperity should have banished almost the remembrance of crime; on the arrays of our police that ever remind us of the noxious elements of our communities; and think, too, of our daily press that might edify a virtuous public by accounts of incessant progress and well doing, but which, faithful to the cause of truth, must ever teem with the harrowing evidence of the depravity of our fellow-beings. And again ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... faith, steadfast in principle, it only needed a wider range of Scripture knowledge and some little guidance in its public affairs. Singularly free from the admixture of foreign elements in its constitution, it had pastors and teachers; the brethren were accustomed to edify one another, and were zealous for the spread of the ...
— Fruits of Toil in the London Missionary Society • Various
... ministry the occasional missionary who, bearing credentials from some yearly meeting, followed in the pioneer footsteps of George Fox, and went from one circle of Friends to another, through those vast expanses of thinly settled territory, to revive and confirm and edify. The early fervors of the Society were soon spent. Its work was strangely unstable. The proved defects of it as a working system were grave. The criticism of George Keith seems justified by the event—its candle needed ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... he said, "you are the man needed to shake the world from one end to the other; with this sign you will overthrow; with this sign you will edify; in ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... friends, and cut short those services which he rendered to others. Yet sought he a convenient season to draw his sovereign toward that which was good. One night the king said unto him, "Come now, let us go forth and walk about the city, if haply we may see something to edify us." Now while they were walking about the city, they saw a ray of light shining through an aperture. Fixing their eyes thereon, they descried an underground cavernous chamber, in the forefront of which there sat a man, plunged in poverty, and clad in rags and tatters. ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... Kaiser's cause, you and I together; build a new Italy under the Emperor." And Sordello is fired by the thought, not as yet for the sake of doing good to man, but to satisfy his curiosity in a new life, and to edify his individual soul into a perfection unattained as yet. "I will go," he thinks, "and be the spirit in this body of mankind, wield, animate, and shape the people of Italy, make them the form in which I shall ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... affection, he was repeatedly called away, again to take a place as private tutor. But for his most internal and peculiar training he had to thank that wide-spread class of men who sought out their salvation on their own responsibility, and who, while they strove to edify themselves by reading the Scriptures and good books, and by mutual exhortation and confession, thereby attained a degree of cultivation which must excite surprise. For while the interest which always accompanied them and which maintained them in fellowship rested on the simplest ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... to the successful rival's credit reaches the ear of the defeated, it is held by plain men of no pretensions that his mouth is, in the circumstance, almost necessarily closed. Your Church and Damien's were in Hawaii upon a rivalry to do well: to help, to edify, to set divine examples. You having (in one huge instance) failed, and Damien succeeded, I marvel it should not have occurred to you that you were doomed to silence; that when you had been outstripped in that high rivalry, and sat inglorious in the midst of your well-being, in your ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... through the whole Revolution, and that he has left several manuscript works on divinity. One of these is a pious treatise, entitled "Of Christianity, and of its Influence." Another consists of meditations on the Psalms, which will doubtless greatly console and edify the Church. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... parish churches, and the spectacle of congregations trying to worship in unison with books some of which contained the reading of 1880, others that of 1883, and still others that of 1886 would scarcely edify. Theoretically, let it be freely granted, the "driblet method" of amendment is the proper one for both Prayer Book and Constitution, but the fact that the Convention had eyes to see that this was a case to which the maxims of pure mathematics did not apply ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... genius of the place was a driver, who held a rope four feet long in his hand, which he wielded with cruel dexterity. He used it in single blows, just as the men were lifting to tighten the bale cords. It seemed to me that he was desirous to edify me with a specimen of his authority; at any rate the cruelty ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... 'obsolete civil hallucinations') inhered in an American State; or perhaps you believe the child is longing for a pot of sugar candy? Then rub your eyes, you ecclesiastical bats, and let me show you the 'outcome' of all this wise and learned chat, with which you edify one another. You know she beguiled me into giving her lessons on the organ, as well as the piano, and yesterday when I went over to the church at instruction hour, I was astonished at a prelude, which ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... Holstein cows and Flemish mares, the gray oxen of Hungary and the buffaloes of the Campagna, the wild red pigs of the Don and the razor-backs of Southern France—was calculated to amuse, if but moderately to edify, our breeders of Ohio, Kentucky and New York. A thousand horses and fifteen hundred horned cattle comprised this congress, while two hundred and fifty pigs were deemed enough to represent the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... edify if I were to describe all we saw at Jerusalem. I have written of it more fully elsewhere,[1] and I can never hope to convey the remarkably vivid way in which it brought home to me the truth of the Gospel ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... The truth is, we all need, ministers and all, a closer walk with God. If a man comes down straight from the mount to speak to those who have just come from the same place, he must be in a state to edify and ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... is the mind of God concerning us, that we should come together not waiting on any pulpit or minister, but trusting that the Lord would edify us together by ministering as He pleased." Lord Congleton adds: "At the moment he spoke these words I was assured my soul had got the right idea, and that moment (I remember it as if it were but yesterday) was the birth-place of my mind ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... preaching of the Word, not only to edify the brethren, but to bring men to repentance. The numbers may seem small when compared with those reported by our American evangelists laboring among the tens of thousands in our great cities, but, under the circumstances, they are very cheering. At Stockton, 1; Sacramento, ...
— American Missionary, Vol. XLII., June, 1888., No. 6 • Various
... drunken dream or the nightmare of a distempered imagination. To ourselves it is the speaking with unknown tongues to the early Corinthians; we cannot fully understand our own speech, and we fear lest there be not a sufficient number of interpreters present to make our utterance edify. But there! (Go on straight to the ...
— Samuel Butler's Canterbury Pieces • Samuel Butler
... the same sense that he said before: Vos estis sal terrae, Vos estis lux mundi, Ego sum ostium, and a hundred such more, If time would permit to allege them severally; But that I may the simple sort edify, You ask me in what sense these words I verify, Where Christ of the bread said, "This is my body." For answer herein I ask you this question: Were Christ's disciples into salt transformed When he said, "Ye are the salt of the earth every one," Or when the light of the world he ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... which was, moreover, made repulsive to him by the exceeding filthiness of the cookery. Nevertheless, he was forced to disguise his feelings. "One must always keep a smiling, modest, contented face, and now and then sing a hymn, both for his own consolation and to please and edify the savages, who take a singular pleasure in hearing us sing the praises of our God." Among all his trials, none afflicted him so much as the flies and mosquitoes. "If I had not kept my face wrapped in a cloth, I am almost sure ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... of impassioned imagery. In his poems as elsewhere he is a good deal of a rhetorician, but he is never insincere. His verse came from the heart, only it was the expression of character and convictions rather than of moods and fancies. It seems intended to edify rather than to portray; to impress rather than to delight. Some of it, too, is occupied with ideal sentiments so abstract and sublimated as to possess but languid interest for normally constituted lovers of poetry. For a while, at least, after his return to poetry, he may ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... said, "ask Rachel! If she broke her back to-morrow she would have at least twenty good reasons for congratulation with which to edify me for the first time we met. Wouldn't you, dear? I am quite sure you would accept it as a blessing ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... forgive. We have been too long aliens from God, and wedded to our evil passions. We must fling aside the scowl of defiance, the angry malediction, the sword and the firebrand, and, like Christians and neighbors, contract an alliance that may edify as much as our discord has scandalized. I conjure you, in the name of the victims already made by our feud—of the numbers who must perish by its continuance—in the name of the holy Church whose precepts we have disregarded, of the God whose Commandments we have violated, not to dismiss me in scorn ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... and for an hour thereafter Mrs. MacGregor either read aloud from some book intended to edify the young person, or forced Nancy to do so. She was possibly the only person alive who delighted in Hannah More. She said, modestly, that at an early age she had been taught to revere this paragon, and whatever happy knowledge of the virtues proper ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. 18. For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and approved of men. 19. Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another. 20. For meat destroy not the work of God. All things indeed are pure; but it is evil for that man who eateth with offence. 21. It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak. 22. Hast thou faith? ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... is not my primary purpose to edify, entertain, or instruct a million women with poems, stories, and fashion-hints. Mr. Bok may think it is. He is merely the innocent victim of a harmless delusion, and he draws a salary for being deluded. To be frank and confidential ...
— Commercialism and Journalism • Hamilton Holt
... journal's contributors is that great traveller, hotel-builder, epigrammatist and kite-flyer, Mr. George Francis Train. So The Revolution, from the start, will arouse, thrill, edify, amuse, vex and nonplus its friends. But it will compel attention; it will conquer a hearing. Its business management is in the good hands of Miss Susan B. Anthony, who has long been known as one of the most indefatigable, honest, obstinate, faithful, cross-grained ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... Bostonians who are in such hope will edify the public as to the final result of their experiment. What has that veteran in botany, Dr. Asa Gray, to say about it? Let some one well qualified tell us more about this frost flower ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... that "In most authors I see the man who writes: in Montaigne, the man who thinks."[154] That is precisely Montaigne's significance, in sociology as in philosophy. His whole activity is a seeking for causes; and in the very act of undertaking to "humble reason" he proceeds to instruct and re-edify it by endless corrective comparison of facts. To be sure, he departed so far from his normal bonne foi as to affect to think there could be no certainties while parading a hundred of his own, and with these some which were but pretences; ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... it pay. Methinks you see Your efforts are a failure. What's the end Of all your toil? Not enough money saved For the redemption of your pawned piano! Truly a cheerful prospect is before you: To hear your views would edify me greatly." ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... that example of all good life, honesty, and virtue, to have him hoisted up with a pulley, and there play the philosopher in a basket; measure how many foot a flea could skip geometrically, by a just scale, and edify the people from the engine. This was theatrical wit, right stage jesting, and relishing a playhouse, invented for scorn and laughter; whereas, if it had savoured of equity, truth, perspicuity, and candour, to have tasten a wise or a learned palate,—spit it out presently! ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... is no cause to detain thee from the sanctuary. The godly Mr. Cotton holds forth to-day, and it would be a sinful neglect of privileges. I feel not well myself, and must, therefore, for thy sake, as well as my own, deny myself the refreshment of the good man's counsel. Thou shalt go, to edify me on thy return with what thou mayest remember of ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... affluents, and the many watercourses created about the place, either to drain the marsh lands or to facilitate navigation, Chauny really is an aquatic little capital like Annecy in Savoy. Naturally its citizens set a certain value on their fishing rights, and it may edify those who obstinately insist on regarding the feudal ages as ages of brute force, to know that so early as in 1175 the citizens of Chauny, by the lieutenant of the bailliage, Messire Regnault Doucet, asserted and successfully maintained before the royal representatives their right ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... Providence. But the Author hesitates not to say, that he has availed himself of all the materials which the research of modern times has brought to light, while he has carefully rejected all such speculations or conjectures as might gratify the curiosity of learning without tending to edify the youthful mind. The account which is given of the Feasts and Fasts of the Jews, both before and after the Babylonian Captivity, will, it is hoped, prove useful to the reader, more especially by pointing out to him appropriate ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... all day long in the Electoral palace. The Elector himself remained in his cabinet and had the court preacher John Bergius called, that he might pray with him and edify him by a few hours' pious conversation. But the dreadful uncertainty as to whether the White Lady had appeared in deep mourning or with black gloves still continued to disturb him, and whenever a door opened a shudder crept through ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... finding himself in the street arrayed in these brilliant and barbarous habiliments, but reflecting that the citizens traveling the streets at this hour would perhaps take him for some high official in one of the many fraternal orders that entertain, instruct, and edify the inhabitants of the city, he proceeded on his way somewhat reassured. As he was changing cars well toward his lodgings, at a corner where a large public hall reared its facade, he heard himself accosted, and turning, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... speak," we hope better things, especially from the decided followers of the Lamb, of every name; "things which make for peace, things wherewith one may edify another, and things which accompany salvation" to ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... he reply, that in endeavoring to relieve the oppressed, to elevate the poor, and to instruct and edify those of a happier condition, he had only held "the mirror up to Nature. To show virtue her own form—scorn her own image." That "this only was the witchcraft he had used;" and, did he need proof of this, there are many fair girls on both sides of the water who, though they might not ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... there is only one way of honouring them, and that is to continue seeking with the same spirit and with the same courage, and not to weary of the search. But to foist the doubtful title of "classics" upon them, and to "edify" oneself from time to time by reading their works, means to yield to those feeble and selfish emotions which all the paying public may purchase at concert-halls and theatres. Even the raising of monuments to their ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... be taken lightly. For a person to possess knowledge is not enough. He must be sure that he is properly called. Those who operate without a proper call seek no good purpose. God does not bless their labors. They may be good preachers, but they do no edify. Many of the fanatics of our day pronounce words of faith, but they bear no good fruit, because their purpose is to turn men to their perverse opinions. On the other hand, those who have a divine call must suffer a good deal ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... that he washed his hands of it, and that he would confine himself to conveying the decisions on both sides, and affording a refuge to Brother Nepomucene, partly out of Christian charity, and partly to edify his monks by the example of a truly devout man. According to him, Brother Nepomucene would be the second of that name placed in the front rank of the heavenly host by virtue of ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... Pillnitz to meet me, pleased me very well this time. On my journey back I shall again look up the R.'s, for I like to remain in communication with people who prove real friends of yours. We form a little Church of our own, and edify each other by singing your praises. Take note, dear Richard, and make up your mind to it, for it cannot be otherwise. You are now, and will be still more, the concentric focus of every high endeavour, high feeling, and honest effort in art. This ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... Entertain. Edify means to build; it has, therefore, the sense of uplift, improvement—usually ...
— Write It Right - A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults • Ambrose Bierce
... seldom frequent these holy places, where they can hardly pick up any materials to serve their turn, unless they think it worth their while to misrepresent or pervert the words of the preacher: And whoever is that way disposed, I doubt, cannot be in a very good condition to edify and reform himself by what he heareth. God in his mercy preserve us from all the guilt of this grievous sin forbidden in my text, and from the snares of those who ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... possibly operate upon the mind both of a learned and ignorant hearer as long as they live, and will edify a thousand times more than the art of wetting the handkerchiefs of a whole congregation, if you were sure to ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... Fruitfull Instructions and necessary Doctrine meete to edify in the feare of God." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 204, September 24, 1853 • Various
... president; "it is that of endowing a projectile with a speed of 12,000 yards per second. I have every reason to believe that we shall succeed, but at present let us see what speeds we have already obtained; General Morgan can edify us upon that subject." ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... shall be damned for [the] wickedness of the people, if they teach not them that are ignorant, and condemn them that are sinners. For all the work and witness of priests standeth in preaching and teaching; that they edify all men, as well by cunning of faith, as by discipline of works, that is virtuous teaching. And, as the gospel witnesseth, CHRIST said in his teaching, I am born and come into this world to bear witness to the Truth, and he that is of the Truth ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... has failed to reach its mark from lack of powder to propel it. The prime duty of God's ambassador is to arouse the attention of souls before his pulpit; to stir those who are indifferent; to awaken those who are impenitent; to cheer the sorrow-stricken; to strengthen the weak, and edify believers An advocate in a criminal trial puts his grip on every juryman's ear So must every herald of Gospel-truth demand and command a hearing, cost what it may: but that hearing he never will secure ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... that the higher we rise in rank, the harder we find it to be virtuous, he was for ever flattering himself with the future. Now, his conduct was to be such as should edify the whole body of the magistracy of Ispahan, of which he was become the head. He would not be satisfied with going to Mecca to visit the black stone, the temple of Kaaba, and purifying himself in the waters ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 327, August 16, 1828 • Various
... who they are? One thinks on Calvin Heaven's own spirit fell; Another deems him instrument of hell; If Calvin feel Heaven's blessing, or its rod. This cries, there is, and that, there is no God. What shocks one part will edify the rest, Nor with one system can they all he blessed. The very best will variously incline, And what rewards your virtue, punish mine. Whatever is, is right.—This world 'tis true Was made for Caesar—but for ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... worldly or inefficient men, the younger sons of men of rank, who made no mark, and were incapable of instruction or indifferent to their duties. In New England the minister of the parish was elected by the church members or congregation, and if he could not edify his hearers by his sermons, or if his character did not command respect, his occupation was gone, or his salary was not paid. In consequence the ministers were generally gifted men, well educated, and in sympathy with the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... with the young and with strangers. Be not a flatterer of the rich; nor willingly seek the society of the great. Let thy company be the humble and the simple, the devout and the gentle, and let thy discourse be concerning things which edify. Be not familiar with any woman, but commend all good women alike unto God. Choose for thy companions God and His Angels only, and flee from ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... of art, and awarded crowns to successful competitors in poetry; a formal ingenuity replaced lyrical inspiration; poetry accepted proudly the name of "rhetoric." At the same time there is gain in one respect—the poets no longer conceal their own personality behind their work: they instruct, edify, moralise, express their real or simulated passions in their own persons; if their art is mechanical, yet through it we make some acquaintance with the men and manners of ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... singing of their verses; in that singing they give delight, or they edify, or they edify and ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... creatures and the poor thereof; and to the edification and confusion of the great numbers of barbarians, heathens, and infidels whom we have as witnesses about us looking at us, and who will see nothing that can move and edify them like such works of true charity, performed without ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair
... vaudeville-powers-that-be and I am encouraged to try my hand at what they call a sketch—a one-act play. It seems that they are in need of something a little less thin than the usual article they've been serving up to their patrons,—more of a playlet; something, I suppose, to edify the wife of the Tired Business Man after he has enjoyed the Tramp Juggler and the Trained Seals. Rodney Harrison has helped me no end,—trotted me about to all the best places and helped me to study and learn from them, and now I'm ready ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... illusions of the demon. There is then reason to believe that all the apparitions of this kind, and all these stories, are false, and must be absolutely rejected, as more fit to keep up the superstition and idle credulity of the people than to edify and instruct them. ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... Amputation, or Addition. Produce her to us in her neat Country Apparel, such as she appear'd in, on her intended Departure to her Parents; for such best becomes her Innocence, and beautiful Simplicity. Such a Dress will best edify and entertain. The flowing Robes of Oratory may indeed amuse and amaze, but will never strike the ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... teachers of the people, whether it is not their duty to avoid discussions in the pulpit on mysteries which never edify, because never understood; and to confine their discourses to such topics as those indicated in the Sermon of Jesus on the Mount. Such, at least, appears to be the proper duty of a national establishment! Empirics may raise the fury ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... improve in every religious and moral quality, that I may be a help, and if possible an ornament to you. Oh let us pray much for wisdom and grace to fill our appointed stations with propriety, that we may enjoy satisfaction in our own souls, edify others, and bring glory to the name of Him who has so wonderfully preserved, blessed, and brought ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... more blessed to give than to receive; therefore when any gift was given unto him by any rich man, he hastened so soon as might be to give it unto the poor, lightening himself thereof as of a heavy burden. In his countenance, in his speech, in his gait, in all his members, in his whole body, did he edify the beholders; and his discourse was well seasoned, and suited unto every age, sex, rank, and condition. In four languages, the British, the Hibernian, the Gallic, and the Latin, was he thoroughly skilled; and the Greek language also did he partly ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... Democracy no corrective to this state of things could be hoped. It is said that every people has the Government it deserves. It is more to the point that every Government has the electorate it deserves; for the orators of the front bench can edify or debauch an ignorant electorate at will. Thus our democracy moves in a vicious circle of ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... mutual accusations which assailed the throne of Constantine, as soon as the death of Maxentius had submitted Africa to his victorious arms, were ill adapted to edify an imperfect proselyte. He learned, with surprise, that the provinces of that great country, from the confines of Cyrene to the columns of Hercules, were distracted with religious discord. The source of the division was derived from a double election ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... for Tom to say at a stretch, and it fell to the voluble Pee-wee later to edify Mr. Rushmore with all the details of their trip, winding up with a glowing ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... great before he was shut up in gaol, was naturally enhanced by the circumstance of his imprisonment. The barn in Josias Roughead's orchard, where he was licensed as a preacher, was "so thronged the first time he appeared there to edify, that many were constrained to stay without; every one that was of his persuasion striving to partake of his instructions." Wherever he ministered, sometimes, when troublous days returned, in woods, and ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... to Hiram, king of Tyre, for to have his men to cut cedar trees with his servants, and he would yield to them their hire and meed, and let him wit how that he would build and edify a temple to our Lord. And Hiram sent to him that he should have all that he desired, and sent to him cedar trees and other wood. And Solomon sent to him corn in great number, and Solomon and Hiram confederated them together in love and friendship. Solomon chose out workmen of all Israel ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... between both and our courts of law and private juries of matrons, produces that sensation of evasion, of dissatisfaction, of fundamental irrelevance, of shallowness, of useless disagreeableness, of total failure to edify and partial failure to interest, which is as familiar to you in the theatres as it was to me when I, too, frequented those uncomfortable buildings, and found our popular playwrights in the mind to ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... purchase of one, and further to teach himself the contents with all convenient diligence. She was still pursuing this train of discourse, when Hugh, somewhat unceremoniously and irreverently, followed his young master out, and left her to edify the rest of the company. This she proceeded to do, and finding that Mr Willet's eyes were fixed upon her with an appearance of deep attention, gradually addressed the whole of her discourse to him, whom she ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... "decline to see a play founded on the Le Solitaire, a work by Atala de Chateaubriand? We were so fond of that book that we cried over it like Magdalens under the line-trees last summer, and then it is an improving work that might edify ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... residence. Scholars did not present themselves in crowds, not a single female, and not a person of the city. I had only two or three great dunces, as stupid as I was ignorant, who fatigued me to death, and in my hands were not likely to edify much. ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... and leave. Those skies shall never cease to shine, the waters of life we shall never be called upon to leave. We have here no continuing city, but we seek one to come. In such thoughts as these I desire ever to rest, and with such words as these let us 'comfort one another and edify ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... placid, martyr-like state. He had made up his mind that the air was of the relaxing sort that disagreed with him, and no doubt would be fatal, though as he coughed rather less than more, he could hardly hope to edify Bobus by his death-bed, unless he could expedite matters by breaking a blood-vessel in saving someone's life. On the whole, however, it was pleasanter to pity himself for vague possibilities than to apprehend the crisis as immediate. It was true that he was very forlorn. ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... will so edify and soothe me, nor merely because those veiled statues will make less uncouth the city I was born in, do I feverishly thrust on you my proposition. The wish in me is that posterity shall be haunted by our dead heroes even as I am by Umberto. Rather hard on ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... 1918—should entertain somewhat mixed feelings with regard to the Press. As long as I can remember, practically, the War Office has provided a sort of Aunt Sally for the young men of Fleet Street to take cock-shies at when they can think of nothing else to edify their readers with, and uncommonly bad shots a good many of them have made. Assessment at the hands of the newspaper world confronts every public department. Nor can this in principle be objected to; healthy, well-informed criticism ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... art at the close of paganism did not seek, or sought only incidentally, to elevate the soul through the contemplation of an ideal of divine beauty. True to the traditions of the ancient Orient, it tried to edify and to instruct at the same time.[22] It told the history of the gods and the world in cycles of pictures, or it expressed through symbols the subtle conceptions of theology and even certain doctrines of profane science, like the struggle of the four elements; just as during ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... taking deep philosophy With very special force, To edify a clergyman With suitable discourse: You think you've got him,—when he calls A friend across the way, And begs you'll say that funny thing You said ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... though I do not believe that an intention to edify is any excuse for slipshod thought or intellectual dishonesty, I am speaking now mainly from the point of view of those who are enquiring into metaphysical truth for the guidance of their own religious and practical life, rather than from the point ...
— Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall
... lie along for hours, listening to the gurgling of the water round the prow, and would occasionally edify the company with speculations on the great changes that would be effected in the world by the steam-navigation of rivers: sketching the course of a steamboat up and down some mighty stream which civilisation had either never visited, or long since deserted; ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... not being all that, he was aware also of having tried to be it; of having sought from the beginning to captivate the reader's fancy as well as convince his reason. He had never been satisfied with being plain and direct; he had constantly wished to amuse as well as edify, and following the line of beauty, as that of the least resistance, had been his practice if not his precept. If he counselled his correspondents otherwise, he would be uncandid, and when he had imagined putting them off in that fashion ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells |
