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Professing   /prəfˈɛsɪŋ/   Listen
Professing

noun
1.
An open avowal (true or false) of some belief or opinion.  Synonym: profession.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Professing" Quotes from Famous Books



... Ranald, and the clerk in a high sing-song voice, regardless of punctuation, read out the charge, conviction and death-warrant of the man formerly calling himself John Robin Ross-Ellison, and now professing and confessing himself to be a Baluchi. Having finished, the clerk smiled as one well pleased with a duty well performed, salaamed and clacked away in his ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren

... heaven.' And that this expression, so general but so precise, should not be mistaken, we are shortly afterwards, though incidentally, informed, that there were Parthians, Medes, and Persians at Jerusalem, professing the Mosaic faith; Jews from Mesopotamia and Syria, from the countries of the lesser and the greater Asia; Egyptian, Libyan, Greek, and Arabian Jews; and, especially, Jews from Rome itself, some of which latter are ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli

... the hero or heroine who holds it; and who holds it as people never do hold books: and points with his finger to a passage, and wags his head ominously at the audience, and then lifts up eyes and finger to the ceiling, professing to derive some intense consolation from the work between which and heaven there is a strong affinity. Any one," proceeds the author of "Pendennis," "who has ever seen one of our great light comedians X., in a chintz dressing-gown, such as nobody ever wore, and representing himself ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... poem that Sylvester wrote under that title, and we have his own authority for saying so. His poem of twenty stanzas, bearing that title, does not appear to have ever been reprinted, and it is believed cannot now be found anywhere out of his own book. Ellis, it is plain, is not to be trusted. Professing to be exact, he refers for his authority to page 652 of Sylvester's works, and then proceeds to print a poem as his which is not there. Had he read the page he quotes so carefully, he would have seen that "The Lie" and "The Soul's Errand" were two separate productions, alike ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various

... of summer society. In the very last week of September we have gone to a supper, which lingered far out of its season like one of these late flowers, and there has been an afternoon tea which assembled an astonishing number of cottagers, all secretly surprised to find one another still here, and professing openly a pity tinged with contempt for those who are ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... observation, he contrived to make a very hearty supper, and Emma laughed at his appetite after his professing that he had so little inclination ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat

... stronger a Christian is the more humbly he bears himself. A writer of the day says very truly, "if the world wants iron dukes, and iron men, God wants iron saints." Much of the unbelief and indifference of these days is caused by the weakness of professing Christians. When a man can point to a soldier of Christ who has deserted his post, and fled from the battle, it is no wonder that he hesitates to join an army which has such weak and cowardly warriors. When the enemies of the Church ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton

... their friends, until they have just cause for acting otherwise. It is true, that the Anti-Slavery, like all good causes, has produced some recreants, but the cause itself is no more to be blamed for that, than Christianity is for the malconduct of any professing hypocrite, nor the society of Friends, for the conduct of a broad-brimmed hat and shad-belly coated horsethief, because he spoke thee and thou before stealing the horse. But what is our condition even amidst our Anti-Slavery friends? And ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany

... the Dominion government over the Anti-Japanese attitude of British Columbia, which was shown in some rather serious riots. In the census of 1901 the Indian population is returned at 25,488; of these 20,351 are professing Christians and 5137 are pagans. The Indians are divided into very many tribes, under local names, but fall naturally on linguistic grounds into a few large groups. Thus the southern part of the interior is occupied ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... octosyllabic verse, or an importation from the drama of Italy. Certain plays of Aristophanes, of Terence, of Plautus were translated; but, in truth, classical models had little influence. Grevin, while professing originality, really follows the traditions of the farce. Jean de La Taille, in his prose comedy Les Corrivaux, prepared the way for the easy and natural dialogue of the comic stage. The most remarkable ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... characterized by extensive or profound knowledge. Sagacious implies far-sighted judgment and intuitive discernment, especially in practical matters. Sapient is now of infrequent use except as applied ironically or playfully to one having or professing wisdom. Sage implies deep wisdom that comes from age or experience. Judicious denotes sound judgment or careful discretion in weighing a matter with reference to its merits or its consequences. Prudent conveys a sense of cautious foresight in judging the future and ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... was taken in good part; and both houses voted an address to Philip and Mary, acknowledging that they had been guilty of a most horrible defection from the true church; professing a sincere repentance of their past transgressions; declaring their resolution to repeal all laws enacted in prejudice of the church of Rome; and praying their majesties, that, since they were happily uninfected with that criminal schism, they would intercede with the holy father for the absolution ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume

... another difficulty remained, far greater than any connected with German—a difficulty connected with the language of the publisher—the language which the great man employed in his writings was very hard to understand; I say in his writings, for his colloquial English was plain enough. Though not professing to be a scholar, he was much addicted, when writing, to the use of Greek and Latin terms, not as other people used them, but in a manner of his own, which set the authority of dictionaries at defiance; the consequence was, that ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... the Kurus as also virtue itself would both have been secured! And, O foremost of kings, if he had rejected my gentle counsels offered as medicine, then, O best of the Bharata race, I would have compelled him by force! And, if those who wait at his court, professing to be his friends but in reality his foes, had supported him, then I would have slain them all, along with those gamblers, there present! O Kauravya, it is owing to my absence from the Anartta country at that time that thou hast fallen into such distress begot of dice! O thou best of Kurus, ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... of course a Hindu. While in drunken moments professing himself an atheist and blaspheming the gods, yet when suffering from illness caused by his excesses he was a prey to superstitious fears and as wax in the hands of his Brahmin priests. Although his territory was small and unimportant, yet the ownership of ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly

... that are put up in all cars. Of the millions of people who ride in the trains, many of them pious Christians, who has ever seen a man or woman take a Bible off the iron rack and read it a single minute? And yet you can often see ministers and other professing Christians in the smoking car, puffing a cigar ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck

... in the agent she had selected. His prejudices, indeed, were easily enlisted on her side, and it was no difficult matter to make him regard with horror the prospect of a union betwixt the daughter of a God-fearing, professing, and Presbyterian family of distinction and the heir of a bloodthirsty prelatist and persecutor, the hands of whose fathers had been dyed to the wrists in the blood of God's saints. This resembled, in the divine's opinion, the union ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... when they had reached the course of three kinds of pie and a dab of dirty looking, pink ice cream professing to be fresh strawberry, that Michael suddenly looked keenly at his ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill

... so, there is not one man among them now living who could be brought to bear witness against one of his own race and tribe. When last Michel was heard of, he was under nominal restraint, but conducting himself with propriety, and professing utter unconsciousness of the wild acts of ...
— Owindia • Charlotte Selina Bompas

... describe. He is a heraldic antiquary; a discoverer, inventor, framer, arranger of pedigrees; profound in the mysteries of genealogies; an authority I believe unrivalled in everything that concerns the constitution and elements of the House of Lords; consulted by lawyers, though not professing the law; and startling and alarming the noblest families in the country by claiming the ancient baronies which they have often assumed without authority, for obscure pretenders, many of whom he has succeeded in seating in ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... all passed laws against homosexuality, the last, at all events, ordaining as penalty the vindices flammae; but their enactments do not seem to have been strictly carried out. In the year 538, Justinian, professing terror of certain famines, earthquakes, and pestilences in which he saw the mysterious "recompense which was meet" prophesied by St. Paul,[266] issued his edict condemning unnatural offenders to the sword, "lest as the result of these impious acts" (as the preamble to his Novella ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... to gratify others. Ill-timed or excessive praise often does serious evil. It is only that which is just, rational, and moderate, that we should bestow on a friend. Avoid flattery; express precisely the approbation you feel, professing no affection you do not possess, and promising no fidelity, that circumstances may forbid you to manifest, and you will then speak the words due to merit, perfectly free from falsity, and acceptable in the sight ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... bread upon keeping open a line of railroad running one hundred and ninety miles through an enemy's country, or, at least, through territory occupied by a people terribly embittered and hostile to us. With all this I suffer the mortification of seeing myself attacked right and left by people at home professing patriotism and love of country, who never heard the whistle of a hostile bullet. I pity them and a nation dependent upon such for its existence. I am thankful however that, although such people make a great noise, the masses are ...
— Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister, - 1857-78 • Ulysses S. Grant

... resistance which this attempt aroused. All that it meant was attacked without mercy or shame. Its religious teachings and practices, the result of many centuries of growth and experience were defied by one of the nations professing the same creed. Its political development, the result of a struggle under which industry, family, and social growth had proceeded in regular order was defied. Its humane policies were to be replaced by the dictates of might—mercilessly executed. Its small peoples were ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy

... really ludicrous—the P. M. G. professing a clearly suprarational faith in an elderly Engineer, saying that he will cook the goose if no one interferes with him ... as if he could go to Suakim, 'summon' a barbarous potentate, make him supply his escort to Khartoum, and, when at Khartoum, issue edicts right and left; as if he could ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell

... in 1655, and his conversations about it at the same time with ex-Primate Usher, are very curious and interesting. Baxter and many more were quite willing that there should be a restored Episcopacy after Usher's own celebrated model: i.e. an Episcopacy not professing to be jure divino, but only for ecclesiastical conveniency,—the Bishops to be permanent Presidents of clusters of the clergy, and to be fitted into an otherwise Presbyterian system of Classes and Provincial Synods. They were willing, moreover, in the interest of such a scheme, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... wait for Christ to turn it into wine. You intend, and you promise, that you will educate this child from the beginning with all that strictness of Christian principle which you would expect of him were he, in his infancy, to be a professing Christian, his duty being the same, and, consequently, yours toward him, whether he is regenerate or not,—one and the same law of God being our rule, ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams

... had made him shudder before when he read how Marie Lowenstein, of 15, Gerald Street, Charing Cross Road, calling herself Princess Popoffski, had been brought up at the Bow Street Police Court for fraudulently professing to tell fortunes and produce materialised spirits at a seance in her flat. Sordid details followed: a detective who had been there seized an apparition by the throat, and turned on the electric light. It was the woman Popoffski's throat that he held, and her ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... felt so strangely in her life. She had always known that some people were professing Christians; nay, she had, during her visits to the city, and even at home, seen people, even young girls, come forward and take upon themselves the vows of Christ. Perhaps it may have occurred to her that "sometime" she should do so, but to be deliberately called upon ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow

... endeavor to make himself agreeable to Mrs. Bolton, by paying great attention to the children, and by professing the warmest interest in the Friends' faith. It always seemed to him the most peaceful religion; he thought it must be much easier to live by an internal light than by a lot of outward rules; he had a dear Quaker aunt in Providence of whom Mrs. Bolton constantly reminded ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... criminal intrigues. On one occasion he brought a false charge against another Hindoo, and tried to substantiate it by producing forged documents. On another occasion it was discovered that, while professing the strongest attachment to the English, he was engaged in several conspiracies against them, and in particular that he was the medium of a correspondence between the court of Delhi and the French ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... undeniable culture, of instinctive sympathy with the great world where great things are done, of unerring tact, of mythological beauty and charm, of boundless ambition, of resistless energy, of incalculable promise, in outer semblance and in avowed creed the fine flower of aristocratic England, professing the divine right of the House of Lords and the utilitarian sanctity of the Church of England—between Paul, that is to say, and the Radical, progressive councillor of Hickney Heath, the Free Zionist dissenter (not even Congregationalist ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke

... funeral for certain till yesterday. There wasn't time to send for you. I thought of it, but I knew there wouldn't be time to get word to you in season for you to start. You might, as long as you're a professing Christian, Eloise Green, have a little mercy in a time like this." Ann's voice quavered a little, but she set her ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... vulgarity of shop-people, and with such tender respect for his mother, that I was less likely to leave the room then than when he was boasting about Milton, as if there was not such another place in the world; or quietly professing to despise people for careless, wasteful improvidence, without ever seeming to think it his duty to try to make them different,—to give them anything of the training which his mother gave him, and to which he evidently owes his position, whatever that may be. No! his statement ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... additional syllable to her name—"Your pardon, Mees Peemple; but we wiz call hims somesing else. Why is—ah, ha! I have got hims. Why is Lucifers like, when riding sur un souris, on a mouse, like the very same tings? You gives him up? Ah, ha! I t'ought you would never guess him!" he continued, on our professing our ignorance of the solution. "Because he is synonime!—vat you calls sin-on-a-mouse! Ha, ha, ha!" and he burst into a chuckle ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson

... had deceived Mary from the first, professing to be a Protestant while it served his purpose to win favour in the household of the Earl of Leicester, but in reality he was a Catholic, and only waited the turn of the tide to declare himself. He led a bad, immoral life, and it was scarcely more than two years after her ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall

... was well satisfied, apparently, by an affirmative reply. He even went so far as to give Louise a slight warning, which she repeated to her mistress one day after the Judge and Delaven had called, and Louise had promptly gone to bed and to sleep, professing herself too well now for a ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan

... crack of old beliefs that the roar of it is heard in all the ministers' studies of Christendom? Sir, you cannot have people of cultivation, of pure character, sensible enough in common things, large-hearted women, grave judges, shrewd business-men, men of science, professing to be in communication with the spiritual world and keeping up constant intercourse with it, without its gradually reacting on the whole conception of that other life. It is the folly of the world, constantly, which confounds its wisdom. Not only out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... Marrakesh, the credit is due to the ladies of the Mission. It may be said without mental reservation that the Southern Morocco Mission accomplishes a great work, and is most successful in its apparent failure. It does not make professing Christians out of Moors, but it teaches the Moors to live finer lives within the limits of their own faith, and if they are kinder and cleaner and more honourable by reason of their intercourse with the "tabibs" and "tabibas," ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan

... a very handy implement to keep on the writer's desk or table. I found a contrivance for protecting the hand in drawing corks, which all who are their own butlers will appreciate, and luminous match-boxes which really shine brightly in the dark, and that after a year's usage; whereas one professing to shine by night, which I bought in Boston, is only visible by borrowed light. I wanted a very fine-grained hone, and inquired for it at a hardware store, where they kept everything in their line of the best quality. I brought away a very pretty but very small stone, for ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... wished. The custom-house officer was his humble servant immediately; but the Hibernian would have been his enemy, if he had not conciliated him by observing, "that even Englishmen must allow there was something very like a bull in professing to make a complete identification of the two kingdoms, whilst, at the same time, certain regulations continued in full force to divide the countries by art, even more than the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... not fearing Roman Catholic encroachments was, she said, her having known good Catholics in the country she came from. For herself, she should die professing the faith of her father and mother. Behind her correct demeanour a rustic intelligence was exhibited. She appreciated her duty to her marriage oath: 'My husband's honour is quite safe with me.' Neither England nor religion, nor woman's proper devotion ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... be sincere, I shall say that your women live under a system too sophisticated and factitious to give fair play to common sense, at all times. What, for instance, can be the habitual notions of one, who, professing the doctrines of Christianity, is accustomed to find money placed so very much in the ascendant, as to see it daily exacted in payment for the very first of the sacred offices of the church? It would be as rational to contend that a mirror which had been cracked into radii, by a bullet, like those ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... translating phraseology, "done by different hands," that we are to look for the real beauty and power of the art. It is this handwriting of the artist's original mind that constitutes the real beauty; we would not have a touch of the graver to any work professing to be an etching—the graver cannot be used with impunity. If it will admit of any adventitious aid, it may perhaps be, in a very subordinate degree, mezzotint and aquatint. But etching rather improves Prince Rupert's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various

... avarice of rival adventurers, who, in that spirit which arrogance always asserts over ignorance, would make their king a puppet and themselves mere vassals. And this the wily adventurers did, by professing great friendship for the king and his people, then setting up a fictitious claim to a voice in the affairs of the kingdom, and finally demanding for such service, which any knave or fool might have rendered, not one, but all his islands. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... the prophets, and Christ stand alone. All the great humanists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, although professing no discipleship of earlier teachers, were at one with them in condemning the root-principle of the existing co-ordination of human lives in politics, economics, and education. The cry of Rousseau, ...
— Is civilization a disease? • Stanton Coit

... assumed control of the government they delayed the meeting of the Constituent Assembly and then suppressed it by force of arms! They denounced Kerensky for having restored the death penalty in the army in cases of gross treachery, professing an intense horror of capital punishment as a form of "bourgeois savagery." When they came into power they instituted capital punishment for civil and political offenses, establishing public hangings and floggings as a means of impressing the population![24] ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo

... characters of mythology, had had some blind revelation of the coming of a saviour of the world, and had uttered indistinct prophecies of the event. Forgeries, similar to those of the Sibylline Verses, professing to be the remains of the poems of Orpheus, were made among the Alexandrian Christians, and for a long period his name was held in popular esteem, as that of a heathen prophet of Christian truth. Whether the paintings in the catacombs took their origin ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... of incoherent theologising will not do. No one really believes it, and the churches will have to give up professing to believe it. In our ordinary everyday concerns we take quite a different view for granted all the time, the view that "Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap." The harvest may be long in coming, but it comes at last. Neither do we choose our friends on account of their chances of heaven ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell

... various degrees of mediocrity are given. The gay period to a stranger is that of the carnival; but, at other times, the festivals of the church, celebrated in this isolated place with more of the mummeries of Roman Catholicism than obtain in many other countries professing the same faith, afford amusement to the lovers ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts

... noblest character and best discriminating gifts are seen professing opposite convictions; one party earnestly asserting the complete blamelessness of their Government, whilst the other, with equally sincere assurance, denounces the responsible Ministry for having provoked a most unjust war against a totally inoffensive people, ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas

... While Germany was professing her friendship for the United States in every note written following the sinking of the Lusitania, the government was secretly preparing the nation for a break in diplomatic relations, or for war, in the event of a rupture. German officials ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman

... the pleasure of being with his Sophia; so on he marched with Squire Western and his ladies, the parson bringing up the rear. This had, indeed, offered to tarry with his brother Thwackum, professing his regard for the cloth would not permit him to depart; but Thwackum would not accept the favour, and, with no great civility, ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... time, and in these circumstances, that a new administration was formed. Professing even industriously, in this public matter, to avoid anecdotes; I say nothing of those famous reconciliations and quarrels, which weakened the body that should have been the natural support of this administration. I run no risk in affirming, that, surrounded as they were with difficulties of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... his fortune told, in one way or another, being superstitious, as he readily confessed, though at times professing little faith in these prognostics. Once when a clairvoyant, of whom he had never even heard, and whom he had reason to believe was ignorant of his family history, told him more about it than he knew himself, besides reading a list of names from a piece of paper which Clemens ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... profession, and refused to give an opinion on a case of so much importance in itself, and attended with so much obscurity, unless he were permitted to see and examine the patient. The officers of Napoleon's household excused themselves, by professing that the emperor's strict commands had been laid on them, that no English physician, Dr. Arnott excepted, should approach his dying bed. They said, that even when he was speechless they would be unable to brook his eye, should he turn it upon ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various

... will consider the commonly received, orthodox conception of God, and compare it with the Pantheistic. I will show that it, too, is Atheistic, inasmuch as, in spite of its professing to give us a conception of God, it raises no ideas in our minds of a person or Living Being—and a God who is ...
— God the Known and God the Unknown • Samuel Butler

... demonology, on the other hand, would seem to be as completely barred, as I feel myself to be, from professing to take the accuracy of that information for granted. If the threefold tradition is wrong about one fundamental topic, it may be wrong about another, while the authority of the single traditions, often mutually contradictory as they are, ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley

... Neither can I, nor can her uncle and aunt, hear of Mr. Annesley as a husband for Florence. She is therefore at present disengaged. If you can gain her affections, you have my leave." With this permission M. Grascour departed, professing himself to be contented. ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope

... true to the Union; but I had fancied, in regard to some, that their words were a little stronger than their feelings. When a man's bread—and, much more, when the bread of his wife and children—depends on his professing a certain line of political conviction, it is very hard for him to deny his assent to the truth of the argument. One feels that a man, under such circumstances, is bound to be convinced, unless he be in a position which may make a stanch adherence to opposite politics a matter of grave ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... obtained, many times twelve, or fifteen, or eighteen hours day and night; I was curious to discover, whether there was any verity in the art or not. Astrology in this time, viz. in 1633, was very rare in London, few professing it that understood any thing thereof. Let it not repent you (O noble Esquire) if now I make a short digression of such persons as then professed astrology, that posterity may understand in what condition I found it, and in whose ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly

... seems to me that this gentleman, although professing what I consider an erroneous creed, has touched upon the right point in exhorting Bridget to acts of love and mercy, whereby to wipe out her sin of hate and vengeance. Let us strive after our fashion, by almsgiving and visiting of the needy and fatherless, to make our prayers ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell

... denominations are guilty, it is not at all impossible that similar scenes may be enacted in England. Ritualistic forms and ceremonies, and public processions, and, still more, the insidious teaching of numbers professing to be ministers of religion, are accustoming the people to a system which must end in ...
— The Last Look - A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition • W.H.G. Kingston

... the commencement of a Mission was overcome. Years are usually required before confidence is so far instilled into the natives' mind as to induce them, young or old, to submit to the guidance of strangers professing to be actuated by motives the reverse of worldly wisdom, and inculcating customs strange and unknown ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... conceits which require still more ignoble epithets. A slaughter in the Red sea "new dies the water's name;" and England, during the civil war, was "Albion no more, nor to be named from white." It is, surely, by some fascination not easily surmounted, that a writer professing to revive "the noblest and highest writing in verse," makes this ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... these roving Commissions to report were often no index of Government policy, but were simply appointed to shelve, while professing to consider a question which the ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... preserved in the works of Josephus, Eusebius, Julius Africanus, and Syncellus.... With the curious want of critical faculty of almost all the Christian Fathers" [52] (so different from the learned, judicious, upright priests of the sun), "these extracts, though professing to be quotations from the same book, contain many inconsistencies and in several instances they have been obviously tampered with, especially by Eusebius, in order to bring their chronology more in accordance with that of the Old Testament, ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell

... such hurry. I have something to say first, in explanation of the anger you have seen me display; an anger which is unseemly in a man professing to have conquered the sins and passions of lost humanity. I did follow this child. You were right in saying that it was my horse and buggy which were seen in the wake of the wagon which came from the region of Homewood and lost itself ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green

... after the inauguration of President Lincoln there seemed to be a kind of interregnum, during which the confusion of ideas in the Border States as to their rights and duties as members of the "old" Union, as it began to be called, became positively chaotic. Virginia, still professing neutrality, prepared to seize the arsenal at Harper's Ferry and the navy-yard at Norfolk; she would prevent the passage of the United States' forces "with a serried phalanx of her gallant sons," two regiments of whom stood, looking on while a file of marines took seven wounded ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... had described an engine for raising water by the explosive power of steam long before Savery's. Mr. Desegulier affirms, that Savery bought up all he could procure of the books of the Marquis of Worcester, and destroyed them, professing himself then to have discovered the power of steam by accident, which seems to have been an unfounded slander. Savery applied it to the raising of water to supply houses and gardens, but could not accomplish the draining of mines by it. ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin

... secrets of politics in which his patrons were implicated; for they put but few questions to the boy (who was little of stature, and looked much younger than his age), and such questions as they put he answered cautiously enough, and professing even more ignorance than he had, for which his examiners willingly enough gave him credit. He did not say a word about the window or the cupboard over the fireplace; and these secrets quite escaped ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... most prominent public man to the cause of the rebellion, and who, unpardoned rebel as he is, with that oath staring him in the face, had the assurance to lay his credentials on the table of the Senate. Other rebels of scarcely less note or notoriety were selected from other quarters. Professing no repentance, glorying apparently in the crime they had committed, avowing still, as the uncontradicted testimony of Mr. Stephens and many others proves, an adherence to the pernicious doctrines of secession, and declaring that they yielded only to necessity, ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... awful features grow a little milder at these words, the girl took fresh courage, and at last began to put loving words into her mistress's mouth which the latter had never uttered; professing that she herself had heard Nitetis a hundred times murmur the word "Cambyses" in her sleep with indescribable tenderness. She ended her confession by ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... mankind.[156] Mill, he thinks, had too low an estimate of the actual average Englishman, and too high an estimate of the ideal man who would be perfectly good when all restraints were removed. He excused himself for contempt of his fellows by professing love for an abstraction. To set up the love of 'humanity,' in fact, as a governing principle is not only impracticable, but often mischievous. A man does more good, as a rule, by working for himself and his family, than by acting like a 'moral Don Quixote,[157] ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... withstanding all these excellences, Mr. Lowe was an infidel. He ridiculed in his good-natured way, the idea of prayer, looked upon conversion as a solemn farce, and believed the most of professing Christians were well-meaning but deluded people. He was well versed in all the subtle arguments of infidel writers, had studied the Bible quite carefully, and could argue against it in the most plausible manner. Courteous and kind to all, few could be offended ...
— Children's Edition of Touching Incidents and Remarkable Answers to Prayer • S. B. Shaw

... respect her feeling and avoid the subject which still occupied so many of my thoughts. I fought against my passion, which I told myself was unmanly, since it was not returned in the good, old-fashioned way. What man of spirit would submit to the enchantment of one who, while professing she loved him with her whole heart, declared in the same breath that she also loved equally well half a dozen others? I tried to make up my mind to shake off the spell and be free. To this end I endeavored to examine my heart with ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan

... their old charms and contrivances for compassing the death of their enemies; they will very likely soon be at peace throughout the whole island. Well, then, they will be very idle, talk infinite scandal, indulge in any amount of gluttony; professing to believe our religion, their whole life will contradict that profession, unless their whole social and domestic life be changed, and a new character infused into them. It would be a great mistake to suppose that the English aspect of the Christian's social life is necessarily adapted ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... may hardly be likely that the Austens could rival Mrs. Bennet of Pride and Prejudice by professing to dine with four-and-twenty families, there was, nevertheless (for a quiet country neighbourhood), a very fair amount of society to be ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh

... said Robert, "is this: I am longing for a real church home, where I can feel at one with, and in fellowship with real Christians. Pastor Jones, there are so many professing Christians who are Christians only in name. I cannot fellowship them. They engage in questionable practices; they are dishonest and tricky; they use bad language; and their bent is more toward pleasure than religion. My soul really craves a church home. ...
— Around Old Bethany • Robert Lee Berry

... length seek to cure the evil if they realised that there was a remedy.] as public institutes, nor do I include under this head a fashionable education, for this education facing two ways at once achieves nothing. It is only fit to turn out hypocrites, always professing to live for others, while thinking of themselves alone. These professions, however, deceive no one, for every one has his share in them; they ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... lapses in a double-sexed college; and so there are outside of schoolhouses and seminaries of learning. Even the church and the clergy are not exempt from reproach in such things. There are sects, professing to commingle religion and love, who illustrate the dangers of juxtaposition even in things holy. "No physiologist can well doubt that the holy kiss of love in such cases owes all its warmth to the sexual feeling which consciously or unconsciously inspires it, ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke

... dishonest natures, who pride themselves upon their Jesuitical cleverness in equivocation, in their serpent-wise shirking of the truth and getting out of moral backdoors, in order to hide their real opinions and evade the consequences of holding and openly professing them. Institutions or systems based upon any such expedients must necessarily prove false and hollow. "Though a lie be ever so well dressed," says George Herbert, "it is ever overcome." Downright lying, though bolder and more vicious, is ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon

... these means, which, simple as they may appear, were, perhaps, the most artful, my lord had gained something more, I think, than my esteem, he took the surest method to confirm himself in my affection. This was, by professing the highest friendship for my husband; for, as to myself, I do assure you he never shewed me more than common respect; and I hope you will believe I should have immediately startled and flown off if he had. Poor I accounted for all the friendship which he expressed for my husband, and all ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... The Ghisaris are a similar low class of smiths in the southern Districts who do rough work only, but sometimes claim Rajput origin. Other subcastes are of the usual local or territorial type, as Mahulia, from Mahul in Berar; Jhade or Jhadia, those living in the jungles; Ojha, or those professing a Brahmanical origin; Maratha, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... there was copied into the "Temps" an anonymous letter which had appeared in "Truth," professing to express the hostile feelings entertained by English naval officers against the officers of the French fleet, which had recently visited Malta. This roused Mr. Hamerton's indignation; the more so as he never for one moment believed the discourteous and outrageous letter to be ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... of public worship held by white persons. No slave or free person of color was permitted to "preach, exhort, or harangue any slave or slaves, or free persons of color, except in the presence of five respectable slave-holders, or unless the person preaching was licensed by some regular body of professing Christians in the neighborhood, to whose society or church the ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... professing his intention of returning, but hoping and resolving in his heart never to do so. His departure made easier the unavoidable breach, but the struggle had already begun. Wishing to leave a regent of ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... have no blind or bigoted admiration of our native institutions, and we willingly allow that the marriage law of Scotland is not incapable of amendment. Any measure, therefore, professing to have that object, would receive our attentive consideration; but we should expect it to be framed with a care and caution corresponding to the grave importance of the social relations which are to be affected, and in a spirit congenial to the deep moral and religious convictions ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... Agostino sharply. 'The question concerns the country, not the girl.' He added in an underbreath, 'I think you are professing that you love her a little too strongly, and scarce give her much help as an advocate. The matter must be looked into. If Barto shall be found to have acted without just grounds, I am certain that Count Medole'—he turned suavely to the nobleman—'will withdraw confidence from him; ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... buried, I fear me, both twain. For God giveth us great likelihood that for our sinful wretched living he goeth about to make these infidels, who are his open professed enemies, the sorrowful scourge of correction over evil Christian people who should be faithful and who are of truth his falsely professing friends. ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More

... raw beef-steak and a pipe afterward," broke out Pen, "you give yourself airs of superiority over people, whose tastes are more dainty, and are not ashamed of the world they live in. Who goes about professing particular admiration, or esteem, or friendship, or gratitude, even for the people one meets every day? If A. asks me to his house, and gives me his best, I take his good things for what they are worth, and no more. I do not ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... just now. It's a surplice, that's what it is. Thing our clergymen wear, you know," explained Miss Jenny, in consideration of his professing another faith. ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... with the insight of a statesman and a thinker, and the candor of a true Christian. Oh, how I am vexed and do smart when I think of the wicked treatment I and my people are subjected to on account of the God-given color, and by a people claiming and professing to be Christians! I can hardly believe that any other people ever bore the names freemen and citizens, and at the same time were shut out from so many of their rights and liberties as we are. Our manhood is outraged, our civil and political rights are abused, our women are robbed ...
— The American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 7. July 1888 • Various

... cleane without the meanes of the true knowledge of God: I doubt not but the sight hereof (if they be not cleane void of grace) would stirre them vp to more thankefulnesse to God, that euer they were borne in so happy a time, and vnder so wise and godly a prince professing ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt

... exhort the young to respect religion, in whatever form they find it, and to have a high and just regard for the rights and feelings of professing Christians of every class. In this, as in all things else, be governed by the Redeemer's golden rule—"All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin

... been upon theoretical points, or for statements in any way connected with his particular speculations, but on matters of fact, brought forward by himself, or collected by himself, and which appear incidentally in his book. If a man WILL make a book, professing to discuss a single question, an ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... exhibit more of the Christian character, and follow more closely the example of the meek and lowly, the loving and laborious, the condescending and self-sacrificing Saviour whose name they bear? They are amazed that so little is done by professing Christians to save the perishing classes; that so many of the churches, instead of grappling with the vice and wretchedness of our large towns, turn their backs on them, build their churches in aristocratic neighborhoods mostly, and compete with ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... republic, under an oligarchy, had been arbitrarily dominated by the Council of Ten, an assembly that, after serving a special purpose for which it was created, was declared permanent in 1325 and became a formidable tribunal. Professing to guard the republic the Ten in fact destroyed its liberties, disposed of its finances, overruled the constitutional legislators, suppressed and excluded the popular element from all voice in public affairs, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... them as their own selves. Possessed of great learning, he is ever devoted to their cause. Thou wilt also enquire about the welfare of all the assembled sons of Pandu and the Srinjayas and Satyaki and Virata and all the five sons of Draupadi, professing to be a messenger from me. And whatsoever also thou mayst deem to be opportune, and beneficial for the Bharata race, all that, O Sanjaya, thou must say in the midst of those kings,—everything, in sooth, that may not be ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... for quaint and curious reminiscences of "Ye Olden Time," and to meet this, Mr. Henry M. Brooks has prepared a series of interesting handbooks. The materials have been gleaned chiefly from old newspapers of Boston and Salem, sources not easily accessible, and while not professing to be history, the volumes contain much material for history, so combined and presented as to be both amusing and instructive. The titles of some of the volumes indicate their scope and their promise ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks

... one's neighbors, these also figured conspicuously among the things the fitfully shining sun looks down upon. But what a charm there is in such a contest! Surely the desire to beautify the spot on which the Blessed Sacrament rests this is only another way of professing ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... not expect a widespread revival of religion until professing Christians do their duty with respect to the saloon. Mothers and fathers need not expect their sons to remain sober while the saloon opens to them day and night. Wives need not expect their husbands to remain devoted and loyal until the saloon is abolished. ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy

... in a ruling elder is wisdom. "Be ye wise as serpents," said Jesus, "and harmless as doves." Are all these professing Christians wise? Are all elders wise? Are all ministers ...
— 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

... tyrants, is a conservative; like many conservatives, he eagerly welcomes new ideas, and, except in the field of politics, leans to practical reform. When the missionaries came, professing a knowledge of the truth, he readily received them; attended their worship, acquired the accomplishment of public prayer, and made himself a student at their feet. It is thus—it is by the cultivation of similar passing chances—that he has learned ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Miss Grammont had walked round the old circumvallation together, but Belinda Seyffert had strayed away from them, professing an interest in flowers. It was not so much that she felt they had to be left together that made her do this as her own consciousness of being possessed by ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells

... the readers of this magazine are especially concerned. How many depend upon tricks to get their effects! How many struggle mightily to gain a laugh or "a hand," neglecting the theme, the message, the spirit of that which they are professing to interpret. If that which we read is worth while, if it has anything vital in it, the effect will be stronger if the skill and personality of the speaker are kept in the background, and the audience is brought face to face with the spirit of that which has been embodied in the lines. As some readers ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various

... do not always understand the real meaning of what the Bible says. It must be that many people misunderstand it, else why are there so many denominations of Protestants, teaching opposite doctrines, and all professing to get them ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley

... something truly historic about the English officer's work with the Fellaheen, or native race of Egypt. For centuries they had lain as level as the slime of the Nile, and all the conquerors in the chronicles of men had passed over them like a pavement. Though professing the challenging creed of the Moslems, they seem to have reached something like the pessimist patience of the Hindoos. To have turned this slime once more into a human river, to have lifted this pavement once more into a human rampart or barricade, is not a small thing, nor a thing ...
— Lord Kitchener • G. K. Chesterton

... and voluptuary, is painted against a background of church members and professing Christians scarcely less hypocritical than he. In this book Sinclair Lewis adds a violent stroke to his growing picture ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey

... with an astonishing ineffectiveness. Nowhere in the whole English-speaking world is there anything one can compare to a voice and a judgment—much less any discussion between reputable voices. There are periodicals professing criticism, but most of them have the effect of an omnibus in which disconnected heterogeneous people are continually coming and going, while the conductor asks first one of his fluctuating load and ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... Mrs. Fry! I like your name! It speaks the very warmth you feel in pressing In daily act round Charity's great flame— I like the crisp Browne way you have of dressing, Good Mrs. Fry! I like the placid claim You make to Christianity,—professing Love, and good works—of course you buy of Barton, Beside the young Fry's bookseller, ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... sheep-stealer; hanged, and no mistake! Poor Wolf gathered himself together, wife and baggage; girded up his loins; and ran with the due despatch. He is now found sheltered under Hessen-Darmstadt, at Marburg, professing something there; and all the intellect of the world is struck with astonishment, and with silent or vocal pity for the poor man.—It is but fair to say, Friedrich Wilhelm, gradually taking notice of the world's humor in regard to this, began ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... the shameful practices and atrocious crimes of which they have been proved to be the theatres, in modern and ancient times, by Romish ecclesiastics and even popes themselves. The public were, therefore, quite unprepared to believe such accusations against men professing sanctity of life, and a divine commission to the world, although Miss Harrison and Miss Reed of Boston had published startling reports respecting the character of the priests and nuns ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk

... accomplished. The decrees of the Convention were everywhere received with submission. London, true during fifty eventful years to the cause of civil freedom and of the reformed religion, was foremost in professing loyalty to the new Sovereigns. Garter King at arms, after making proclamation under the windows of Whitehall, rode in state along the Strand to Temple Bar. He was followed by the maces of the two Houses, by the two Speakers, Halifax and Powle, and by a long train of coaches filled with noblemen ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... for us. Our passports were again examined and discussed, and we were rexamined as to our whence and whither and wherefore by the aid of two or three Catholic Albanians of the vicinity, who did what they could to find out if we had any secret business, professing to be themselves the victims of the oppression of the Turks, and sympathizing with us. They did not draw me, however, and I professed no anxiety as ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman

... mediaeval. Of the sort of waxwork history which is thought sufficient for the side-show of the age of abbots and crusaders, a small instance will be sufficient. A popular Encyclopaedia appeared some years ago, professing among other things to teach English History to the masses; and in this I came upon a series of pictures of the English kings. No one could expect them to be all authentic; but the interest attached to those that were necessarily imaginary. ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton

... to swell the crowd. If the man happens to be a poor man, he is simply hurriedly marched about on foot, with a simple arrow in his hand pointed skyward, to distinguish him from ordinary mortals; before him a crier proclaims in a loud voice that the new religionist has ennobled himself by professing the faith of the prophet in this solemn manner. A collection for his benefit is taken up among the booths and shops, which is mostly appropriated by the conductor, circumciser, and his assistants, after which he is circumcised ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino

... question for evolutionists. Any scientific theory must be ready to give an account of all phenomena. A hypothesis to explain the origin of man must explain all the facts. How did man become a hairless animal? Darwin's explanation is too puerile for any one professing to be a learned scientist to give. He says that the females preferred males with the least hair (?) until the hairy men gradually became extinct, because, naturally, under such a regime, the hairy men would die off, and, finally only ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams

... with goods for sale in quest of orders, and some are very persistent and difficult to get rid of. A man professing to sell some artificial fertilizer called upon me with a small tin sample box, containing a mixture which emitted a most villainous odour. He sniffed with appreciation at the compound, probably consisting of some nitrogenous ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... unlocked the door of the room, and when his step- mother returned he threw himself back in his chair, groaning. He took the glass of brandy the housekeeper brought him, and, after a few minutes, professing himself much better, left ...
— Helping Himself • Horatio Alger

... the very free and the very close method. Put into words by a recognized authority, so reasonable an opinion could hardly fail of acceptance. It appealed to the eighteenth-century mind as adequate, and more than one translator, professing to give rules for translation, merely repeated in his own words what Dryden had already said. Garth declares in the preface condemned by Johnson: "Translation is commonly either verbal, a paraphrase, or an imitation.... The manner that seems most suitable for this present ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos

... contemporary historian, increased the fear of those professing the new religion to such an extent that they left the country "in great heaps." It became necessary, therefore, to issue a subsequent proclamation forbidding all persons, whether foreigners or natives, to leave the land or to send away their property, and prohibiting all shipmasters, wagoners, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... they bury his trunk with much solemn ceremony; for they say that "the elephant is a great lord; his trunk is his hand." Before the Amaxosa Caffres attack an elephant they shout to the animal and beg him to pardon them for the slaughter they are about to perpetrate, professing great submission to his person and explaining clearly the need they have of his tusks to enable them to procure beads and supply their wants. When they have killed him they bury in the ground, along with the end of his trunk, a few of the articles they have obtained for the ivory, ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... communicates himself, from his immutability that he always reveals himself. The eternal or never beginning communication of perfection to other beings is a postulate of the concept "God". But, along with the whole fraternity of those professing the same philosophy, Origen assumed that the One, in becoming the Manifold and acting in the interests of the Manifold, can only effect his purpose by divesting himself of absolute apathy and once more assuming ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... to his story, professing only to repeat what Solon was told by the priests. The war of which he was about to speak had occurred 9000 years ago. One of the combatants was the city of Athens, the other was the great island of Atlantis. Critias proposes to speak of ...
— Critias • Plato

... every ship and every officer in the service. Old naval captains were often astonished at finding in him a more accurate knowledge than their own of when, where, how, and under whom, such and such vessels had been employed. The stories of begging impostors professing to be shipwrecked seamen were detected at once by his cross-examinations. The sight of a ship, the society of sailors, the embarkation on a voyage, were always sufficient to inspirit and delight him ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley

... until he were brought to a fair trial. But Corsica, alas! has had no “Cities of Refuge,” and examples drawn from remote and barbarous times can afford no apology for the inveterate cruelties of a people enjoying the light of modern civilisation and professing the religion of ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... he received the new Austrian ambassador, Prince Schwarzenberg (April 9th). With a jocular courtesy that veiled the deepest irony, he complimented him on having waged a fine campaign in 1812. Austria's present requests were not reassuring. While professing the utmost regard for the welfare of Napoleon, she renewed her offer of mediation in a more pressing way. In fact, Metternich's aim now was to free Austria from the threatening pressure of Napoleon on the west and of Russia on the east. She must ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... hand? Such a man is generally fearful as well as superstitious, and so considers the Bible as a charm to ward off evil. It has been said, you remember, that the devil himself can quote Scripture for his own purpose. I venture to say that his satanic majesty knows the Bible better than many professing Christians. It is necessary for him to do so in order to answer the arguments it sets forth. Perhaps that is the way with me. Anyway, we shall dismiss that evidence ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody

... the premises where the advertisement is posted, or of sales, &c., are allowed in streets where three-quarters of the houses are "residences'' only. Prohibition is also extended to the advertisements of those professing to cure diseases or giving notice of the sale of medicines. In Boston there are regulations prohibiting projecting or overhanging signs in the streets, and special rules as to the height at which street signs and advertisements must be placed. The ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... by precept. By living, not by preaching. By doing, not by professing. By living the life, not by dogmatizing as to how it should be lived. There is no contagion equal to the contagion of life. Whatever we sow, that shall we also reap, and each thing sown produces of its kind. We can kill not only by doing another bodily injury directly, but we can and we ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine

... times is, that professing men (for so I understand the Text) s[h]all be, many of them, base; (2 Tim. 3.) but continue thou in the things that thou hast learned, not of wanton men, not of licentious times, but of the Word and Doctrine of ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan

... or ancient book, does not necessarily imply any degree of assent to the principles involved in the original writer's statements. The new version or edition may be nothing more than a work of antiquarian or literary interest, by no means professing any thing more than a belief that persons will be found who will, from some motive or other, ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton

... speaking of the religious condition of Brooklyn —and Brooklyn, you know, has been called the City of Churches— states that the great mass of that Christian city was out of Christ, and that more professing Christians went to the theatre than to the prayer meeting. This, certainly, from their standpoint, is a most terrible declaration. Brooklyn, you know, is one of the great religious centres of the world—a city in which nearly all the people are engaged either in delivering ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... to an after dinner argument, professing a theory that moderate discussion is a perfect digestive. A letter which had been delivered to him on his arrival, and which he had found time to glance over, gave him at once a subject ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau

... of the name of Smith having procured a passage from England in the Lady Penrhyn, with a design to proceed to India in the event of his not finding any employment in this country, on his offering his services, and professing to have some agricultural knowledge was received into the colony, and, being judged a discreet prudent man, was placed about the provision store under the assistant to the commissary at Rose Hill, and was moreover sworn in as a peace-officer, to act as such immediately ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... lights," and is as great a gift as man is capable of, next to the knowledge of God himself. There is nothing more necessary to man, either as a man or as a Christian, either as endowed with reason or professing religion, than that he should be thoroughly acquainted with himself, his own heart, its dispositions, inclinations, and lusts, his ways and actions, that while he travels abroad to other creatures and countries, he may not commit so shameful an absurdity, as to be a stranger at home, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... had come to reside in the city, professing himself a member of a noble Italian family. Giuseppe Rossini was poet, orator, and musician. As poet and orator he was pleasing and graceful; as a musician he excelled. He was a brilliant and not obtrusive conversationalist. His enthusiastic ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage

... the Vanguard in tow, and the Orion looking out ahead for a pilot to conduct them into St. Pierre's Road. This anchorage they happily reached on the 24th; and expected to have met with that friendly reception which their distresses demanded, from a power professing neutrality. The governor of St. Pierre, however, had received orders from the French, not to admit any British ship; but no dread of hostilities could prevent the brave admiral from ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison

... Church polity they follow the Independents. The Baptists hold that immersion is essential to the validity of the ordinance. Their leading idea is that the Church must consist of true Christians, and not merely of professing ones. ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous

... an announcement from Athens stated that Premier Venizelos had resigned, the King having informed him that he was unable to support the policy of his Minister. King Constantine was a brother-in-law of the German Emperor, and although professing neutrality he had steadily opposed M. Venizelos' policy. He had once before forced M. Venizelos' resignation, but at the general elections which followed, the Greek statesman was returned to ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish



Words linked to "Professing" :   affirmation, profession, avouchment, profess, avowal



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