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Devout   Listen
adjective
Devout  adj.  
1.
Devoted to religion or to religious feelings and duties; absorbed in religious exercises; given to devotion; pious; reverent; religious. "A devout man, and one that feared God." "We must be constant and devout in the worship of God."
2.
Expressing devotion or piety; as, eyes devout; sighs devout; a devout posture.
3.
Warmly devoted; hearty; sincere; earnest; as, devout wishes for one's welfare.
The devout, devoutly religious persons, those who are sincerely pious.
Synonyms: Holy; pure; religious; prayerful; pious; earnest; reverent; solemn; sincere.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Devout" Quotes from Famous Books



... holy order. I have many disciples here, who wear the dress, and yet they are not as regular as good dervishes should be; but there is a time for all things, and when their appetite to do wrong fails them, they will (Inshallah, please God), in all probability, become more holy and devout men. You are accepted." And the old man held out his hand for the money, which he clutched with eagerness, and hid away under his garment. "Ali," said he, to one of the dervishes who had stood at some distance during my audience, "this young man—what is your name—Hudusi—is admitted ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat

... suddenly, strangely. What sort of man was he, after all, so full of strange contradictions—a savage, a criminal, yet reverent and devout? ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough

... sanctity are listened to without the least feeling of profanation. Nor are the more audacious exhibitions of the dark ages by any means exploded. Every traveller on the continent who has much curiosity, must have witnessed, whether with devout indignation or mere astonishment, the strange manner in which scriptural subjects are still represented by marionnettes, by tableax parlans, or even performed by regular actors. In the unphilosophized parts of modern Europe, these ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various

... continuing their labors in the light of continued revelation. By this sure guide they selected and set apart those who were to officiate in the Church. By revelation, Peter was directed to carry the gospel to the Gentiles; which expansion of the work was inaugurated by the conversion of the devout Cornelius and his household. By revelation, Saul of Tarsus became Paul the Apostle, a valiant defender of the faith. Holy men of old spake and wrote as they were moved upon by the Holy Ghost and depended not upon the precedents of ancient history nor entirely upon the law then already written. ...
— The Story of "Mormonism" • James E. Talmage

... the last remaining trace of a genuflection. When we rise and stand as our friends enter, or leave, our reception-room, it is an act of respect, it was once an act of homage. The throwing of a kiss is an imitation of an act of worship that devout Romans practiced before their gods, and the wave of the hand to a friend across the street is a modification of the ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... Carr's Lane Chapel, where a humble friend had begged me to go, because there she had been converted, and there the Rev. R. W. Dale happened to preach on "Where prayer was wont to be made." He said that consecration was not due to a Bishop or to any ecclesiastical ceremony, but to the devout prayers and praise of the faithful souls within it—that thousands over Scotland and England, and others in America, Australia, and New Zealand, look back to words which they had heard and praises and prayers in which they had joined as the holiest ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence

... country life, was quite as much at home as scholarship and classical study. But we shall look there in vain for any trace of the sentimental, the profoundly melancholy attitude of the Fathers of the Church, Basil and Gregory, or for Augustine's deep faith and devout admiration of the works of creation: even the tone of Ausonius and Fortunatus, in their charming descriptions of scenery, was now a thing of the past. Feeling for Nature—sentimental, sympathetic, cosmic, and dogmatic—had dwindled ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... the distinction between secular and sacred. For him all things were sacred, just as the universe was religious. We see an interesting fruition of Emerson's sowing in the nature of the means of influence, which organized churches and devout people have, in these later days, been compelled to resort to. Thus the Catholic Church keeps its hold on its natural constituency quite as much by schools, gymnasiums, hospitals, entertainments, and social parades as it does by its rites and sacraments. The Protestant Churches maintain in city ...
— Four American Leaders • Charles William Eliot

... the government of Savoy, and enjoyed so eminent a reputation that on his death both the Senate and the King of Sardinia deliberately recorded their appreciation of his loss as a public calamity. His mother is said to have been a woman of lofty and devout character, and her influence over her eldest son was exceptionally strong and tender. He used to declare in after life that he was as docile in her hands as the youngest of his sisters. Among other marks of his affectionate ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley

... call upon God in all need, which is made precious through God's command, and necessity stirreth up earnest and devout prayers, which are our ...
— Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther • Martin Luther

... fixed eyes Darted fascinating flame, He, to thy devout surprise, Stood before thee ...
— Ballads - Founded On Anecdotes Relating To Animals • William Hayley

... commons," calves kept on bulky innutritious food, are all so many sources of positive loss to the feeder—and as many proofs that he who aspires to be a successful producer of meat, must, in one respect at least, be a devout believer in the doctrine of ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron

... Todi, and S. Pietro in Montorio. However this may be, the Duomo of Pisa, the first modern cathedral of Italy, was to be the pattern of many a church built later in the contado, and even in Lucca and Pistoja and the country round about. It was a style at once splendid and devout, not forgetful of the Roman Empire, yet with new thoughts concerning it, so that where a Roman building had once really stood, now a Latin Church should stand, white with marble and glistening with precious stones. It is strange to find in this far-away piazza ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton

... under arms, to the bark chapel of the Ottawa village, where they heard mass. La Salle knelt before the altar, in a mantle of scarlet, bordered with gold. Soldiers, sailors, and artisans knelt around him,—black Jesuits, gray Recollets, swarthy voyageurs and painted savages; a devout but ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman

... general contempt of the human species, judged Vautrot to be as good as any other. Now, familiarity with M. de Camors was, morally, fearfully prejudicial to the secretary. It had, it is true, the effect of stripping off his devout mask, which he seldom put on before his patron; but it terribly increased in venom the depravity which disappointment and wounded pride had secreted in his ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet

... and certify to your Majesty is the great zeal which Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera has always displayed in the service of God and your Majesty, and in the increase of the royal estate. For in his own life he sets an example to the most devout religious; and in his personal attention to the duties of his offices he continues without being turned aside to anything else. His actions are guided by the law of God and the service of your Majesty. He is vigilant in preventing all offenses against God, and in military discipline. It seems as ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various

... nation was more devout, or more constant to the service of its gods, than were the Egyptians; and hence, being superstitious, they were pre-eminently under the control of priests, as the people were in India. We see, chiefly in India and Egypt, the power ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord

... beneficent influence of the deities or powers invoked. According to the accounts of some of the old men the kiva was constructed to inclose this sacred object, and houses were built on every side to surround the kiva and form its outer wall. In earlier times, too, so the priests relate, people were more devout, and the houses were planned with their terraces fronting upon the court, so that the women and children and all the people, could be close to the masked dancers (katchinas) as they issued from the kiva. The spectators filled the ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various

... off with a white ball-fringe; also a praying-desk with velvet cushions, above which was an image of the Sacred Heart, with gold flowers, and, hanging from a brass chain, a perpetual light glimmering in a little red glass; and, all around, on the white walls, little statues and pictures, like a devout little tabernacle ashine with cleanliness. They drank their fragrant cup of coffee and nibbled lumps of ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels

... particularly excelled in setting down any unlucky person who had happened to offend them. Their main object, at this time, was to stand well at court, therefore they adapted themselves to circumstances, and could be devout with the Dauphine and ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow

... and miscarriages of the time past. Is there a more usual thing than for a man to impose upon himself, by putting on a grave and demure countenance, by casting a severe look into his past conduct, and making some few pious and devout reflections upon it, and then to believe that he has repented to an excellent purpose, without ever letting it step forth into practice, and shew itself in a holy conversation? Nay, some persons do carry the deceit a little higher; who if they can ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift

... reaching the bridge, well knowing that he could not prudently rely upon his feet among so insecure a crossing, and composed himself to sleep amid the rushes. While in this position one night he was discovered and pushed into the river by a devout ox (an instrument of high destinies), where ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah

... seen without ornament or any outward marks of distinction, among a great number of ladies of rank, she would be immediately esteemed the chief. She seems born to command, though in her character there is more of liveliness than of gravity. She is courteous, gentle, benevolent and outwardly devout." ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... singing-gallery, telling of benefactions to the poor of Shepperton, with an involuted elegance of capitals and final flourishes which my alphabetic erudition traced with ever-new delight. No benches in those days; but huge roomy pews, round which devout churchgoers sat during "lessons," trying to look everywhere else than into each others' eyes. No low partitions allowing you, with a dreary absence of contrast and mystery, to see everything at all moments; ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... rapidly, fewer than in the height of the season, still quite numerous, for spring was very late this year, and it came with delightful freshness. The flower-sellers besieged the hurried passers-by, as well as those who paused at the shop-windows, and, devout Catholic as Montfanon was, he tasted, in the face of the picturesque scene of a beautiful morning in his favorite city, the pleasure of crowning that impression of a bright moment by a dream of eternity. He had only to turn his eyes to the ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... Prussia; and adjoining his caves might still be seen the channels he had cut in the solid rock to enable his boats to get close to the shore. His real name was Carter. He became the leader of the Cornish smugglers, and kept the "Old King of Prussia Inn," though having the reputation of being a "devout Methodist." He was said to be so named because he bore some resemblance to Frederick the Great, the King of Prussia. We had seen other inns in the south of the same name, but whether they were named after the king or the smuggler we could not say. He ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... Those, by Jupiter, well deserve to be pardoned, who say, they would willingly give any money for a picture in which should be presented to the life this fine story of one lying prostrate at the knees and embracing the legs of another, who mutually again adores him and makes his devout prayers to him. Nevertheless this devout service, how well soever it was ordered and composed by Colotes, received not the condign fruit he expected; for he was not declared wise; but it was only said to him: Go they ways, and ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... into a valley like Eden, nourished by a small river. On its banks—near a mud-walled, grass-thatched village—Cadman discovered a devout man of great learning, who rested on the path of a long pilgrimage. The devout man was approachable and spoke perfect English; so they asked him ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost

... constitutional party hope they are gaining strength, but the progress which depends on intellectual growth must necessarily be slow. That the Papacy has for ever lost its prestige and power over souls is the only evident truth; bright and strong enough to cling to. I hear even devout women say: 'This cursed Pope! it's all his fault.' Protestant places of worship are thronged with Italian faces, and the minister of the Scotch church at Leghorn has been threatened with exclusion from the country if he admits Tuscans to the church communion. Politically speaking, much will ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon

... been deceived by a phraseology which, as they had been hearing it and using it all their lives, they ought to have understood better. There can not be a greater mistake than to infer, from the strong expressions in which a devout man bemoans his exceeding sinfulness, that he has led a worse life than his neighbors. Many excellent persons, whose moral character from boyhood to old age has been free from any stain discernible to their fellow-creatures, have, in their autobiographies and diaries, applied to themselves, ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... though he had taken orders before his appointment under Fugger. Proske, in the preface to vol. ii. of his Musica Divina, calls him a priest of Regensburg, and is inclined to give him the palm for the devout and ingenuous mastery of his style. Certainly this impression is fully borne out by the beautiful and somewhat quaint works included in that great ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... condition into the practical; and in fact, to see his law-beagles there worry it to death as they ought. Hence the rumors that had risen over Germany, in 1729: Law-terriers penetrating into human cottages in those remote Salzburg valleys, smelling out some German Bible or devout Book, making lists of Bible-reading cottagers; haling them to the Right Reverend Father-in-God; thence to prison, since they would not undertake to cease reading. With fine, with confiscation, tribulation: ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... turned in the direction of the little railroad station. Seeing him, the weedy youth who acted as agent brought his chair, tilted back at an almost impossible angle, to the earth, took his feet down from a table, laid aside an old and battered magazine and expressed devout gratitude to heaven that any one should relieve what he was pleased to term his ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... the racketeering patriotic organizations with a more or less devout following include the National Republican Publishing Company, Washington, D.C., the American Vigilant Intelligence Federation, Chicago, Ill., the Paul Reveres, Chicago, Ill., the Industrial Defense Association, Boston, Mass., the American Nationalists, Inc., New York, ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak

... Reader should regard as beyond belief the many strange and unheard of things that are related in sundry passages of this Book, let all know MESSER MARCO POLO, the narrator of these marvels, to be a most respectable, veracious, and devout person, of most honourable character, and receiving such good testimony from all his acquaintance, that his many virtues claim entire belief for that which he relates. His Father, Messer Nicolo, a man of the highest respectability, used to relate all these things in the same manner. And his ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... observance of nearly all the outward forms of devotion and of worship; and we hear of his charities in every house we enter. Strange mystery of Providence, that he should not long since have been broken down by grace, and become in all things a devout follower of the Master! I hope yet to see him brought a humble suppliant into the fold. His wife is a most excellent person, lowly in her faith, and zealous of good works. The same may also be said of their worthy maiden sister, Miss Joanna Meacham, who is, of a truth, a matron in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various

... a little anxious about the meeting between Mrs. Ascher and Tim. When they parted in New York she was deeply vexed with him and I could not think it likely that a woman as devout as she is would readily forgive a man who had been guilty of blasphemy. On the other hand she had very graciously accepted my invitation to be present when the new invention was shown off. She might, of course, only wish to hear the other Gorman making a speech; but she might have ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham

... of authors, as commentators, and I presume, critics on the original text; you speak on this subject, as if it were too much for patience to endure. Now, dear brother, I confess I feel very differently on this subject. I feel a devout, a religious gratitude to him whose wisdom is foolishness in the sight of too many of my fellow creatures. I view the very thing of which you complain, as that fire and crucible which have preserved the written testimony from any considerable corruptions. This is a subject on which volumes ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou

... very religious lady had married a man who became insane. He, too, was a devout churchman. There were 8 children. Under treatment the father improved and was dismissed from the asylum. I urged them both to prevent further conception, having in view the dangers of hereditary taint in the possible offspring. The wife ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel

... her character was her deeply religious nature. With the Catholic faith it would have found expression in the religious life, as she sometimes said herself. The faith she had made her most earnest and devout, according to her light." ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... opinion, but he was sure whatever Mr. Sefton did in the matter was right; and he believed, too, that the agile Secretary was more capable than any other man of dealing with the case. In fact, he was filled that day with a devout admiration of Mr. Sefton, and he did not hesitate to proclaim it, bending covert glances at his daughter as he pronounced these praises. Mr. Sefton, he said, might differ a little in certain characteristics from the majority of the Southern people, he might be a trifle shrewder ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... sense of moral imperfection and guilt,—and that humility and devout self-abasement which arise out of it. This must be a prominent feeling in every one who views his own conduct, and his mental emotions, in reference to the purity of God. It naturally leads to supplication for his mercy and forgiveness; and, in the wondrous display of ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie

... the evening devotions of these spirits, which conclude with a hymn so soft, so devout, that their senses are lost in ravishment. When it has ended, the spirits all gaze expectantly upward, and soon behold two green-clad angels, with flaming swords, who alight on eminences at either end of the glade. ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... come easy to his active mind and his deft fingers. All that a man of peace need know he knew full well. Nor had he neglected to give thought to the religion of his times. Every day he went into the temple to bow down in devout worship of the heathen gods, to take part in the rites and ceremonies of his faith, and even to offer sacrifice to Thor and Odin. The graven image of Odin was to him, as to most of the Norsemen, a sacred and a holy thing. When he took oath it was by the sign of Thor's hammer that he ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton

... a Roman Catholic, and very devout indeed—a widow, and childless now. And between her and Barty a coolness had fallen during the last few years—a heavy raw thick mist of cold estrangement; and all on account of his London life and the notoriety he ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... conversation with each of the three girls, with a like result. To Fifine Dechaussee, a tall, refined girl, with the colorless, devout face of a religieuse, the probability of entering a minister's home, as governess for his children, was most welcome. The young French girl, homesick and alone in a strange land, had found in Anita Lawton her one friend, and her gratitude for ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander

... the brighter inspirations of Vaughan, and excelling him in richness—it has a warm, graceful garb of its own. It is tinged with the glowing hues of Spenser's fancy; baptized in the fountains of sacred love, it draws an earthly inspiration from the beautiful in nature and life, as in the devout paintings of the great Italian masters, we find the models of their angels ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various

... Crombie made his appearance at public worship in the chapel of Harley College; and here his outward demeanor was unexceptionably serious and devout,—a praise which, on that particular occasion, could be bestowed on few besides. From these favorable symptoms, the old established prejudices against him began to waver; and as he seemed not to need, and to have no intention to ask, the ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... historic parallels upon which a shallow optimism may build futile hopes, is in every way to be welcomed and encouraged. It surely is a divine provision for such a day as this that for the last fifty years the prophetic word has been under the sane and patient study of so many men of devout and trained minds. Amongst these the author of this book has won a foremost place. At the farthest possible remove from fanciful and radical methods of interpretation, the conclusions which he has reached and which are set forth in ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein

... in this country there are none so devout as the cottagers in the lanes and hamlets. They are as uncompromising as the sectaries who smashed the images and trampled on the pride of kings in the days of Charles I. The translation of the Bible cut off ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... adviser was Thomas, the son of Gilbert Beket, a leading citizen and, it is said, Portreeve of London, the site of whose house is still marked by the Mercers' chapel in Cheapside. His mother Rohese was a type of the devout woman of her day; she weighed her boy every year on his birthday against money, clothes, and provisions which she gave to the poor. Thomas grew up amidst the Norman barons and clerks who frequented his father's house ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green

... giving way to one of devout thankfulness. I know! I've been there. After all ... Wilhelmina Bennett ... what is she? A rag and a bone ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse

... of True Love ran smooth for a couple of Days, and then came a letter from his People, expressing the hope that he had picked out a devout Unitarian. Otherwise the Progeny would start off under a ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade

... version—"And they heard the sound of Jehovah-Elohim walking in the garden in the breeze of the day." Delitzsch thinks they heard the sound of his footsteps, for God used to visit them in the form of a man! Could the force of folly farther go? Any devout Theist, who candidly thought over this petty fiction, would find its ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote

... most devout woman in New York," went on Gerald's even voice. "She is one of the hardest workers in the church. She keeps all the fast days, and attends all the services. Although she has no strength to speak of, she has just completed an elaborate embroidered altar cloth. The work she accomplished while ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White

... encouraged by our Holy Mother Church, because it strengthens our faith and stimulates us to be more devout in the practice of our religion. The materialistic tone and trend of most modern literature, however, makes the reading and dissemination of Catholic books all the more urgent and necessary at ...
— The Life of Blessed John B. Marie Vianney, Cur of Ars • Anonymous

... 1618, she obtained freedom and restoration to her privileges as a nun of S. Chiara. It may be added, as a last remark, that, when the convent was being set to rights, Umilia's portrait in the character of S. Ursula was ordered to be destroyed, or rendered fit for devout uses by alterations. Any nun who kept it in her cell incurred the penalty of excommunication. In what year Umilia ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... two centuries later, the pilgrimage had become a favourite occupation of the devout. Each awakening of the year, when the rains of April had laid the dust of March and aroused the buds of tree and herb from their winter slumber, the longing to go on a ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley

... know that across the church, Buck had captured five of Pattie's sunburned fingers, and Mr. Petway was sitting so close to Miss Prissy that Mr. Pike came very near being irreverent enough to nudge the devout Judy. Then what a glorious time followed the solemn minutes in the church! The very twilight fell upon the entire wedding party still feasting and rejoicing, and it was under the light of the early stars that the guests had to wend their way home. Mother Mayberry was surrounded by a court of small ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess

... but with calm confidence, his high opinion of his own powers; and promises to undertake something, he yet knows not what, that may be of use and honour to his country. "This," says he, "is not to be obtained but by devout prayer to that eternal spirit that can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim, with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases. To this must ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... Foscolo, in return, ill, sore of heart, solitary, gradually got to love this gentle, sympathising Countess with a sort of filial devotion, but a filial devotion into which there entered also somewhat of the feeling of a wounded man towards his nurse, of the feeling of a devout ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... eve, Dear tranquil time, when the sweet sense of Home Is sweetest! moments for their own sake hailed And more desired, more precious, for thy song, In silence listening like a devout child, My soul lay passive, by thy various strain Driven as in surges now beneath the stars, With momentary stars of my own birth, Fair constellated foam, still darting off Into the darkness; now a tranquil sea, Outspread and bright, yet swelling to ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons

... witnesses who threw the first stones, laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. As they stoned Stephen, he prayed, "Lord, Jesus, receive my spirit!" Then he knelt down and cried aloud, "Lord, do not lay this sin to their charge!" When he had said this, he fell asleep. Certain devout men buried ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman

... embodied the new spirit and policy of the Roman Church, as they had been created and moulded by the great Jesuit order, and by reforming bishops like Ghiberti of Verona, and Carlo Borromeo of Milan. Devout and self-denying as a saint, fierce and inflexible against abuses as a puritan, resolute and uncompromising as a Jacobin idealist or an Asiatic despot, ruthless and inexorable as an executioner, his soul was bent on re-establishing, not only by preaching and martyrdom, but by the sword and ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church

... have been to unanimously elect Eben Salters moderator; but as Captain Eben refused to serve, owing to his interest in the Whittaker campaign, Alvin Knowles was, by a small majority, chosen for that office. Mr. Knowles was a devout admirer of the great Atkins, and his election would have been considered a preliminary victory for the opposition had it not been that many of Captain Cy's adherents voted for Alvin from a love of mischief, knowing from experience ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln

... imitative as their clothes. Hence the need of the pressure of a strong Christian example, which would result most readily in the union of Christian women in a single ideal. Our present difficulty is that so many of our women who are devout members of the Church in their private capacity, so far succumb to the group-mind in their social relations that they are possessed by the same terror as the young girl in the face of the possibility of being ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry

... recommended, that together with devout Thanksgivings may be joined a penitent Confession of our Sins, and humble Supplication for Pardon through the Merits of our Savior. So that under the Smiles of Heaven, our publick Councils may be directed—our Arms by Land and Sea prosperd—our ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams

... Francis, procurator and vicar for the nuns of the convent of St. Clare of the city of Manila, in virtue of the authority which he holds from the said convent (which he presents) says that, as is apparent from the said authority, Captain Gaspar Mendez and other devout persons, who have served and serve your Majesty in military affairs in the Philipinas Islands, have done the same to the said convent for the building of it and of the church, by giving them seven thousand ducados in warrants for what your Majesty owes them from their pay. That ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Various

... man's preachin', and he is a brick ain't he? or, whether it's the place, or the place and him together; but somehow, or somehow else, I feel more serious to-day than common, that's a fact. The people too are all so plain dressed, so decent, so devout and no show, it ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... kindness to her boy was regarded rather in the light of an insult to her. I should have been greatly puzzled to account for his being such a sweet little fellow, had I not known that he was a great deal with his aunt and grandfather. A more attentive and devout worshipper was not in the congregation than that ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald

... let us go back to the other end and have the service." I thought the change of location might have a good effect upon their minds and souls. So back we went again to the other end of the building and there had a really enthusiastic and devout service. When it was over, I told the men that nothing helped so much to make a service bright and hearty as the inclusion of a fight, and that when I returned to Canada, if at any time my congregation was listless or sleepy, I would arrange a fight ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott

... sorrow, gaiety, enthusiasm, heroism, meditation, by the hearing of music in its various kinds. We do not know, either, why the mere shapes of the sublime architecture of some great abbey or cathedral, or the blended colours of its deep-damasked window-stains, should fill our hearts with devout or poignant aspirations. Yet we know that the fact is so. And it is the same with poetry. The rhythm and melody which come spontaneously from the poet's mood dispose the hearer in the self-same way; they fit him to receive what the other brings. Verse, as we now understand that term, poetry ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker

... writes Mandeville (Fables of the Bees, ed. 1724, p. 179), 'that the real pleasures of all men in nature are worldly and sensual, if we judge from their practice; I say all men in nature, because devout Christians, who alone are to be excepted here, being regenerated and preternaturally assisted by the divine grace, cannot be said ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... of real life were here exhibited on another occasion. Among my acquaintances in the city were a man and his wife who were singularly mismatched. He was a plain, unlettered, devout man, who in a prayer-meeting or class-meeting talked with a simple-hearted earnestness that always produced ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald

... the Hindu philosophy a state of soul, emancipation from this life and of union with the divine, achieved by a life of asceticism and devout meditation; or the system of instruction or discipline by ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... a devout and consistent Baptist, but Daniel became, in later years, a thorough Universalist. Murray, the founder of this church in England, had come to the Colonies before the Revolutionary War, and by the close of the century the ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... fine qualities, my royal friend Tranquo, being gifted with a devout love for all matters of barbaric vertu, had brought together in Pupella whatever rare things the more ingenious of his people could invent; chiefly carved woods of wonderful devices, chiselled shells, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... Christian experience were due in part to the lack of holy associations and devout companionships. Every disciple needs help in holy living, and this young believer yearned for that spiritual uplift afforded by sympathetic fellow believers. In vacation times he had found at Gnadau, the Moravian settlement some ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson

... at length the only surviving males who had landed on the island, and being both of a serious turn of mind and having time for reflection and repentance, they became extremely devout. Having saved a Bible and prayer-book from the Bounty, they now performed family worship morning and evening, and addressed themselves to training up their own children and those of their unfortunate companions in piety and virtue. Young, however, was soon carried off by an ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various

... all four evangelists as thoroughly genuine, for there is in them the reflection of a greatness which emanated from the person of Jesus, such as only once has appeared on earth. If anyone asks whether it is in my nature to pay Him devout reverence, I say—'Surely, yes!' I bow before Him as the divine revelation of the highest principle of morality. If I am asked whether it is in my nature to revere the sun, again I say—'Surely, yes!' For the sun is also a manifestation of the highest, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... the district where the clever and painstaking French agriculturist gets every grain out of the soil, a district where we could see the spire of a parish church every six miles, the land of a people, sturdy, devout, tenacious and ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton

... listened to him with a mind more disengaged, and a flitting disapproval of Aminta's unsympathetic ear, or reluctance to stimulate the devout attention a bruised warrior should have in his tent. She did not press on him the post of umpire. He consented—at her request, he said—to visit the show; but refused any official position that would, it was clearly enough implied, bring his name in any capacity whatever before ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... suffered and died: the noise which follows it recals to his mind the confusion of nature at the death of her creator; the lighted candle once more appearing reminds him that His death was only temporary: and he departs in silence impressed with pious sentiments, and inflamed with devout affections. ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs

... the book was a portrait of Byron with flowing tie and open shirt. Much as a devout Catholic wears a gold cross around his neck to signify his belief, with a like devoutness I took to wearing my shirt open at the neck, and a loose, flowing black tie. And I ruffled my hair in ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... too much of the disposition of S. Thomas, who must push his hands against the scars of the Lord's Body; but the Lord has ever been patient towards the devout and warm-hearted men, who share with S. Thomas, not only his doubt, but that devotion which ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson

... who did not leave Erlcort so cheerful when they failed to see their books on his shelves or tables. Some of them were young authors who had written their worthless books with a devout faith in their worth, and they went away more in sorrow than in anger, and yet more in bewilderment. Some were old authors who had been all their lives acceptably writing second-rate books and trying to make them unacceptably ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells

... devout reverence for the deity, displaying confidence and faith in the goodness of God, breathing a prayer for help in hours of difficulty and distress, or for consolation in the hour of affliction. Our literature is full of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... of the savour and piquancy of the ocean. It clingeth to the palate and purgeth it of grosser tastes. It recalleth the clean and marvellous creature, whose life has been spent in cool coral grottoes, among limestone and the salty essences of the pure and sparkling sea, and if you be wise and devout and grateful, you forthwith give praise for the enjoyment of a ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... have already indicated the effect of the laws, and literature, and influence of Christian Europe—not only in that unquestionable sense in which the best of all missionaries is a high-minded governor, or an upright magistrate, or a devout and pure-minded soldier, who is always "trusting in God and doing his duty;" not only in these senses do we look for the coperation of laymen, but also in the more direct forms of instruction, of intelligent and far-seeing interest in labors, which, though carried on mainly ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller

... luxuriantly. Parents take their whole families to the numerous gardens in the suburbs for picnics on Sundays and the frequent holidays. Sunday hours at home are spent by most German ladies with the inevitable crochet-work or knitting,—even the most devout seeing no harm in this, nor in their little Sunday evening ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton

... and massed together with relation to a central tower space. In England, however, the habit of dealing with circular or polygonal forms made little progress; and our few "round churches," the plan of the naves of which was a devout imitation of the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, and our polygonal chapter houses, are almost all that we have to show in the way of attempts at a definitely centralised plan. Our church plan develops as the result of an effort to combine a series of rectangles ...
— The Ground Plan of the English Parish Church • A. Hamilton Thompson

... family, gentilibus suis—yet we cannot but feel that the better part remains with S. Catherine, whose prayer is still whispered by children on their mother's knee, and whose relics are kissed daily by the simple and devout. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... in that season {18} on a day, In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay, Redy to wenden on my pilgrimage To Canterbury with devout corage, At night was come into that hostelrie Wel nine and twentie in a compagnie Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle In felawship; and pilgrimes were they alle, That toward Canterbury wolden ride. The chambres ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne

... heat of youth or the vapours of wine, like that which flows at waste from the pen of some vulgar amourist or the trencher fury of a rhyming parasite, nor to be obtained by the invocation of Dame Memory and her Siren daughters, but by devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out His Seraphim with the hallowed fire of His altar to touch and purify the lips of whom He pleases." His lips were touched at last. In the quiet retreat ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green

... intimacy with the natives, they were peculiarly fitted to introduce them to a practical conformity with the new religion and code of morality. Later on, also, when they possessed rich livings, and their devout and zealous interest in the welfare of the masses relaxed in proportion as their incomes increased, they materially assisted in bringing about the circumstances already described, with their favorable and unfavorable ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... on a low chair before her dressing-table. And the dressing-table was no dressing-table at all, but a small old chest of drawers, the most awkward thing in the world to sit down before, for the big brass handles quite hurt her knees, and she couldn't get near the glass at all comfortably. But devout worshippers never allow inconveniences to prevent them from performing their religious rites, and Hetty this evening was more bent on her peculiar form of worship ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... great business. Every morning he received his tribute, eyeing it like a Nabob's prime minister, as he considers whether he will sign a pardon. Gobseck would take anything, from the present of game sent him by some poor devil or the pound's weight of wax candles from devout folk, to the rich man's plate and the speculator's gold snuff-box. Nobody knew what became of the presents sent to the old money-lender. Everything went in, but ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac

... the taxable rate of 1 per cent the city was, in that way, being cheated out of the sum of $225,000 or $300,000 a year. These two thousand firms who every year defrauded the city were the eminently respectable and influential merchants of the city; most of them were devout church members; many were directors or members of charitable societies to relieve the poor; and all of them, with vast pretensions of superior character and ability, joined in opposing any movement of the working ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus

... Halcyon hears the voice of vernal Hours, Already on the wing! Eve following eve, Dear tranquil Time, when the sweet sense of Home Becomes most sweet! hours for their own sake hail'd, And more desir'd, more precious, for thy song! 100 In silence list'ning, like a devout Child, My soul lay passive; by thy various strain Driven as in surges now, beneath the stars, With momentary Stars of my own Birth, Fair constellated Foam still darting off 105 Into the darkness! now a tranquil Sea Outspread and bright, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... Though of a disagreeable person, and even deformed in his body, he enjoyed good health, and a vigorous constitution. As an ecclesiastic, his life was exemplary; his morals were pure and unimpeached; in his character he is said to have been learned, diligent, steady, devout; and, in every respect, worthy to succeed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... appearance, I must confess, it is neither fit for you, nor you for it; but have patience, sir; matters are not so bad as they may seem. There are pious bawdy-houses in the world, or conventicles would not be so much frequented. Neither is it impossible, but a devout fanatic landlady of a boarding-house may ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... Mr. Seagrave; "there you are in error. Few deny the existence of a Deity, and an examination of his works may make them good and devout men, but not Christians. There are good men to be found under every denomination, whether they be Jews, Mahomedans, or Pagans; but they ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat

... I made myself very attentive to the duenna; in the second place, the old lady is devout, and you know Ireland is the land of saints, and I presented her with an amulet containing a paring of the nail of ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty

... devout to the Church of St. Ambrose, and erected a golden altar in it, at the cost of 30,000 gold pieces. The occasion of this gift is told us by Galvaneus, among others, in his Catalogue, when he is speaking of Angelbert. His words are these:—'Angelbert was Archbishop for thirty-five years, ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... we held our quarterly meeting at York. About thirty of the Indian brethren were present; their cleanliness, modesty, and devout piety were the subject ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... A devout one who was wont to go to Saint Filomena asks protection against the devil (Novena, p. 22) and says: "Satan like a hungry lion makes a round about turn; his ministers vie with one another to ...
— The Legacy of Ignorantism • T.H. Pardo de Tavera

... pious devout man, named Mr. Solomon M'Slime, an attorney—but, indeed, an attorney that almost shames the Bible itself, he's so religious. ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... republished in the hope that it again will become one of the basic texts in the teacher training program and fulfill its mission as an instrument in the hands of sincere people who have the devout wish of learning how to teach the principles of the gospel by the power ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion

... Canon Beanlands. These reminiscences of former days in Victoria have a charm for me that is not easy to describe. More particularly is this the case in the present instance, as my very earliest recollections of this fair city are connected with Victoria District Church. My mother was a devout church woman, and I attended her in her frequent and regular attendance. She encouraged me to join the choir as a boy in 1861 and taught me music, and my first position in the church in connection with its musical services ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett

... loveliness invisible, yet free To wander as she loves, in liberty. Thou shalt behold her, Hermes, thou alone, 110 If thou wilt, as thou swearest, grant my boon!" Then, once again, the charmed God began An oath, and through the serpent's ears it ran Warm, tremulous, devout, psalterian. Ravish'd, she lifted her Circean head, Blush'd a live damask, and swift-lisping said, "I was a woman, let me have once more A woman's shape, and charming as before. I love a youth of Corinth—O the bliss! Give me ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats

... person did not respond in like manner, Knowing that he is not himself all-perfect, Nor even in every hour A devout follower of the teachings of the Four Books. He contented himself with repeating in a far-reaching tone, The words of the lofty Lao Tzu: When pot upon stove reproveth kettle for blackness, Pot speaking ...
— Song Book of Quong Lee of Limehouse • Thomas Burke

... Christendom, to conceive. The religious thoughts and affections of every pious heart throughout the realm centered in Rome. Rome, too, was the scene of many miracles, by which the imaginations of the superstitious and of the truly devout were excited, which impressed them with an idea of power in which they felt a sort of confiding sense of protection. This power was continually interposing, now in one way and now in another, to protect virtue, ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... Boston, and in the presence of the great assembly, handed up to the pulpit a written confession, acknowledging the error into which he had been led, praying for the forgiveness of God and his people, and concluding with a request, to all the congregation to unite with him in devout supplication, that it might not bring down the displeasure of the Most High upon his country, his family, or himself. He remained standing during the public reading of the paper. This was an act of true manliness and dignity of soul." (Upham's ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor

... the echo in devout hearts of the other portions of divine revelation. There are in it, indeed, further disclosures of God's mind and purposes, but its especial characteristic is—the reflection of the light of God from ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... she had the blood of princes in her veins. Generations back,—how we children used to reckon the thing over!—she was cradled in a throne. A miserable race, to be sure, they were,—the Stuarts; and the most devout genealogist might deem it dubious honor to own them for great-grand-fathers by innumerable degrees removed. So she used to tell us, over and over, as a damper on our childish vanity, looking such a very queen as she spoke, in every play of ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... with his cousin, John Hawkins, on voyages to Africa. They bought negro slaves from slave-traders along the coast, or kidnaped negroes whom they found, and carried them to the Spanish planters of the West Indies. Hawkins and Drake were as devout and humane as other men of their time. They simply could not see any wrong in enslaving the heathen black men in Africa. Besides, they enjoyed the wild life of the slave-trader with ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton

... with another person, whom I knew well, the Count of Treville. When she was in her agony, she said, "Adieu, Treville." He was so struck with this accident, that it had a good effect on him; for he went and lived many years among the Fathers of the Oratory, and became both a very learned, and devout man. He came afterwards out into the world. I saw him often. He was a man of a very sweet temper, only a little too formal for a Frenchman. But he was very sincere. He was a Jansenist. He hated the Jesuits.—Swift. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... with the Empress Dowager is the fourth daughter of Prince Ching. Married to the son of a viceroy, their wedded life lasted only a few months. She was taken into the palace, and being a widow, she neither wears bright colours nor uses cosmetics. She is a fine scholar, very devout, and spends much of her time in studying the Buddhist classics. She is considered the most ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland

... just behind him had not been too devout to observe the proceedings of the stranger. She unhooked the door of the seat in which she was established alone with her mother. The slight click attracted, as she had hoped, the attention of the new worshipper. She whispered to her bowed mother, "He has no place to sit; may I let him ...
— Little Tora, The Swedish Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Mrs. Woods Baker

... Her devout expression of gratitude for mere existence usually included the monument in the centre of the square, all bristling with wings as if about to fly away from the ground. Victor Hugo! . . . It was enough for her to have heard this name on the lips of ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... parts of Turkey so bad as this; but they frequently became so under cruel or corrupt governors, or in times when Moslem fanaticism ran riot. In truth, the underlying cause of Turkey's troubles is the ignorance and fanaticism of her people. These evils result largely from the utter absorption of all devout Moslems in their creed and ritual. Texts from the Koran guide their conduct; and all else is decided by fatalism, which is very often a mere excuse for doing nothing[86]. Consequently all movements for reform are mere ripples on the surface of Turkish life; they never touch its dull depths; and ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... small children. He lingered a little in Virginia, in the Carolinas, and settled for a time in Georgia, and all along he sought out people from whom he could gather knowledge, especially of the theory and practice of medicine. And he preached, possibly in an irregular way, the Gospel, as a devout Baptist of the Old School, a denomination to which he was early attached. Not satisfied with his Georgia home, "with its many scorpions and slaves," he took his family on horseback, some little children (twin babies among them) carried in baskets suitable for the purpose, hung to the horns ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... churches; it is more important to get the sense of God and principles of Jesus into the thought of the whole town than to set Protestant and Roman Catholic in mutually suspicious and hateful opposition; devout Jew and sincere Christian must realize that righteousness in Delafield cannot be attended to by either without ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt

... slept the great earl, whose name was known through the civilised world, the brother-in-law of the king, the mightiest warrior of his time, and, amongst the laity, the most devout churchman ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... who became domiciled under his care, and it was possibly on that account that the ruling family subsequently devoted so much attention to his worship in Merodach's city of Babylon, where a sun temple was erected, and Shamash received devout recognition as an abstract deity of righteousness and law, who reflected the ideals of well ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... devout Friend, she discovered that he had the reputation of thinking for himself, following the "inner light" even when its leading differed from the considered judgment of his fellow Quakers. For this he became a hero to her, especially after she heard the ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz

... monks, within the camp of dread; Amidst his warriors, Norman Rou stood taller by the head. Out spoke the Frank Archbishop then, a priest devout and sage, "When peace and plenty wait thy word, what need of war and rage? Why waste a land as fair as aught beneath the arch of blue, Which might be thine to sow and reap?"—Thus saith ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... were standing within the gates of Jerusalem, as he so resonantly announced that they would be. But whatever irreverence there might be in poor Laban refusing to sing what he did not dream of doubting, there was no impiety to these devout souls in Lloyd Archer's joining with them in the vocal proclamation of things concerning which ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham

... days out. Held religious exercises at 4 bells; Ham attended, very devout and penitent, with a head as big as the jug—Women have tricked themselves out and are mincing around showing off; made me put on a white shirt; will get rid of it directly—Dead calm all day—Found the ark had a slight list to starboard; investigated, and ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... everybody except the Assistant Commissioner, had only found one cause of quarrel with Mary. He was a devout Roman Catholic, and for five years he had clung with the bull-dog tenacity which was his to the belief that he could convert his wife to the faith of Rome. She remained true to the Scottish Free Church, in whose precepts ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer

... chiefs told me to hold my tongue, that his people might not think me mad. The Scriptures, indeed, teach us that, without the aid of direct revelation, men are also without excuse if they fail to attain to a certain knowledge of the Deity,—'even his eternal power and God-head,'—by a devout contemplation of the visible world, which with all its wonders is spread out before them as an open volume. But beyond this, all knowledge of the origin or manner of creation is derived, not from the deductions of human reasoning, but from the Divine ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat

... observed this custom among the lay heathen. Indeed, it appears from a small treatise, written in China more than a hundred years before M. Polo, that at the time the Chinese author wrote, all devout men, entering a temple, used to perform the K'ow-ch'i, and considered it an expression of veneration and devotion to the idols. Thus this custom had been preserved to the time of M. Polo, who did not fail to mention this strange peculiarity in the exterior ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... of an earnest desire, especially if frequently repeated, to create an active elemental which ever presses forcefully in the direction of its own fulfilment, is the scientific explanation of what devout but unphilosophical people describe as answers to prayer. There are occasions, though at present these are rare, when the Karma of the person so praying is such as to permit of assistance being directly rendered ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater

... dame; poor, widowed, lonely, and with a heart as full of reminiscences about her dead husband and children, and her dead friends of long ago, as a burial-ground is full of storied gravestones. Yet all this, which would else have been such heavy sorrow, was made almost a solemn joy to her devout old soul, by religious consolations and the truths of Scripture, wherewith she had fed herself continually for more than thirty years. And, since Mr. Dimmesdale had taken her in charge, the good grandam's chief earthly comfort—which, unless it had been likewise a heavenly ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... They could not speak English and we could not speak Spanish. Their voices had been thoroughly trained and we spent many hours in their society. Very soon we learned to speak Spanish and their visits were still more pleasant. They were devout Catholics and in the mother's room was a sanctuary. She was helpless and unable to walk. She sat in her bed and ordered everything pertaining to the household. An altar was arranged in the room and they had worship every morning and evening. Sometimes we would join them and sing the songs of their ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson

... a great reader, yet a good reader. Any book that was devout and thoughtful she read gladly. Through some one or other of this sort she must have been instructed concerning free will, for I do not think such notions could have formed any portion of the religious teaching ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... rest. So, if Corkey were in this parlor, and should render one unforeseen, unpremeditated sneeze, you would not know the parlorful had sneezed along with him. Corkey's sneeze is unapproachable, unrivaled, hated, feared, admired, reverenced. The devout say "God bless you!" with deep unction. The adventurous declare that such a sneeze would buckle the cabin-floor of a steamer like a wave in the trough ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern

... sure operation of moral causes in ripening into great and beneficent results. To be permitted to witness the final success of the grandest movement of ancient or modern times was a blessed opportunity. To have labored for it in the goodly fellowship of its confessors and martyrs was cause for devout thanksgiving and joy. To be accredited to share in the great historic act of its formal consummation was a priceless privilege. A few days after the ratification of this Amendment, on the motion of Mr. Sumner, Dr. Rock, a colored lawyer of Boston, was admitted to practice in the ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian

... was to taste the happiness of submission to a stronger than herself. Religious devotion is the resource of women in general who suffer thus and are denied the natural solace; but for Miriam it was impossible. Her temperament was not devout, and, however persistent the visitings of uneasy conscience, she had no longer the power of making her old beliefs a reality. The abstract would not avail her; philosophic comforts had as little to say to her as the Churches' ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing

... surprised me very much; and I endeavored gently to impress him with the fact that a more devout frame of mind would be becoming in him, and with the great necessity of his being prepared to die; but he ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various



Words linked to "Devout" :   dear, sincere, devoutness, earnest



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