"Religious ceremony" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was drawing near. Napoleon, who had already received the official recognition of foreign powers, was anxious to have his Imperial title consecrated by a great religious ceremony, the fame of which should resound throughout the whole Catholic world. The first date proposed for the solemnity was the 26th Messidor, Year XII. (July 14, 1804), then that of the 18th Brumaire, Year XIII. (Nov. 9, 1804). But the choice in each case was unfortunate. ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... May arrived. Thinking a religious ceremony unnecessary, as they had issued no invitations, the couple were married at a magistrate's and took the six o'clock ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... legend was current at the time of Plutarch to account for this usage as well as for the festival of the Phallephoria.[693] Unless the phallus itself were the object of adoration there would be no reason to carry it in procession as a religious ceremony, and it is easily understandable that such a cult would commend itself chiefly ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... the dead leaves of winter had been cleared away. The dancers who follow the seven leaders carrying the cornstalks represent the people in triumphal procession in honor of Corn as "Mother breathing forth life." Both words and music of the song for this procession are taken from a great religious ceremony of the Pawnee wherein Corn is spoken of as A-ti-ra, Mother, with the prefix H' signifying breath, the sign of life. "H'A-ti-ra" ("Mother breathing forth life") is repeated over and over and is the only word used in this song. The repetition is not an idle ...
— Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs • Alice C. Fletcher
... even now, a marriage is valid even although there are no witnesses, no minister, no religious ceremony, and ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... solace—the freshness of the [28] cup- -this too was felt by those people of the vineyard, whom the prophet Melampus had taught to mix always their wine with water, and with whom the watering of the vines became a religious ceremony; the very dead, as they thought, drinking of and refreshed by the stream. And who that has ever felt the heat of a southern country does not know this poetry, the motive of the loveliest of all the ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... this form of "possession" had begun to disappear, there had arisen new manifestations, apparently more inexplicable. As the first great epidemics of dancing and jumping had their main origin in a religious ceremony, so various new forms had their principal source in what were supposed to be centres of religious life—in the convents, and more especially ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... time, upon truer principles of nature, came to be acted and declaimed, were but super-inductions to the choruses, of which, in tragedy especially, the tragic-writers, could not well get rid, as being part of the religious ceremony. ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... savage religious ceremony, your Majesty. According to the admiral, the dunes by the seashore where he landed were covered with a multitude of men behaving just as this man is doing. They had sticks in their hands and they struck with these at small round objects. And every ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... observed the ceremony with great respect and then with due solemnity enacted their form of sacred worship. Quite to the astonishment of the white people, this ceremony consisted of the open performance of the sexual act by a young Indian man and woman. This was entirely a religious ceremony, and was fittingly respected by all the ...
— The Sex Worship and Symbolism of Primitive Races - An Interpretation • Sanger Brown, II
... generations—must have been employed to collect and raise up in place the stone, and earth, and adobe material of these pyramids, and to make the great levellings and excavations upon these inaccessible summits. They were cities, as well as mere places of religious ceremony, and a large number of people must have dwelt in these "mansions in ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... of Vienna solemnly blessed in the Cathedral the flags of the Viennese Landwehr. Together with the other members of the Imperial family, the young Archduchess Marie Louise was present at this patriotic and religious ceremony. Could she have imagined that one year later, to the delight of the vast majority of this same populace of Vienna, she was to become the wife of this Napoleon who then was calling forth such violent ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... I had an opportunity of witnessing a great religious ceremony. Three candidates of theology were raised to the ministerial office. Though the whole community here is Lutheran, the ceremonies differ in many respects from those of the continent of Europe, and I will therefore ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... old governor of Mogodor, had twelve or more children, and four wives, who were all attacked, and died (except only one young wife); he attended them successively to the grave, and notwithstanding that he assisted in performing the religious ceremony of washing the body, he never himself caught the infection; he lived some years afterwards, and out of the whole household, consisting of wives, concubines, children, and slaves, he had but one person left, which was the before-mentioned young wife: this lady, however, had received the infection, ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... and Lord Erskine at Springfield. Marriage in this part of Scotland had not the same religious significance as elsewhere, being looked upon as more in the nature of a civil contract than a religious ceremony. The form of marriage was almost entirely a secular matter, and if a man and woman made a declaration before two witnesses that they were single persons and had resided twenty-one days in Scotland, they were considered as being man and wife. At the point where the Black ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... and I be going to marry again; and it will not only help us to keep our child's respect, but it will be more proper. Susan looks upon herself as the sailor's widow, and won't think o' living with me as formerly without another religious ceremony—and ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... do well, to seek for justice, to relieve the oppressed, to do justice to the fatherless, to plead for the widow (Isa. 1, 11-17). This is a distinction between duties to God and duties to one's fellow man, between religious ceremony and ethical practice. Saadia makes a further distinction—also found in Arabic theology before him—between those commandments and prohibitions in the Bible which the reason itself approves as right or condemns as wrong—the rational commandments—and those ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... As there were honest and conscientious in their relations between man and man, so likewise were they very strict in their observance of religious statutes. Throughout the time of war not a single one of them neglected even the slightest religious ceremony, were it only to put on the phylactery of the forehead before that of the arm. [858] But they were especially careful never again to be tempted by the Midianite women. If they entered a house to take its treasures from it, they did so in pairs, one blackening ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... twelve, including the Lorilleux and some of Coupeau's comrades who frequented the "Assommoir." The day was excessively hot. At the mayor's they had to wait their turn and thus were late at the church. On the way the men had some beer and after the religious ceremony they adjourned to a wine-shop. Then a heavy storm preventing a proposed excursion into the country before dinner, they went to the Louvre. The general opinion was that the pictures were quite wonderful. Shut out of the galleries with still two hours to spare, the party ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... in a grand religious ceremony in the cathedral church of Angers to seal and ratify the covenants and agreements by which they were now ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... hung over the door-way, he even then turned his face to the wall, whenever he attempted to swallow the brandy that was offered to him. He remained with them rather better than an hour. On the presentation of the chief to them, a religious ceremony was performed, which was not observed in any other part of the country. A chapter from the Koran was repeated to him by a mahommedan priest, to which both he and his people seemed ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... the gods whom they ignorantly worshiped, and therefore the Druids declared the oak to be a sacred tree. The Druid priest always bound a wreath of oak-leaves on his forehead before he would perform any religious ceremony. One of these ceremonies was to go in search of the mistletoe, which sometimes grows on the oak and was considered as sacred as the tree itself, being much used in their worship. One priest would climb to the branch on which the misletoe was growing and cut ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... ground, there was no appearance of any shape in their arrangement. I am still puzzled, to determine whether they were merely the results of childish amusement, or had performed their part in some magical incantation or religious ceremony of the natives. I am the more inclined to think it was the latter, as there was a native grave near, covered with the same kind of flat stones, to the height of about three feet. We had not before observed anything like it, neither did we afterwards. Several flights of large curlews were seen ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... Now, it is possible that this figure has been used with the same meaning from time immemorial, but I find, as pointed out to me by Prof. Cyrus Thomas, that almost exactly the same figure is on a vessel pictured on Plate VII of the manuscript Troano, where a religious ceremony of some kind is evidently represented. The same figure is also found in Landa's character for the Maya day Cib, a word signifying copal, a gum or resin formerly used in religious ceremonies as incense. I find also on Plate XXXV ...
— Illustrated Catalogue Of The Collections Obtained From The Indians Of New Mexico And Arizona In 1879 • James Stevenson
... be acquitted of entertaining reverence for any thing human or divine, he had a sort of superstitious regard for his beaker, and believed that so long as he had it in his possession—like the "Luck of Eden Hall"—no great harm could happen to him. He attached all the importance of a religious ceremony—and, indeed, it was the only one he practiced—to the using of this goblet, and resented any levity during the process as though it were sacrilege. But to stand up after dinner, and much less to support this elaborate drinking-vessel, was not always an easy matter with ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... White Kendah kept faith with us in every particular. In a curious and semi-religious ceremony, at which I was not present, Lady Ragnall was absolved from her high office of Guardian or Nurse to a god whereof the symbol no longer existed, though I believe that the priests collected the tiny fragments of ivory, or as many of them as could be found, and preserved them in a jar in the ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... Theodora. The young lady gave Count Reuss her heart and hand. The rejected suitor bore the blow like a stoic. He would conquer, he said, such disturbing earthly emotions; why should they be a thicket in the way of his work for Christ? The betrothal was sealed in a religious ceremony. Young Zinzendorf composed a cantata for the occasion {March 9th, 1721.}; the cantata was sung, with orchestral accompaniment, in the presence of the whole house of Castell; and at the conclusion of ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... of our number, inspired by the antique solemnity of the surroundings, burst into the noble lines of Hugo’s Devant Dieu, before which the awestruck population uncovered and crossed themselves, imagining, doubtless, that it was a religious ceremony. ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... much. Maestro Guglielmi gave Count Nobili's lawyer three days to decide. At the expiration of that time Signore Guglielmi met him again. Count Nobili's lawyer declared that with the utmost difficulty he had prevailed upon his client to make good the contract by the religious ceremony of marriage. Let every thing therefore be ready for the ceremony. This letter is private. You will say nothing further to my niece than that Count Nobili will arrive at Corellia at two o'clock the day after to-morrow ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... Sophia, the two travellers crossed the marble-paved Augusteum, and saw upon their right the gilded gates of the hippodrome through which a vast crowd of people was pressing, for though the morning had been devoted to the religious ceremony, the afternoon was given over to secular festivities. So great was the rush of the populace that the two strangers had some difficulty in disengaging themselves from the stream and reaching the huge arch of black marble which formed the outer gate of the palace. Within they were fiercely ordered ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... representation of senators and deputies. There was a slight hesitation among some of the Left—who were ardent sympathisers with young Italy—but who didn't care to compromise themselves by taking part in a religious ceremony. However, as a rule they went. Some of the ladies of the Right were rather put out at having to go in deep mourning to the service. I said to one of them: "But you are not correct; you have a black dress certainly, but I don't think pearl-grey gloves are ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... season) for one's own use. If you are not too squeamish to see aboriginal man in his primitive dirt, study him in his home. Try to learn to look at things from his standpoint. If possible, witness one of his dances—a religious ceremony—and arrange to enter his primitive toholwoh or sweat-house, where he will give you a most effective and powerful Russo-Turkish bath. Swim in Havasu Creek to your heart's content, several times a day. Climb to the old fort, where the Havasupais used to ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... third change was the enlarged range of subjects. The lyric dithyramb-tales were necessarily about Dionysus, and the interludes had, of course, to follow suit. Nothing in the world so tenaciously resists innovation as religious ceremony; and it is interesting to learn that the Athenian populace (then, as ever, eager for "some new thing'') nevertheless opposed at first the introduction of other tales. But the innovators won; or other-wise there would have been ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... mercantile firms and Government offices, and all who have to deal with the Mahratta "puttiwala," viewed its success without surprise. Though always grumbling at his wages, he never appears to be without the means and the will to travel. A marriage, a religious ceremony in his family, or the death of some relative, requires his immediate presence in his village, and he asks for leave. If he cannot get it otherwise, he offers to forfeit his pay for the period. If it is still refused, ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... culture area to which they belong. Culturally identical with them are the neighboring Yurok and Karok. There is the liveliest intertribal intercourse between the Hupa, Yurok, and Karok, so much so that all three generally attend an important religious ceremony given by any one of them. It is difficult to say what elements in their combined culture belong in origin to this tribe or that, so much at one are they in communal action, feeling, and thought. But their languages are not merely alien to each other; they belong ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... Greek chorus, consisting of the whole population of the city, would meet in the market-place to offer up thanksgivings to the god of the country. Their jubilees were always attended with hymn-singing and dancing. The Jewish records make frequent mention of dancing, but always "as a religious ceremony, or as an expression of gratitude and praise." As a means of entertainment in private society, dancing was practiced in ancient times, but by professional dancers, and not by the company themselves. It is true that the Bible ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... their dresses of office; for this is not merely a day of amusement, but of religious ceremony; sacred to Dionysos—Bacchus, the inspiring god, who raises men above themselves, ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... yet held a red horizon rim around its dusky surface. Some half-distinct swallows were swarming into the church belfry, as silent as bats; but people swarming on the ground below made a cheerful noise, like a fair. The St. John bonfire was not a religious ceremony, but its character lifted it above the ordinary burning of brushwood at night. The most dignified Kaskaskians, heretics as well as papists, came out to see it lighted; the pagan spell of Midsummer Night more or ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... feeling, everything which carries a message to men or gods, is an object of utility: the coat-of-arms painted on a panel, or the emblem carved upon a church front, as much as the helmet of the knight or the shield of the savage. A church or a religious ceremony, nay, every additional ounce of gilding or grain of incense, or day or hour, bestowed on sanctuary and ritual, are not useful only to the selfish devotee who employs them for obtaining celestial favours; they are more useful and necessary even to the pure-minded worshipper, because they enable ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... I'll not be that conscientious Fool, To stop at Blessings 'cause they are not lawful; But take 'em up, when Heaven has thrown 'em down, Without the leave of a Religious Ceremony. [Aside. Madam, this House, which I am Master of, You shall command; whilst I go seek ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... received honourably by that saint. And the king seated himself near the ascetic, and entered into a delightful conversation of an auspicious kind. Then, O king, the son of Bhrigu spake to the king these words of a soothing nature: "I shall, O king, officiate at a religious ceremony to be performed by thee: let the requisite articles, therefore, be procured." Thereat, that protector of earth Saryati, experienced the very height of joy, and O great king, he expressed his approbation of the proposal made by Chyavana. And on an ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... suspicion, the keenness of everyone about the business struck him as really splendid. They went at it with a will. Having looked forward to it for months, they were going to look back on it for months. It was evidently a religious ceremony, summing up most high feelings; and this seemed to one who was himself a man of action, natural, perhaps pathetic, but certainly ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... were uttered, he stood up and bared his head as the guide had done. When Marco gave the Sign in some quiet place to a man who was alone, he noticed that they all did this and said their "God be thanked" devoutly, as if it were part of some religious ceremony. In a small town a few miles away he had to search some hours before he found a stalwart young shoemaker with bright red hair and a horseshoe-shaped scar on his forehead. He was not in his workshop when the boys first passed it, because, as they found out later, he had been climbing a mountain ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... in. Markets, citizens of London forbidden to trade in. Marlborough, statute of. Marriage (see also Miscegenation), jurisdiction over first in church; is a sacrament by Roman view; creates a status; not a mere contract at common law; forbidden between English and Irish; religious ceremony first dispensed with under Cromwell; between first cousins invalid in Pennsylvania; modern legislation; may be forbidden to parties of different races; discussion of the common-law marriage; now abolished in New ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... has no terrors for me; but for you and her it is different. She is yours now, for although but betrothed she is virtually your wife. You have but to take her by the hand and to declare her your wife in the presence of witnesses, and all is done. There is, it is true, a religious ceremony in use only among the wealthier classes, but this is rather an occasion for pomp and feasting, and is by no means needful, especially as you have no faith in the Roman gods. What are the rites among your ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... his workmen in his native town, and gave them a fete; many peasant girls joined in the festivities and assisted in the breaking of the ground; at evening, as they all passed before Canova to bid him farewell, each one received a gift from him. Three days later the religious ceremony of laying the corner-stone of the future church took place. An immense number of people from the surrounding country and from Venice were present; Canova, in his robes as a Knight of Christ, and wearing the insignia of other ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... promise of the 'Solitary,' and long after, it was my wish, and I might say intention, that we should resume our wanderings and pass the borders into his native country, where, as I hoped, he might witness, in the society of the 'Wanderer,' some religious ceremony—a sacrament say, in the open fields, or a preaching among the mountains, which, by recalling to his mind the days of his early childhood, when he had been present on such occasions in company with his parents and nearest ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... one seldom thinks of the importance of the discovery of the art. These lessons will show the child how people may have learned to boil and the explanation they would be apt to give of the changes which take place during the process. Boiling was undoubtedly used as a religious ceremony long before it was ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... every month until they were properly married. A very trying and unregenerate reprobate in New London persisted that he would "take up" with a woman in the town and make her his wife without any legal or religious ceremony. This was a great scandal to the whole community. A pious magistrate met the ungodly couple on the street and sternly reproved them thus: "John Rogers, do you persist in calling this woman, a servant, so much younger than yourself, ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... parish where the ceremony is to be performed. In Paris a civil marriage before the mayor of the district is necessary. Certificates of baptism must be filed with him, and you must give proof of the legal consent of both your parents as well as those of the bride. The religious ceremony takes place twenty-four hours after the civil. It is strict etiquette that the contracting parties do not see each ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... permit the body to be brought to the church, despite the distracted entreaties of the two women. The baron was interred at twilight without any religious ceremony. ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... flight, beginning to feel somewhat confident by having got so far in safety, nothing would do but I must thrust my head into the lion's den, by which I mean venture into one of their temples, at the very time they were busy about a great religious ceremony. I had been on my way since sundown, and had made very good progress, so that I supposed myself to have got over the greater part of my journey, when towards the middle of the night I came unexpectedly ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... free exercise thereof, or give a preference, privilege, or advantage, or impose any disability or disadvantage, on account of religious belief or religious or ecclesiastical status, or make any religious belief or religious ceremony a condition of the ...
— Home Rule - Second Edition • Harold Spender
... upon his grave, nothing is destroyed of what belonged to him in common with the tribe, such as boats, or the communal implements of fishing. The destruction bears upon personal property alone. At a later epoch this habit becomes a religious ceremony. It receives a mystical interpretation, and is imposed by religion, when public opinion alone proves incapable of enforcing its general observance. And, finally, it is substituted by either burning simple models of the dead man's property (as in China), ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... the bushes indoors, Grace walking, full of thought between the other two, somewhat comforted, both by Fitzpiers's ingenious explanation and by the sense that she was not to be deprived of a religious ceremony. "So let it be," she said to herself. "Pray God it ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... never heard the word "exorcised" uttered aloud before, though he had, of course, come across it in books. "Do you mean driving out the devil by means of a religious ceremony?" he asked incredulously. ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... was then that the people heard the music of the organ, rolling over them for the first time, with various feelings of delight. But the performer on and author of the instrument was forgotten in his work, and there was no re-instatement of the former favourite. The religious ceremony was followed by a civic festival, in which Auxerre welcomed its future lord. The festival was to end at nightfall with a somewhat rude popular pageant, in which the person of Winter would be hunted ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... the Satyr, or Satirical Drama, as did its Italian prototype, the Fabulae Atellanae or, Laudi Osci. These rural sacrifices became, in process of time, a solemn fast, and assumed all the pomp and splendour of a religious ceremony; poets were employed by the magistrate to compose hymns, or songs, for the occasion; such was the rudeness and simplicity of the age that their bards contended for a prize, which, as Horace intimates, was scarce worth contending for, being no more than a goat or skin ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... Mandan Indians we not only find flood legends, but, more remarkable still, we find an image of the ark preserved from generation to generation, and a religious ceremony performed which refers plainly to the destruction of Atlantis, and to the arrival of one of those who escaped from the Flood, bringing the dreadful tidings of the disaster. It must be remembered, as we will show hereafter, that many of these Mandan ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... candidates who might prove, by any scar or blemish, not to come expressly within the meaning of the old king's will. Twelve old fakirs, and twenty-four mollahs with spectacles, were appointed as examining officers. It was supposed, as this was a religious ceremony, that all the females of Souffra, who were remarkable for their piety, would not fail to attend—and all the world were eager for the commencement of the examination. O then it was pleasant to see the running, and mounting, and racing, among the young Souffrarian rayahs, who were expected ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... the water from their urns into two fountains, and stopped to observe the scene. The procession came on, headed by a large body of priests, in white robes, with banners and crosses. They stopped before the principal shrine, in front of the Rathhaus, and began a solemn religious ceremony. The whole crowd of not less than ten thousand persons, stood silent and uncovered, and the deep voice of the officiating priest was heard over the whole square. At times the multitude sang responses, and I could mark the sound, swelling and rolling up like a mighty wave, ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... that most shameless member of the community—the little boy." He adds that the native dances are only an apparent exception, being serious in character, though indecent to our eyes, almost constituting a religious ceremony. The only really indecent dance indigenous to Central Africa "is one which originally represented the act of coition, but it is so altered to a stereotyped formula that its exact purport is not obvious until explained somewhat shyly by the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... as a kind of prophet. He made a poor girl and her mother sleep in his room and had connection with them alternately. Finally, he mixed his semen in coffee with the girl's menstrual blood and made her drink the mixture, pretending that this was a religious ceremony intended to produce a strong race. In the end he set fire to the house of these ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... arranging their horns—mapembe, or fetishes, as the learned call such things—to see that there are no imperfections in the Uganga. This was something like an inquiry into the ecclesiastical condition of the country, while, at the same time, it was a religious ceremony, and, as such, was appropriate to the first day after the new moon appears. This being the third moon by account, in pursuance of ancient customs, all the people about court, including the king, shaved their heads—the king, however, retaining his cockscomb, ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... to speak. "Do not say a word," she said "this seal is a religious ceremony with me." She was some little time fulfilling it, so that the impression might be deep and clear. She looked at it earnestly while the wax was cooling, and then she said, "I deliver the custody of this to a friend whom I entirely trust. ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... doing that at intervals ever since I was first brought here," Joan commented. "It sounds almost like the beginning of some primitive religious ceremony, doesn't it?" ...
— Devil Crystals of Arret • Hal K. Wells
... of the poles next to the west timber some 8 to 15 inches beyond the line. This arrangement is usually placed next to and on the south side of the west timber, and all the poles for a distance of 3 or 4 feet are set out. The offset thus formed is called the "mask recess," and when a religious ceremony is performed in the hogan, the shaman or medicine-man hangs a skin or cloth before it and deposits there his masks and fetiches. This recess, of greater or less dimensions, is made in every large hogan, ...
— Navaho Houses, pages 469-518 • Cosmos Mindeleff
... brought his head to the sacrilegious scaffold. The day chosen for the expiatory solemnity was the 3d of May, the anniversary of the return of Louis XVIII. to Paris in 1814, and then a political idea was connected with the religious ceremony. A vast pavilion surmounted by a cross hung with draperies in violet velvet, and enclosing an altar, which was reached on four sides by four stairways of ten steps each, occupied the very place ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... The religious ceremony was finished. The priests retired first, then the pious followed; the indifferent and curious remained till the last. Among this number were several women. Buvat asked if there was none among them who knew a good sick-nurse. One of them presented herself directly, declared, in the ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... the arsenals, his stores, and magazines. Five days afterwards a great Te Deum was sung in Prince Lewis's army, and a solemn day of thanksgiving held in our own; the Prince of Savoy's compliments coming to his grace the captain-general during the day's religious ceremony, and concluding, as it were, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... looked more paternal or venerable than when giving the sanction of the Italian state to their union. It is not, of course, to be supposed that Mrs. Colville was contented with the civil rite, though Colville may have thought it quite sufficient. The religious ceremony took place in the English chapel, the assistant clergyman officiating in the absence of the incumbent, who had already gone ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... ordinance against duelling in 1838, in which the punishment of death is decreed against all concerned in a fatal duel. The bodies of those killed, and of those who may be executed in consequence, are to be buried in unconsecrated ground, and without any religious ceremony; nor is any monument to be erected on the spot. The punishment for duels in which either, or both, are wounded, and for those in which no damage whatever is done, varies according to the case, and consists of fine, imprisonment, loss of rank and honours, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... We saw no one save Desiree and the serving men. Once a messenger appeared carrying a bundle of quipos; I was able to decipher their meaning sufficiently to understand that we were invited to some religious ceremony in the great cavern. But I thought it injudicious to allow a meeting between Harry and the king, and ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... the cattle of a neighbour, until there came the happy day when they went to live on their own ranch—father, mother, and fourteen-year-old Josh, with every prospect of making it pay. The spreading of that white tablecloth for the first time was a real religious ceremony, and the hard workers gave thanks to the All-father for His ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... Brahmans it is also customary to ask the head of a family with which a marriage is proposed whether he ties a knot in the right or left half of his Shikha or scalp-lock during his prayers and whether he washes his right or left foot first in the performance of a religious ceremony. ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... were seized in Malines and destroyed, the printer being fined; that the Cardinal was detained in his palace during all Jan. 4; that he was prevented by German officers on Jan. 3 from presiding at a religious ceremony; that they subjected him to interrogations and demanded of him a retraction, which he refused to make. The English reprint of the Cardinal's letter is copyrighted by Burns & Oates, Ltd., 28 Orchard Street, London. THE NEW YORK TIMES CURRENT HISTORY ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... just killed his mother." On one occasion, when he was praising Rameau's chorus of "Castor and Pollux," an admirer of his flattered him with the remark, "But what a difference between this chorus and that of your 'Iphigenie'!" "Yet it is very well done," said Gluck; "one is only a religious ceremony, the other is a real funeral." He was wont to say that in composing he always tried to forget he was ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... received good advice from Assonleville, and was assured that if he would come and hear a mass in the royal chapel next morning, that religious ceremony would make him invisible when he should make his attempt on the life of Maurice, and while he should be effecting his escape. The poor wretch accordingly came next morning to chapel, where this miraculous mass was duly performed, and he then received a certain portion ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... sides, their eyes fixed upon the ground before them, and slided about without any perceptible means of motion; for their feet were invisible, the hem of their dresses forming a perfect circle about them, reaching to the ground. They looked as grave as though they were going through some religious ceremony, their faces as little excited as their limbs; and on the whole, instead of the spirited, fascinating Spanish dances which I had expected, I found the Californian fandango, on the part of the women at least, a lifeless affair. The men did better. They danced with ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... struck terror, as he hoped, into the hearts of all who might be thinking of resisting him, Alexander concluded the Tyrian episode of his career by a religious ceremony.[14427] Entering the city from the mole in a grand procession, accompanied by his entire force of soldiers, fully armed and arrayed, while his fleet also played its part in the scene, he proceeded to the temple of Melkarth in the middle of the town, ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... endowments, and personal attractions of the priest Eubulides; his own resemblance to whom was the theme of continual remark. On approaching the city, he found the roads swarming with throngs hastening to the temple, about to take part in a great religious ceremony to be held therein. The seriousness of worship blended delightfully with the glee of the festival, and Eubulides, who at first regarded the gathering with bitter scorn, found his moroseness insensibly yielding to the poetic charm of the ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... the marriage carried out, devoid of all but its religious ceremony. I want to spend one month in the home prepared for us, and then I will submit to the punishment ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... to his memory at many other places through Greece. At Salona, where the Congress had assembled, his soul was prayed for in the Church; after which the whole garrison and the citizens went out into the plain, where another religious ceremony took place, under the shade of the olive trees. This being concluded, the troops fired; and an oration, full of the warmest praise and gratitude, was pronounced ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... earl, whose conscience was more tender than her own, had said over and over again that it was a terrible thing to set aside a marriage, to call a religious ceremony null and void. He would not have done it himself, but my lady had firm nerves, and a will of iron; nothing daunted her. She laughed at his persuasions and arguments. She told him the day would come on which ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... we were attracted into a side-street by a crowd, among whom stood conspicuous a brass musical band, and an old man in a semi-religious costume of black and white, bearing a large wooden crucifix in his hand. In anticipation of some religious ceremony, we waited awhile to watch its development. It was a funeral, and the whole procession soon formed itself in the following order:—First came the large crucifix, then a boy bearing a banner on which was painted the figure of the Virgin; ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... was legal, and this consisted merely in a promise and the mutual assumption of marital rights, duties and obligations. That year a law was passed requiring a license and a civil or religious ceremony. The law declares specifically that "the husband is the head of the family and the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... a mystic idealism, delighted itself in solitary reading or in meditations in the house of prayer. The only emotion he ever betrayed was caused by the organ music accompanying the hymnal plain-song, and by the pomp of religious ceremony. ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... seemed to me most unreasonable. Within the last few days the time had come round for the despatch of a hamper to Edward at school. Only one hamper a term was permitted him, so its preparation was a sort of blend of revelry and religious ceremony. After the main corpus of the thing had been carefully selected and safely bestowed—the pots of jam, the cake, the sausages, and the apples that filled up corners so nicely—after the last package had been wedged in, the girls had deposited their own private and ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... ninety generations had spoken in Delphi. At Epidauros there was a shrine of Asclepias. Its monuments have been collected and edited by Dr. Caton of Liverpool. There sick men and women came, lived a quiet life of diet and religious ceremony, preparing for the night on which they should sleep in the temple. On that night the god came to them, they said, in that mood or state where they lay "between asleep and awake, sometimes as in a dream and then as in a waking vision—one's hair stood on end, but one shed tears of joy and ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... time her eyes fell on her elaborately drawn paper of days. Every evening since her first arrival she had gone through the almost religious ceremony of marking off the day; it had often been a great consolation to her. The paper was much worn; the weeks and days yet to be marked were few in number. She looked at it now, and if there can be a "more" to absolute grief, an additional pang to unmitigated sorrow, it came to her ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... The religious ceremony in the temple of the Guebres is very interesting, the officiating priests being dressed up in a long white garment, the sudra, held together by a sacred girdle, and with the lower portion of the face covered by a square piece of cloth like a handkerchief; on the head they wear a peculiar ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... once indeed, that Cato dropped into the Roman Theatre, when the Floralia were to be represented; and as in that Performance, which was a kind of Religious Ceremony, there were several indecent Parts to be acted, the People refused to see them whilst Cato was present. Martial on this Hint made the following Epigram, which we must suppose was applied to some grave Friend of his, that had been accidentally ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... twenty years, some with hundreds of spectators from all over the world, others in more remote villages, with but a mere handful of outsiders present. She is personally convinced that the Snake Dance is no show for tourists but a deeply significant religious ceremony performed definitely for the faithful fulfillment of traditional magic rites that have, all down the centuries, been depended upon to bring these desert-dwellers the life-saving rain and insure their crops. They have long ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett
... a trustworthy person," answered he, "told me how ye sacrifice children. Once a storm wrecked a number of tens of your vessels. Immediately the Tyrian priests announced a religious ceremony at which throngs of people collected." The prince spoke with evident indignation. "Before the temple of Baal situated on a lofty place was an immense bronze statue with the head of a bull. Its belly was red hot. At command of your ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... also did. They provided welfare services for their members, made some attempts towards standardization of products and prices, imposed taxes upon their members, kept their streets clean and tried to regulate salaries. Apprentices were initiated in a kind of semi-religious ceremony, and often meetings took place in temples. No guild, however, connected people of the same craft living in different cities. Thus, they did not achieve political power. Furthermore, each trade had its own guild; in Peking in the nineteenth century there existed over 420 different guilds. ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... crepe trimmed with dull silver embroidery and she wore zagara in her bonnet. Exceptional cases being excepted, it may be said that brides only wear white silk and a veil and wreath of orange blossom, as Ignazio's bride did at the religious ceremony, when the wedding is conducted on system a. I failed to discover any rule about a cortege of bridesmaids, if there is such a rule it is probably elastic. The other ladies wore dresses as for a dance in England ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... (1652) another intrigue was formed under the leadership of Bekki Shoetnon, also a ronin. On this occasion the plan was to murder Ii Naotaka, the first minister of State, as well as his colleagues, and then to set fire to the temple Zojo-ji on the occasion of a religious ceremony. But this plot, also, was discovered before it matured, and it proved to be the last attempt that was made to overthrow the Bakufu by force until more than ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... life,' returned Miss Pecksniff, with dignity, 'is now bound up and cemented in Augustus. So long as Augustus is my own, I cannot want a friend. When you speak of friends, sir, I must beg, once for all, to refer you to Augustus. That is my impression of the religious ceremony in which I am so soon to take a part at that altar to which Augustus will conduct me. I bear no malice at any time, much less in a moment of triumph, towards any one; much less towards my sister. On the contrary, I congratulate her. If you ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... never had the least intention of beating us. There were far too few of them for one thing. They looked like criminals fighting under sentence, you know, like the Persian fellows. It was more like some religious ceremony than a fight. The whole thing is beyond me, but I think no harm's done. Hang it, I wish Holm were here. He's a depressing beggar, but he takes responsibility off ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... the observance of wearing his hat while at synagogue, but during no other religious ceremony; troubled himself but little regarding the dietary laws; dressed as his Christian neighbor did; and strictly prohibited any superstitious practices in his house. He even permitted his wife to let ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... both hands toward the roaring flame back there by the cliff, and all inclined themselves thereto, the only trace of any religious ceremony still remaining among them. ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... Chinese, they extract. In their language, many words, I perceive, are similar; and the corresponding words express the same idea in both languages; but on etymological comparisons I would be understood to lay little stress, for reasons which will be assigned in the sixth chapter. The similitude of a religious ceremony is much stronger ground to build upon; and the coincidence is sufficiently remarkable, that the manner practised by the Sumatrans in taking a solemn oath should exactly agree with the same ceremony which is used in giving a solemn pledge among the common people of China, namely, by wringing ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... conclusion. She would hear nothing of a civil marriage, because a civil marriage was no marriage in the eyes of Pope and prelate. On the other hand, she did not wish Gambetta to mar his political career by going through a religious ceremony. She had heard from a priest that the Church recognized two forms of betrothal. The usual one looked to a marriage in the future and gave no marriage privileges until after the formal ceremony. But there was ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... been done in the city before the sun went down? Who knows what new surprises history might have found for her play? The thought must have crossed many minds at that moment. But no one stirred; the religious ceremony remained a religious ceremony and nothing more; holy peace reigned within the walls, and the hour of peril glided away undisturbed to take its ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... have come to pass if people had clear ideas of what Marriage really is. Marriage is a great deal more than simply a civil contract. It is a divine institution, "an honorable estate, instituted {182} by God in the time of man's innocency." It is a religious ceremony and is sacramental in character. It ought, therefore, to be clearly understood that marriage simply by a "squire" or other legal officer, detracts from the sacredness and dignity of "this holy estate," and belittles the binding character of the "marriage tie." Even a secular paper ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller
... Manbos invariably drink during religious feasts, yet neither during the feast itself, nor in the preparation of the toddy, have I ever observed any religious ceremony nor were any magic or other preternatural means employed. It is true that when the crushing appliance[9] is set up, the fowl-waving ceremony, followed by the blood unction, is performed. I witnessed this ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... designate a feast by the term "drinking," not "eating." In the feasts which they held upon occasions of sacrifice, they were wont to place at one side of the table a plate, upon which he who chose would throw, by way of religious ceremony, some mouthful of food, which he refrained from eating out of respect to the anito. They eat, sitting in a low position; and their tables are small, low, and round or square in shape, without covering or napkins, the plates containing ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... novel, and impressive from its novelty. Except for the few weddings and funerals he had attended, and the service on the day he married Lois, he could hardly remember when he had been present as a formal participant at a religious ceremony. He had, therefore, no preconceived ideas concerning Christian worship, and not much in the way of prejudice. He had dropped in occasionally on the services of foreign cathedrals, but purely as a tourist who made no attempt to understand what was taking ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... of in the past tense also are, I fear, the Christ-tide customs of Wales—the Mari Lhoyd, or Lwyd, answering to the Kentish Hodening, and the Pulgen, or the Crowning of the Cock, which was a simple religious ceremony. About three o'clock on Christmas morning the Welsh in many parts used to assemble in church, and, after prayers and a sermon, continue there singing psalms and hymns with great devotion till it was daylight; and if, through age or ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... depravity, and infidelity in a man are sufficient reasons for his wife to separate herself from him, this separation requiring no legal permit; and that a pure honest love sanctifies the union of two people which may not have been confirmed by a civil or religious ceremony. The following passage is a partial statement of these views, which proved very exasperating to her contemporaries. It is the advice given to Maria, after her flight, by a ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... strolling about the city we noted many local pictures. Groups of professional dancing girls are to be seen in all of the cities of India, generally attached to some temple, as no religious ceremony or gala day is considered complete without them; and indeed the same may be said of any large private entertainment, as guests never dance in the East, preferring to hire such work done for them. These dancers ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... though he were performing a religious ceremony, a sacred duty laid upon him on high, David stooped over her, bringing his face to the gentle sleeping one. Her sweet breath fanned his cheek like the almost imperceptible fragrance of a bud not fully opened yet to give forth its sweetness to the world. ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... me from Oraibi to Shupaulovi to witness a great religious ceremony. It is the invocation to the gods for rain. We arrive about sundown, and are taken into a large subterranean chamber, into which we descend by a ladder. Soon about a dozen Shamans are gathered with us, and the ceremony ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... only in their form of worship and religious rites but also in that they breed lions as other people breed cattle. You have seen how they use some of these lions but the majority of them they fatten and eat. At first, I imagine, they ate lion meat as a part of their religious ceremony but after many generations they came to crave it so that now it is practically the only flesh they eat. They would, of course, rather die than eat the flesh of a bird, nor will they eat monkey's meat, while the herbivorous animals they raise only for milk, hides, and flesh for ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... documents evidence which seems to justify us in adopting no other alternative than to return for Bolinbroke a verdict of "Not guilty." The corpse[88] of Richard was carried through the city of London to St. Paul's with much of religious ceremony and solemn pomp, Henry himself as King bearing the pall, (p. 082) "followed by all those of his blood in fair array." After it had been inspected by multitudes, (Froissart[89] says by more than twenty thousand,) it was buried ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... religious ceremony, which all the crowned heads and other great personages were expected to attend. Two of the sovereigns or heirs-apparent present were Roman Catholics, one was a Protestant, and one a Mohammedan. The Crescent and the Cross for the first time overshadowed worshippers joining in one common ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... was found to be the case in both these instances. And it appears to me very extraordinary that these places could not be purified from such illusions, either by the sprinkling of holy water, or the assistance of any other religious ceremony; for the priests themselves, though protected by the crucifix, or the holy water, on devoutly entering the house, were equally subject to the same insults. From whence it appears that things pertaining to the sacraments, as well as ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... They'd better have taken the hangin' that was the alternative. Even a corpse with its back bare of flesh to the bone has received the last lashes of a sentence, and was then buried in the mud of the shore with no religious ceremony. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... person seemed to realize that they were there to witness a religious ceremony and that to the Indians it was as sacred as could be any High Church service. Shouting and cheering, they waited ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... church of Mr. Ransome was itself a ritual, a high religious ceremony. Hitherto he had kept himself pure for it, abstaining from all Headache overnight. It was this habitual consecration of Mr. Ransome that made his last lapse so remarkable and so important, while it revealed it as fortuitous. Ranny had missed the deep logic of his mother's statement. ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... dream of marrying; they take to themselves 'Njais,' or house-keepers. The same thing is done in other colonies, at least in provinces far removed from European society, when native customs allow it. The ancient customs of the Malays and Javanese did not prescribe any religious ceremony for marriages; they had their 'adat,' or customs, which were as strictly adhered to as if they had been religious, but there was nothing consecrating the marriage tie. Moreover, their notions of hospitality, which are similar to those ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... regular procession, which greatly impressed us, and we followed them as they bore the body through several winding ways into a large cavern, at a considerable distance from any of the others. Here they had dug a grave, and, to our astonishment, there appeared to be something resembling a religious ceremony connected with the interment. And then, for the first time, we distinguished the females from the others. But a still greater surprise awaited us. It was no less than plain evidence of regular ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... been settled to everybody's satisfaction, there was a religious ceremony such as had never before been seen under the canopy of heaven. The Pope and all his cardinals, in their robes of scarlet and gold, came across the Alps to anoint him with holy oil, and he was crowned Emperor, in the presence of the army and the people, with great ...
— Folk-Tales of Napoleon - The Napoleon of the People; Napoleonder • Honore de Balzac and Alexander Amphiteatrof
... Richard performed a great religious ceremony, too, while he was at Sicily this winter, as a part of the preparation which he deemed it necessary to make for the campaign. It is a remarkable fact that every great military freebooter that has organized an armed gang of men to go forth, and rob and murder his fellow-men, in any age ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... beginning of the work on the new city—the 21st of April—was a day of religious ceremony and festival among the shepherds. On this day they offered sacrifices of cakes and milk to their god Pales, asked for blessings on the flocks and herds, and implored pardon for all offences against the dryads of the woods, the nymphs of the streams, and other deities. ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... as a Song of the Great Pan—his "gaya scienza," Mahler would have liked to call it. In the Fourth he sought to open the heart of a child; in the Sixth, to voice his desolation and loneliness and hopelessness; in the Eighth, to perform a great religious ceremony; in "Das Lied von der Erde" to write his ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld |
