Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Idolatry   /aɪdˈɑlətri/   Listen
Idolatry

noun
(pl. idolatries)
1.
Religious zeal; the willingness to serve God.  Synonyms: cultism, devotion, veneration.
2.
The worship of idols; the worship of images that are not God.  Synonym: idol worship.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Idolatry" Quotes from Famous Books



... heart was larger than her creed, and often overstepped the bounds assigned; but her theory was that human affections should be kept made up in labelled parcels, so much and no more to be allowed in each case. Favouritism was idolatry affectionate words were foolish condescensions to the flesh; while loving caresses savoured altogether ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt

... lived in the future. Take the sovereign prophet of the ancient faith. The world about him is dark and desolate; Israel's powers are at the ebb; the great faith that she has inherited is degraded, sensualized, formalized, buried under a debris of priestcraft, infidelity, idolatry and corruption; and yet this prophet stands upon the hills and dreams—dreams against the present, dreams through all the darkness environing him—and sees the day when the faith of Israel shall be the faith of ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins

... was much beloved by her, and no reference to him is ever made in her presence, without a flow of tears from her eyes. Her love of home and kindred seems very strong, and her devotion to little Jennie amounts almost to idolatry, so the solicitude expressed by the good woman is only a part of what she really feels, but which is shown in hundreds of ways. When the doctor settled the little girl in her bed she adjusted a heavy weight to the foot on the limb which has given her so much trouble, and now the grief ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan

... debauchery, but no surprise at the apparent absence of any conception of manly honor and virtue, of personal courage and self-respect, in the front rank of our chivalry. In civil affairs we had assumed that the sycophancy and idolatry which encouraged Charles I. to undervalue the Puritan revolt of the XVII century had been long outgrown; but it has needed nothing but favorable circumstances to revive, with added abjectness to compensate for its lost piety. We have relapsed ...
— Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion • George Bernard Shaw

... think! she says the poet cannot be the son of his parents, but a good spirit that has come down on earth—perhaps a God. At first she was very timid, but when I spoke of Pentaur she grew eager; her reverence for him is almost idolatry—and that vexed me." ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... herself alone in her room for a few minutes—the last day this on which she was ever to enter it—she knelt down and prayed. She tried to pray to God, but it was her husband who really had her supplication. Her idolatry of this man was such that she herself almost feared it to be ill-omened. She was conscious of the notion expressed by Friar Laurence: "These violent delights have violent ends." It might be too desperate for human conditions—too ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... fertile than Hartmann von Aue and Gottfried von Strassburg. They complain, however, that no one took notice of them, and they are evidently conscious themselves of their inferiority. Lyric poetry continued to flourish for a time, but it degenerated into an unworthy idolatry of ladies, and affected sentimentality. There is but one branch of poetry in which we find a certain originality, the didactic and satiric. The first beginnings of this new kind of poetry carry us back to the age of Walther von der Vogelweide. Many of his verses are satirical, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... the ardour of his apostolic zeal, he could devise no better means of converting the blacks than by burning their idols, rebuking the kings for the time-honoured custom of polygamy, and subjecting to torture, or to being torn with whips, those who relapsed into idolatry. Notwithstanding all this, he gained considerable ascendancy over the natives, which, if it had been well directed, might have produced very useful results in the development of civilization and the progress of religion. The same reproach is due also ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... resentment; the latter is outrageous to a pitch of the ludicrous—positively screaming. I will give some specimens of it out of Foscolo himself, who collects them for a different purpose; though, with all his idolatry of Dante, he was far from ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... alive in their own churches; they carried destruction along with them wherever they went, sparing neither age nor sex, but the clergy were the most obnoxious to them, because they ridiculed their idolatry, and persuaded their people to have nothing ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... 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 takes ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT

... of his fate with Homer's, and his complete forgetfulness of the distinction between Christianity and idolatry, under the general feeling of some religion, is very interesting. It is amusing to observe, how familiar Chapman's fancy has become with Homer, his life and its circumstances, though the very existence of any ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge

... to the trenches," he said, gloomily. "Same old business and one of the crowd again." He was suffering from the reaction of popular idolatry. He felt hipped because no one made a fuss of him now or bothered about his claret-colored ribbon. The staff-officers, chaplains, brigade majors, regimental officers, and army nurses were more interested in ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... Josephus here puts into the mouths of these Midianite women, who came to entice the Israelites to lewdness and idolatry, viz. that their worship of the God of Israel, in opposition to their idol gods, implied their living according to the holy laws which the true God had given them by Moses, in opposition to those impure ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... It was then brought before the Papal See, condemned as idolatrous, and Tien Chu, the Lord of Heaven, adopted in its stead. That Shang-ti, however pure in origin, had come to be applied to a whole class of deities was perfectly true, but the name proposed in its stead was not free from a taint of idolatry,—Tien Chu, Lord of Heaven, being one of eight divinities, and worshipped along with Ti Chu, Lord of Earth, Hai Chu, Lord of the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord

... boy fortunately resembled, rivaled the father in spoiling him. No child could long have resisted the effects of such idolatry. As soon as Desire knew the extent of his power he milked his mother's coffer and dipped into his father's purse, making each author of his being believe that he, or she, alone was petitioned. Desire, who played a part in Nemours far beyond that of a prince royal in ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac

... America would inhale the almost supra-mortal spirit which it breathes: "I would not with any idolatrous admiration regard the Constitution of the United States, nor any other work of man; but this side of idolatry, I hold it in profound respect. I believe that no human working on such a subject, no human ability exerted for such an end, has ever produced so much happiness, or holds out now to so many millions of people the prospect, through such a succession ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various

... Druids, contains, with much other interesting matter, the charming story of Taliesin. Bryant's book on mythology was then in vogue, and Bryant, in the fantastical manner so common in those days, found in Greek mythology what he called an arkite idolatry, pointing to Noah's deluge and the ark. Davies, wishing to give dignity to his Celtic mythology, determines to find the arkite idolatry there too, and the style in which he proceeds to do this affords a good specimen ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold

... '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 memory fresh ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower

... will feel for poor Hobhouse,—Matthews was the "god of his idolatry;" and if intellect could exalt a man above his fellows, no one could refuse him preeminence. I knew him most intimately, and valued him proportionably; but I am recurring—so let us talk of ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... Marsh, Bishop of Clogher, and adopted by Primate Boulter in 1733, were intended "to rescue the souls of thousands of poor children from the dangers of Popish superstition and idolatry, and their bodies from the miseries of idleness and beggary." In reality the scheme was one by which it was hoped to prevent the growth of Catholicism. The conditions and methods of instruction were positively ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift

... had once before practically adopted, and under present circumstances it was something more than a simple expedient. The whole nation had their eyes upon them. An unlimited confidence in their integrity, and the universal veneration for their persons, which closely bordered on idolatry, would ennoble the cause which they might make their own and ruin that which they should abandon. Their share in the administration of the state, though it were nothing more than nominal, kept the opposite party in check; while they attended the senate violent measures were avoided ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... collected, arranged, edited, in some sense organized, by human effort; but the result is an encyclopaedia, a thesaurus, an anthology, a liturgy, a bible—not a God. It may, like the Vedas, the Hebrew Scriptures and the Koran, become an object of idolatry; but even its idolaters see in it only an emanation from God, not the God himself. All this argument may strike the reader as extremely nebulous, but I submit that the fault is not mine. It was not I who sought to demonstrate the reality of a figure of speech by placing it on all fours with a cathedral ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer

... traditions. We would hardly, for instance, the staunchest Protestant in England would hardly be angry with poor Isabella Segunda for being a Catholic. So if Ethel worships at a certain image which a great number of good folks in England bow to, let us not be too angry with her idolatry, and bear with our queen a little before we make ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... convenient garrisons on the road, filled with Christian soldiers for the security of commerce, and for the convenient lodgings of travellers: but the inhabitants of the country were mere Pagans, worshiping the sun, moon, and stars. We particularly observed this idolatry near the river Arguna, at a city inhabited by Tartars and Russians, called Nerisinkey. Being curious to see their way of living, while the caravan continued to rest themselves in that city, I went to one of their villages, where there was to be one ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe

... God's angel went for him, and found him. It has often been discussed whether Cornelius was a 'proselyte' or not. It matters very little. He was drawn to the Jews' religion, had adopted their hours of prayer, reverenced their God, had therefore cast off idolatry, gave alms to the people as acknowledgment that their God was his God, and cultivated habitual devotion, which he had diffused among his household, both of slaves and soldiers. It is a beautiful picture of a soul feeling after a deeper knowledge of God, as a plant ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... easy transition formed the College of Cardinals. The title of Pontifex Maximus, being held by the Emperor, was not assumed by the bishop of Rome till the Emperor Gratian in 376 refused any longer to be addressed by that title. Having banished some of the grosser practices of idolatry, they introduced the remainder under different names, so that the pagans might readily conform to the new worship. The apostles took the place of the various gods, and the martyrs those of the inferior divinities; above them all was raised Astarte, who, now named Mary the Mother ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston

... gate and looked at the corn, mechanically noting its good condition, but feeling no pleasure at the sight. It was for him as though a blight had come over the Cloom of his idolatry, and he told himself it could never again be the same for him. He felt very old and tired, though it was still early in the day. His brain was working slowly; it took him a long time to register upon it his thoughts about anything at which ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... affianced to the most excellent Prince of Massa Carara. Such a prince! as handsome as myself, sweet-tempered, agreeable, brilliantly witty, and sparkling with love. I loved him as one loves for the first time—with idolatry, with transport. The nuptials were prepared. There was surprising pomp and magnificence; there were fetes, carousals, continual opera bouffe; and all Italy composed sonnets in my praise, though not one of them was passable. I was just upon the point of reaching the summit of bliss, when ...
— Candide • Voltaire

... misery; but he appeared not. At last, hearing the matinbell, she started up, fearful that her maids might discover her absence. Compelled by some regard to reputation, with an unwilling mind she left the shrine of her idolatry, and once more crossed the cloisters. While again drawing toward the chapel, she saw Wallace himself issue from the door, supporting on his bosom the fainting head of Lady Ruthven. Edwin followed them. Lady Mar pulled the monk's cowl over her face and withdrew ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... Here is a word for us this morning: 'Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in every place thou seest.' Ah, what a word it is! You and I are not idolaters, and there is no danger of our being so. For you and me this is not a warning against idolatry. What is it for us then? Reserve yourself; discriminate in your worship. Reserve yourself, I say; but what is the implication? What says the next verse? 'In the place which the Lord shall choose;' that is to say, keep your worship ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford

... ever- present Commander, from whom comes all our power. We 'burn incense to our own net, and sacrifice to our own drag,' and, like the heathen conqueror of whom Habakkuk speaks, make our swords our gods (Hab. i. 11, 16). The Church has always been prone to hero-worship, and to the idolatry of its organisation, its methods, or its theology. Augustine did so and so; Luther smote the 'whited wall' (the Pope) a blow that made him reel; the Pilgrim Fathers carried a slip of the plant of religious liberty in a tiny pot across the Atlantic, and watered it with tears till it has ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... what accent that conveys the praise of Shakspeare can fail to be agreeable? The most certain method by which a foreigner an introduce himself at once to the good-will and good opinion of an Englishman, is by thus doing homage to this national object of idolatry. I perceived that Mr. Montenero's was not a mere compliment—he spoke with real feeling. "In this instance," resumed he, "we poor Jews have felt your Shakspeare's power to our cost—too severely, and, considering all the circumstances, ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth

... not able to keep the covenant of their own suggestion. Ten tribes went into an abomination of organized and politically inspired idolatry. ...
— Why I Preach the Second Coming • Isaac Massey Haldeman

... truth than their own vanity, or interest, or the diversion of ignorant readers, that my story could contain little besides common events, without those ornamental descriptions of strange plants, trees, birds, and other animals; or of the barbarous customs and idolatry of savage people, with which most writers abound. However, I thanked him for his good opinion, and promised to take the matter into ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift

... until one day there is magic in the air, and the eyes of a girl rest upon him. He does not know that it is he himself who crowned her, and if the girl is as pure as he, their love is the one form of idolatry that is not quite ignoble. It is the joining of two souls on their way to God. But if the woman be bad, the test of the man is when he wakens from his dream. The nobler his ideal, the further will he have been hurried down the wrong way, for ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie

... governed the kingdom of Kent fifty years, and dying in 616, left the succession to his son, Eadbald. This prince, seduced by a passion for his mother-in-law, deserted for some time the Christian faith, which permitted not these incestuous marriages: his whole people immediately returned with him to idolatry. Laurentius, the successor of Augustine, found the Christian worship wholly abandoned, and was prepared to return to France, in order to escape the mortification of preaching the gospel without fruit to the infidels. Melitus and Justus, who had been consecrated Bishops of London and Rochester, ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... Our idolatry of Shakespeare (not to say our admiration) ceases with his plays. In his other productions he was a mere author, though not a common author. It was only by representing others, that he became himself. He could ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... this pantheism branches out into animism or shamanism, fetichism and phallicism. In its higher forms, it becomes polytheism, idolatry and defective philosophy. Having centuries ago corrupted Buddhism it is the malaria which, unseen and unfelt, is ready to poison and corrupt Christianity. Indeed, it has already given over to disease and spiritual death more than one once hopeful Christian ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis

... Society, capricious in its indignation as it had been capricious in its fondness, flew into a rage with its froward and petted darling. He had been worshiped with an irrational idolatry. He was persecuted with an irrational fury. Much has been written about those unhappy domestic occurrences which decided the fate of his life. Yet nothing ever was positively known to the public but this—that ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various

... want 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, vain, whimsical, scholar-like terms, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... unto thee."[13] Hannah addressed him to whom she vowed, "O Lord of Hosts."[14] In only one passage of Scripture are any represented as vowing to another than God himself,[15] but there the judgments of God are threatened on them—vowing vows to the queen of heaven, as guilty of idolatry. And even some who had been idolaters, so soon as they were taught the claims of Jehovah upon their ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham

... either an impostor or deceiver, or He is the God-Man—God manifest in the flesh. And for these 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

... insensible to the deep and humble devotion, and piety, which belong to the worshippers of the same Being in the land of the pale-faces; yet was their superstition free from much of the grossness in which the idolatry of the people of the wilderness is usually buried. Their idols and images were indeed numerous and of rude workmanship, but, like the images before whom kneel no small portion of the people of the land which ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... that some of my rival's productions would grace my apartments, in a year or two. But, better his imagination than his heart, said I to myself,—better the works of his chisel, which I and all the throng of the public can eulogize, than the secret, doating passion confined to the intense idolatry of ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... were honest and straightforward, and their virtuous ways commanded respect. Their patriotism was strong, their pride in the flag was of the old fashioned pattern, their love of country amounted to idolatry. Whoever dragged the national honor in the dirt won their deathless hatred. They still cursed Benedict Arnold as if he were a personal friend who had broken faith—but a week ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... well liked them, that in prison importunately they besought vs to write for them somewhat as concerning heauen, the which we did to their contentation with such reasons as we knew, howbeit not very cunningly. As they do their idolatry they laugh at themselues. If at any time this countrey might be ioyned in league with the kingdome of Portugale, in such wise that free accesse were had to deale with the people there, they might all be soone conuerted. The greatest fault we doe finde in them is Sodomie, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt

... of accidents had involved with their lives, and had decided to give him up. When the girl decided again, more tacitly, that she could not give him up, Hilary submitted, as he would have submitted to anything she wished. To his simple idolatry of her she was too good for anything on earth, and if he were to lose her, he found that after all he had no great choice in the matter. As soon as her marriage appeared inevitable, he agreed with his wife that their daughter must never have any unhappiness of their making; and they let her reverse ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... of the heavy penalties that rightly attach to idolatry and, when he had enumerated all, she answered him as was meet: "Give me a god to worship when ...
— Fifty-One Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... "occasional conformists" and attend Mass without being false to their convictions. But in this brief lull Knox came over to Scotland at the end of harvest, in 1555. On this point of occasional conformity he was fixed. The Mass was idolatry, and idolatry, by the law of God, was a capital offence. Idolaters must be converted or exterminated; they were ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang

... tranquil bearing! And how noble his faultless face! His glance, how frank! How greatly does the honor which we feel for him increase when we behold his beauty and vigor of body!" Alexander the Great would have been described in just such terms by Ferno. This was the idolatry which was always accorded the papacy, and no one asked what was the inner and personal ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius

... the crime of disobedience is equal in guilt to that of idolatry and witchcraft. But what shall we say of the disobedience of the scrupulous, who so idolize their own opinions as to be absolutely slaves to them, and whom no sort of remonstrance or reasoning will convince of the idleness of ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus

... kept by the widow of an officer, was naturally the rendezvous of the Bonapartists, chiefly officers on half-pay, and others who shared Max's opinions, to whom the politics of the town allowed free expression of their idolatry for the Emperor. Every year, dating from 1816, a banquet was given in Issoudun to commemorate the anniversary of his coronation. The three royalists who first entered asked for the newspapers, among others, for the "Quotidienne" and the "Drapeau Blanc." The politics of Issoudun, ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... side with the true Christian Church, which has adhered to these Symbols, or Confessions, to the present day, and not with the false, vainglorious church, which in reality is the worst enemy of the true Church, having introduced much idolatry beside these beautiful confessions." (St. L. 10, 993; Erl. 23, 252.) Luther's translation of the Ecumenical Symbols, together with the captions which appeared in his tract, were embodied in the Book of Concord. The superscription, "Tria Symbola Catholica ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... took no offence at the use of images in churches, and prayers for the dead. He writes to his brother this year[603], "The Lutherans have images, and there are some in several places of England. Montaigue and others have proved that it is not idolatry to have recourse to the prayers ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny

... devotion to obtain his conquest. This done, his power was durable, entire, and engrossing. But the unusual occurrences of the few preceding days, the altered mien of her lover during those events, his unwonted indifference to herself, and chiefly the romantic idolatry of Isabella, had aroused new sensations in her bosom. With a dread of her lover's integrity had been awakened the never-failing concomitant of the purest affection, a distrust of her own merits. In the moment of enthusiasm, the task of resigning her lover to another, who might ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... tell of the evolution of idolatry from fetichism, priestcraft from sorcery, and of their overthrow by the doctrines that were uttered by that voice on the Mount. Religion, that was fetichism and ecstasism and sorcery, is now the yearning for something better, something purer, ...
— Sketch of the Mythology of the North American Indians • John Wesley Powell

... kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the custom. It was the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry. The Heathens paid divine honours to their deceased kings, and the Christian world hath improved on the plan, by doing the same to their living ones. How impious is the title of sacred majesty applied to a worm, who in the midst of his splendor is ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine

... know it was a received 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 ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... be a very superstitious country where such zeal passes for true devotion. I doubt it will be damned by all our Protestant husbands for flat idolatry. But, if you can make Alderman Fondlewife of your persuasion, ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve

... is then the Senorita Inez, in her own right Princesse d'Arjos. When I see you, I understand perfectly Monsieur de Christoval's idolatry of his daughter. But, ladies, before anything further, let me impose upon you the utmost secrecy. My mission is already a difficult one, but, if it is suspected that there is any communication between you and me, we should all ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac

... acquaintance with the manners and customs of other peoples. Were he given to reflection, it ought not to surprise him to find a Portuguese sea-cook maintaining that it is wrong to steal, except from the rich; or to learn that a Wahabee saint rated the smoking of tobacco as the worst possible sin next to idolatry, while maintaining that murder, robbery, and such like, were peccadilloes which a merciful ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton

... of enjoyment in these excursions was the constant prattle of the boy about that uncle whose long absence had served rather to increase than to diminish the idolatry of his heart. This morning, so like the one on which Pepeeta had seen David by the side of the brook when first they met, awakened all the fervor of her love and she could ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss

... response to my questioning, Regnier explained to me how the master had recommended his disciples to give practical effect to the cult of womanhood. I must remember that it was nothing new and nothing peculiar to Positivism for men to adore women to the point even of idolatry. Lovers constantly were doing it. But in these cases the worshipers did not look beyond the personality of the idol. Possibly, no doubt, some dim apprehension of the true grounds of woman's worshipfulness might mingle with the lover's sentiment, but it was very far from being the clear and ...
— A Positive Romance - 1898 • Edward Bellamy

... time, nor mood, can fashion— Love?—Idolatry's the word To speak the broadest, deepest passion, Ever woman's heart hath stirred! Vain to still the mind's desires, Which consume ...
— Poems • George P. Morris

... this world herself alone." She has not yet learnt that woman's supreme work in the world can only be attained through the voluntary acceptance of the restraints of marriage. The same writer points out that the fault is not alone with American women, but also with American men. Their idolatry of their women is largely responsible for that intolerance and selfishness which causes so many divorces; "American women are, as a whole, pampered and worshipped out of all reason." But the men, who lend themselves to this, do not feel that they can treat their wives with the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... was McElroy now,—only she loved him with that vast idolatry which seeks naught but ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe

... all," said Percy, who was evidently in the middle of some amorous speech; "you are the goddess of my idolatry." ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade

... answer not what you demand To shew the grievance of my troubled Land? Before I tell the Effect I'le shew the Cause, Which are my sins, the breach of sacred Laws, Idolatry, supplanter of a nation, With foolish Superstitious Adoration, Are liked and countenanced by men of might The gospel trodden down and hath no right; Church offices were sold and bought for gain, That Pope had hoped to find Rome ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... Society flew into a rage with its idol. He had been worshiped with an irrational idolatry. He was censured with an irrational fury. In the first place the position in which he was placed as Military Governor required the exercise of the utmost patience and tact. Neither of these qualities did he possess. The order to close the shops caused discontent. People became incensed at the sight ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... of the supposed connection of sodomy with unbelief, idolatry, and heresy in arousing the horror of it among earlier religions has been emphasized by Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, vol. i, p. 486 ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... air we breathe 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 ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers

... sect (to which I belong) who look upon hero-worship as no better than any other idolatry, and upon the attitude of mind of the hero-worshipper as essentially immoral; who think it is better for a man to go wrong in freedom than to go right in chains; who look upon the observance of inflexible justice as between man and man as of far greater ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley

... prevalence of this mental idolatry is one of the chief causes for the loss of religious faith among the younger generation. They have grown up in our homes and churches with their imaginations dwelling on a God made in man's image, and now through education they have moved out into a universe ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick

... had been mistaken in her first love. She admitted that frankly. He whom she had worshipped had been an idol of clay, and she knew that it was well for her to have abandoned that idolatry. He had not only been untrue to her, but, worse than that, had been false in excusing his untruth. He had not only promised falsely, but had made such promises with a deliberate, premeditated falsehood. And ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... distinctions between vowesses and members of the third orders of the Dominican and Franciscan brotherhoods that the latter were pledged to the observance of fasts from which the former were exempt. Tyndale complains of the "open idolatry" of abstinences undertaken in honour of St. Patrick, St. Brandan, and other holy men of old; and he lays special stress on "Our Lady Fast," which, he explains, was kept "either seven years the same day that her day falleth in March, and then begin, or one year with bread and water." Whatever fasts ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell

... than ever in the south, seemed to her to become greater, to have more meaning in this setting of beauty and romance. She thought of the old pagan gods. He was, indeed, suited to be their happy messenger. At that moment something within her more than loved him, worshipped him, felt for him an idolatry that had something in it of pain. A number of thoughts ran through her mind swiftly. One was this: "Can it be possible that he will die some day, that he will be dead?" And the awfulness, the unspeakable horror of the death of the body gripped her and shook ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens

... 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 ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... monogamy a "worm-eaten and rotten-rooted tree." The worm that is devastating the fairest tree of Eden and draining its richest juices is what our contemporary thinks, may be "plausibly termed, a necessary evil." It is claimed that monogamy begets narrow sympathies and leads to selfish idolatry. The fallacy of this argument lies in the misapprehension of the term selfishness. Self-preservation is literally selfishness, yet who will deny that it is a paramount duty of man. If perverted, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... descendants, until of late, their places of worship were not churches, but meeting-houses merely; and by the stout-hearted men who used to dwell in New England it would have been deemed a heresy near akin to idolatry itself, or at least savoring strongly of the damnable errors of the Romish Church, to hold that wood and stones, carved and fashioned by the hand of man, could be hallowed by an ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... the Jew, the Christian, will readily agree that the animism, the fetishism, and idolatry of the savage were man-made foolish beliefs. They can readily perceive that there was nothing supernatural, nothing revealed, in such beliefs; but they do not realize that to him, in his infantile development, the fetish and the idol were just as ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks

... America apparently only among the Eastern Redmen (as the Lenape or Delawares),[2008] and on the western coast of Africa (Ashanti, Dahomi, Yoruba). Where the cult of beasts (whether totemic or not) is a living one, idolatry does not find a place; it is only when communities have begun to be agricultural that they have artificial forms of gods; that is, idolatry comes in with the stage of culture connected with the ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy

... 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

... Calvinism, and long-founded foreign missions, talk-think much could have come of the dark ages. I speak after the manner of an attorney, when I say this. We hear a deal of the dark ages, the crimes of the dark ages, the dark idolatry of darker Africa. My word for it, and it's something, if they had anything darker in Sodom; if they had in Babylon a state of degradation more hardened of crime; if in Egypt there existed a benightedness more stubbornly opposed to the laws of God-than is to be found ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams

... of what reason can Christians escape the imputation of pretending to adore what they have no conception of? The very 'book of books,' to which they so boldly appeal, is conclusive against them. In its pages they stand convicted of idolatry. Without doubt a God is revealed by Revelation; but not their God, not a supernatural Being, infinite in power, in wisdom, and in goodness. The Bible Deity is superhuman in nothing; all that His adorers have ascribed to Him being mere amplification of human ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell

... accursed thing, and this lady hath shown herself greatly affected to your daughter, so that she might easily be seduced from the truth. Yet, sir, bethink you is it well to remove the maiden from witnessing that which will be a warning for ever of the judgment that falleth on conspiracy and idolatry?" ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... and sometimes it devours him, and you have in England 1649, and in France 1793. That the lion should relapse into the donkey is astonishing; but it is so. This was occurring in England. It had resumed the pack-saddle, idolatry of the crown. Queen Anne, as we have just observed, was popular. What was she doing to be so? Nothing. Nothing!—that is all that is asked of the sovereign of England. He receives for that nothing L1,250,000 a year. In 1705, England which had had but ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... as she was told, wondering whether her confessor would give her penance for idolatry. Sadako then motioned her to sit on the floor. She took one of the tablets from its place and placed it ...
— Kimono • John Paris

... well acquainted with the family and the circumstances. In thus alluding to a subject so delicate, I have not lightly done so, or unadvisedly made a statement which seems refuted by the testimony of so many who have written of the "passionate idolatry" with which the poet regarded his wife. I have heard the subject often and freely discussed by Poe's most intimate friends, including his sisters, and upon this authority I speak. Lovely in person, sweet and gentle in disposition, his young wife deserved, doubtless, all the love ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... 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, ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy

... to the Christians, and that they could on no account give it up. In respect to the true cross, the Christians, he said, if they could obtain it, would worship it in an idolatrous manner, as they did their other relics; and as the law of the Prophet in the Koran forbade idolatry, they could not conscientiously give it up. "By so doing," said he, "we should ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... 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. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... desire to be lost in life were probably never so intimately associated as they are now; and it is a little preposterous to ask a moth fluttering round a candle-flame to see life steadily and see it whole. We happen to have been born into an age without perspective; hence our idolatry for the one living poet and prose writer who has it and comes, or appears to come, from another age. But another rhythm is possible. No doubt it would be mistaken to consider this rhythm as in fact wholly divorced ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry

... 'lazaretto'; St. Veronica and the legend connected with her name, a 'vernicle'; being a napkin with the Saviour's face portrayed on it; Simon Magus 'simony'; Mahomet a 'mammet' or 'maumet', meaning an idol{95}, and 'mammetry' or idolatry; 'dunce' is from Duns Scotus; while there is a legend that the 'knot' or sandpiper is named from Canute or Knute, with whom this bird was a special favourite. To come to more modern times, and not pausing at Ben Johnson's 'chaucerisms', Bishop Hall's 'scoganisms', from Scogan, Edward ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench

... the imagination and senses through stained-glass windows; and where sculpture and architecture came to the help of painting. Nobody ever reminded them that these things had sometimes produced such developments of erotic idolatry that men who were not only enthusiastic amateurs of literature, painting, and music, but famous practitioners of them, had actually exulted when mobs and even regular troops under express command had mutilated church statues, ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw

... "Say rather the disgraceful idolatry of the worshippers of Dionysus. It is in name alone that you and your children belong to the elect people of God, in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... 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

... girl, his only child, to England. He parted with her, not because of his indifference, but rather by reason of his idolatry. It was the only unselfish act of his life, this parting with his child; and yet even in ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... naturally suggests such reflections as these. Of all the men of the Revolution, Robespierre has suffered most from the audacious idolatry of some writers, and the splenetic impatience of others. M. Louis Blanc and M. Ernest Hamel talk of him as an angel or a prophet, and the Ninth Thermidor is a red day indeed in their martyrology. Michelet and M. D'Hericault treat him as a mixture of Cagliostro ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley

... mad about that man," writes another, "for it is too little to say that she was in love with him. Her passion approached idolatry. There were persons who invoked him in their prayers. His portrait was every where. Some ran after him in the streets to touch his mantle with their rosaries. One day that he entered Paris on his return from a journey, the multitude not only cried ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott

... four to five millions." Then, with respect to the Roman Catholic population, Rev. T. B. Wood, LL.D., in "Protestant Missions in South America," says, "South America is a pagan field, properly speaking. Its image-worship is idolatry. Abominations are grosser and more universal than among Roman Catholics in Europe and the United States, where Protestantism has greatly modified Catholicism. But it is worse off than any other great pagan field in that ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray

... the case, in the meantime, sorely perplex the truth-loving writer. "For it is undeniable that, in the time of our Lord, the Sadducees had lost all depth of spiritual feeling, whilst the Pharisees had succeeded in converting the Mosaic system into a mischievous idolatry of forms." (p. 10.) "In short, the Jewish nation had lost very much when John the Baptist came." (p. 11.) The hopelessly corrupt moral state of the youthful Colossus, described with such sickening force and ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... cunningly fell in with the ecclesiasticks of the country, and joining the priestcraft of both religions together, they brought Jesus Christ and Confucius to be so reconcilable, that the Chinese and the Roman idolatry appeared capable of a confederacy, of going on hand in hand together, and consequently of ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... doesn't find is people one can tell one's most impossible dreams to and feel sure one won't be laughed at. That's real friendship. [She stops working as she continues] To dare to think out loud before another person and let her see the gods of one's secret idolatry, and to be sure one's not exposing one's precious things to blasphemy. How I love you for being like you are and for caring for me a ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux

... had in rescuing from corruption that mass of uncleanness, which has been removed thither from our own shores! Now, alas! nowhere more than in some of the Australian settlements "are the works of the flesh manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... of all buildings, and for having the whole body of Roman laws thoroughly overlooked and put into order. Many even of the old heathen laws were very good ones, but there were others connected with idolatry that needed to be done away with; and in the course of years so many laws and alterations had been made, that it was the study of a lifetime even to know what they were, or how to act on them. Justinian ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... princes pleasing to God who are at Antioch doth send me unto thy Highness, to advise thee that thou art to cease from thy importunities, and that thou abandon the siege of a city which the Lord in His divine mercy hath given up to them. The prince of the apostles did wrest that city from idolatry, and convert it to the faith of Christ. Ye had forcibly but unjustly taken possession of it. They who be moved by a right lawful anxiety for this heritage of their ancestors make their demand of thee that thou choose between divers offers: either ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... look back and am glad I had not consciously with me, as we drove away, the boy who once meant to write the life of Cervantes, and who I knew from my recollection of his idolatry of that chief of Spaniards would not have listened to the excuses of Valladolid for a moment. All appeared fair and noble in that Spain of his which shone with such allure far across the snows through which he trudged morning and evening with his father to ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells

... horror, and then boil with indignation. To-morrow Juliet was to be given to the penitent, reformed, beloved Guido—to-morrow my bride was to pledge her vows to a fiend from hell! And I did this!—my accursed pride—my demoniac violence and wicked self-idolatry had caused this act. For if I had acted as the wretch who had stolen my form had acted—if, with a mien at once yielding and dignified, I had presented myself to Torella, saying, I have done wrong, forgive me; I am unworthy of your angel-child, but permit me to claim her hereafter, when my altered ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... brotherly love; benevolence &c. 906; attachment. yearning, , tender passion, amour; gyneolatry[obs3]; gallantry, passion, flame, devotion, fervor, enthusiasm, transport of love, rapture, enchantment, infatuation, adoration, idolatry. Cupid, Venus; myrtle; true lover's knot; love token, love suit, love affair, love tale, love story; the, old story, plighted love; courtship &c. 902; amourette[obs3]; free love. maternal love, [Grk], parental love; young love, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... evinced his characteristic aversion of idolatry. He desired his servant not to seek a wife for Isaac in Chaldea, but to proceed to Haran in Mesopotamia, to the house of Nahor his brother. He was particular in requiring him to swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of the earth, that he would not take his son a wife ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... a-prison," shouted Silas, in tones which seemed likely to carry that information down the row. "Justice axed her why she went not to church, and quoth she, 'That can I not do, with a good conscience, since there is much idolatry committed against the glory of God.' And then she was committed. Justice didn't love his work o'er well, and Master Benden, as he was a-coming away, looked as sour as crabs. And old Tabby—Oh, lack-a-daisy-me! didn't she ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt

... she showed that she had brilliance and wit, and, moreover, that she understood Julius as one native of a strange realm understands another. When they entered the Park, they were the observed of all. And, indeed, Leonora Lefevre was a vision to excite the worship of those least inclined to idolatry of Nature. She was of the noblest type of English beauty, and she seemed as calmly unconscious of its excellence and rarity as one of the grand Greek women of the Parthenon. She had, however, a sensuous fulness and bloom, a queenly carriage of head and neck, a clearness of feature, and a liquid ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban

... off,—and yet, as it were, loath to do it, and repenting of it, he suffers himself to be entreated for them, but all in vain to them,—they corrupted their way still more, and in the 32d chapter fall into gross idolatry, the great trespass that he had given them so solemn warning of often, whereupon great wrath is conceived. And the Lord (chap. xxxiii. 2) threatens to depart from them,—Go your way, saith he to Canaan, but I will not go with you, take your venture of any judgments, and the people of the land's ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... of system is to expedite business. Red tape is the idolatry of system. It is system for the sake of system.—Every rule admits exceptions. To make exceptions before a habit is fully formed is dangerous; and while we are learning the habit of orderliness and system we should put ourselves to very great inconvenience rather than ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde

... pursuing was contrary to the laws of God, they said, who had forbidden the children of Israel to have any communion with the unbelieving nations around them, in order that they might not be led away by them into idolatry. And so in Russia, they said, the extensive power of granting permission to any Russian subject to leave the country vested, according to the ancient usages of the empire, with the patriarch, the head of the ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott

... the idolatry of the heathen! Is there any idolatry in the world that is stronger than that which is found in the so-called "Christian" world in the year 1900? Where do you find any greater idolatry than that which is bestowed on money and on woman? There are more devotees at these ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge

... finances who led a retired and contented life in this modest employment. He was a very enthusiastic man of much intelligence. His devotion to the Emperor amounted to a passion, and he never mentioned him without a sort of idolatry. This employee was accustomed to pass his evenings with a circle of friends who met in the Rue de Vivienne. The regular attendants of this place, whom the police very naturally had their eyes upon, did not all hold the same opinion as the person of whom I have just spoken, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... of the four reformer-prophets whom we have studied had condemned the offerings and animal sacrifices of the old worship, not only because of the idolatry and other heathen and immoral practices connected with them, but also on the ground that Jehovah did not want sacrifices anyway, ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting

... dwells not in opinion only: It holds the dignity and estimation, As well, wherein 'tis precious of itself, As in the prizer: 'tis idolatry, To make the service greater than ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... throughout the whole mass of their fellow-creatures, not only in every corner of their own land, but to the utmost coasts of the civilized world, and through the still numberless regions of barbarism and idolatry. "Freely ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... shattering illusion; it is because you are assailing a good. Love has never acquired the prestige of the established, and the run of marriages are prompted by advantage, routine, or passion. So you are no innovator, Herbert. The idolatry of love will not be overthrown by a drawn battle between those of the Faith and those of the Reformation. ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London

... remote period. I know there are some among us, who would now establish a monarchy. But they are inconsiderable in number and weight of character. The rising race are all republicans. We were educated in royalism; no wonder, if some of us retain that idolatry still. Our young people are educated in republicanism; an apostacy from that to royalism is unprecedented and impossible. I am much pleased with the prospect that a declaration of rights will be added; and I hope it will be done in that way, which ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... place to the new; and God fulfilled himself in many ways. But in them, too, he fulfilled himself. 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 ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley

... whom he implored; it was the angry ocean, the thunder. He sought to disarm the genius of evil. The lightning having one day struck, not far from him, a date-palm, he worshipped the tree. His perverted faith had at last terminated in idolatry. ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine

... Nightingale! And a persistent sense of a thought that was only waiting to be thought as soon as he should be alone—that was going to run somewhat thus: "How could it come about? That this girl, whom I idolize till my idolatry is almost pain; this girl who has been my universe this year past, though I would not confess it; this wonder whom I judge no man worthy of, myself least of all—that she should be cancelled, made naught of, hushed down, to be the mate of a poor G.P.; to visit his patients and leave cards, make ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... to be turned away again by the subordination of her purposes to those of any other person, and she had believed that this resolution would keep her indifferent to marriage, in spite of any sensations of loneliness or craving for masculine idolatry. But as a widow of a year's standing she was now suddenly interested by the thought that this solid, ambitious, smooth-talking man might possibly satisfy her natural preference for a mate without violating her individuality. ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... come. He bowed in thankfulness, even while he wept their loss, to the Power that had borne his little ones to a brighter world, while her life gained new austerity from the thought that they had been taken from her as a judgment on her worldliness and idolatry. She loved to dwell upon the sufferings of the Pilgrim Fathers of New England, and emulate their rigid lives, forgetting that it was the dark persecution of the times in which they lived that left this impress upon their characters. Her husband loved to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various

... unequalled beauty, graces, talents and virtues with an admiration bordering on idolatry! yet his heart flew from the confession that he loved her; and it was not until reason demanded of his sincerity why he felt a pang on seeing Mary's purse in the hands of Mr. Lascelles, that with a glowing cheek he owned to himself that he was jealous: that although he ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... no doubt that they both connect themselves, through links of ancient tradition, with the gloomy realities of paganism, when the whole Hartz and the Brocken formed for a very long time the last asylum to a ferocious but perishing idolatry. ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... of our idolatry, to show how short-lived is the fame for which we work so hard," ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... of the time at his disposal was spent at Garthowen, where his father was consumed alternately by a feverish longing to see him, and a bitter disappointment at the shortness of his visit. He was beginning to find out that the love—almost idolatry—which he had lavished upon his son did not bring him the comfort and happiness for which ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine

... will recall that I have already shown that the worm and the lion were connected with native African worship. Of course we all know quite well that a "Caddis worm" is not an "Inch worm," but for a man trying to turn from the old to the new, from idolatry to Christianity, a closer relation than this might not be very ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley

... carissima." Clara, who had found small satisfaction in her fame out-of-doors, since she was defeated in her love in her home, had the joy of seeing the gradual growth in Schumann's heart of a tenderness that kept increasing almost to idolatry. Her increasing beauty was partly to blame for it, but chiefly it was the nobility yet exuberant joy of her soul, and her absolute sympathy with his ideals in music, ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes

... breathed his ardent prayer; High in the midst a massy altar stood, And slaughter'd offerings press'd the piles of wood; 565 While ISRAEL'S chiefs the sacred hill surround, And famish'd armies crowd the dusty ground; While proud Idolatry was leagued with dearth, And wither'd famine swept the desert earth.— "OH, MIGHTY LORD! thy woe-worn servant hear, 570 "Who calls thy name in agony of prayer; "Thy fanes dishonour'd, and thy prophets slain, "Lo! I alone survive of all thy train!— "Oh send from heaven thy sacred fire,—and ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin

... How dangerous is idolatry. When God says, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image," etc., He means that we should not only avoid kneeling to them, but we should worship Him alone, and come to Him through the only mediator between ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles

... merely a standard of things to be believed and done, set forth by authority. The King and Queen also, not the Cardinal, commanded "some friars, clerks, and other religious persons to teach the people." But no true Jew would let himself be taught that idolatry is not damnable; and even the less discouraging issues of controversy with the vacillating or the ignorant were ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... Irish bards, John Eglinton censured, have yet to create a figure which the world will set beside Saxon Shakespeare's Hamlet though I admire him, as old Ben did, on this side idolatry. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... see that the first commandment is directed against polytheism, and the second against idolatry; and most people know that the Church of Rome differs from the Church of England in joining these two into one commandment, and dividing the tenth into two commandments, so as to make up the full number, ten. This point of difference betwixt the two churches must necessarily ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 70, March 1, 1851 • Various



Words linked to "Idolatry" :   worship of man, idol worship, worship, bibliolatry, symbolatry, place-worship, veneration, devotion, idolatrous, symbol-worship, word-worship, iconolatry, thaumatolatry, woman-worship, anthropolatry, grammatolatry, topolatry, gyneolatry, verbolatry, lordolatry, gynaeolatry, Bible-worship, miracle-worship, symbololatry, idolater



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org