"Edify" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had seen the gentlemen of honour and fashion over their cups, and perhaps thought that all their sayings and doings were not precisely such as would tend to instruct or edify a young man on his entrance into life; but he wisely chose to tell no tales out of school, and said that Harry and George, now they were coming into the world, must take their share of good and bad, and hear what ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... reason may possibly operate upon the mind both of a learned and ignorant hearer as long as they live, and will edify a thousand times more than the art of wetting the handkerchiefs of a whole congregation, if you were sure ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... Mistress Hutchinson and her followers. It was doubtless the riotous conduct of these radicals that caused the resolution to be passed by the assembly in 1637, which stated, according to Winthrop: "That though women might meet (some few together) to pray and edify one another; yet such a set assembly, (as was then in practice at Boston), where sixty or more did meet every week, and one woman (in a prophetical way, by resolving questions of doctrine, and expounding ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... these gifts accompany now the imposition of hands? I answer: Because they are no longer needed. The grace which the Apostolic disciples received was for their personal sanctification. The gift of tongues which they exercised was intended by Almighty God to edify and enlighten the spectators, and to give Divine sanction to the Apostolic ministry. But now that the Church is firmly established, and the Divine authority of her ministry is clearly recognized, these miracles ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... What with the Oise and its affluents, and the many watercourses created about the place, either to drain the marsh lands or to facilitate navigation, Chauny really is an aquatic little capital like Annecy in Savoy. Naturally its citizens set a certain value on their fishing rights, and it may edify those who obstinately insist on regarding the feudal ages as ages of brute force, to know that so early as in 1175 the citizens of Chauny, by the lieutenant of the bailliage, Messire Regnault Doucet, asserted and successfully ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... the Christmas season, the touching and searching lessons of the Lenten season, the holy, inspiring joyousness of the Easter season, or the instructive admonitions of the Pentecostal season, will not attract and move and edify the hearts of men, ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding
... draw from them great influence. The heroic, the holy, I lack. They are contemptuous. They fail in sympathy with humanity. The voice of nature they bring me to hear is not divine, but ghastly, hard, and ironical. They do not illuminate me: they do not edify me." Is not this the German of to-day? If Emerson were with us now he would see, as we all see, how the age of idealism and spiritual power in Germany that gave the world the great composers and the great poets and philosophers—Bach, ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... house, and another while in the Chapel at Westminster; when all the faith and religion that shall be there canonized is not sufficient without plain convincement, and the charity of patient instruction to supple the least bruise of conscience, to edify the meanest Christian, who desires to walk in the Spirit, and not in the letter of human trust, for all the number of voices that can be there made; no, though Harry VII himself there, with all his liege tombs about him, should lend them voices ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... secret of Guthrie's power in the pulpit. His people felt that their minister knew them; he knew himself, and therefore he knew them. He did not pronounce windy orations about things that did not concern or edify them. He was not learned in the pulpit, nor eloquent, or, if he was—and he was both—all his talents, and all his scholarship, and all his eloquence were forgotten in the intensely practical turn that his preaching immediately took. All the broken hearts in the west country, all those whose ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... "you are the man needed to shake the world from one end to the other; with this sign you will overthrow; with this sign you will edify; in hoc ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... little if no professors at all existed, but also that, if the existing professors were ex abundanti to volunteer the most exemplary spirit of exertion, however much this spectacle of conscientious dealing might edify the university, it would contribute but little to the promotion of academic purposes. The establishment of professors is, in fact, a thing of ornament and pomp. Elsewhere, they are the working servants; but, in Oxford, the ministers corresponding to them bear another name,—they ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... knowledge—too far-reaching, perhaps, at certain points. He has often too much paraded his knowledge, his dialectic and oratorical talents. What matters that, if even in this excess he aims solely at the welfare of souls—to edify them and set them aglow with the fire of his charity? At Thagaste, he disputes with his brethren, with his son Adeodatus. He is always the master—he knows it; but what humility he puts into this dangerous part! The conclusion ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... are in such hope will edify the public as to the final result of their experiment. What has that veteran in botany, Dr. Asa Gray, to say about it? Let some one well qualified tell us more about ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... shine, the waters of life we shall never be called upon to leave. We have here no continuing city, but we seek one to come. In such thoughts as these I desire ever to rest, and with such words as these let us 'comfort one another and edify one another.' ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... as they choose to call themselves, says, "The Mennonites are good people, and the most commodious to a state of any in the world; partly, because they do not aspire to places of dignity; partly, because they edify the community by the simplicity of their manners, and application to arts and industry; and partly, because we fear no rebellion from a sect who make it an article of their faith never to ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... their lives were so fresh and vivid that we never found them dull, perhaps we should not read at all. But, as it is, we can satisfy our craving for knowledge of life only by extending our social world through fiction. Fiction may teach us, edify us, make us better men—it may serve all these purposes incidentally, but its prime purpose as art is to provide us with new objects ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... and there seemed to be a call for some instruction fitted to confirm these new believers in the life of obedience. Mr. Muller accordingly followed these evangelists in England, Ireland, and Scotland, staying in each place from one week to six, and seeking to educate and edify those who had been led to Christ. Among the places visited on this errand in 1875, were London; then Kilmarnock, Saltwater, Dundee, Perth, Glasgow, Kirkentilloch in Scotland, and Dublin in Ireland; then, returning to England, he went to Leamington, Warwick, Kenilworth, ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... they decided, might without serious wrong meet together to pray and edify one another. But that a large number of sixty or more should do so every week was agreed to be "disorderly and without rule." And as Mrs. Hutchinson would not cease her preaching and teaching, but obstinately continued in her gross ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... Prose tales were written in astonishing quantities, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, by those pious authors who, under pretext of edifying and amusing their readers at the same time, began by amusing, and frequently forgot to edify. They put into their collections all they knew in the way of legends, jokes, and facetious stories. England produced several such collections; their authors usually add a moral to their tales, but sometimes omit it, or else they simply ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... dead nonsense in your own. I cannot see, for my part, why it is much better to sing "idle words" than to say them. How vapid, how senseless, is many a song one hears from a pretty mouth and a sweet voice. And in music as elsewhere, there is no middle ground: whatever does not edify—build up—pulls down. ...
— Tired Church Members • Anne Warner
... conviction on him that you were born to whatever you possess, and never did anything to get it: but he is of a less audacious disposition. He will stop before your gate, and say to his female companion with an air of constitutional humility and propitiation—to edify any one who may be within hearing behind a blind or a bush—'This is a sweet spot, ain't it? A lovelly spot! And I wonder if they'd give two poor footsore travellers like me and you, a drop of fresh water out of such a pretty ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... would ask you if the likeness can be considered correct when you give her no legs? You will see at the ballet that you are in error about women at present, Richard. That admirable institution which our venerable elders have imported from Gallia for the instruction of our gaping youth, will edify and astonish you. I assure you I used, from reading The Pilgrim's Scrip, to imagine all sorts of things about them, till I was taken there, and learnt that they are very like us after all, and then they ceased to trouble me. Mystery is the great ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... it would be a sinful neglect of privileges. I feel not well myself, and must, therefore, for thy sake, as well as my own, deny myself the refreshment of the good man's counsel. Thou shalt go, to edify me on thy return with what thou ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... you remember when I used to edify you with new and wonderful dishes every time you ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... the elder Doane, crushingly, "thar's trash in Virginny thet don't edify Kaintuck folks none by movin' ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... sinners of this class his patience was unwearied. For such, he said, God Himself waited patiently, even until the eleventh hour; adding that impatience was more likely to embitter them and retard their conversion than remonstrance to edify them. ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... deep philosophy With very special force, To edify a clergyman With suitable discourse: You think you've got him,—when he calls A friend across the way, And begs you'll say that funny thing You said the ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... have Pamela as Pamela wrote it; in her own Words, without Amputation, or Addition. Produce her to us in her neat Country Apparel, such as she appear'd in, on her intended Departure to her Parents; for such best becomes her Innocence, and beautiful Simplicity. Such a Dress will best edify and entertain. The flowing Robes of Oratory may indeed amuse and amaze, but will never strike the Mind ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... very much a different matter and occupies a place in Mr. Belloc's work difficult to discuss. It is frankly a novel, written as novels are, to entertain, to edify and to perform the spiritual functions of poetry and good literature. It is also unique in that it contains a story of love, a motive largely absent from Mr. ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... works to Appear in print were also occasioned by the work of his calling and of his office in the Wittenberg congregation. He had no other object in view than to edify his congregation and to lead it to Christ when, in 1517, he published his first independent work, the Explanation of the Seven Penitential Psalms. On Oct 31 of the same year he published his 95 Theses against Indulgences. These were indeed intended as controversial ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... reigned all day long in the Electoral palace. The Elector himself remained in his cabinet and had the court preacher John Bergius called, that he might pray with him and edify him by a few hours' pious conversation. But the dreadful uncertainty as to whether the White Lady had appeared in deep mourning or with black gloves still continued to disturb him, and whenever a door opened a shudder crept through his veins, ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... their bodies, for they inflict no corporal punishment, by banishment, imprisonment, branding, slitting, cropping, striking, whipping, dismembering, or killing. Not over their souls; for, them they desire by this government to gain, Matth. xviii. 15; to edify, 2 Cor. x. 8, and xiii. 10; and to save, 1 Cor. v. 5. Only this government ought to be impartial and severe against sin, that the flesh may be destroyed, 1 Cor. v. 5. It is only destructive to corruption, which is deadly and destructive to the soul. Thus the imputation ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... and you are like to edify much from a dumb preacher. This will not pass, I must examine the contents of him a little closer.—O thou confessor, confess who thou art, or thou art no friar of this world!—[He comes to LORENZO, who struggles with him; his Habit flies open, and discovers a Sword; ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... all the fine things that were to be seen, which my good friend, Josiah, will allow to be very babyish in a great fellow like me. But, Joe, to make my peace, I have brought you two small copies of verses for your scrap-book; and, as the subjects are serious, perhaps you will edify us all, by reading them aloud by the light of this ...
— The Little Quaker - or, the Triumph of Virtue. A Tale for the Instruction of Youth • Susan Moodie
... great fault, however. It will be impossible with such a structure to cause it to fly upside down. It does not present any means whereby dare-devil stunts can be performed to edify the grandstand. In this respect it is not in the same ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***
... consolation, perhaps the salvation, of His creatures and the poor thereof; and to the edification and confusion of the great numbers of barbarians, heathens, and infidels whom we have as witnesses about us looking at us, and who will see nothing that can move and edify them like such works of true charity, performed without worldly ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair
... ostensibly addressed. Wergeland himself, with all his self-sacrificing ardor, had but a vague conception of the real needs of the people, and, as far as results were concerned, wasted much of his valuable life in his efforts to improve, edify and instruct them. It hardly occurred to him that the culture of which he and his colleagues were the representatives was itself a foreign importation, and could not by any violent process be ingrafted upon the national trunk, which drew its strength from centuries of national ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... messenger of good news." So saying, he gave a signal to the Chancellor to take away Wildrake, whom he judged, in his present humour, to be not unlikely to communicate some former passages at Woodstock which might rather entertain than edify the wits ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... suppose the situation my friend Mrs Rooke is in at present, will furnish much either to interest or edify me. She is only nursing Mrs Wallis of Marlborough Buildings; a mere pretty, silly, expensive, fashionable woman, I believe; and of course will have nothing to report but of lace and finery. I mean to make my profit of Mrs Wallis, however. She has plenty of money, and I intend she shall buy all ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... navigation-mad, and commerce-mad, and Navy-mad, which is worst of all. How desirable it is that you should pursue that subject for us. From the porcupines of our country you will receive no thanks, but the great mass of our nation will edify, ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... were still to consider whether they would accept her; it was at her peril that she was to look, speak, or be silent. And even when she had entered on her dismal task of self-constraint in the society of three girls whom she was bound incessantly to edify, the same process of inspection was to go on: there was always to be Mrs. Mompert's supervision; always something or other would be expected of her to which she had not the slightest inclination; and perhaps the bishop would examine her on serious topics. Gwendolen, ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... Christian world to take part with him in celebrating these canonizations, and, at the same time, the eighteen hundredth anniversary of the martyrdom of the blessed Apostles, the founders of the Church. His object was to edify, to place in contrast with, and in opposition to, the worldly and unbelieving spirit of the time the teachings and the solemn offices of religion, together with the power of holiness, so admirably shown forth in the lives and glory ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... go down to her own house. After awhile the Queen said to her husband, "O King of the age, Hasan's lady-mother cannot take up her abode with her son and leave the Wazir; neither can she tarry with the Wazir and leave her son." "Thou sayest sooth," replied the King, and bade edify a third palace beside that of Hasan, which being done in a few days he caused remove thither the goods of the Wazir, and the Minister and his wife took up their abode there. Now the three palaces communicated with one another, so that when the King had a mind to speak with the Wazir ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... of his being that noted Offender, who had infested the Road for a considerable Time, it will be his Fate to be broke upon the Wheel. However, the Englishman has recover'd most of his Money, but he will be forc'd to expend it on Charges; but I will see to ease him in that Point. I was very much edify'd with this Clergyman's Generous and Christian Temper in being obliging and endeavouring to do good to every Body. But now the Time drew near that we were to leave Lyons, we had but one Day more to stay, and that the Irish Prebendary ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... work, your majesty, which we were reading, was a most learned and celebrated treatise," said Father Francis; "one highly calculated to edify and ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... skeptic, that he adhered to his faith through the whole Revolution, and that he has left several manuscript works on divinity. One of these is a pious treatise, entitled Of Christianity, and of its Influence. Another consists of meditations on the Psalms, which will doubtless greatly console and edify the Church. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Northiam," as Wood calls him, and indeed his name carries a symbol of his father's sanctity. Wood has given a few particulars of John, who, he says, "was a learned divine, and frequent preacher of the time, and wrote, 1. Fruitful Instructions and Necessary Doctrine, to edify in the Fear of God, &c., 1587. 2. Fruitful Instructions for the General Cause of Reformation, against the Slanders of the Pope and League, &c., 1589. 3. Certain Choice Grounds and Principles of our Christian ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 201, September 3, 1853 • Various
... In general, the last words attributed to Jesus, especially such as Luke records, are open to doubt. The desire to edify or to show the accomplishment of prophecies is perceptible. In these cases, moreover, every one hears in his own way. The last words of celebrated prisoners, condemned to death, are always collected in two or three entirely ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... to the king, Kingo states that "he has written these hymns with the hope that they might serve to edify his fellow Christians, advance the teaching of the Gospel and benefit the royal household at those daily devotions which it is the duty of every Christian home to practice". He prays, therefore, he continues, that "the king will graciously bestow the same approval ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... easy, rises without effort from the level of familiar conversation to heights of impassioned eloquence. His aim was not merely to compile the history of his people: he desired at the same time to edify them, by showing how sin first came into the world through disobedience to the commandments of the Most High, and how man, prosperous so long as he kept to the laws of the covenant, fell into difficulties as soon as he transgressed ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... were there constantly, not to speak of my behind-the-scenes acquaintance, the Rev. A.F.] I should like to seduce an old Archbishop into a liking for the wickedness of my mystery, so I did my very best to edify him, according to my kind and capacity.... At the end of the play, as I lay dead on the stage, the king (Captain Shelley) was cutting three great capers, like Bayard on his field of battle, for joy his ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... late, we are none the less sincere in extending to this timely and excellent work a hearty welcome. It is full of varied interest and valuable instruction. It is equally adapted to attract and edify our own citizens, and to guide and inform those foreigners who wish to know the history and facts of American society. The object of the work is to present a general view of the traits and transitions of our country, as they are reflected in the records made ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... after new things. He may be passionately fond of churches; if so, the trinity here to be seen, and the history of their founders and prelates, and the important part which they played in church affairs, will edify him greatly. If romance fills his or her mind, there is no more convenient centre than Tours from which to "do" the chateaux of the Loire. If it be French history, or the study of modern economic or commercial conditions, the past activities and present prosperity of the city ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... teacher to his people. Bryan himself then opened a school for the slaves on his plantation outside of Savannah. George Liele established a school in connection with his church in Jamaica, hoping to develop the minds of his communicants that he might properly edify their souls. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... if not to the heathen Hellenes, do our great teachers owe, under God, the noble art of coordinating their loftiest feelings, and casting them in forms which are intelligible to the Christian and at once instruct, delight, and edify him? It was in a heathen school that each one of your pastors—that even I, the humblest of them—studied that rhetoric which enables me to utter with a flowing tongue the things which the Spirit gives me to speak to you; and if some day there are Christian schools, in which ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... said, "ask Rachel! If she broke her back to-morrow she would have at least twenty good reasons for congratulation with which to edify me for the first time we met. Wouldn't you, dear? I am quite sure you would accept it as ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... rules of art, and awarded crowns to successful competitors in poetry; a formal ingenuity replaced lyrical inspiration; poetry accepted proudly the name of "rhetoric." At the same time there is gain in one respect—the poets no longer conceal their own personality behind their work: they instruct, edify, moralise, express their real or simulated passions in their own persons; if their art is mechanical, yet through it we make some acquaintance with the men and manners ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... attention occupied with one object, while he is obliged to answer questions, or to make observations, or to detail facts, or in any other way to employ his speaking powers extemporaneously, (not repeating words by rote,) the person who does so will greatly edify the young, and ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... books, and now the bells, And now our act, the preacher tells, To edify the people; All our divinity is news, And we have made of equal use The pulpit ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... deal for Tom to say at a stretch, and it fell to the voluble Pee-wee later to edify Mr. Rushmore with all the details of their trip, winding up with a glowing peroration on ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... welcoming Cuthbert Grant and the Bois-Brules, as if pillaging defenceless settlers were heroic. Victors from war may be inspiring, but a half-breed rabble, red-handed from deeds of violence, is not a sight to edify ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... reply, that in endeavoring to relieve the oppressed, to elevate the poor, and to instruct and edify those of a happier condition, he had only held "the mirror up to Nature. To show virtue her own form—scorn her own image." That "this only was the witchcraft he had used;" and, did he need proof of this, there are many fair girls on both sides of the ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... private services, and the warmth and kindliness of his dispositions. His pulpit discourses were elegantly composed, and largely impressed with originality and learning; but were somewhat imperfectly pervaded with those clear and evangelical views of Divine truth which are best calculated to edify a Christian audience. In private society, he was universally beloved. "His society," writes Mr Deans, "was courted by the rich and the poor, the learned and the unlearned. In every company he was alike kind, affable, and unostentatious; as a companion, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... not but look with shame upon serious Christians disporting themselves like children amongst coloured lamps, and listening as if enraptured to profane music, when, at so much less cost of money or of health, they might have been assembled together to improve and edify one another. ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... doe not like the Tower, of any place: Did Iulius Csar build that place, my Lord? Buck. He did, my gracious Lord, begin that place, Which since, succeeding Ages haue re-edify'd ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... God, that Christians should be often asserting the things of God to each other; and that by their so doing, they should edify one another. ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... as he that fights well. Why do we keep so many else in Pension that ne'er drew Sword, but to talk, and rail at the malignant Party; to libel and defame 'em handsomly, with pious useful Lyes, Which pass for Gospel with the common Rabble, And edify more than Hugh Peter's Sermons; And make Fools bring more Grist to the publick Mill. Then, Sir, to wrest the Law to our convenience Is ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.' There is the other metaphor of the stages of human life, 'babes in Christ,' young men in Him, old men and fathers. There is the metaphor of the growth of the body. There is the metaphor of the gradual building up of a structure. We are to 'edify ourselves together,' and to 'build ourselves up on our most holy faith.' There is the other emblem of a race—continual advance as the result of continual exertion, and the use of the powers ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... diversified knowledge, together with a creative fancy and a logical mind, gave him at all times, an unobtrusive reliance on himself; with an inexhaustible mental treasury that qualified him alike to shine in the friendly circle, or to charm, and astonish, and edify, in the crowded assembly. ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... not enough. He must be sure that he is properly called. Those who operate without a proper call seek no good purpose. God does not bless their labors. They may be good preachers, but they do no edify. Many of the fanatics of our day pronounce words of faith, but they bear no good fruit, because their purpose is to turn men to their perverse opinions. On the other hand, those who have a divine ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... vacuolization. edifice, building, structure, fabric, erection, pile, tower, flower, fruit. V. produce, perform, operate, do, make, gar, form, construct, fabricate, frame, contrive, manufacture; weave, forge, coin, carve, chisel; build, raise, edify, rear, erect, put together, set up, run up; establish, constitute, compose, organize, institute; achieve, accomplish &c (complete) 729. flower, bear fruit, fructify, teem, ean^, yean^, farrow, drop, pup, kitten, kindle; bear, lay, whelp, bring forth, give birth to, lie in, be ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... had always said gold was none too good for Missy Rosy to walk upon. Apart from this consideration, she herself had an Oriental delight in things that were lustrous and gayly colored. Tom had learned to read quite fluently, and was accustomed to edify his household companions with chapters from the Bible on Sunday evenings. The descriptions of King Solomon's splendor made a lively impression on Tulee's mind. When she dusted the spacious parlors, she looked admiringly at the large mirrors, the gilded circles of gas lights, and the great pictures ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... it. She read me a very clever scene about a weak young parson bent on pleasing himself; and offered to lend me the book, but I thought it would not edify Will Walker. But, no doubt, you have ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... original, to edify the Arcadians, and to give myself pleasure, I shall be to-day a virtuous son, conducting ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... of thought by means of impassioned imagery. In his poems as elsewhere he is a good deal of a rhetorician, but he is never insincere. His verse came from the heart, only it was the expression of character and convictions rather than of moods and fancies. It seems intended to edify rather than to portray; to impress rather than to delight. Some of it, too, is occupied with ideal sentiments so abstract and sublimated as to possess but languid interest for normally constituted lovers of poetry. For a while, at least, after his ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... Berne. Till then Arras had supplied most of the splendid decorations of which we find such marvellous lists. Every possible subject—religious, romantic, historical, and allegorical—was pressed into the service, and pictured hangings were supposed to instruct, amuse, and edify the beholders. The dark ages were illuminated, and their barbarity softened, by these constant appeals to men's highest instincts, and to the memories of their noblest antecedents and aspirations, which clothed their walls, and so became a part of their daily lives. ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... and had as brief an existence, but tended to defame persons of the most spotless character. In this age, she said everything got into print sooner or later; the name of Lady Mary Wortley would be sure to attract curiosity; and were such details ever made public, they would neither edify the world, nor do honour ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... political career before him. "Take the Kaiser's cause, you and I together; build a new Italy under the Emperor." And Sordello is fired by the thought, not as yet for the sake of doing good to man, but to satisfy his curiosity in a new life, and to edify his individual soul into a perfection unattained as yet. "I will go," he thinks, "and be the spirit in this body of mankind, wield, animate, and shape the people of Italy, make them the form in which I shall express ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... more, seal to me my spiritual health, in affording me the seals of thy church; and for my temporal health, prosper thine ordinance, in their hands who shall assist in this sickness, in that manner, and in that measure, as may most glorify thee, and most edify those who observe the issues of thy servants, to their ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... and yet he rarely resorts to the puff direct, and never indulges in the puff figurative, so much practised by his renowned predecessor, the late knight of the hammer, Christie, the elder, who by the superabundancy of his rhetorical 18flurishes, was accustomed from his elevated rostrum to edify and amuse his ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... brought To edify a modern world, Full many a hate-filled soul was hurled In lakes of ...
— Poems of Experience • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... and nobility of disposition is supposed to show itself in the absolute disregard of them, or else, if he is a better kind of man, he will force on Nature a didactic purpose; he composes what are called moral tales, which may edify the conscience, but ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... laughed; and Schehati, encouraged by the success of his attempt to edify and amuse, used lines of the immortal nursery epic as signals for united action during the remainder of the climb. Therefore Jane mounted one step to the fact that Jack fell down, and scaled the next to information as to the serious nature of his injuries, and at the third, Schehati, bending ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... order, which was suffering for her sons; and so that it might be understood that where there had been religious who had caused so evil an example, there were also those who could, by their example, edify a great community. According to this, father Fray Estacio Ortiz seemed very suitable to those who were present. He was the founder of the missions in Japon, and had always been known to be of a very religious life and had been highly esteemed ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... we thus speak," we hope better things, especially from the decided followers of the Lamb, of every name; "things which make for peace, things wherewith one may edify another, and things which accompany salvation" ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... come up to the wisdom of the blessed and renowned Paul: who, being himself in person with those who then lived, did with all exactness and soundness teach the word of truth; and being gone from you wrote an epistle to you. Into which, if you look, you will be able to edify yourselves in the faith that has been delivered unto you; which is the mother of us all; being followed with hope, and led on by a general love, both toward God and toward Christ and toward ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... late reign liberty of conscience was unexpectedly given, he gathered his congregation at Bedford, where he mostly lived and had spent most of his life. Here a new and larger meeting-house was built, and when, for the first time, he appeared there to edify, the place was so thronged that many were constrained to stay without, though the house ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... They built to edify or bewilder; I build because I am a builder. Crescent and street and square I build, Plaster and paint and carve and gild. Around the city see them stand, These triumphs of my shaping hand, With bulging walls, with sinking ...
— Moral Emblems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to preach, etc. There were certain prophets and teachers in the church at Antioch, as Barnabas, Simeon, Lucius, Manaen, and Saul or Paul. Acts 13:1. They were public expounders of the Scriptures. Prophesy—to speak, to edify, exhort, and comfort. 1 Cor. 14:3. A few examples: Zacharias filled with the Holy Ghost prophesied. Luke 1:67-79. Compare this prophecy with Mary's words in Luke 1:46-55. "They spake with tongues and prophesied." Acts 19:6. ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... son! (to Demaenetus) Is this the way for a father to edify his children? Is there nothing you're ashamed of? (helps him off ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... in the Congregationalist paper, The Independent, commented in his usual facetious style, which pinned him down neither to praise nor unfriendliness, but Susan was grateful to read, "The Revolution from the start will arouse, thrill, edify, amuse, vex, and non-plus its friends. But it will command attention: it will conquer a hearing." Newspapers were generally friendly. "Miss Anthony's woman's rights paper," declared the Troy (New York) Times, ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... counter-arguments to the contrary notwithstanding. Truly evangelical, because in adhering with unswerving loyalty to the seemingly contradictory, but truly Scriptural doctrine of grace, it serves the purpose of the Scriptures, which—praise the Lord—is none other than to save, edify, and comfort poor ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... solve," continued the president; "it is that of endowing a projectile with a speed of 12,000 yards per second. I have every reason to believe that we shall succeed, but at present let us see what speeds we have already obtained; General Morgan can edify us ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... Delambre to examine it and address a report to him. The illustrious astronomer, despite the persistence with which Alexandre refused to give up his secret to him, drew a report, the few following extracts from which will, we think, suffice to edify the reader: ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various
... months, the fleet did not arrive in Quebec until the 22d of September, 1653. She therefore set her foot on Canadian soil for the first time in the capital of New France. It was like taking possession of the Province she was afterwards to edify and instruct, by word and example, not only by her own immediate labors, but also by the zeal of those who were in the designs of God to continue the good work she so happily commenced, and to continue it for ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... no one is the better for his talk. But he that speaketh in a known tongue can be understood by all; and all are instructed, and comforted, and strengthened. And even God can understand a known tongue as well as an unknown one. He that speaketh in an unknown tongue may edify himself perhaps; but he that speaketh in a known one, edifieth the Church. I do not grudge you your unknown tongues, but I had a great deal rather you would use a known one; for greater is he that speaketh in a known one, than he that ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... will be ethical and not aesthetic merely. Morality penetrates all things, it is the soul of all things. Beauty may clothe it on, whether it is false morality and an evil soul, or whether it is true and a good soul. In the one case the beauty will corrupt, and in the other it will edify, and in either case it will infallibly and inevitably have an ethical effect, now light, now grave, according as the thing is light or grave. We cannot escape from this; we are shut up to it by the very conditions of our being. For the moment, it is charming to have a story end happily, but ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... continued Fink; "I have no superfluous sentimentality; but in this particular case I should not consider it friendly in you to wish to edify me by a lecture. Is it then so unpleasant to have me to help ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... is not my primary purpose to edify, entertain, or instruct a million women with poems, stories, and fashion-hints. Mr. Bok may think it is. He is merely the innocent victim of a harmless delusion, and he draws a salary for being deluded. To be frank and confidential ...
— Commercialism and Journalism • Hamilton Holt
... joy in the Holy Ghost. 18. For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and approved of men. 19. Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another. 20. For meat destroy not the work of God. All things indeed are pure; but it is evil for that man who eateth with offence. 21. It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak. 22. Hast thou ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... to see Socrates presented, that example of all good life, honesty, and virtue, to have him hoisted up with a pulley, and there play the philosopher in a basket; measure how many foot a flea could skip geometrically, by a just scale, and edify the people from the engine. This was theatrical wit, right stage jesting, and relishing a playhouse, invented for scorn and laughter; whereas, if it had savoured of equity, truth, perspicuity, and candour, ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... of "Robinson Crusoe," "the observations on this most preposterous piece of Church work are so many, they cannot come into the compass of this paper; but if the money raised here be employed to re-edify this chapel, I would have it, as is very frequent, in like cases, written over the door in capital letters: 'This church was re-edified anno 1706, at the expense and by the charitable contribution of the enemies of the reformation of our morals, and to the eternal ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... no corrective to this state of things could be hoped. It is said that every people has the Government it deserves. It is more to the point that every Government has the electorate it deserves; for the orators of the front bench can edify or debauch an ignorant electorate at will. Thus our democracy moves in a vicious circle of reciprocal worthiness ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... hallucinations') inhered in an American State; or perhaps you believe the child is longing for a pot of sugar candy? Then rub your eyes, you ecclesiastical bats, and let me show you the 'outcome' of all this wise and learned chat, with which you edify one another. You know she beguiled me into giving her lessons on the organ, as well as the piano, and yesterday when I went over to the church at instruction hour, I was astonished at a prelude, which she had evidently improvised. ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... range of Scripture knowledge and some little guidance in its public affairs. Singularly free from the admixture of foreign elements in its constitution, it had pastors and teachers; the brethren were accustomed to edify one another, and were zealous for the spread of ...
— Fruits of Toil in the London Missionary Society • Various
... with all the redeemed in acts of solemn worship offered directly to the Lamb.—"Many angels," how many? Some divines have actually attempted, by arithmetical rules, to compute the number! Such employment may amuse, but it cannot edify. The definite here mentioned for indefinite numbers, may be easily computed; (as in Dan. vii. 10; Ps. lxviii. 17;) but still we would labor in vain "to find out the account;" for we are expressly told that they are "innumerable." (Heb. xii. 22.) Like the ransomed ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... used this preaching of the Word, not only to edify the brethren, but to bring men to repentance. The numbers may seem small when compared with those reported by our American evangelists laboring among the tens of thousands in our great cities, but, under the circumstances, ...
— American Missionary, Vol. XLII., June, 1888., No. 6 • Various
... his own hands. But let us not, by any means, endeavour to confound men that err and mistake, since we are men as well as they, and no less subject to error. Let us only pity them, study to light and inform them with patience, edify them, pray for them, and conclude ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... refused to accept these ghostly counsels, which all tended toward a more rigorous holiness, there was no room left for Halsey's work in Kirtland. He determined to fare forth to Missouri, there to comfort and edify the Saints scattered abroad ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... learn to forgive. We have been too long aliens from God, and wedded to our evil passions. We must fling aside the scowl of defiance, the angry malediction, the sword and the firebrand, and, like Christians and neighbors, contract an alliance that may edify as much as our discord has scandalized. I conjure you, in the name of the victims already made by our feud—of the numbers who must perish by its continuance—in the name of the holy Church whose precepts we have disregarded, of the God whose Commandments we have violated, not to dismiss me in ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... the dulcet notes of a poem written years ago, which were wont to edify the court with a strain that would sound inharmonious there to-day. What would De Montespan and De Maintenon say to such discordant lines as these?" And Louvois began ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... for imparting secular education till the days of Edward VI.; that apart from practices such as pilgrimages, indulgences, and invocation of the saints, there was no real religion among the masses; that both secular and regular clergy lived after a manner more likely to scandalise than to edify the faithful; that the people were up in arms against the exactions and privileges of the clergy, and that all parties only awaited the advent of a strong leader to throw off the yoke of Rome. These are sweeping generalisations based upon isolated abuses put ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... upon the many perplexed questions that are made concerning Christ and his offices, about which so many volumes are spun out, to the infinite distinction of the Christian world. They do not pretend to satisfy your curiosity, but to edify your souls, and therefore they hold out God in Christ, as clothed with all his relations to mankind, in all those plain and easy properties, that concern us everlastingly,—his justice, mercy, grace, patience, love, holiness, and such like. Now, hence I gather, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... may be allowed to profit by the second part of it," said Trevannion, turning to Louis; "will you be kind enough to edify me?" ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... or Entertain. Edify means to build; it has, therefore, the sense of uplift, improvement—usually ...
— Write It Right - A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults • Ambrose Bierce
... proposition that while the function of Ethics is to instruct, that of Art is to delight. "I hold," he writes, "that Art's duty is to instruct as much as, if not more than, that of Ethics. Art to be great must elevate and edify." Hudson wrote: "The common view that the primitive ages of the world were ages of colossal individualism is grotesquely unhistorical; they were, on the contrary, ages in which group-life and group-consciousness ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... change them into quiet, polite, pleasant patients; and how, later, they will take their turn at washing dishes, with a docility that would make their wives stupid with amazement. All such matters (and the more you try to think of them, the more you will be able to recall) will amuse and really edify your patient, many of whom think of a hospital only as a place ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... the beginning to the end of the chapter is, "Let all things be done unto edifying." Their women, who had not been previously instructed like the men, were very naturally guilty of asking questions which did not edify the assembly. It was better that they should wait till they got home for the desired information, rather than put an individual good before the good of the Church. Nothing else is forbidden. There is not a word here against woman's teaching. The apostle says ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... propel it. The prime duty of God's ambassador is to arouse the attention of souls before his pulpit; to stir those who are indifferent; to awaken those who are impenitent; to cheer the sorrow-stricken; to strengthen the weak, and edify believers An advocate in a criminal trial puts his grip on every juryman's ear So must every herald of Gospel-truth demand and command a hearing, cost what it may: but that hearing he never will secure while he addresses an audience ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... struck the hour for the dawning of a new day. And here perhaps lies the solution to the problem why so much energy, self-denial, penance on the part of the preachers of reform, produced so little result; why such brave efforts failed to restore, renew and edify the Church. Was she then incapable of rising to a new life? The answer lies in the words of her Divine Founder: "My hour is not yet come." Until then, all reformers preached more or less in the wilderness; for few had ears to hear. God's hour was assuredly winging ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... indeed, better far than a mere knowledge of what that will is. But in some whom I have seen, there is a beautiful union of a high degree of this knowing and willing; and these are they to whom it is given to edify the Church. ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... together a few congenial spirits. Dalaber and Fitzjames are already there, making all ready, and Radley will start tomorrow, taking Master Clarke in his charge, since it is of all things needful for him to have a change of air to restore him to health. He will be our chaplain, and edify us by his discourses when he has recovered his health and strength. But more than this: we want some man of learning and greater age and standing to direct us in our studies; and it is my great hope that you and your daughters will come and be my guests for a few weeks—you, ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the tariff to be a law which discommodes a lady who has been purchasing gloves in Paris. He thinks smuggling the great evil of the present tariff system; it is such a temptation, so insidious a break-down of moral fibre. His views must edify Carlow." ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... those speeches will so edify and soothe me, nor merely because those veiled statues will make less uncouth the city I was born in, do I feverishly thrust on you my proposition. The wish in me is that posterity shall be haunted by our dead heroes even as I am by Umberto. Rather hard on posterity? Well, the prevision ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... purpose of doing something effectual for its illustration. Element by element the plan of the "Family Expositor" evolved, and he set to work on a New Testament Commentary, which should at once instruct the uninformed, edify the devout, and facilitate the studies of the learned. Happy is the man who has a "magnum opus" on hand! Be it an "Excursion" poem, or a Southey's "Portugal," or a Neandrine "Church History,"—to the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... of Providence. But the Author hesitates not to say, that he has availed himself of all the materials which the research of modern times has brought to light, while he has carefully rejected all such speculations or conjectures as might gratify the curiosity of learning without tending to edify the youthful mind. The account which is given of the Feasts and Fasts of the Jews, both before and after the Babylonian Captivity, will, it is hoped, prove useful to the reader, more especially by pointing out to him appropriate subjects of reflection ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... of a thing by its susceptibility of application to the purpose of this present life, but a utility whose measure was love, charity. The apostle considered that gift most desirable by which men might most edify one another. And hence that noble declaration of one of the most gifted of mankind—"I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that I might teach others also, than ten thousand words ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... with Spinoza was the basis of the investigation as a whole, were foreign to mediaeval Judaism—in fact, entirely modern and original. This object was to make science independent of religion, whose records and doctrines are to edify the mind and to improve the character, not to instruct the understanding. "Spinoza could not have learned the complete separation of religion and science from Jewish literature; this was a tendency which sprang from the spirit of his ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... shall begin, good reader, with one of those startling bursts of "illustration," with which our most popular preachers are wont now to astonish and edify their hearers, and after starting with them at the opening of the sermon from the north-pole, the Crystal Palace, or the nearest cabbage-garden, float them safe, upon the gushing stream of oratory, to the safe and well-known shores of doctrinal commonplace, lost in admiration at the skill of the ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley |
