"Initiatory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... subject for congratulation that the great Empire of Brazil has taken the initiatory step toward the abolition of slavery. Our relations with that Empire, always cordial, will naturally be made more so by this act. It is not too much to hope that the Government of Brazil may hereafter find it for its interest, as well as intrinsically right, to advance toward entire emancipation ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... Science considers, primarily and predominantly, the more exact and rigorous relations of Phenomena; and the existence of an exact and definite point of departure in Thought and Being, more fundamental, from the Scientific or rigorously precise point of view, than that of Hegel, is the initiatory ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... popular attraction, the first as an object of reverence, the second as food for curiosity with the profane, and a bond of union among the initiated. The religious symbolism of the Carbonari, their oaths and ceremonies, and the axes, blocks and other furniture of the initiatory chamber, were well calculated to impress the poorer and more ignorant and excitable of the brethren. The Vatican affected to believe that Carbonarism was an offshoot of Freemasonry, but, in spite of sundry points of resemblance, ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... be paid his money. To this conclusion, at least, Maud's reflections never failed to lead. Without such initiatory proceeding it was useless to think of demanding the return of that written promise. But how to raise the funds? After much wavering and hesitation, Miss Bruce resolved at last to pawn her diamonds. So dearly do women love their trinkets, that I believe, though he never knew it, Tom Ryfe was more ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... gratitude is due in respect of this to the governing body of the Girls' Public Day School Trust, since its schools were numerous enough soon to create a tradition requiring for their Headmistresses great initiatory ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... 1d. each. No. 1 initiatory lines, curves, letters, figures; 2 and 3, short letters, easy combinations, figures; 4, long letters, short words, figures; 5, long letters, words, figures; 6, 7, and 8, capitals, words, figures; 9, short ...
— Five Months at Anzac • Joseph Lievesley Beeston
... might expect, the reason why unbaptized babes are held to be so liable to these attacks is that until the initiatory rite has been performed they are looked upon as heathen, and therefore peculiarly under the dominion of evil spirits. In Sicily and in Spain an infant until baptism is called by the opprobrious epithets of Pagan, Turk, Moor, Jew. Even women will not kiss it, for to kiss a Moor, at all events ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... Comparing the initiatory undertaking or covenant of the Druses, as represented by Col. Churchill in his very important disclosures (Lebanon, ii. 244.), with the original Arabic, and the German translation of Eichhorn (Repertorium ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... insensible to danger, suffering, and death; and as we are so often called upon to fight each other, and die in defence of our liberties, or of our tyrants and oppressors, whichever it may be, it seems to me we are in need of some such initiatory process in the art of seeing blood shed unmoved, and of some lessons which shall diminish our love and regard for life. As for the gladiators, they are wretches who are better dead than alive; and to die in the excitement of a combat is not worse, perhaps, than to ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... the invasion of her earthly trouble. She had approached the silent shelter with cries of supplication for herself and for her child, the sweet mortal thing she had loved above all mortal things. Every year had made it harder for her to reach the sources of her help, hardest of all to achieve the initiatory state, the nakedness, the prostration, the stillness of the dedicated soul. Too many miseries cried and strove in her. She could no longer shut to her door, and bar the passage to the procession of her thoughts, no longer cleanse and empty her spirit's house for the ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... the intercourse at that time, whether it be internal, that is of souls and minds, which is intercourse in the principle idea, or whether it be only external, that is of minds (animorum), of the senses, and of the body. The state of marriage of a youth with a maiden is essentially itself initiatory to genuine marriage; for between these conjugial love can proceed in its just order, which is from its first heat to its first torch, and afterwards from its first seed with the youth-husband, and from ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... this connection is as to the right or wisdom of an unordained lady missionary to administer this initiatory rite to such women converts. This question, of course, will be largely decided in accordance with the ecclesiastical connection of those who consider it. There is a growing number of persons who believe that it would be well that ladies be authorized to administer ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... the Church of Scotland renders it an object of ambition to many in the middle ranks of life; and the parents of Mungo Park, judging that his peculiar disposition fitted him for the ministry, were anxious that he should enter upon the initiatory course of education. Park, however, manifested a decided repugnance to this choice, and resolved upon qualifying himself for the medical profession. Accordingly, at the age of fifteen, he was bound ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... man, and had been so all his life. He was about fifty years of age, and not disposed to alter his habits, but he required Mrs. Mumbles to alter hers. He proceeded, therefore, to give his worthy spouse some initiatory instructions in the art of jointing a scrag of mutton, cutting out a pluck, or chinning a whole sheep upon an occasion. This was very different from novel reading. She had, indeed, read of knights cleaving their adversaries from the 'chaps to the chine,' and of 'sticking ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... fairly be supposed to have actuated the Convention in allowing so important an initiatory ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... takes the words, of which the clauses are composed, and catechises the child upon them also. This is called the "Verbal Exercise," which has been found of great value in the teacher's intercourse with his younger classes. Upon these principles the Initiatory Catechisms and their Keys have been formed, together with the several Helps for communicating Scriptural knowledge. The success of these school books, although labouring under all the disadvantages of new instruments, imperfectly ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... from the members of the Observatory, the gun destined to launch the projectile had to be fixed in a country situated between the 0 and 28th degrees of north or south latitude, in order to aim at the moon when at the zenith; and its initiatory velocity was fixed at twelve thousand yards to the second. Launched on the 1st of December, at 10hrs. 46m. 40s. P.M., it ought to reach the moon four days after its departure, that is on the 5th of December, at midnight precisely, at the moment of her attaining her perigee, that is her ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... not at fault, as the result proved; but it was not without the most careful consideration and many anxious consultations, especially with his trusty old friend, Baron Stockmar, that the King allowed himself to take the initiatory step in the matter. If the young couple were to love and wed it was certainly necessary that they should meet, that "the favourable impression" might be made, as the two honourable conspirators put it delicately. For this there was no more time to be lost, when so many suitors had already entered ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... great Sacraments ordained by Christ as generally (universally) necessary to salvation. Holy Baptism is the initiatory rite by which we are admitted into the fellowship of Christ's Religion, admitted into His Church. Baptism is a covenant made between God and man; of this covenant the Christian name, which was then given us, is the reminder; reminding us of our new relationship ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller
... antiques in the Vatican disciplined his eye and touch,—thus by a healthful, rigorous process attaining the manual skill and the mature judgment which equipped him to venture wisely in the realm of original conception,—there was a thoroughness and a progressive application in his whole initiatory course, prophetic, to those versed in the history of Art, of the ultimate and secure success ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... also been the victim of a similar disposition. Longing to see foreign lands, he had run away to sea; and by an unlucky accident, through sheer ignorance of her character, had chosen the Pandora in which to make his initiatory voyage. From the cruel treatment he had been subjected to on board the bark, he had reason to see his folly. Irksome had been his existence from the moment he set foot on the deck of the Pandora; and indeed it would have been scarce endurable ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... hand to a stranger as to a friend, when she wishes to bestow some mark of cordiality in welcoming a guest to her home, but a gentleman should not take the initiatory in handshaking. It is the lady's privilege to give or ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... significance; the symbolism of the double-headed eagle; why the eagle was an ancient religious symbol; the antithesis of "the eagle and the dove" explained; the "lamb and the goat" symbolism; the God-ideas of the Ancients and their effects on modern life; why "riding the goat" is the usual initiatory rite and ceremony in secret orders; some secret plates of Hermetic orders explained; what is the "magic solvent" of the alchemists? the relation of Christian symbolism to the Alchemical secrets; the inner meaning of "the sun and the moon" in ancient literature; transmutation: exterior ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... first and comprehensive title indicates, covers a narration of the initiatory schemes and measures for the exploration and settlement of the New World by France and England. As France had the precedence in that enterprise, this first volume is fitly devoted to its rehearsal. The French story is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... the scrambling and kicking at first was frightful; but Paterfamilias dragged the younger children out into the road, and other help was nigh at hand, and the providential calm that comes over fallen horses after their initiatory struggle was at hand too, and in due time matters were righted: that those two fiery stallions did not kick everything to pieces, and that all four steeds did not gallop us to destruction, was due, under ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... harangues, and to increase their ranks by recruits. From Washington the Union army began to advance with considerable strength and determination, compelling General Lee to relinquish his design of penetrating into Pennsylvania. Initiatory steps were now being taken for a great battle, the first encounter of which took place, under General Pleasonton, who commanded our cavalry during this campaign, at the Catoctin Creek, in Middletown, Maryland. The enemy's rearguard, ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... "Shall we call these new fillings with the Holy Spirit 'fresh baptisms' with the Holy Spirit?" To this we would answer, the expression "baptism" is never used in the Scriptures of a second experience and there is something of an initiatory character in the very thought of baptism, so if one wishes to be precisely Biblical, it would seem to be better not to use the term "baptism" of a second experience but to limit it to the first experience. On the other hand "filled with ...
— The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit • R. A. Torrey
... Upshur, Secretary of State under President Tyler, was killed by the explosion of a monster cannon whilst visiting said vessel, in company with the President and other members of the Cabinet. The duty aboard this vessel was of an initiatory character, to prepare officers for clerical duties peculiar to each of their particular offices. I made the acquaintance on this vessel of Surgeon James McClelland, who was the Surgeon of the Princeton. He had entered the United States Navy when a young ...
— Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy • John M. Batten
... with the message of the commons; but she peremptorily rejected their advice, and its members were, on their return, hissed and hooted by the populace. Every hope of conciliation being now at an end on the motion of Lord Castlereagh, the commons voted a further adjournment, in order to leave initiatory proceedings to the house of lords. But though the commons waited quietly till their lordships made a further movement in the matter, the country did not. The whole kingdom was turned into one great arena of disputation, in which ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... by Cephisian reed, Would fain, pretending just the insect's good, Whisk off, drive back, consign to shade again. Into another state, under new rule I knew myself was passing swift and sure; Whereof the initiatory pang approached, Felicitous annoy, as bitter-sweet As when the virgin-band, the victors chaste, Feel at the end the earthly garments drop, And rise with something of a rosy shame Into immortal nakedness: so I Lay, and let come the proper throe ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... begin the sports by the most cruel of all; and some bestiarius, or gladiator appointed to the beasts, was slain first as an initiatory sacrifice. But in the present instance the experienced Pansa thought better that the sanguinary drama should advance, not decrease, in interest; and accordingly the execution of Olinthus and Glaucus was reserved for the last. It was arranged that the two horsemen should first ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... "Amma ba'ad" or (Wa ba'ad), an initiatory formula attributed to Koss ibn Sa'idat al-Iyadi, bishop of Najran (the town in Al-Yaman which D'Herbelot calls Negiran) and a famous preacher in Mohammed's day, hence "more eloquent than Koss" (Maydani, Arab. Prov., 189). He was the first who addressed ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... possible place of residence—because the only sure place of hiding—was London, and to London Mr. Tymperley betook himself. Not at once did he learn the art of combating starvation with minim resources. During his initiatory trials he was once brought so low, by hunger and humiliation, that he swallowed something of his pride, and wrote to a certain acquaintance, asking counsel and indirect help. But only a man in Mr. Tymperley's position learns how vain is well-meaning advice, and how impotent is social influence. ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... chameleonship that his greatest good fortune lies. He has only to change his habitat—his ASSOCIATIONS. But the impulse to do it must come from the OUTSIDE—he cannot originate it himself, with that purpose in view. Sometimes a very small and accidental thing can furnish him the initiatory impulse and start him on a new road, with a new idea. The chance remark of a sweetheart, "I hear that you are a coward," may water a seed that shall sprout and bloom and flourish, and ended in producing a surprising fruitage—in the fields of war. The history of man is full of such ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... evident. The army around Richmond was waiting for Jackson to dislodge McClellan from the Chickahominy swamps, and our attack was to be made on his right flank. It seems that our powers of endurance had been over-estimated or the distance miscalculated, as the initiatory battle at Mechanicsville was fought by A. P. Hill without Jackson's aid. This was the first of the seven days' fighting around Richmond. We arrived in the neighborhood of Cold Harbor about two P. M. ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... weeks Rounders continued to go through a performance like the initiatory one, but at the end of that time his ambition moved him to do something more. Pompey was tractable, and he determined to attempt the "meat-jerk." He had not forgotten the advice of Brinton, but he thought it was given through jealousy. He communicated his determination ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... by kindness," exclaimed the emperor. "True, we take their insignificant fatherland, but we give them instead, the rich inheritance of our own nationality; and future history will record it to their honor that theirs was the initiatory step which subsequently made one nation of all the little ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... The initiatory for a state organization was taken by the Woman's Temperance Union of Syracuse, which, at a meeting held September 10, 1874, decided to call a state convention of all women's temperance organizations, to be held at Syracuse ...
— Two Decades - A History of the First Twenty Years' Work of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of the State of New York • Frances W. Graham and Georgeanna M. Gardenier
... thing as this, that hereafter baptism should, by divine revelation, be changed for anointing with oil, and nothing were said about children. I would anoint the child with oil, instead of baptizing it with water. We are to use the initiatory rite of the ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams
... what is local and against the thought of the stranger, no matter how beautiful it may be, is still to be reckoned with—yet in the highest sense as conferring upon him a new delight, there can be no doubt; for, after the necessary expenditure of patient application, and the passing of the initiatory stages which in every department of study are somewhat trying, the attraction will begin, and the subject become positively fascinating. To any one having the lyrical gift and the necessary qualifications for the study of Greek, those service-books ...
— Hymns of the Greek Church - Translated with Introduction and Notes • John Brownlie
... much accustomed to the opening sentences of our own Liturgy, "When the wicked man turneth away from the wickedness that he hath committed," &c., that their opening words startled us at first; but their two or three initiatory sentences are well selected to begin the service; the first being, "The Lord is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... And all of these steps, subsequent to the "reception" and inaugural preaching, were now summarily characterised by the revolutionists as "spiritual;" for the sake of sequestering them into their own hands. As to the initiatory act of presentation, that might be secular, and to be dealt with by a secular law. But the rest were acts which belonged not to a kingdom of this world. "These," with a new-born scrupulosity never heard of until the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... of Lucian Davlin, she took the initiatory step in the part she was henceforth to play. And she took it unhesitatingly, as if dissimulation was to her no new thing. Truly, necessity, emergency, is the mother of much besides "invention." Entering, she gave him her hand with free ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... 'let the soldier's music and the rites of war speak loudly for him.' 'Go, bid the souldiers shoote,' with which the drama closes, is a more definite initiatory order to the ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... Kabalist; and the writer of the Gospel of Saint John a Gnostic or a Neoplatonist. The Gospel of Nicodemus is scarcely more than a copy of the Descent of Hercules into the Infernal Regions; the Epistle to the Corinthians is a distinct reminiscence of the initiatory Mysteries of Eleusis; and the Roman Ritual, according to H. P. Blavatsky, is the reproduction of ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... critics, if anyone would collect the critical soliloquies of every age touching its own literature, (as far as such may be extant) and confer them with the literary product of the said ages. Professor Wilson has begun something of the kind apparently, in his initiatory paper of the last Blackwood number on critics, beginning with Dryden—but he seems to have no design in his notice—it is a mere critique on the critic. And then, he should have begun earlier than Dryden—earlier even than Sir Philip Sydney, who in the noble ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... fine day you yourself would have to canonize one of these Yankee fellows.' In one word, he left nothing unsaid or undone with the Pope in our favor; and the Pope suggested to him obtaining dispensation of our vows and forming a new company. 'They cannot expect me,' he said, 'to take the initiatory step; this would be putting the cart before the horse. Let them do this, and present their plan to me, and if I find it good, it shall have my consent.' . . . The bishop has also seen and won over to our favor Monsignor Talbot, who said to him: 'The only way now of settling ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... having tasted the delights of liberty would have been a tragedy, and there were even wider considerations to be taken into account. Since his bereavement he had unconsciously taken up a far bolder and more initiatory line in public affairs, and his popularity and influence had increased correspondingly. From being merely a strong man in the political world he began to be spoken of as the strong man. All this he knew would be jeopardised if he once more ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... rentiers is considered, i.e., men and women of the middle-class living upon a minimum income, we can understand the usefulness of this home. I learned that the establishment is self-supporting, the initiatory expense having been borne by the town ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... her, with their sweet ordos, were the censers and incense, and the sunlighted garden, the earliest sacred place of Bible history, where the first fair woman worshipped, was the hallowed ground of the initiatory rite. ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... intention he had had of making a circuit through Persia and China on his return, he determined to follow her then without any deviation from his course. In the beginning of 1794 he published a translation of the Ordinances of Menu, on which he had been long employed, and which may be regarded as initiatory ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... invitation, feeling extremely awkward because Miss Alicia's initiatory comment upon his goodness in showing himself had "rattled" him. It had made him feel that he must appear condescending, and he had never condescended to any one in the whole course of his existence. He had, indeed, not even been condescended to. ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... quantity of his dried flowers, beautifully preserved and arranged; and showed Esther one or two groups of plants, giving her various initiatory instruction by the way. It was a most delightful half hour to the little girl; and she went home after it, with her Latin grammar in her hands, very much aroused and wakened up and cheered from her dull condition of despondency; just ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... spilt it is not suffered to fall upon the ground, but is received upon the bodies of his fellow-tribesmen. Thus in some Australian tribes boys who are being circumcised are laid on a platform, formed by the living bodies of the tribesmen; and when a boy's tooth is knocked out as an initiatory ceremony, he is seated on the shoulders of a man, on whose breast the blood flows and may not be wiped away. "Also the Gauls used to drink their enemies' blood and paint themselves therewith. So also they write that the old Irish were wont; and so have I seen some of the Irish ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... morning that had been fixed for the evacuation, there came to me a polite request that I should visit M. le Maire at the Hotel de Ville. His worship was elaborately civil but obviously troubled in mind. He coughed nervously several times after the initiatory compliments had passed, and then he began to speak. "Monsieur, you are aware that the Germans ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... tempted the facile penman to essay the task of harmless imitation; his success has surprised and flattered him, and the easy possibilities of forgery opened up. More than one forger has admitted that his initiatory lessons were prompted by an innocent challenge to imitate a particularly ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... vague and are lost and elements formerly significant are added and combinations of them are made for embellishment alone, without reference to meaning or appropriateness; but I am inclined to place this period a very long way from the initiatory stages of the art. It may not be possible to find evidence of the arrival of this period, as it is not necessarily marked by any loss of unity or consistency—striking characteristics of ancient American art; for such is the conservatism of indigenous methods that, unless there ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes
... to perceive physical objects. Having perceived an object several times, the intellect lifts itself to a higher process, and knows it when it sees it again, remembers it. Perception is the first, the simplest, the initiatory intellectual process, memory is the second. Higher than they, and rising out of them, is a third process, the one whereby are modified and transmuted the mental impressions of what is perceived or remembered. A mother, just parted from her child, recalls his form and face, summons ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... induced not only by long hours of sitting bent over work, but by breathing air foul with the vile gas and want of ventilation, as well as, in many cases, the worst possible sanitary conditions. If the initiatory period is safely past, the apprentice becomes an "improver;" that is, she is allowed larger choice of work, looks on or even tries her own hand when draping is to be done, and if quick is shortly ranked as an assistant. With this ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... Mary had brought Charles to London. The first thing to be done for him was much what Mr. Dick had advised in the case of ragged David Copperfield, and her initiatory act in his behalf was to clothe him. She took him to her house, where he lived, if not elegantly and extravagantly, at least decently, a new experience for the poor lad. She then had him articled to Edward, the attorney; but this experiment, as might have been expected, proved a failure. ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... successfully through this test of steady-handed manliness, it was the turn of old Kester, at his right hand—and so on, till every man had drunk his initiatory pint under the stimulus of the chorus. Tom Saft—the rogue—took care to spill a little by accident; but Mrs. Poyser (too officiously, Tom thought) interfered to prevent the exaction ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... common to both), taketh few things for granted, and constantly maketh records for itself, under the maxim de non apparentibus non existentibus eadem est ratio; and ever beareth in mind that when certioraris to international tribunals are served, the initiatory expositions and the matured results must not be subjected to a pretence of diminution, but be full ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... society, based on (supposed) Egyptian rites, mingled with those of freemasonry. The suggestion of this society is said to have come from a curious book he picked up on a second-hand stall in London. The society attracted people by the strangeness of its initiatory rites, and the promises of happiness and wellbeing made by its founder to those who joined it. Lodges were established in many countries, many disciples were obtained, great riches were amassed, and ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... including the causes of the reduction of digits. In discussing the origin of the great development of the incisor teeth of rodents, he suggested that "the more severe strains to which they were subjected by enforced or intelligently assumed changes of habit, were the initiatory agents in causing them to assume their present forms, such forms as were best adapted to resist ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... sun, the Druids "held sacred the spirits of their ancestors, paid great honour to mountains, lakes, and groves. Groves of oak were their temples, and their places of worship were open to heaven, such as stone circles. They had also a ceremony of baptism, dipping in the sacred lake, as an initiatory rite, and had also a sacrament of bread and wine. They paid great reverence to the egg of the serpent, the seed of the oak, and above all, the mistletoe that grew upon the oak; and they offered in sacrifice to the sun and fire, ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... inscription: "To the unconquerable sun, to the god Mithra." His cult is complicated, sometimes similar to the Christian worship; there are a baptism, sacred feasts, an anointing, penances, and chapels. To be admitted to this one must pass through an initiatory ceremony, through fasting and ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... true that the adoption of the proposed resolution would be merely initiatory, and not within itself a practical measure, it is recommended in the hope that it would soon lead to important practical results. In full view of my great responsibility to my God and to my country, I earnestly beg the attention of Congress and the ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... impossibility, in that initiatory stage of thought, of grasping any other theory which would apparently meet the case so well or be more satisfactory. They, of course, had not yet arrived at the idea that God is a personal Spirit whose nature is revealed ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... the Storthing invite the King? Simply this, to take a revolutionary step against the Union, to an initiatory dissolution of the Union, to a protracted undermining of the foundation of the Union, far more dangerous than severing it at one blow. And the ugly thought in the background was this: If the King did not submit to this, it ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund
... to say that he would stand; and Scruby undertook to give the initiatory orders at once, not waiting even till the Marquis should be dead. "We should have our houses open as soon as theirs," said he. "There's a deal in that." So George Vavasor gave his orders. "If the worst comes to the worst," he said to himself, "I can ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... stick fast with his knees, and then mounted his chestnut. As they trotted slowly down the avenue, Euphrasia heard Mr. Arnold say to himself, "The fellow sits well, at all events." She took care to make herself agreeable to Hugh by reporting this, with the omission of the initiatory epithet, however. ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... Indians, that he saw supernatural revelations. Again and again the form of an antelope appeared before him. The antelope is the graceful peace spirit of the Ogallalla; but seldom is it that such a gentle visitor presents itself during the initiatory fasts of their young men. The terrible grizzly bear, the divinity of war, usually appears to fire them with martial ardor and thirst for renown. At length the antelope spoke. He told the young dreamer that he was not to ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... though every one knows that the constitution in Church and State no longer exists; they are ready to stand or fall with the "independence of the Upper House of Parliament", though, in practice, they are perfectly aware that, with their sanction, "the Upper House" has abdicated its initiatory functions, and now serves only as a court of review of the legislation of the House of Commons. Whenever public opinion, which this party never attempts to form, to educate, or to lead, falls into some violent perplexity, passion, or caprice, this party yields without a struggle to the impulse, ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... compared. In addition to the printed material, a very large body of manuscript matter has been used, which is now in the archives of the Bureau of Ethnology, and which, it is hoped, will ultimately be published. The author does not desire that his work shall be considered final, but rather as initiatory and tentative. The task of studying many hundreds of languages and deriving therefrom ultimate conclusions as contributions to the science of philology is one of great magnitude, and in its accomplishment an army of scholars ...
— Indian Linguistic Families Of America, North Of Mexico • John Wesley Powell
... immersion. Ablutions were already familiar to the Jews, as they were to all religions of the East.[1] The Essenes had given them a peculiar extension.[2] Baptism had become an ordinary ceremony on the introduction of proselytes into the bosom of the Jewish religion, a sort of initiatory rite.[3] Never before John the Baptist, however, had either this importance or this form been given to immersion. John had fixed the scene of his activity in that part of the desert of Judea which is in the neighborhood ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... conditions. Thus, if one, having entered the Church by baptism, withdraws from it, or is excommunicated therefrom, and afterward repents and desires to regain his standing in the Church, he can do so only through baptism. However, such is a repetition of the initiatory ordinance as previously administered. There is no ordinance of "rebaptism" in the Church distinct in nature, form, or purpose, from other baptism; and, therefore, in administering baptism to a subject who has been formerly baptized, the form of the ceremony is exactly the ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... well and you do that. The very immolation made the bliss; death was the heart of life, and all the harm my folly had crouched to avoid, now proved a veil hiding all gain my wisdom strove to grasp. . . . Into another state, under new rule I knew myself was passing swift and sure; whereof the initiatory pang approached, felicitous annoy, as bitter-sweet as when the virgin band, the victors chaste, feel at the end the earthy garments drop, and rise with something of a rosy shame into immortal nakedness: so I lay, and let come the proper throe would thrill into the ecstasy and out-throb ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... bed at the end of his first night in Castle Blandings, he was conscious to a remarkable degree that Fortune was treating him well. He had survived—not merely without discredit, but with positive triumph—the initiatory plunge into the etiquette maelstrom of life below stairs. So far from doing the wrong thing and drawing down on himself the just scorn of the steward's room, he had been the life and soul of the party. Even if to-morrow, in an absent-minded fit, he should anticipate the ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... would place on the brow of her daughter one of the most ancient coronets in England; and, which indeed was the chief of these considerations, would, without exposing Venetia to that contaminating contact with the world from which Lady Annabel recoiled, establish her, without this initiatory and sorrowful experience, in a position superior to which even the blood of the Herberts, though it might flow in so fair and gifted a form as that ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli |
