"Idolatry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who saw the matter in the same light. These were the magicians, diviners, fortune-tellers, all the servants of idolatry who had risen up at Julian's bidding and were swarming in Alexandria as everywhere else. The presence of Athanasius in their midst, they complained to the Emperor, was the ruin of their trade. Even their charms would not work as long as he was near them. There would ...
— Saint Athanasius - The Father of Orthodoxy • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... Wordsworth with the deepest emotions of reverential awe. Nature is to him but a collection of 'baubles,' soon to be taken away, and he seeks in its contemplation a temporary relief from anguish, not a permanent object of worship. He would dread that sentiment as a deistical form of idolatry; and he is equally far from thinking that the natural man, wherever that vague person might be found, could possibly be a desirable object of imitation. His love of nature, in short, keen as it might be, was not the reflection ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... does not know what he says! Roman idolatry! Ah! Monseigneur! It is contrary to the testament of Eberhard the Ancient and the ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... certificated milk of the word one must come along to such modern giants as Dreiser and Hergesheimer and Cabell. For these artists, each in his due place, we have only the most genial respect. But when the passion of our youth is impugned as "idolatry" we feel in our spirit an intense weariness. We feel the pacifism of the wise and secretive mind that remains tacit when its most perfect inward certainties are assailed. One does not argue, for there are certain things not arguable. One shrugs. After all, what human gesture more eloquent ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... miles south of Bethlehem, in Judaea, and was a herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit (Amos i, i; vii, 14). This occupation he gave up for that of prophet (vii, 15), and he came forward to denounce the idolatry then prevalent in Judah, ...
— The Dore Gallery of Bible Illustrations, Complete • Anonymous
... questions respecting the Arabs, and particularly how they had destroyed the kingdom of the Persians. Ebn Wahab answered, that they had done it by the assistance of God, and because the Persians were immersed in idolatry, adoring the sun, moon, and stars, instead of the Almighty. The emperor said, that they had conquered the most illustrious kingdom of the earth, the best cultivated, the most populous, the most pregnant of fine wits, and of the highest fame. The emperor ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... was uppermost while in Benares; I had pondered over it before in our visit to India. It was that with the masses Hinduism to-day means superstition and idolatry, in spite of the fact that the earlier teaching was of a pure character. That the cultivated Hindus accept the practices and the priesthood is a mystery as subtle as the law of caste or the iron law of custom. ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... be sinful, but when it is used only to protect men from a devil, which is a thing harmless in itself, the sign too must be, as a bottle is neither good nor bad, harmless. For the sign is neither good nor bad. But if the bottle be full of gin, the gin is bad; and if the sign be made in idolatry bad, so is the idolatry.' And, very like a native pastor, he had a text apposite about the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... common feature of idol-worship in all lands; for, however the invocation of the saints could be vitalized in the hearts of the few spiritual, there is no doubt that in the mass of the common people it had all the well-defined symptoms of the grossest idolatry, among which fits of passionate irreverence are one. That feeling, which tempts the enlightened Christian in sore disappointment and vexation to rise in rebellion against a wise Providence, in the childish twilight of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... thou called'st it, to look back to with blind veneration; thou thyself being to thyself flat, jejune, modern! What mystery lurks in this retroversion? or what half Januses[1] are we, that cannot look forward with the same idolatry with which we for ever revert! The mighty future is as nothing, being every thing! the past is every ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... far from me may be Lying and idolatry; Poverty immoderate Give me not, nor riches great; Too great wealth or poverty Is not good, for either may 'Neath the devil's ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... reasons. The first commandment is, "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me" (Exod. xx. 2). Look at the millions throughout Christendom who worship Jesus Christ as God. If Christ be not God this is idolatry. We are all guilty of breaking the first commandment if Jesus Christ were mere man—if He were a created being, and not what ...
— The Way to God and How to Find It • Dwight Moody
... idolater in the reverence of that which is truly venerable; for if he render it homage only in blind conformity to custom, and in implicit submission to the discipline of ancient use and wont, though the object be worthy, yet his worship is an idolatry." It is indeed a type of idolatry which becomes continually more subtle and dangerous with the progress ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... face, without the possibility of pleading even the mercy that our hearts instinctively grant to the smallest mite of fellow life on our own planet! To be alone! friendless! forsaken! condemned!—in a far-off, kinless world! I could have fallen down in idolatry before a grain of sand from the shore ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... should, therefore, be supported and encouraged by the State. As to the form religion assumed, he was not particular. In Egypt he had become accustomed to the ritual of Apis and Mnevis, which was by no means so gross and demoralising as the idolatry of the Canaanites, and he evidently could not see why the worship of Jehovah could not be carried on by those who believed in Him through the use of emblems, and, if need be, of idols. Therefore he set about the establishment of the cult of Apis, and ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... glorified and transformed: the meal, however, consisted principally of tea and coffee, for the Humans were total abstainers, not with the virulent assertion of a negative formula, but as an enlightened ratification of a profound social effort (hear, hear), not as the meaningless idolatry (cheers) of an isolated nostrum (renewed cheers), but as a chivalrous sacrifice for the triumph of a civic morality (prolonged cheers ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... lesson this for both of you; but most wise, most needful—or the hand that guideth all things, never would have sent it. Know ye not for comfort, that ye are of those to whom all things work together for good? Know ye not for counsel, that the excess of love is an idolatry that must be blighted? It is well, children, it is well, that ye should thus carry your wounded hearts for balm to the altar of God; it is well that ye should bow in meekness to His will, in readiness to His wisdom. Ye are learning the lesson speedily, as docile children should; and be ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... the villages, or in other parts of the Filipinas Islands, there are no temples consecrated to the performing of sacrifices, the adoration of their idols, or the general practice of idolatry. It is true that they have the name simbahan, which means a temple or place of adoration; but this is because, formerly, when they wished to celebrate a festival, which they called pandot, or "worship," they celebrated it in the large house of a chief. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair
... counted among the members of his tavern club Edmund Spenser, Beaumont, Fletcher, and Ben Jonson, "rare Ben Jonson," who wrote of his great rival, "I loved the man, and do honour his memory on this side idolatry as much as any"; tribute over which the mind loves to linger. Fuller tells of the contests of wit that used to ensue when Shakespeare and Ben Jonson met, "which two I beheld like a great Spanish galleon and an English man-of-war. ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... art. An ideal art critic would, no doubt, see the enduring beauty under every school; equally an ideal moralist would see the enduring ethic under every code. But practically some of the best Englishmen that ever lived could see nothing but filth and idolatry in the starry piety of the Brahmin. And it is equally true that practically the greatest group of artists that the world has ever seen, the giants of the Renaissance, could see nothing but barbarism in the ethereal energy ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... which dark and ill-defined figures were ever and anon flitting like phantoms; while, in the midst, the funnel of the steam-boat loomed tall and black above the veil of smoke that hung around—like some dark and horrid object Of heathen idolatry surrounded by its sacrificial fires. The sounds that met my ear, however, dispelled this somewhat fanciful idea; for in the stillness of the night voices grow distinct, while forms are indebted to the imagination for ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... letters, the first three of which are by Toland, the other two and the preface by Holbach and Naigeon. The matters treated are, the origin of prejudices, the dogma of the immortality of the soul, idolatry, superstition, the system of Spinoza and the origin of movement ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing
... uncomely act without shame Ham commised, When he of his father the secret parts revealed. In like case Nimrod against me wrought abusion, As he raised up the castle of confusion. Ninus hath also, and all by the devil's illusion, Through image-making upraised idolatry, Me to dishonour. And now in the conclusion The vile Sodomites live so unnaturally, That their sin vengeance asketh continually, For my covenant's sake I will not drown with water, Yet shall I visit their ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... before, oh yes, but this was a different matter. All girls have their gods—some have many of them. My gods were few, and on the highest pedestal of all, grave and gentle, stood the god of my professional idolatry—Edwin Booth. It was humiliating to be forced on any one as I should be forced upon Mr. Booth, since there was still none but my 'apple-cheeked' self to go on for the Queen, and though I dreaded complaint and disparaging remarks from him, I was honestly more unhappy over ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... primitive Church of Christ, of the Apostles, and of the holy fathers, which we doubt not but was indeed the true Catholic Church. For our parts, if we could have judged ignorance, error, superstition, idolatry, men's inventions, and the same commonly disagreeing with the Holy Scriptures, either to please God or to be sufficient for the obtaining everlasting salvation; or if we could ascertain ourselves, that ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... Falthurne: the Manuscript of the Abbe Savonati, translated from Italian by M. Matricante, Primary School Principal, The Accursed Child, The Two Friends, a satiric sketch, The Day's Work of a Man of Letters, Some Fools, and, furthermore, fragments of a work on idolatry, theism and natural religion, a historic monograph on the Vaudois, some outlined letters on Paris, literature, and the general police system of the realm of letters. In his youthful enthusiasms, Honore de Balzac shifted from Beaumarchais to Moliere, from Voltaire ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... was McElroy now,—only she loved him with that vast idolatry which seeks naught but the good of ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... 'a heretic and idolatress.' In 1456, the same French clergy, to please Charles VII., in the name of religion and justice pronounced the memory of Joan of Arc free from all taint of heresy and of idolatry, and ordered processions and erected crosses in her honour to keep her ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... of the missionaries has been that Cook's death at the hands of the savages was substantially the punishment inflicted by God, because the Captain allowed himself to be celebrated and worshipped as a god by the heathen, consenting to their idolatry when he should have preached to them, as was done with so much efficiency nearly half a century later. The fact is the natives had a great deal of "religion" of their own, and defended their superstitions with skill and persistence before yielding to ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... attributes, in the form of idols. Next, the representation of all that belongs to spirits, good and bad. And finally, the deification of every imagination of the heart of man,—a written and accredited system of polytheism, and a monstrous and hydra-headed idolatry." ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... the human heart. Johnson said, that the description of the temple, in the Mourning Bride[257], was the finest poetical passage he had ever read; he recollected none in Shakspeare equal to it. 'But, (said Garrick, all alarmed for the "God of his idolatry[258],") we know not the extent and variety ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... compelled to quit it and seek safety at Kabomba. Soon after we had left our home on our unfortunate expedition, Timbo had set off to Kabomba, in the hope, as he said, of telling the natives about the Bible, showing them how much superior is the white man's religion to their foolish idolatry. They had listened more readily than he had expected; and his great wish now was to return there at some future day with missionaries, who might teach them to read about the matter themselves. He had just got back, when one morning Jack Handspike, who was on guard, ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... battle of it in real earnest, for he cut it up with a sword into twenty pieces. He made up his mind to settle his affairs in Paris immediately, and to go somewhere else to study an art which he loved to idolatry; we resolved on ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... of education, although it is often a source of humble apology. He honoured the learned godly as Christians, but preferred the Bible before the library of the two universities.[124] He saw, what every pious man must see and lament, that there is much idolatry in human learning, and that it was frequently applied to confuse and impede the gospel. Thus he addresses the reader of his treatise on The Law and Grace—'If thou find this book empty of fantastical expressions, and without light, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... death. And so doubt has no power to blight Its bloom, or quench its deathless light,— A deathless light, a peerless bloom, That beams and glows beyond the tomb! Go tell the trusting devotee, His worship is idolatry; Say to the searcher after gold, The prize he seeks is dull and cold; Assure the toiler after fame, That, won, 'tis but a worthless name, A mocking shade, a phantasy,— And they, perchance, may list to thee; But say not to the trusting maid, Her love is scorned, her faith ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... since the world began, To graff thy laws in the heart of man, Where they ought to be refused: And I have so mingled God's commandments With vain zeals and blind intents, That they be greatly abused. I set up great idolatry With all[79] kind of filthy sodometry, To give mankind a fall: And I [have] brought up such superstition, Under the name of holiness and religion. That deceived almost all. As holy cardinals, holy popes, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... the adamantine limitations of human power, the "thus far, no farther" of relentless physiological, psychological and ethical statutes under which humanity lives, moves, has its being—our desperate souls break through the meshes of that pantheistic idolatry which kneels only to "Natural Laws"; and spring as suppliants to Him, who made Law possible. We take our portion of happiness and prosperity, and while it lasts we wander far, far away in the seductive land of philosophical speculation, and revel in the freedom and irresponsibility of Agnosticism; ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... "in which there was no beggar, no man poor, &c., but all rich, and in good estate, and he gives the reason, because they were more religious than, their neighbours:" why was Israel so often spoiled by their enemies, led into captivity, &c., but for their idolatry, neglect of God's word, for sacrilege, even for one Achan's fault? And what shall we except that have such multitudes of Achans, church robbers, simoniacal patrons, &c., how can they hope to flourish, that neglect divine duties, that live ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... expression of his face; in his countenance amazement, fear, and horror seemed struggling for the mastery. I was filled with a most discomforting qualm, as I gazed at the frightened figure in front of me, and realised that it was that of the great Paul Lessingham, the god of my political idolatry. ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... Spring, to Beauty, in which they impersonate an idea, or a principle, and address it in the language of adoration, as if it were a sentient being, possessing magical and mysterious powers. In the same manner, the rites and celebrations of ancient times are not necessarily all to be considered as idolatry, and denounced as inexcusably wicked and absurd. Our fathers set up an image in honor of liberty, to strengthen the influence of the love of liberty on the popular mind. It is possible that AEneas looked upon the subject in the same light, in erecting a public fireside in honor of domestic ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... of the loyalty of a clanswoman, the hero-worship of a maiden aunt, and the idolatry due to a god. No matter what he had asked of her, ridiculous or tragic, she would have done it and joyed to do it. Her passion, for it was nothing less, entirely filled her. It was a rich physical pleasure to make ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... soul that apprehends it readjusts its affairs, looks unto God, and quietly waits for Him. The existence of an Omnipresent Holiness was alike the beginning and the burden of his theology, and in the light of that truth all the earth became holy to him. His followers abjured idolatry and sought to know only the invisible things of the spirit. He did not seek to establish a church; the truths which he knew, in their essence discountenance a visible semblance of divine authority, and Nanuk ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... air of advancing a point not to be put aside, "they had to drop that. It was a dead failure. They found that they couldn't make it go at all among cultivated people, and that, if Christianity was to advance, they would have to give up all that crankish kind of idolatry of the mere letter. At any rate," she went on, with the satisfaction we all feel in getting an opponent into close quarters, "you must confess that there is a much greater play of ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... Europe, and from whom such credulity had been less expected; but he was sure that some tales of that nature are well founded, and if so, why not this? In my opinion, it is probably a superstition connected with some ancient form of idolatry. ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... precept, and example, so to act That others might in turn be blessed by thee. The patient love, that checked each wayward word; The holy love, that turned thee to thy God— Fount of all pure affection! Hadst thou dwelt Longer in such an atmosphere, thy strength Had yielded to the weakness of idolatry, Forgetting Him, the GIVER, in his gifts. So He recalled them. Ay, for that rejoice, That thou hast added treasure up in Heaven; O, let thy heart dwell with thy treasure there; The dream shall thus become reality. The blessing may be resting on thy brow Cold as it is with sorrow. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... fiercest denunciations of bard and priest. The most notable of the Psalmist's curses upon his enemies, the most furious of Isaiah's ravings anent the forgetfulness of the national worship, the most terrible thunderings of apostle and evangelist against idolatry and unbelief, were grouped together and presented to Dawes to soothe him. All the material horrors of Meekin's faith—stripped, by force of dissociation from the context, of all poetic feeling and local colouring—were launched at the suffering sinner by ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... Spenser. I select these writers in preference to those of ancient Greece and Rome, because the anthropomorphitism of the Pagan religion subjected the minds of the greatest poets in those countries too much to the bondage of definite form; from which the Hebrews were preserved by their abhorrence of idolatry. This abhorrence was almost as strong in our great epic Poet, both from circumstances of his life, and from the constitution of his mind. However imbued the surface might be with classical literature, he was a Hebrew in soul; and all things ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... shelves excited the regret and indignation of every spectator, whose mind was not totally darkened by religious prejudice. The compositions of ancient genius, so many of which have irretrievably perished, might surely have been excepted from the wreck of idolatry, for the amusement and instruction of succeeding ages; and either the zeal or avarice of the archbishop might have been satiated with the richest spoils which were the rewards of ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... as before-mentioned, is an epitome or quintessence of more than thirty works,—perhaps the best being "The Prior of Marrick," a story of idolatry; "Anti-Xurion," a crusade against razors; and "The Author's Tribunal," an oration; but I confess, not having looked at the book since my hair was black (and now it is snow-white), and considering that ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... absurd notion going about, among those half-educated people who frequent Ethical Platforms, that Literary Criticism must be "constructive." O that word "constructive"! How, in the name of the mystery of genius, can criticism be anything else than an idolatry, a worship, a metamorphosis, a love affair! The pathetic mistake these people make is to fancy that the great artists only lived and wrote in order to buttress up such poor wretches as these are upon the particular little, thin, cardboard platform which is ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... account for the increased mortality, especially of the children. The islands were visited by Cook in 1779, Vancouver in 1794, and often subsequently by whalers. In 1819 missionaries arrived, and found that idolatry had been already abolished, and other changes effected by the king. After this period there was a rapid change in almost all the habits of life of the natives, and they soon became "the most civilised of the Pacific Islanders." ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... to have arisen till our own generation. As regards many of the parallel passages, the ground has been pretty well cleared by the dispassionate scholarship brought to bear on them from Farmer onwards; though the idolatry of the Coleridgean school, as represented by Knight, did much to retard scientific conclusions on this as ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... with desperate fighting ahead of him. Even on April 6, when he received news of the fall of Richmond and the flight of Lee and the Confederate government, he was unable to understand the full extent of the national triumph. He admired Grant so far as a man might, short of idolatry, yet the long habit of respect for Lee led him to think he would somehow get away and join Johnston in his front with at least a portion of the Army of Northern Virginia. He had already begun his march upon Johnston when he learned ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... when love passed by And my dark soul to light was brought; Free, I renewed the idolatry Of harmony enshrining thought. I write, and anguish flies away, Nor doth my absent pen portray Around my stanzas incomplete Young ladies' faces and their feet. Extinguished ashes do not blaze— I mourn, but ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... It is to be remembered that the evils which are pointed out in our commonwealth today are not the evils of a democracy but of an amorphous something which is afraid to be a democracy. Whether the opposition to women's voting be honestly professed or whether it is concealed under chivalrous idolatry, distrust and skepticism are behind it.... When pushed to the wall, objectors to woman suffrage now-a-days take refuge behind one of two platitudes: The first is used too often by women whose public ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... once-godly nation, Chief, and darkness has again come over a land which of late shone with a clear and shining light! The just are made to flee from the habitations of their infancy, and the temples of the elect are abandoned to the abominations of idolatry. Oh England! England! when will thy cup of bitterness be full?—when shall this judgment pass from thee? My spirit groaneth over thy fall—yea, my inmost soul is saddened with the ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... "Holy Church, assuming spiritual leadership of the world, sunken in idolatry, and publicly parading her fetishism in these ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... and locked up in a chest? No, no, Deerslayer; my poor father carries his God with him, wherever he goes, and that is in his own cravings. These things may really be idols—I think they are myself, from what I have heard and read of idolatry, but they have come from some distant country, and like all the other articles, have fallen into Thomas Hutter's hands when he ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... the chief article [which teaches] that only Christ, and not the works of men, are to help [set free] souls. Not to mention the fact that nothing has been [divinely] commanded or enjoined upon us concerning the dead. Therefore all this may be safely omitted, even if it were no error and idolatry. ...
— The Smalcald Articles • Martin Luther
... being itself a regular natural phenomenon, and having no connection with the moral government of God, should have been the subject of the prophet's prediction. Still it had a religious impressiveness then, above what it has now, on account of that wide-prevailing idolatry of the Sun. It exhibited the object of their false worship, shorn of its ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers
... particular service in which his master thinks fit to employ him. When I saw him, he held a candle in this obsequious posture. I was very well pleased with the cobbler's invention, that had so ingeniously contrived an inferior, and stood a little while contemplating this inverted idolatry, wherein the image did homage to the man. When we meet with such a fantastic vanity in one of this order, it is no wonder if we may trace it through all degrees above it, and particularly through ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... of the book which at least some part of the nations at present most advanced in civilization accept as an expression of final truth, have been more distorted than those bearing on Idolatry. For the idolatry there denounced is neither sculpture, nor veneration of sculpture. It is simply the substitution of an "Eidolon," phantasm, or imagination of Good, for that which is real and enduring; from the Highest Living Good, which gives life, to the lowest material good which ministers ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... in the mind of the reader: how was it possible for these magistrates, generals, consuls, officers, senators, and governors of provinces, to attend to their duties without performing acts of idolatry? In chapter xxxvii. of the Apology, Tertullian says: "We are but of yesterday, yet we fill every place that belongs to you, cities, islands, outposts; we fill your assemblies, camps, tribes and decuries; the imperial palace, the Senate, the forum; we only leave to ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... amusement—to be their footballs. Does this man think we have nothing better to do than to humour his fancies, and attend to every ailment that waits upon his gross appetite. He makes a god of his belly, is punished for his idolatry, and then whines by the hour to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... canvass the royal family or some on 'em, and Tommy wuz willin' to go to any new place, and I spoze Carabi wuz too. And I said I wanted to stand on Mars' Hill, where Paul preached to the people about idolatry and their worship of the Unknown God. As we sailed along the shores Dorothy spoke of Sapho. Poor creeter! I wuz always sorry for her. You know she wuz disappointed, and bein' love-sick and discouraged she writ some poetry and ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... he would some day give the Captain a 'turn'; the Captain let him live, hoping he would do something dreadful to the mate. Everybody waited to see Tricky do something to somebody else. So he rose to the highest rank in the merchant-marine, and was respected almost to idolatry by all ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... and not the house, The living house so admirably built Of tissue flawless as the material stars, Wherein the life I love is manifest, Were harlotry no less I know than that. You, the dear Lake of my idolatry, For I am something near it, as you are, Are one life, whereto pilgrim thought conspires With all the cunning moulding of the flesh, And of my brain and body is my love, Dream to your dream, desire to your desire. If you should die, my memory of you Would ...
— Preludes 1921-1922 • John Drinkwater
... Lectures, but of my whole Professorship, would be accomplished,—and far more than that,—if only the English nation could be made to understand that the beauty which is indeed to be a joy forever, must be a joy for all; and that though the idolatry may not have been wholly divine which sculptured gods, the idolatry is wholly diabolic, which, for vulgar display, ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... The chief too cherished me, yea, saved my life, When in Peru arose the civil strife. Yet still remembering her I loved so well, Oft I returned to the gray father's cell: His voice instructed me; recalled my youth From rude idolatry to heavenly truth: Of this hereafter; he my darkling mind Cleared, and from low and sensual thoughts refined. Then first, with feelings new impressed, I strove 110 To hide the tear of tenderness and love: Amid the fairest ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... beneficent stripes when needful, as is constantly the case between whiles; and, in fact, have privately decided to reward him with beneficent death by and by, and not with money at all. O my benevolent friend, I honor Howard very much; but it is on this side idolatry a long way, not to an infinite, but to a decidedly finite extent! And you,—put not the modest noble Howard, a truly modest man, to the blush, by forcing these ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... grocery business they now devoted all their energies, and continued to conduct it for many succeeding years, without great success. Two sons were born to them, whom their mother loved to idolatry, although she had never passionately loved her husband; and she lavished upon them all her forethought and care. But the shop did not thrive, and the large dreams she had entertained of her sons' education and career became attenuated in the face of realities. Their schooling ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... seem ever absent to ever-present selfishness or material sense. Hence this asking amiss and receiving not, and the common idolatry of man-worship. In divine Science, God is recognized as the only power, presence, ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy
... to see these things," said Mrs. Ellison. "It really seems to savor of idolatry. Don't you think ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... are most signally manifested. Now, how have we seen in the first part of this work, that He has repeatedly punished? By famine and pestilence! Oh, beloved countrymen of every diversity of creed, in the heart-rending scenes around us do we witness punishment for national idolatry, systematic assassinations, performed occasionally with a refinement of cruelty worthy of ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... heard—Repent? Was it only in Israel, in the ministry of kings and prophets, that there was so much evil in God's people to be cleansed away? Was it only in the Church of the first century, that Paul and James and our Lord Himself had to speak such sharp words? Or is there not in the Church of our days an idolatry of money and talent and culture, a worldly spirit, making it unfaithful to its one only Husband and Lord, a confidence in the flesh which grieves and resists God's Holy Spirit? Is there not almost everywhere ...
— The Ministry of Intercession - A Plea for More Prayer • Andrew Murray
... see plainly now its wisdom and real kindness. But Israel made an unwise and unholy compromise. By this compromise that was made, the surrounding heathen tribes in some cases were spared. The consequence was that there was a constant incitement to idolatry. Again and again, Israel fell into this sin, and paid severely for their crime. I think it is not too much to say that had Israel inflexibly carried out the divine command, the Jewish nation might have been the strongest ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... the memory of events by figures painted on skins, cloth, or the bark of trees. These hieroglyphical and symbolical characters, being considered by the ignorant and bigoted Spaniards to be monuments of idolatry, the first bishop of Mexico destroyed as many of them as could be collected. In consequence of this barbarous procedure, the knowledge of remote events was lost, except what could be derived from tradition, and from some fragments of those paintings which ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... of images is to the second commandment." To this Dennis gave the obvious and unanswerable retort that "when St. Paul was at Athens, the very source of dramatic poetry, he said a great deal publicly against the idolatry of the Athenians, but not one word against their stage. At Corinth he said as little against theirs. He quoted on one occasion an Athenian dramatic poet, and on others Aratus and Epimenides. He was educated in all the learning ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... "conventicles," and even strove to form more permanent congregations by gathering in secret places, or sometimes openly, in defiance of the authorities. A churchman of the time says that they teach "that the worship of the English church is flat idolatry; that we admit into our church persons unsanctified; that our preachers have no lawful calling; that our government is ungodly; that no bishop or preacher preacheth Christ sincerely and truly; that the people of every parish ought to choose their ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... English poet is living to-day on the current proceeds of his verse. For a country which possesses the greatest poetical literature in the world this condition of affairs is at least odd. What makes it odder is that, occasionally, very occasionally, the average lettered man will have a fit of idolatry for a fine poet, buying his books in tens of thousands, and bestowing upon him immense riches. As with Tennyson. And what makes it odder still is that, after all, the average lettered man does not truly dislike poetry; he only dislikes it when it ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... undertakes to show, were symbols of Canaanitish worship, the miniature representations of the gods adored by the Syrian nations, especially of Moloch, Baal, Astarte or Astaroth, Adonis or Tammuz, the very objects of that idolatry so frequently and emphatically denounced in the Old Testament, to which we have already referred. Mr. Tyndale, however, justly observes, that “so distinct and peculiar is the character of these relics, that their counterparts are no ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... for its members; among these are the oversight of the royal exchequer, and inspection of inns, apothecary shops, and weights and measures. The Audiencia shall despatch to the home government information regarding the resources of the islands, the condition of the people, their attitude toward idolatry, the instruction bestowed upon Indian slaves, etc. It shall fix the prices to be asked by merchants for their wares; keep a list of all the Spanish citizens, with record of the services and rewards of each; audit the municipal accounts of the city where the court ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume V., 1582-1583 • Various
... the new day, which is the first of the year and spring, is observed as a solemn festival throughout all Persia, which has been continued from the time of idolatry; and our prophet's religion, pure as it is, and true as we hold it, has not been able to abolish that heathenish custom, and the superstitious ceremonies which are observed, not only in the great cities, but celebrated with extraordinary rejoicings in every little town, village, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... Ham commysed.[612] When he of his father the secret parts revealed. In like case Nimrod against me wrought abusion As he raised up the castle of confusion. Mirus hath also, and all by the devil's illusion Through image-making, up raised idolatry, Me to dishonour. And now in the conclusion The vile Sodomites live so unnaturally That their sin vengeance asketh continually, For my covenant's sake, I will not drown with water, Yet shall I visit ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous
... religion that | joins with the study of nature is in | danger of becoming atheistic, or an | enthusiastic rival of the true | church. Natural philosophy that | traffics unwisely with divinity | collapses into idolatry or fakery. | | Bacon's exemplum of these abuses in a | modern proto-science is the divine | philosophy of the Paracelsian school, | which seeks "the truth of all natural | philosophy in the Scriptures." ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... AGE.—The Israelites traced their descent from Abraham, who, to escape the infection of idolatry, left his home, which was in Ur on the lower Euphrates, and came into the land of Canaan, where he led a wandering life, but became the father of a group of nations. According to the popular narrative, Isaac, his son by Sarah, was recognized ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... thro' with MacMuir, big and red and kindly, and I was not long in letting him know of the interest which Captain Paul had inspired within me. His own feeling for him was little short of idolatry. I had surmised much as to the rank of life from which the captain had sprung, but my astonishment was great when I was told that John Paul was the son of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Inspired thereunto by the Spirit, I have already sought serious converse with yonder priest of Baal, kneeling at this side of that accursed shrine of idolatry. Yet so wedded is he to idols of wood and stone, he merely chattered back at me in unintelligible speech, and when I laid hand upon him to compel him to listen, the brown savage beyond grievously thrust me ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... villages with fear and confusion. It is no new thing in that continent for the heretics to lend arms to the pagans and to the Mahometans in order to put down the Christian name. A savage end it is to pit themselves for the private ends of trade and in a religious war, on the side of the koran and of idolatry, which they themselves condemn, against the gospel, which they persecute with fury. The three fleets went out then, for their campaign, and not having anyone to oppose them, the enemy filled their boats with what they called spoils, took about two hundred captives, persecuted our religious ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... had arrived. From what she knew of this aunt she had a good deal of hope from her appeal, for Mrs. Whately had always seemed a kind-hearted woman. True, she had been over-indulgent to her son, and, in her blind idolatry of this only child, blind to his faults, always comforting herself with the belief that he was merely high-spirited and would settle down when he ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... station in literature, a station which is now irrevocably settled, not so much (which happens in other cases) by a vast overbalance of favorable suffrages, as by acclamation; not so much by the voices of those who admire him up to the verge of idolatry, as by the acts of those who everywhere seek for his works among the primal necessities of life, demand them, and crave them as they do their daily bread; not so much by eulogy openly proclaiming itself, as by the silent homage recorded in the endless multiplication ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... such a spirit of idolatry concerning the learning of this world and wisdom of the flesh, and God's glory so much stained and diminished thereby, that had I all their aid and assistance at command, I durst not make use of aught thereof, and that for fear ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... professed to be members of the Churches of Christ and to worship him with the worship due to God, to give any countenance to one who reproached themselves and all the Christian Churches in the world as being guilty of idolatry: showing that, if it be true which Mr. Biddle holds, to wit that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is but a creature, then all those who worship him with the worship due to God are idolaters. His Highness showed moreover that the ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... insignificant shifted. The men of stone drove out the living men, and forced the gods into their temples. And the inscriptions on the walls bewildered the mind with such a noise of human praise, that ambition could dream of nothing beyond. It was all a kind of idolatry which revolted the strict Christians; and in Augustin, even at this time, it must have offended the candour of a soul which ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... them before all men. And they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver;" or, according to our currency, nearly twenty-eight thousand dollars. Thus multitudes made a public renunciation of idolatry, and a public profession of their faith in Christ. "So mightily grew the ...
— The National Preacher, Vol. 2. No. 6., Nov. 1827 - Or Original Monthly Sermons from Living Ministers • William Patton
... Zoroastrian tenet, and long after the Hebrews had been exposed to the whole tide and atmosphere of the triumphant Persian power. The unchangeable tenacity of the Medes and Persians is a proverb. How often the Hebrew people lapsed into idolatry, accepting Pagan gods, doctrines, and ritual, is notorious. And, in particular, how completely subject they were to Persian influence appears clearly in large parts of the Biblical history, especially in the Books of Esther and Ezekiel. The origin of the term ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... testifie: and that those Countries are at this day inhabited with Sauages (who haue no knowledge of God:) Is it not therefore (I say) to be lamented, that these poore Pagans, so long liuing in ignorance and idolatry, and in sort thirsting after Christianitie, (as may appeare by the relation of such as haue trauailed in those partes) that our heartes are so hardened, that fewe or none can be found which will put to their helping hands, and apply themselues to the relieuing ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... anchorage. He was a man of enterprise, with a strong dislike to the Roman Catholic faith, and never doubted that he was perfectly justified in relieving the churches of plate and other valuables. These were, in his eyes, articles of idolatry that no man of puritanic and Protestant principles could refrain from removing and placing under the safe keeping of his revered chief, who was no more averse to robbing a church than he was to robbing a ship ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... lamentable to think, as we may sneer at or regret the matter, that these rude children of The Desert should have ground for charging upon the high-bred and transcendantally-polished nations of Europe, idolatry. But, if any one, determined to be an impartial judge, were to visit the Madelaine of Paris, and then pass rapidly over to Algeria, (a journey of a few days), and there enter the simple mosque, and compare its prostrate worshippers, in the plain unadorned temple ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... They were the best things the world had seen; the only method of Christianizing and civilizing semi-barbarous Europe. Like all human plans and conceptions, they contained in themselves original sin; idolatry, celibacy, inhuman fanaticism; these were their three roots of bitterness; and when they bore the natural fruit of immorality, the monasteries fell with a great and just destruction. But had not those monasteries been good ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... he preserved, amidst all this infamous traffic of his powers, the incorruptibility of his genius. Of all the qualities of a great man of his age, he was only wanting in honesty. The people were not his devotees, but his instruments,—his own glory was the god of his idolatry; his faith was posterity; his conscience existed but in his thought; the fanaticism of his idea was quite human; the chilling materialism of his age had crushed in his heart the expansion, force, and craving ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... Hobhouse; Matthews was the god of his idolatry: and if intellect could exalt a man above his fellows, no one would refuse ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... Scripture, quoted, of course, after the most profoundly unhistorical fashion; of inferences from the universality of death, regarded as the penalty incurred by Adam; of general reflections upon the heathen world and the idolatry of the Jews; and of the sentences pronounced by Jehovah against the Canaanites. In one of his sermons, of portentous length and ferocity (vol. vii., sermon iii.), he expands the doctrine that natural men—which includes all men who have ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... Luther says: "If all the heathen shall praise God, he must first be their God. Shall he be their God? Then they must know him and believe in him, and put away all idolatry, since God can not be praised with idolatrous lips or with unbelieving hearts. Shall they believe? Then they must first hear his Word and by it receive the Holy Spirit, who cleanses and enlightens their heart ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... friendship among boys. The one means, in nine cases out of ten, an accident of neighbourhood in school that fades with the next remove, or a partnership in some venture, or a common attachment to some particular game. But the school friendship of a girl is a passionate idolatry and devotion of friend for friend. Their desks are full of little gifts to each other. They have pet names that no strange ear may know, and hidden photographs that no strange eye may see. They share all the innocent ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... more mighty for good because it justifies and consecrates the aesthetics and the philosophy of the present age. We are sure, moreover, that the author, whatever right reasons he may have had for concealing his own name, would have no quarrel against us for alluding to it, were he aware of the idolatry with which every utterance of his is regarded by the cultivated young men of our day, especially at the universities, and of the infinite service of which this "In Memoriam" may be to them, if they are taught by it that their superiors are not ashamed ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... of Spleen, Passion and Self-conceit. Nothing is perfect in every Part. He that expects to see any thing so, must have patience till Dooms-day. The Worship we pay to our own Opinion, generally leads its to the Contempt of another's. This blind Idolatry of Self is the Mother of Errour; and this begets a secret Vanity in our Modern Censurers, who, when they please to think a Meaning for an Author, would thereby insinuate how much his Judgment is ...
— Discourse on Criticism and of Poetry (1707) - From Poems On Several Occasions (1707) • Samuel Cobb
... on the scene. Perhaps Michael was commissioned by the Lord to bury the body of Moses. The devil evidently laid claim to the body of God's servant. Perhaps he wanted the body to be preserved in an embalmed condition as an object of idolatry. When Michael faced him he durst not bring a railing accusation against him. He still recognized in him, though fallen, the greatness of his original being. This is sufficient to show that Satan was once a mighty, glorious, majestic being, full ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein
... it consisted in immunity from temptation rather than in victory over it. Others have placed it in surpliced observance or in monastic vow; an equivocal regard to patterns of things in the heavens which common men mistake for idolatry. Others again, reversing the old Pythagorean maxim, and wearing the image of God upon their ring, have expressed it by unworthy familiarity, a continual adverting to the gifts of the spirit, and the experience of the ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... this Arabic architecture in the Assembly Room, which seems to me to have been built upon a design of Palladio, and might be converted into an elegant place of worship; but it is indifferently contrived for that sort of idolatry which is performed in it at present: the grandeur of the fane gives a diminutive effect to the little painted divinities that are adorned in it, and the company, on a ball-night, must look like an assembly ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... the East love the maids of Cash-meer, Nor affection with interests clash; Far other idolatry pleases us here, We adore but the maids ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... remitting the temporal punishment of actual sins. Thus S. Paul pardoned the incestuous Corinthian (2. Cor. II): in times of persecution the bishops at the request of the martyrs remitted the penance imposed on those who had fallen into idolatry (Tersul. lib. ad martyres, Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. V, c. 4. S. Cyprian. Epist. XIII etc.), to say nothing of canons of the 4th century which prescribe that indulgences should be granted to fervent penitents, of the crusades, and of the indulgences granted to those ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs
... when we join the company of the just men who have freed themselves from idolatry! Listen to Governor Bradford as he enumerates the threatening facts which the Pilgrims to New England faced. He mentions all the difficulties which they foresaw, and then adds, "It was answered that all great and honorable actions were accompanied with great difficulties, and ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... Variety in Position, Culture, and Character. The Quran and the Bible. Licentiousness of Muhammadans, Hindus, and So-called Christians. The Estimable Character of some Muhammadans. Muhammadan Opposition to the Gospel. Its Opposition to Idolatry. Proselytes to Islam. The Relation of Muhammadans and Hindus to each other. Hindu ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... similar enthusiasm will prevail among their literary descendants; and objects regarded by us as mere dust in the high road of nature, will be enshrined with all the partiality and fondness of national idolatry.—E.] ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... run;—the same "scatterings and eclipses" of affection, from the irregularities and vanities, in which he continued to indulge, but the same hold kept of each other's hearts to the last. Her early letters to him breathe a passion little short of idolatry, and her devoted attentions beside his death-bed showed that the essential part of ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... shalt not be ashamed; neither be thou confounded: for thou shalt not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, [i. e. thy ancient Idolatry] and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhoods [i. e. thy two dispersions] any more. For thy Maker is thy Husband, Jehovah of hosts is his name, and thy Redeemer the Holy one of Israel; the God of the whole earth shall he be called. For Jehovah ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... the State religion, but it stood contentedly amid other forms of religion. In the service of Jehovah local shrines developed special usages. The "Uses" of Israel were as varied as the "Uses" of England before the Reformation. No act of Uniformity was in operation in the realm. Idolatry was not the exception but the rule. The most popular symbol of Jehovah was an image of a bull. To the higher minds this bull was doubtless merely a symbol, expressive of a striking phase of the sun's force, but to the mass of men it was probably the actual object of their adorations. The symbolism ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... calmness to- night, as I have a score of times before, the approach of the Last Enemy. But let us not waste the precious moments in conversation. Time soon will be for us no more; and—ah! see, there comes the vile high- priest of a loathsome idolatry to claim his first victim. Should you by any chance escape the coming horrors of this night, Hawkesley, and live to reach England once more, seek out my mother—Austin will instruct you as to where she may be found—and ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... Churchmen in a very special sense, since they have the great lessons of the Reformation at heart. I could wish that certain parties within the Church were animated by the same manly and intelligent intolerance of idolatry and superstition as the majority of the dissenters whom I meet. Personally I should welcome greater freedom of intercourse, and ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... begins to have an eerie abstract sympathy with the force and fear he describes, as distinct from their objective. The German is no longer sympathising with the boy against the goblin, but rather with the goblin against the boy. There goes with it, as always goes with idolatry, a dehumanised seriousness; the men of the forest are already building upon a mountain the empty throne of the Superman. Now it is just at this point that I for one, and most men who love truth as well as tales, begin to lose interest. ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... was the moral condition of the world just before the coming of Our Lord? A. Just before the coming of Our Lord the moral condition of the world was very bad. Idolatry, injustice, cruelty, immorality and horrid ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 3 (of 4) • Anonymous |
