"High altar" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fondly cherished hideousness and incongruity of the average Catholic churches of their remembrance, and it did this and more: it added an effect of its own; it offered the spectacle of a swarthy old Indian kneeling before the high altar, telling his beads, and saying with many sighs and tears the prayers which it cost so much martyrdom and heroism to teach his race. "O, it is only a savage man," said the little French boy who was showing them the place, impatient ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... I, trow? Oh, at mass in our Lady Church of Paris, where that day was a miracle done on two that were possessed of the Devil, whose names were Geoffrey Boder and Jeanne La Petite; and the girdle of Saint Mary being shown on the high altar, they were allowed to touch the same, whereon they were healed straightway. And the Queen, with her own hands, gave them alms, a crown; and her oblation to the image of Saint Mary in the said church, being a festival, was a crown (her daily oblation being ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... rising around them. Writhing serpents spout leaping gas flames on the altars set around the pool of the Ages, and from other altars set by the entrances of the Court rise clouds of steam given the semblance of flame by concealed red lights. By the high altar on the Tower of Ages the same device is used to make the lights ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... interval between the divisions of the service, the congregation occupied themselves in staring at the relics, which were enclosed in a silver cabinet with crystal doors, and placed on the top of the high altar. Although it was impossible to obtain a satisfactory view of these ecclesiastical treasures, they nevertheless employed the attention of every one until the appearance of a priest in the pulpit gave signal of the commencement of the ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... Marseilles, Peter Bartholomew by name, presented himself before the chief and said that he had had a marvellous dream. St. Andrew had thrice appeared to him, saying, "Go into the church of my brother Peter at Antioch, and hard by the high altar thou wilt find, on digging up the ground, the head of the spear which pierced our Redeemer's side. That, carried in front of the army, will bring about ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... get them," said the King. "Give the harquebuss to one of these knaves—to Oliver—to any one. Now Our Lady of Embrun be praised! and silver shall be the screen that surrounds her high altar!" ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... my Lord of Durham greatly admireth. I doubt if he be a sound protestant: he was so blind at even-song on Candlemas-day, that he could not see to read prayers in the minster with less than three hundred and forty candles, whereof sixty he caused to be placed about the high altar; besides he caused the picture of our Saviour, supported by two angels, to be set in the choir. The committee is very hot against him, and no matter if they trounce him." This was Cosins, who survived the revolution, and returning with Charles the Second, was raised to the see of Durham: the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Pakenham, of Ixworth Thorpe, bequeathed 6 hives of bees to the sepulchre light, "to pray for me and my wyffe in y'e comon sangered;" and in 1533, Robert Garad, of Ixworth, bequeathed to the high altar ijs. "for ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.22 • Various
... men go into Ephesus, a fair city and nigh to the sea. And there died Saint John, and was buried behind the high altar, in a tomb. And in the tomb of Saint John is nought but manna, that is clept angels' meat. For his body was translated into Paradise. And Turks hold now all that place, and the city and the church. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... for harmonies of line and grouping, for choice of form, for beauty of expression, and for smoothness of surface-working. The marble is of great delicacy, and is wrought to a wax-like surface. At the high altar are three more fragments from the mutilated tomb. One is a long low frieze of children bearing garlands, which probably formed the base of Aragazzi's monument, and now serves for a predella. The remaining pieces are detached statues of ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... saw that the cathedral was nearly empty: a priest was near the high altar, two boys were in the middle of the nave, by the chief entrance was a little group just preparing to leave. Nearer him, and close by the image, were two women. They were on their knees, and appeared to be absorbed in their devotions. ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... was done in the Church of Innspruck, 10th February, 1342 (for we love to be particular), "Kaiser Ludwig," happy man, "and many Princes of the Empire, looking on;" little thinking what a coil it would prove. "At the high altar she stript off her veil," symbol of wifehood or widowhood, "and put on a JUNGFERNKRANZ (maiden's-garland)," symbolically testifying how happy Ludwig junior still was. They had a son by and by; but their course otherwise, and indeed this-wise ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... knees, the Bearne—great champion of the Huguenots—protested before God that he would live and die in the Catholic faith, and that he renounced all heresy. A passage was with difficulty opened through the crowd, and he was then led to the high altar, amid the acclamations of the people. Here he knelt devoutly and repeated his protestations. His unction and contrition were most impressive, and the people, of course, wept piteously. The king, during the progress of the ceremony, with hands clasped together ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... August, preached at Paul's Cross under a guard of soldiers; on the 24th, two days after the scene on Tower Hill, so little was a guard necessary, that mass was said in St. Paul's Church in Latin, with matins and vespers. The crucifix was replaced in the roodloft, the high altar was re-decorated, the real presence was defended from the pulpit, and, except from the refugees, not a murmur was heard.[101] Catching this favourable opportunity, the queen charmed the country with the announcement that the second portion of ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... day of the festival was the offering of the first-fruits of the new year's harvest. That was a joyous day. A sheaf of ripe barley was reaped and carried into the Temple and presented before the high altar with incense and music. The priests blessed the people, and the people shouted ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... of the Apparition," explained the guide, after leading us to another part of the church. "Here the Lord appeared to Mary, His mother, after the Resurrection. In a niche beside the high altar is a hole in the wall. If you hold your taper up to it you may see within the wall a part of the column to which the Savior was bound during the Flagellation. You may touch the sacred column with this round stick, provided for the ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... Nevertheless, even our best ballad-writers, when their soul was not in their task, have fallen into this palpable error. None of Sir Walter's ballads commences more finely than "The Gray Brother,"—none has been more spoiled in its progress by the introduction of minute description. We pass from the high altar of Saint Peter to the bank of the Eske, and there we are regaled with a catalogue of the modern seats and villas, utterly out of place and inconsistent with the solemn nature of the theme. But "The Gray Brother" is a mere fragment ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... terminated in an apse as at Peterborough, and possibly the tower. On October 17 in that year the remains of Saints Etheldreda, Sexburga, Ermenilda, and Withburga were solemnly removed to the new choir, and re-interred in front of the high altar. For some reason not explained there was no such attendance of high ecclesiastical dignitaries as was usual on such occasions. The Bishop of Norwich, four abbots, and one archdeacon were all that could be found to attend the translation. The account is noteworthy because it describes ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ely • W. D. Sweeting
... the cathedral of the Havannah, close to the wall near the high altar. On the tomb is the ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... was an imposing scene. A large hall with a high roof supported by dark pillars of wood. From the ceiling hung a profusion of those huge gilt lamps and ornaments peculiar to Buddhist temples. In front of the high altar, where the floor, covered with beautiful white mats, is raised some three or four inches from the ground, was laid a rug of scarlet felt. Tall candles placed at regular intervals gave out a dim mysterious ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... which are still paraded on the fifth of November, but made of wax with some skill, and adorned at no small expense with robes and a tiara, was mounted on a chair resembling that in which the Bishops of Rome are still, on some great festivals, borne through Saint Peter's Church to the high altar. His Holiness was generally accompanied by a train of Cardinals and Jesuits. At his ear stood a buffoon disguised as a devil with horns and tail. No rich and zealous Protestant grudged his guinea on such an occasion, and, if rumour could be trusted, the cost ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... display of learning, he proved that the Word was in the beginning, that the Word was God. He piled up quotations from scriptures, and built a high altar for the Word to be seated above all that there is in heaven and in earth. He repeated that question in his mighty voice: "What ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... that unconditioned smile. Sweetness not sweetness was but indifference Or wantonness disguised, to her grave sense; And if she could have seen the things she felt She'd looked for darkness, and lit shapes that knelt Appealing, unregarded, at a high Altar uprising from the pit to the sky.... Had the trees consciousness, with flowers and clouds And winds that hung like thin clouds in the woods, And stars and silence:—had they each a mind Bending on hers, clear eyes on her eyes blind? In the green dense heights—elm, ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman
... place of divine worship. Here, under the open air, were celebrated the great public and national rites, the processions, the offerings, the sacrifices; here stood the great tank for ablution, and the high altar for burnt-offerings. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... rocky; these rocks they report to be the guts of a great serpent metamorphosed into stones. When Mr. Copinger, a gentleman drawn thither by the fame of the place, visited it, there was a church covered with shingles dedicated to St. Patrick, and it was thus furnished: at the east end was a high altar covered with linen, over which did hang the image of our Lady with our Saviour in her arms; on the right did hang the picture of the three kings offering their presents to our Saviour; and on the left the picture of our Saviour on the cross; near the altar, and on ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... chamber is only a bare, white room, where is erected the high altar of her soul, served through life, by her own faith. Upon the altar burns steadfastly the one light, waiting for him who at last has come and consecrated in his name. The door of the sanctuary is rock-ribbed and heavy, and he who has not the key ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... conspicuous for an accumulation of dirt and dust (a very common characteristic of Berlin) than of ornament; the four-and-twenty Corinthian columns, however, which contribute their support to the dome are imposing in their appearance. The high altar and sacristy are constructed in a recess formed by the annexation of a small chancel to the rotunda. This church, built of freestone, stands in an angle of the Place des Gens d' Armes, immediately behind the great Salle des Spectacles (schauspielhaus) or theatre, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various
... always been a mysterious uncertainty about Anne Boleyn's burial place, and a correspondent of the Gentleman's Magazine (October, 1815), speaks of "the headless remains of the departed queen, as deposited in the arrow chest and buried in the Tower Chapel before the high altar. Where that stood, the most sagacious antiquary, after a lapse of more than 300 years, cannot now determine; nor is the circumstance, though related by eminent writers, clearly ascertained. In a cellar, the body of a person of ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... Chamberlain Hugolin that, after six pilgrimages to Rome in vain, St. Peter had promised his cure if the King would, on his own royal neck, carry him to the Monastery. The King immediately consented; and, amidst the scoffs of the court, bore the poor man to the steps of the High Altar. There the cripple was received by Godric the sacristan, and walked away on his own restored feet, hanging his stool on ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... footsteps ahead in the dusk, I passed up the aisle, and came upon a pile of debris. Looking up, I could see the stars shining through a hole in the roof, Hearing a noise beyond, I went on, and there, seated on the high altar, was the dwarf who had snatched the cup of rum out of the fire the night that Mathilde had given the crosses to the revellers. He gave a low, wild laugh, and hugged a bottle to his breast. Almost ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... break the cold sough of the winds into a lullaby. By that time another Marget, beautiful of face like the Forbeses, lithe of limb like the Gordons—we never could agree whom she most resembled!—had been given to us. She was our guerdon of the reverent gospel of home, which is the high altar of this world, the source and sanctuary of our well-being as men ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... happened. They had been there about an hour, and the moon was pouring down as clear as daylight from the high altar window; when, all at once, the letter upon the altar began to move about of itself, as if it were alive, then it hopped down upon the floor, from that danced down the altar steps, and so on all along the nave, though no human being laid hands on ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... great solemnity and accompanied with fine music, culminates on the Saturday morning—i.e. in the interval between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection—in a spectacle similar to that described in Ceylon. A rich velvet-black curtain hangs before the High Altar. At the appropriate moment and as the very emotional strains of voices and instruments reach their climax in the "Gloria in Excelsis," the curtain with a sudden burst of sound (thunder and the ringing of all the bells) is rent asunder, ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... third morning Tom turned his steps despairingly toward the slopes of the mountain. He was at a pass when he would have given worlds to find one of the sacred places undesecrated. And there remained now only the high altar under the cedars of ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... dimly the few objects which the room contained. Apparently it was Padre Felipe's sleeping apartment and the chapel vestry combined in one. There was a curtained doorway that gave access to the chapel itself; pushing aside the hangings, we could see the dim interior, empty except for the high altar set with tall candles, and a carven crucifix upon ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... it were Paul's or not the French book maketh no mention, all the estates were long or* day in the church for to pray. And when matins and the first mass were done, there was seen in the churchyard, against the high altar, a great stone foursquare, like unto a marble stone, and in the midst thereof was like an anvil of steel a foot on high, and therein stuck a fair sword naked by the point, and letters there were written in gold about the sword that said thus:— 'Whoso pulleth out ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... Bishop of Derry, as you know, had ordered that the troops of King James should be admitted when the thirteen Prentice Boys closed the gate on the very nose of his army." I saw the two white standards taken from the Catholic troops flanking the high altar of the Cathedral; which also contains the grandly-carved case of an organ taken from a wreck of the Spanish Armada in 1588, just a century before the siege. The people have ever before them these warlike spoils, which may account for their martial spirit. An old Prentice Boy told me of the great ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... field, but afterwards he released him to his great praise and commendation. For whereas he builded a church at Winchcombe, vpon the day of the dedication thereof, he led the Kentish king as then his prisoner, vp to the high altar, and there set him at libertie, declaring thereby a great proofe of his ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (6 of 8) - The Sixt Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed
... Carl knew that human girl as the symbol of man's yearning for union with the divine; he desired happiness for her with a devotion great as the passion in Galahad's heart when all night he knelt before the high altar. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... London. It was Christmas time, and in the great cathedral a solemn service was held, and prayer was made that some sign should be given, to show who was the rightful king. When the service was over, there appeared a strange stone in the churchyard, against the high altar. It was a great white stone, like marble, with something sunk in it that looked like a steel anvil; and in the anvil was driven a great glistening sword. The sword had letters of gold written on it, which read: "Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil is ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... the side of his head, battered in by a broken fragment of the high altar that had been hurled through the air; his left shoulder was in splinters, crushed by the collapse of the roof which must have killed Leonie if he had not covered her with his body; blood spouted from some great severed artery in the arm which seemed to hang by a thread from the splintered ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... on the right looked especially rich, and glittered like polished silver. Its zinc-work, hanging with a broad bulging border over the sub-structure of white and red marble, edged it with a rippling sheet of metal as if it were some high altar laden with embroidery. At one end, over a gas stove, stood porcelain pots, decorated with circles of brass, and containing punch and hot wine. At the other extremity was a tall and richly sculptured marble fountain, ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... a desk, at which a man was reading aloud to a number of other persons wearing large turbans, their shoes placed on one side, and several children, all sitting on a carpet, listening devoutly. On the walls were draperies and pictures of the Saviour, and within a doorway was a high altar, covered with a cloth marked with the figure of the cross. The service was in Arabic. A handsome old man entered, bearing a staff surmounted by a golden cross. After kneeling at the altar, he invited the strangers to his house to have coffee. Grant says ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... was always displayed on the High Altar," said Ambrose, as all turned to a side aisle of ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Catton again promising that Clara's fortune should be appropriated as her father confessor desired. Clara had, in the meantime, been introduced to the Mother Eldress, a pleasant, fair lady of about forty, who took her round the establishment. The chapel was first visited. Over the high altar stood the crucifix, with paintings of the Virgin Mary on one side, and that of Saint John on the other, and on it were the usual candlesticks with large wax candles and vases of flowers; while the walls were adorned with other paintings illustrating the lives of various saints, in which monks ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... marvellous caskets, which, from that time, no workman has surpassed in any place of the Christian world, and which were called "the vow of perseverance in love." These two treasures are, as every one knows, placed on the high altar of the church; and are judged to be of inestimable workmanship, since the goldsmith had expended all ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... door leading from the cloister. Silence and gloom filled the building, raised more than a hundred and fifty years before on the foundations of a ruined Roman Temple by the great Margaritone. He traversed the Nave, and went and knelt in the Chapel behind the High Altar dedicated to San Michele, whose legend was painted in fresco on the wall. But the dim light of the lamp hanging from the vault was insufficient to show the Archangel fighting with Satan and weighing souls in the balance. Only the moon, shining through the great window, threw ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... with those names. Those whom I had been taught to venerate as almost super-human in magnitude of intellect, I found perched in little fret-work niches, as grotesque dwarfs; while the grotesques, in my hitherto belief, stood guarding the high altar with all the characters of apotheosis. In short, what I had supposed substances were thinned away into shadows, while everywhere ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... reached the town, the soldiers went straight on to the abbey, and entering the great church, even while the monks were chanting their paternosters, they began to show the errand they had come on. Dreadful was the yell that ensued, when my grandfather, going up to the priest at the high altar, and pulling him by the scarlet and fine linen of his pageantry, bade him decamp, and flung the toys and trumpery of the mass after him as he ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... them; an old man or two; a girl telling her beads before the Lady Altar; and a small dark-haired child, who gazed stolidly at the Duchessa. Votive candles burned before the various shrines. The ruby lamp made a spot of light in the shadows above the High Altar. ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... fascination. Strahov, its many windows severely closed and reflecting a sullen sky, seems to stand out more austerely from among the gaunt tree-trunks, their grey and sombre outlines broken by a fantasia of gnarled and twisted branches glittering under snow. But within those walls, in the high altar's mysterious depth, in the long bare corridors and tiny cells where useful work continues as it has done for centuries, there is the ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... ever heard it repeated when such poor services as I may have rendered are gone and past. Marry, when there was need for my helping hand, I was the very good lord of priest and prelate, and one who should be honoured and prayed for with patrons and founders who sleep in the choir and under the high altar. There was no thought, I trow, of osier or of bulrush, when I have been prayed to couch my lance or draw my weapon; it is only when they are needless that they and their owner are undervalued. Well, my reverend father, be it so,— ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... the silence, the bent figures dimly seen in the faint yellow light of a few tapers, make up a weird scene all the morning till about nine o'clock, when the relic, in its 'chasse,' or tabernacle, is carried to the Cathedral of St. Sauveur, and placed on the high altar, while a pontifical Mass is celebrated by one of the Bishops. When that is done, the procession starts on its march along the chief thoroughfares of the town. The houses are decorated with flags, and candles burn in almost every window. Through the narrow streets, between ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond
... the kingdom, and a marvel of architectural skill; and was sufficiently far advanced to allow him to translate into it on the 17th of October, 1106, the remains of Etheldreda and her companions and canonized successors, placing them behind the high altar in the new presbytery, with great pomp and ceremony. Further progress was made under Herve le Breton, formerly Bishop of Bangor, who was appointed administrator to the monastery ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous
... onwards to Madrid, where it was, as it were, reconstructed and decked with armor to be shown to Philip, who might well weep at such ghastly display. The heart of the hero is kept, to this day, behind the high altar ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... of Vulcan, a mysterious light came into the temple from above and long rows of columns could be seen, placed one behind the other, while statues stood between. The long rows of columns were lost in the dim distance. In the middle of the temple was placed a high altar, and all the scene was wrapped in the haze of incense which arose from golden bowls. The High Priestess sang a song of mystic beauty in which the High Priest and others joined, and then the Priestesses danced to an ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... Saint-Jean-du-Doigt takes place on the 22nd of June, and is, perhaps, the most solemn of these festivals. During its celebration the relic of the Saint, the little finger of his right hand, is held before the high altar of the church by an abbe clad in his surplice. The finger is wrapped in the finest of linen, and one by one the congregation files past the abbe for the purpose of touching for one brief moment the relic he holds. At the same time another cleric stands ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... Chamberlain knocked for admittance. A voice inside asked, 'Who wishes to enter?' The answer given was 'Alfonso XII.' The doors were then thrown open. The prior of the monastery appeared. The body was carried into the church and placed on a raised bier before the high altar. The coffin was then covered with the four cloaks of the noble orders. A thousand tapers were lighted, and the church assumed a magnificent appearance. Black hangings embossed with the arms of Spain covered the stone walls. The Mass was said and the Miserere sung. ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... a car containing explosives, and the Scoppio is its explosion. This car, after being drawn in procession through the streets by white oxen, is ignited by the sacred fire borne to it by a mechanical dove liberated at the high altar of the Duomo, and with its explosion Easter begins. There is still a Pazzi fund towards the expenses, but a few years ago the city became responsible for the whole proceedings, and the ceremony as it is now given, under civic management, known as the Scoppio del ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... institution are remarkable. It was founded and endowed by William the Lion, King of Scots, in the year 1178, and dedicated to St. Thomas a Becket, the martyr of the principle of ecclesiastical supremacy, whose slaughter at the high altar of Canterbury Cathedral occurred in 1170, and who was canonized in 1173. This great establishment, richly endowed, was thus a magnificent piece of homage by the Scottish King to a principle which, especially under the bold and uncompromising guidance of its great advocate, had solely perplexed ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... resounded, the wide halls of St. Peter's were penetrated by the marvellous singing of the Sistine chapel. Thousands and thousands of wax tapers lighted the noble space of the church, thousands and thousands of people pressed into the sacred halls. Under his canopy, opposite the high altar, sat the vicegerent of God upon his golden throne, surrounded by the consecrated cardinals and bishops, protected by the Swiss guard! Who could have ventured to attack the holy father—who would have been so foolhardy as to attempt to penetrate that thick ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... days the nave was used as the parish church, and had its own high altar, while the choir was reserved for the use of the canons. The nave is made up of seven noble bays; the lower arcade consists of semicircular arches enriched with the chevron ornament, while the spandrels are filled with hatchet-work carving. The triforium of each bay on both sides consists of ...
— Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch • Sidney Heath
... he had swung, as she willed, to the one steadfast star in his firmament,—work, accomplishment,—accepting the destiny she had willed, to struggle upwards apart from her to that high altar where they both ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... who were present, the Abbot and his ministers passed a clean sheet under the coffin, and collecting into it all the bones and holy dust, covered it with another sheet, and took it out, and laid it upon the high altar, with candles and torches on each side; and in this manner it remained there all day, till it was time to deposit it in the tomb. And all this while the choristers sung to the organ, and the organ responded. And when the body was laid upon the altar, the Abbot said the verse Mirabilis ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... procession reached the shrine, the king and queen took their seats on each side of the high altar, and then there came forth a procession of priests and bishops, clothed in magnificent sacerdotal robes made of cloth of gold, and chanting solemn hymns of prayer and praise as ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... made a rich soil. To Stuart's eyes, the town was a town of dreams, of great stone staircases that led to nowhere, of high archways that gave upon a waste. The entrance hall of the great Cathedral, once one of the finest in the West Indies, still leads to the high altar, but that finds its home in a little wooden structure with a tin roof, shrinking in what was once ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... great number of traps, and traps were put up against the walls at the side. People had come from all parts of the island for the service, and through the great open doors we saw that the place was crowded. The high altar was all ablaze with light. There were a few whites and a good many half-castes, but the great majority were natives. All the men wore trousers, for the Church has decided that the lava-lava is indecent. We found chairs at the back, near the open door, and sat down. Presently, following Lawson's ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... soldiers, habitans, and Indians, and drove them pell-mell back to their boats, and stripped the ship of Admiral Phipps of his red flag, which, if you doubt my word,—which no one does,—still hangs over the high altar of the Church of Notre Dame des Victoires. Blessed be our Lady, who saved our country from our enemies,—and will do so again, if we do not by our wickedness lose her favor! But the arbre sec—the dry tree—still ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... DEI—raised to the son of God by the emperor Augustus, who had been warned of his advent by the sibylline books. For this reason the figures of Augustus and of the Tiburtine sibyl are painted on either side of the arch above the high altar. They have actually been given the place of honor in this church; and formerly, when at Christmas time the Presepio was exhibited in the second chapel on the left, they occupied the front row, the sibyl pointing out to Augustus the Virgin and the Bambino who appeared in the sky in a halo of light. ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... visit a year or two ago, had it lighted up with tapers. I subjoin a few passages from a letter I received at the time from him;—"Yesterday, being Valentine's day, in the evening I went to vespers, and had six tapers burning at the high altar in the abbey; also several in each of the (eight) confessionals, holy water, fonts, shrines, and altars.—The church-yard, the abbey, were silent as the grave; you might have heard a pin drop; there was not a breath of air stirring, so the tapers burnt, beautifully." ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 290 - Volume X. No. 290. Saturday, December 29, 1827. • Various
... Edward, was slain at Viterbo in Italy (whither he was come about business which he had to do with the Pope) by the hand of Guy de Montfort, the son of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, in revenge of the same Simon's death. The murther was committed afore the high altar, as the same Henrie kneeled there to hear divine service." A.D. 1272, Holinshed's chronicles p 275. See also Giov. Villani ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... the music in this outlandish corner was unexpectedly good, every thing considered; in the church of La Merced, especially, they had a very fine organ, and the congregation joined in the Jubilate with very good taste. By the way, in this same church, on the right of the high altar, there was a deep and lofty recess, covered with a thick black veil, in which stood concealed a figure of our Saviour, as large as life, hanging on a great cross, with the blood flowing from his wounds, and all kinds of horrible accompaniments. At a certain ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... that street. Notre Dame was crowded; but Edouard le Blanc had no difficulty in singling out M. de Veron, who was sitting in his accustomed chair, somewhat removed from the mass of worshippers, on the left of the high altar; and presently he discerned Madame Carson gently and adroitly making her way through the crowd towards him. The instant she was near enough, she tapped him slightly on the shoulder. He turned quickly, and stared with a haughty, questioning glance at the smiling confectioner. There was ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... eh? No—I don't care to stop to see them—that's play-actin', that is—and I don't 'old with it nohow! What are these two parties supposed to be doin' of over here? What—Cardinal NEWMAN and Cardinal MANNING at the High Altar at the Oratory, Brompton! Come along, and don't encourage Popery by looking at such figures. I did 'ear as they'd got Mrs. PEARCEY and the prambilator somewheres. I should ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various
... of the Saviour, the Virgin, and saints, were numerous everywhere about the church; and in the chancel there was a great deal of quaint and curious sculpture, fencing in the Holy of Holies, where the High Altar stands. There is not much painted glass; one or two very rich and beautiful rose-windows, however, that looked antique; and the great eastern window which, I think, is modern. The pavement has, ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... oak steps into the West Corridor, from which we entered the grand Dining Hall, and through several other rooms, until we reached the Chapel. Here we were shown a stone coffin which had been found near the high altar, when the workmen were excavating the vault, intended by Lord Byron for himself and his dog. The coffin contained the skeleton of an Abbot, and also the identical skull from which the cup, of which I have made mention, was made. We then left the building, and took a stroll through ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... the hero. There were some few tourists about this afternoon, muttering over their guide-books, when nothing is needed on this spot but the imagination; and that solemn quiet of which the tomb is ever jealous pressed down sadly upon the living. Through the yellow panes at the back of the high altar came a glow suggesting sunshine, baffling the drab of the sky outside; and down in the crypt itself the misty blue was ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... of this his will, what is the law of laws, and the sovereign of sovereigns, cannot think it reprehensible that this our corporate fealty and homage, that this our recognition of a signiory paramount, I had almost said this oblation of the state itself, as a worthy offering on the high altar of universal praise, should be performed as all public, solemn acts are performed, in buildings, in music, in decoration, in speech, in the dignity of persons, according to the customs of mankind, taught by ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... was the residence of Lord Byron, and his furniture is kept" [in his private rooms] "just as he left it. His character does not shine. It appears to have been horrid.... He made a drinking cup of a monk's skull found under the high altar, with profane verses on the silver setting, and kept his wine in the stone coffin. These Mrs. Webb buried, and all the bones she could find that had been ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... materials used in its construction have been brought from almost every country in Europe. The ceiling of the interior is richly adorned with mosaics in the form of various noted paintings. Behind the High Altar repose the remains of St. Mark, while further back stand four spiral columns said to have belonged to the Temple of Solomon. The building to the right is ...
— Shepp's Photographs of the World • James W. Shepp
... of the church, directly above the high altar, is engraved, 'Regina Coeli laetare Alleluia." In the sixth century Rome was visited by a fearful pestilence. Gregory the Great urged the people to do penance, and a general procession was formed. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... roofs, more than two hundred steeples catch the sunshine on their gilded weather-cocks. Presently the bells begin to ring, and, as the artist listens to their pleasant chimes, he knows that in each of those churches over the high altar, hangs a painting by some great master's hand, whose beauty comes between him and heaven, so that he ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the human made divine by triumph of corporeal beauty; it is not a private chapel housing a single saint and dedicate to one chosen bloom of Christian piety or devotion; it is truly a cathedral, over whose high altar hangs the emblem of suffering, of the Divine made human to teach the beauty of adversity, the eternal presence of the spiritual, not overhanging and threatening, but informing and sustaining the material. In this cathedral of Dante's there are side-chapels as is fit, with ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... the valley of the Vers again the storm had passed far away; the evening rose was in the calm heaven, and the topmost oaks along the rocky ridge burnt like tapers upon a high altar of the vast temple whose roof is the vaulted sky. Already the deep aisles were dim with gathering shadows. When I reached the inn at Vers it was nearly dark, and after my day's tramp I was very glad to exchange the outer ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... thieves had forgotten to put out flickers in the wind that bursts in at the window and throws dim red patches of light on the vestments flung about and a cupboard overturned on the floor, on numerous footprints near the high altar and ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Howard of Effingham, and now lies at Lambeth, left a remarkable will. He was, as his epitaph informs us, a "High and Mighty Prince," and he writes of himself in the royal plural. He orders a tomb to be erected before the high altar of Thetford "with pictures of us and Agnes our wife to be set together thereupon." The Lambeth Parish Registers do not read so respectfully. This is the entry recording the passing of the Prince's widow—"Oct. 13, 1545, my Lady ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... of the great cathedral; its mighty pillars, chipped and scarred, yet rose high in air, but its long aisles were choked with rubble and fallen masonry, while through the gaping rents of its lofty roof the rain fell, wetting the shattered heap of particoloured marble that had been the high altar once. Here and there, half buried in the debris at my feet, I saw fragments of memorial tablets, a battered corona, the twisted remains of a great candelabrum, and over and through this mournful ruin a cold and rising wind moaned fitfully. Silently we clambered back ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... of St. Clair (1811), Julietta, who has been forced into a convent against her will, like so many other heroines, is drugged and conveyed as a corpse to the Count de Valve's Gothic castle. She comes to life only to be slain before the high altar, and revenges herself after death by haunting the count regularly every night. The Fugitive Countess or Convent of St. Ursula (1807) contains three spicy ingredients—a mock burial, a concealed wife and a mouldering manuscript. The social status of Miss Wilkinson's characters ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... was young again—only for a moment. When I went out into the streets and resumed acquaintance with all my old haunts, the illusion had gone. I strolled into Saint Sauveur's, wandered a while through its dim, dusky aisles, and then sat down near the high altar, where the air was heaviest with stale incense, and indulged in retrospect. I was there for more than an hour. I doubt whether it was quite wise. At my time of life one had best keep out of cathedrals; they are vault-like places, pregnant with rheumatism—at ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... With trembling steps, and humble reverence, She cometh in, before the Almighty's view; Of her ye virgins learn obedience, When so ye come into those holy places, To humble your proud faces: Bring her up to the high altar, that she may The sacred ceremonies there partake, The which do endless matrimony make; And let the roaring organs loudly play The praises of the Lord in lively notes; The whiles, with hollow throats, The Choristers the joyous Anthems sing, That ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... is illustrated here. It was probably built by Abbot Retlynge in the first half of the fourteenth century. The original abbey was built in fulfilment of a vow which William the Norman made just before the battle of Senlac Hill, the building being arranged so that the high altar was placed on the exact spot where the body of Harold II. was discovered on the awful field of slaughter. The sixty monks who started the monastery were brought over by William from the Benedictine monastery of Marmontier in Normandy. They were granted many ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home
... Holy Trinity, and the Jesuit brother who designed it, two or three centuries ago, indulged a devotional fancy in the triangular form of the structure and the decorative details. Everything is three-cornered; the whole chapel, to begin with, and then the ark of the high altar in the middle of it, and each of the three side-altars. The clumsy baroque taste of the architecture is a German version of the impulse that was making Italy fantastic at the time; the carving is coarse, and the color harsh and unsoftened by years, though ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... advanced as to permit the removal of the body of S. Cuthbert, from the temporary shrine which Bishop Carileph had erected over it, into the new church. This ceremony was performed on August 29th, 1104, and the coffin was placed in a shrine behind the high altar. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Durham - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • J. E. Bygate
... of his own. Diderot said to Sir Samuel Romilly in 1781, "Il faut sabrer la thologie," [16:22] and died in 1784 in the belief that complete infidelity was the first step toward philosophy. Five years later Holbach was buried by his side in the crypt of the Chapel of the Virgin behind the high altar in Saint-Roch. No tablet marks their tombs, and although repeated investigations have been made no light has been thrown on the exact position of their burial place. According to Diderot's daughter, Mme. Vandeuil, ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing
... church, since then enlarged by the addition of a nave to the west, was originally a polygon of sixteen sides with a circular barrel-vaulted aisle surrounding a small octagon, which with its two stories of slightly pointed arches contains the high altar.[50] (Fig. 23.) ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... in hand, during the coronation of Charles VII, before the high altar at Rheims (page 347), Frontispiece Painting by ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... mysterious document. Where had it come from? He was distinctly conscious of having seen it fall through the air, close to his feet. He glanced up at the dark ceiling of the chapel; then he turned and looked about the church. There was only one figure in it, that of a man who knelt near the high altar. ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... as midnight drew near, and the mass was about to commence, a great number of candles were lighted on the high altar and in the side chapels, and the scene became more brilliant and animated. We looked down upon a perfect sea of heads, the women all wearing the national handkerchiefs, many of these of bright colours, and making them conspicuous ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... lay nearest to them. It was the finest of all the Spanish colonial cities. It was the capital of the West Indian Government, the great centre of West Indian commerce. In the cathedral, before the high altar, lay Columbus and his brother Diego. In natural wealth no island in the world outrivals Espinola, where the city stood. A vast population had collected there, far away from harm, protected, as they supposed, by the majesty of the mother country, the native inhabitants ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... the bleak dark hours of the night he would leave his cell and steal into the Minster, to fling himself on the cold stones before the high altar; and there he would remain, shivering and praying, till his ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... At the High Altar there stood two priests before the Epistle and the Gospel. However, they neither read nor sang; they only gossiped with each other, and pretended to turn the leaves; sometimes they laughed, and when it was over they went their way, without giving ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... would hardly have felt surprised at finding herself turned into an Italian peasant-girl, and at seeing Michael Angelo and Raphael, instead of Wharton and Esther, walk in at the side door, and proceed to paint her in celestial grandeur and beauty, as the new Madonna of the prairie, over the high altar. ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... taste of the speaker. It was thought by Norden to owe its name to Hippolits, a supposed Saint, who was very skilful in the treatment of horses. After the Saint's death a shrine was placed to his honour in the parish church, and to this shrine near the high altar divers persons brought their ailing steeds to be healed by the attendant priest with the help of relics of the Saint. The relics were of efficacy commensurate with the gifts of those who desired the Saint's blessing! "The horses," says one writer, "were brought out of ...
— Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins
... cemetery his son was now attracted by a strange fascination. Europe could show no more magnificent place of sepulture. A staircase encrusted with jasper led down from the stately church of the Escurial into an octagon situated just beneath the high altar. The vault, impervious to the sun, was rich with gold and precious marbles, which reflected the blaze from a huge chandelier of silver. On the right and on the left reposed, each in a massy sarcophagus, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... me, and I certainly did not whip myself. A more extraordinary thing (for sight it can't be called) I never witnessed. I don't think the people stripped, nor, if they did, that the cords could have hurt them much. From thence to St. Peter's, where we found the quarant' ore and the high altar illuminated with heaps of candles. Only a few lights scattered at a great distance through the rest of the church, very few people there; but the dim light, the deep shades, the vast space, and the profound stillness were sublime. Certainly nothing in the world can approach St. ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Back of the high altar is Edward the Confessor's Chapel containing the graves and monuments of nine kings and queens. In this chapel are the two Coronation Chairs upon which all the sovereigns of Great Britain have been crowned since the death of Henry III., (by whom Westminster ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... adherent of the Sforzas in days to come. He inherited the giant stature as well as the martial tastes of his family, and at the consecration of Pope Alexander VI. is said to have lifted Borgia in his arms and placed him on the high altar. The eldest of the brothers, Giovanni Francesco, Count of Caiazzo, succeeded to his father's estates in Calabria, but lived at Milan, and became one of Lodovico's chief captains. Both Gaspare—the gallant soldier known by his surname of Captain Fracassa—and Antonio Maria, the husband of the ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... and was separated from the nave by a screen, with a parish-altar on its western side for public worship, while the chancel was reserved for the monastic services, with a raised presbytery for the high altar at its eastern end—a threefold division providing for the ancient ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley
... perpetual twilight. The windows in the vestibule do very little towards the illumination of the interior. At the extremity of the nave, which is raised on steps to form a choir, anciently stood the high altar, but this has been removed. Above, where it was can be discerned faintly through the obscurity, a bas-relief rudely sculptured, but very curious. It occupies the entire width of the choir; on the right is an angel playing upon a stringed ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... copes, in satin and brocade, gold and white, with embroidered hoods and orphries, and veils to match; and the processional banners were stored in tall presses, and with them, hanging on wire hooks, were the altar-curtains, thick with gold thread; for the high altar there were curtains and embroidered frontals, and tabernacle hangings, and these, the Prioress explained, had to harmonise with the vestments; and the day before Mass for the Dead the whole altar would have to be stripped after Benediction and ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... The cathedral was the first we entered, and its magnificence struck us with amazement. Its gold and silver and jewels, its innumerable ornaments and holy vessels, the rich dresses of the priests, all seemed burning in almost intolerable brightness. The high altar was the most magnificent; the second, with its pure white marble pillars, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... formed by a round mosque, with coloured pillars, and a "mirhab," which I still see in my mind's eye, full of long-robed and turbaned Mussulmans, plunged in solemn meditation. With the Christian conquest, the mosque became a Christian church, and the mirhab in its centre the high altar. After the Moors came the Templars, and then the Knights of Christ, who bravely defended the convent against an attempted Moorish recapture. A gate is still shown, called the "Gate of blood" on account ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... idle Till they have forced him To cancel his late lawless bond he sealed At the high altar to his Florentine strumpet, And in his bed ...
— The Noble Spanish Soldier • Thomas Dekker
... killed in the wars. On the Fane tomb is a pedigree of brass in relief, and a genealogy of virtues to answer it. There is an entire window of painted-glass arms, chiefly modern, in the chapel, and another over the high altar. The hospitality of the house was truly Gothic; for they made our postilion drunk, and he overturned us close to a water and the bank did but just save us from being in the middle of it. Pray, whenever you travel in Kentish roads, take care ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... misery. Help us, oh God of our salvation, for the glory of thy name. Oh, be merciful unto our sins for thy name's sake. Wherefore do the heathen say, Where is now their God?' Ye shall say this Psalm," repeated the abbot, "every Friday, after the litany, prostrate, when ye lie upon the high altar, and undoubtedly God will cease this extreme scourge." And so,' continues Salford, significantly, 'the convent did say this aforesaid Psalm until there were certain that did murmur at the saying of it, and so it ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... other Land Leapers, this Thorgist, or Turgesius, seems to have hated the churches. Not content with burning them, and killing all priests and monks he could find, his wife, we are told, took possession of the High Altar at Clonmacnois, and used it as a throne from which to give audience, or to utter prophecies and incantations. He also exacted a tribute of "nose money," which if not paid entailed the forfeit of the feature it was called after. ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... was yet dark a great strange cry rang out in the churchyard. Some ran forth, and there by the wall behind the high altar they saw a vast stone, four-square, that had not been there before, and in the middle thereof was stuck a great wedge of steel, and sticking therefrom by the point was a rich sword. On the blade were written words in Latin, which a clerk read forth, ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... heavy with German blazonry, or with the red and gold stripes of Aragon, the embattled castles of Castille, till they amounted to seventy-three. It must have been strange to the Spanish Queen to rejoice over these as they lay piled in a gorgeous heap before the high Altar, here and there one dim with weather or stained with blood. The peals of the Te Deum from a thousand voices were unspeakably magnificent, and yet through them all it seemed to me that I heard the wail not only of the multitudes of widowed wives and sonless ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge |
