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Penitential   Listen
noun
Penitential  n.  (R. C. Ch.) A book formerly used by priests hearing confessions, containing rules for the imposition of penances; called also penitential book.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Penitential" Quotes from Famous Books



... a bard, to be ten thousand times healthier in his singing than my Lord Byron thinning himself upon cold potatoes and vinegar? Do you think that Ovid cuts a very respectable figure, blubbering on the Euxine shore and sending penitential letters to Augustus and afterward to Tiberius? He was a poor puppy, and as well deserved to have three wives as any sinner I ever heard of. Don't you think, that, if the cities of Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, Salamis, Rhodes, Argos, and Athens had given over disputing about ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... remain imperfect in its circuit of links, pretty soon he would tempt treason to show its head, and would even for the present find but an imperfect obedience. Reluctantly therefore the emperor gave way: and perhaps soothed his fretting conscience, by offering to heaven, as a penitential litany, that same petition which Naaman the Syrian offered to the prophet Elijah as a reason for a personal dispensation. Hardly more possible it was that a camel should go through the eye of a ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... hearts that God is their Father in Christ; and that, 'even as a father pitieth his own children, so is the Lord merciful to them that fear him?' Had they, by faith, taken this blessed truth to their souls, they might and would, not in hopelessness and dread, but in trust and penitential love, make their wants known as a child to its parent; they would arise, and in humble compunctions, and not desponding trust, say, 'Father, I have sinned.' They would carry each trouble to him, and say, 'Lord, thou knowest me to be set in this strait, or under that temptation; Lord, deliver ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson

... the children, to whom belongs the margin of the sea, machine-bathing at eleven o'clock will hardly furnish them with a magical early memory. Time was when this was made penitential to them, like the rest of life, upon a principle that no longer prevails. It was vulgarized for them and made violent. A bathing woman, type of all ugliness in their sensitive eyes, came striding, shapeless, through the unfriendly sea, seized them if they were very young, ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell

... go and spoil my coffee with salt water! All very well for David, in a penitential psalm, to drink tears, but in the ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... enough," he said. "Sam Learoyd's a changed man. It were t' local preacher that done it. He gat him on to his knees anent t' penitential forms at after t' sarvice, an' there were a two-three more wi' him; an' t' preacher an' me wrastled wi' t' devil for their souls. I've niver seen sich tewin' o' t' spirit sin I becom a Methody. 'Twere a hot neight, and what wi' t' heat an' t' spiritual exercises, t' ...
— More Tales of the Ridings • Frederic Moorman

... appallingly credulous and ignorant, so brutal, childish, so mercurial compared with Englishmen of to-day, yet set the standard of national greatness. This absurdly decorated gallant could stab a rival in the back or write a penitential lyric. Each man presents strange, almost inexplicable, contrasts in character, as Bacon or Raleigh, or Elizabeth herself. The drama mingles its sentiment and fancy with horrors and bloodshed; and no wonder, for poetry was no occupation of the cloister. ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson

... know the passion for Truth that is the enthusiasm of Science, the passion for Beauty that inspires the poet and the artist, when all truth and beauty are regarded as the self-revealings of God; to love Him "with all our soul," is to know the saint's rapture of devotion and gaze of penitential awe into the face of the All-holy, the saint's abhorrence of sin, and agony of desire to save a sinner's soul; and to love Him "with all our strength," is the supreme spiritual passion that tests the rest; the passion for reality, for worship in ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston

... Saint-George there had been born to King Henry V and Madame Catherine of France a boy, half English and half French, who would go to Egypt and pluck the Grand Turk's beard.[894] On his death-bed the conqueror Henry V was listening to the priests repeating the penitential psalms. When he heard the verse: Benigne fac Domine in bona voluntate tua ut aedificentur muri Jerusalem, he murmured with his dying breath: "I have always intended to go to Syria and deliver the holy city out of the hand of the infidel."[895] These were his ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... influence. The far east end was lost in obscurity, and we could barely trace the outlines of the splendid roof. Far down, near a confessional, knelt a small group of hooded women, motionless as carven images. Their heads were bowed, their whole attitude betrayed the penitential mood. There might have been eight or ten at most, and they never stirred. But every now and then a fair penitent issued from the confessional box; and, cloaked and hooded, glided back to the seat she had lately occupied, and resumed the penitential attitude. The ceremony ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various

... it is which has made the fifty-first Psalm the model of all true penitence for evermore. Penitential prayers in all ages have too often wanted faith in God, and therefore have been too often prayers to avert punishment. This, this—the model of all true penitent prayers—is that of a man who is to be punished, and is content to take his punishment, ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley

... rule in the matter of austerities, as of all else. But those who knew her well could have predicted, that as attachment to her own will and judgment had never mingled, however slightly, with her penitential works, she would renounce them, in compliance with the Divine will, as readily as she had embraced them from the ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"

... stone Marks all the narrow field I own; Yet, patient husbandman, I till With faith and prayers, that precious hill, Sow it with penitential pains, And, hopeful, wait the latter rains; Content if, after all, the spot Yield barely one forget-me-not— Whether or figs or thistle make My crop content ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... captured colours to the Nuncio at Limerick, by whom they were solemnly placed in the choir of St. Mary's Cathedral, and afterwards, at the request of Pope Innocent, sent to Rome. The Te Deum was chanted in the confederate capital; penitential psalms were sung in the northern fortresses. 'The Lord of Hosts,' wrote Monroe, 'has rubbed shame on our faces till once we are humbled.' O'Neill emblazoned the cross and keys on his banner with the Red Hand of Ulster, and openly ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... for by the preservation of another yet holier. This act of devotion, so worthy of the true Crusader, recalled from carnage those who had forgotten their vows in the thirst for vengeance, and the whole army, led by the clergy, followed him to the same church in penitential procession. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various

... though we do not approve a life of ease and comfort accorded to condemned felons, we unhesitatingly affirm, that in most, if not all cases, the cruel treatment which the convicts underwent, instead of having a penitential influence, only served to harden them in their iniquities; and while they frequently became perfectly callous to the infliction of punishment, they were debased to the incarnation of fiends, merely wanting in the opportunity to perpetrate ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro

... and, by my exertions in his favour, made my brother my sworn foe, I returned to London. My husband's conduct was now changed; I had during my absence, received several affectionate, penitential letters from him; and he seemed on my arrival, to wish by his behaviour to prove his sincerity. I could not then conceive why he acted thus; and, when the suspicion darted into my head, that it might arise from observing my increasing ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft

... the penitential psalms are thus turned, from Him to whom the Psalmist addressed them, so his hymns of praise to Jehovah, are made to flow through the same channel to the Virgin. And all nature in the sea, on the earth, in the heavens, and heaven of heavens, ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler

... procession was a penitential one, and its object to appease my offended deity. But what a mistake, poor things! No one ever regained my favour by making a frump ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse

... Madrid. A soiree in this circle is like an evening in the corresponding grade of position in Paris or Petersburg or New York in all external characteristics. The toilets are by Worth; the beauties are coiffed by the deft fingers of Parisian tiring-women; the men wear the penitential garb of Poole; the music is by Gounod and Verdi; Strauss inspires the rushing waltzes, and the married people walk through the quadrilles to the measures of Blue Beard and Fair Helen, so suggestive of conjugal rights and duties. As for the suppers, ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay

... of his coffeecup, and a framed copy of the "rules and regulations" of the house on the other, he felt constrained to take some decisive step towards its liquidation. Accordingly, having breakfasted, he combed his hair straight over his face, and putting on a very penitential look, called a cab, and desired the man to drive him to the Rue des Mauvais-Garcons.—After zigzagging, twisting, and turning about in various directions, they at last jingled to the end of a very ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... glided through the lifetime of Mr. Smith. And could such beings of cloudy fantasy, so near akin to nothingness, give valid evidence against him, at the day of judgment? Be that the case or not, there is reason to believe that one truly penitential tear would have washed away each hateful picture, and left the canvas white as snow. But Mr. Smith, at a prick of Conscience too keen to be endured, bellowed aloud, with impatient agony, and suddenly discovered that his three guests ...
— Fancy's Show-Box (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... they went to church in Crocusville. The back of the pine bench on which she sat had a penitential forward tilt that would have brought St. Simeon down, in jealousy, from his pillar. The preacher singled her out, and thundered upon her vicarious head the damnation of the world. At each side of her ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry

... the cup, 'tis time of roses now; Midst roses let us break each penitential vow; With shout and antic bound we'll in the garden stray; When nightingales are heard, we'll rove where roses blow; Here in this open spot fill, fill, and quaff away; Midst roses here we stand a troop with hearts that glow; The rose our long-miss'd ...
— Targum • George Borrow

... remember, had taken place in Lent. The King had done something which according to the accepted canons was quite incorrect; he had been to a frivolous but popular play during the penitential season and it had got into the papers. But instead of being blamed for it he had gained enormously ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... Prince, to collect sacrificial wood. Here on the banks of the Malini you may perceive the hermitage of the great sage Kanwa. If other duties require not your presence, deign to enter and accept our hospitality. When you behold our penitential rites Performed without impediment by Saints Rich only in devotion, then with pride Will you reflect, Such are the holy men Who call me Guardian; such the men for whom To wield the bow I bare my nervous arm, Scarred by the ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... upon you. But of this and other such things we will converse hereafter. Listen now, son Basil, to my bidding. You have abstained from the Table of the Lord, and it is well. Today, and every day until I again summon you, you will read aloud in privacy the Seven Penitential Psalms, slowly and with meditation; and may they grave themselves in your heart, to remain there, a purification and a hope, whilst ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing

... to designate the Bible or any particular division of it begin with a capital; as, "Holy Writ, The Sacred Book, Holy Book, God's Word, Old Testament, New Testament, Gospel of St. Matthew, Seven Penitential Psalms." ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin

... of June as the day on which it was to be delivered. Two days previous to this, Galileo was summoned to appear at the holy office; and on the morning of the 21st, he obeyed the summons. On the 22d of June he was clothed in a penitential dress, and conducted to the convent of Minerva, where the Inquisition was assembled to give judgment. A long and elaborate sentence was pronounced, detailing the former proceedings of the Inquisition, and specifying the offences which he had committed in teaching heretical ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster

... not favourable for its growth. Nevertheless, it closely resembles the small purple vetch of our summer hedgerows at home. In France its pulse is much eaten during Lent—which season takes its name, as some authors suppose, from this penitential plant. Men become under its subduing dietary influence, "lenti et lenes." The plant is cultivated freely in Egypt for the sake of the seeds, which are flat on both ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... though wounded in the face and shoulder, and sorely spent. But he saw that it was a desperate case and that all was lost, and no more of his army were coming up to the rescue, because the narrow pass was choked with dead. So he began to sing the penitential psalms in time with the swinging of ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford

... shewn into a chamber behind the high altar, where a door opened to the recess, in which the Virgin is placed, and where we were permitted, or rather required to kiss her hand. At the same time, I perceived a great many pilgrims entering the apartments, whose penitential faces plainly discovered the reverence and devotion with which they approached her sacred presence. When we returned, we were presented to the Prior; a lively, genteel man, of good address; who, with Pere Tendre, the Frenchman, ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse

... time. Ernest himself never even suspected this unobtrusive diplomatist and peacemaker; but as a matter of fact it was mainly owing to Lady Hilda's constant interposition that he contrived to stop in Wilton Place through all that dreary and penitential London season. ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... kneel down and expiate Your crime with burning penitential tears— And if you 'scape the perils of the pass, And are not whelm'd beneath the drifted snows, That from the frozen peaks come sweeping down, You'll reach the bridge that's drench'd with drizzling spray. Then if it give not way beneath ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

... mere externals as the shade of a tie or the color of a pair of hose. Under his hands—for the spirit of reform was strong upon him—his rooms took on a sober appearance. He amused himself by making sundry penitential offerings to the flames; numerous evidences of his unrighteous bachelorhood disappearing from walls and book-shelves. Coincident with this he owned to a feeling of intense satisfaction. What remained he would have his friend Marshall Langham sell after he was gone, his finances having ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester

... already. Nobody asked where, but it was taken for granted that he had gone to see the old chief of the Delight Makers about the approaching days of penitential retirement. His mother was up; and she addressed her son in a pleasant manner, set food ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... now. It may make some difference in the settlements, perhaps, but he and the lawyers may arrange that. I shan't think of interfering with such a man as Grey. If you could only know, my dear, what I've suffered!" Alice in a penitential tone expressed her sorrow, and then he too assured her that he had forgiven her. "Bless you, my child!" he said, "and make you happy, and good, and—and—and very comfortable." After that he ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... of relating the history of the whole Passion. It formed the subject of her Lenten meditations during this year, and of them the present volume is composed. But she did not on this account take less part in the fundamental mystery of this penitential season, or in the different mysteries of each of the festival days of the Church, if indeed the words to take part be sufficient to express the wonderful manner in which she rendered visible testimony to the mystery celebrated in each ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich

... Organ-Loft. One knows not what further ill Effects the Epilogues I have been speaking of may in time produce: But this I am credibly informed of, that Paul Lorrain [3]—has resolv'd upon a very sudden Reformation in his tragical Dramas; and that at the next monthly Performance, he designs, instead of a Penitential Psalm, to dismiss his Audience with an excellent new Ballad of his own composing. Pray, Sir, do what you can to put a stop to those growing Evils, and you ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... moment for Mrs. Johnson when she is able to say to Mrs. Thompson, 'My dear, I am quite worn-out; we dined out every day last week, and have four more dinners in the next five days.' These good people show their British grit by the persistency with which they go on with their penitential hospitality, and their lack of ideas in never attempting to modify it so as to make it a pleasure ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters

... Instead of the listlessness of Childe Harold, he is active and enterprising; such as the noble pilgrim would have been, but for the satiety which had relaxed his energies. There is also about him a solemnity different from the animation of the Giaour—a penitential despair arising from a cause undisclosed. The Giaour, though wounded and fettered, and laid in a dungeon, would not have felt as Conrad is supposed to feel in that situation. The following bold and terrific verses, descriptive ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt

... tenor of Sally's remarks, while she waited the few minutes, to the effect that it was a burning shame that she should take up Mrs. Vereker's time, a crying scandal that she should interrupt her knitting, and a matter of penitential reflection that she hadn't written instead of coming, which would have done just as well. To which Mrs. Vereker, with a certain parade of pretended insincerity (to make the real article underneath seem bona fides), replied ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... pointed reference, which once would have stirred the pool of bitterness to its bottom, now left him unmoved and immovable. Later, he knew it was because there was now no pool of bitterness to be stirred; the spiritual well-springs had failed and there was no water in them—either for healing or for penitential cleansing. ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... dedicated to St. Nicholas, to all the parish churches bare-headed, with hempen halters round their necks, and whips in their hands, on their bare feet, and in their' shirts, and there pray the benefit of absolution from the priests, repeating the penitential psalms, and to pay a mark of silver per annum to the students of the hall peculiarly injured; in addition to which they were, on the recurrence of the same day, to entertain one hundred poor scholars "honestis refectionibus," the abbot of Evesham ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... agony, the material drawing near, as it were, of the blessed Saturday evening; and when Saturday came and mademoiselle's dinner had been hastily served and her work done, she would make her escape and run to Notre-Dame de Lorette, hurrying to the penitential stool as to a lover's rendezvous. Her fingers dipped in holy water and a genuflexion duly made, she would glide over the flags, between the rows of chairs, as softly as a cat steals across a carpeted floor. ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

... overthrow of their worldly interests, and at the imminent peril of their lives. How brightly and tenderly the moonlight shone upon the altar and the people before it! how solemnly and divinely the deep harmonies, as they chanted the penitential Psalms, mingled with the hoarse singing of the freshening night breeze in the rigging of the ship! how sweetly the still rushing murmur of many voices, as they uttered the responses together, now died away, and now rose again softly ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins

... around the Thanksgiving or Christmas table. What a disappointment it was to us to find how soon our appetite had forsaken us, and that we had lost the power of enjoying the delicacies which we had most anticipated. And over-indulgence often brought sad results and was followed by a period of penitential fasting. And the appetites for sense gratification must always lead to this result. They not only crave things which "perish with the using;" temporarily at least, often permanently, the appetite itself perishes with ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler

... But Kid's penitential fit did not last long, for, coasting along Malabar, he met with a great number of boats, all which he plundered. Upon the same coast he also lighted upon a Portuguese ship, which he kept possession of a week, and then, having taken out of her some chests of Indian goods, thirty jars of butter, ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various

... relation to Deity in his sense of sin and need for mercy, and as requiring, therefore, peculiar prominence in the total impression the oratorio should convey. If this was his aim, it is all accomplished. The penitential feeling embodied in the song is that which will longest linger in a remembrance of the work. The soft tone of the contralto voice, and the keenness of that of the violin, are accessories to the effect which the master well knew how to handle; ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton

... where he became as remarkable for his quickness and proficiency, as for the irregularity of his conduct. On one occasion, owing to his having been guilty of some objectionable frolic, he was about to be expelled, when, upon his writing a penitential letter, the Dean, who seems to have known his talent, promised to forgive him on his translating extempore the epigram ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... silent; his companions got into their vehicle, the front seat of which was adorned with a large parcel. Mr. Ruck gave the parcel a little poke with his umbrella, and then, turning to me with a rather grimly penitential smile, "After all," he said, "for the ladies that's ...
— The Pension Beaurepas • Henry James

... honors missing, Knows naught of smile, and nod, and sweet hand-kissing, Knows naught of golden promises of kings; Knows naught of coronets, and stars, and strings; In solitude the lovely rebel sighs! But vainly drops the penitential tear— Deaf as the adder to the woman's cries, We suffer not her wail to wound our ear: For food we bid her hopeless children prowl, And with the savage ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... better up to the mark. Alas! Grandcourt came on to the ground in two halves, and on two different days. When the boys of the school-House, Roe's, Bickers's, and Grover's turned out to the starting-post, Railsford's, chafing like greyhounds in the leash, turned in to their penitential dinner. ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed

... obtained a new confessor. "A man of the most seraphic mind, and, moreover, so fortunate as to be connected with the house of Flores." He had been gentle to her in the matter of penances, and not set her religious obligations above her capacities. Consequently, the Senora had laid aside her penitential garments. She was in full Castilian costume, and looked very handsome. But Antonia, who had been in New York during those years when she would otherwise have been learning how to wear a mantilla and use ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr

... Alice, as if you were chanting one of the seven penitential psalms; and you, good Doctor, as if you recited ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... soon learned to fashion into a variety of articles necessary to the successful prosecution of his increasing labours. At the termination of one hundred years, consumed in toil and sorrow, Adam having been instructed by the angel Gabriel in a penitential formula by which he might hope yet to conciliate Allah, the justice of Heaven was satisfied, and his repentance was finally accepted by the Most High. The joy of Adam was now as intense as his previous sorrow had been extreme, ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... whole church was rich beyond expression. All that opulent devotion and inventive ingenuity could devise, in wood, bronze, marble, silver, gold, precious jewelry, or blazing sacramental furniture, had been profusely lavished. The penitential tears of centuries had incrusted the whole interior with their glittering stalactites. Divided into five naves, with external rows of chapels, but separated by no screens or partitions, the great temple forming ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... wandered; now again his mind was calm, And he wrung from out his suffering penitential draughts of balm; Then again his senses left him, and he lay in phrenzy there, Talking wildly in his madness with ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various

... never suffered himself to indulge in repose on any soft couch; but with fasting, watching, and prayer, fervently and perseveringly implored the heavenly aid of the King of kings for the good government of his people. Doubtless, some may see in every penitential prayer an additional proof of his former licentiousness and dissipation: others, it is presumed, may not so interpret these scenes. Perhaps candour and experience may combine in suggesting to many Christians that the self-abasement of Henry should be interpreted, not as a criterion of ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... small quadruped,—his Celtic feelings being so severely wounded by it, in fact, that he abstained from sustenance for three days, putting himself into moral sackcloth and ashes for that period by retiring into his penitential cell under a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... household was one who embraced the faith. He was a man stepped into years, and of great prudence. Xavier committed the new Christians to his care, and put into his hands the form of baptism in writing, the exposition of the creed, the epitome of our Saviour's life, the seven penitential psalms, the litanies of the saints, and a table of saints' days as they are celebrated in the church. He himself set apart a place in the palace proper for the assemblies of the faithful; and appointed the steward ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden

... Hammurabi, and later in Assyria. In the genealogical constructions she was brought into connection, as daughter, wife, or other relation, with any god that the particular conditions suggested. As the Assyrians grew morally she was endowed with all the highest virtues (so in the Penitential Psalms), and occupied so preeminent a position that under favorable circumstances she might perhaps have become the only god ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy

... overlook its enormity? Not so; sin, as sin, can never be sufficiently stamped with the brand of reprobation. But we must seek carefully to distinguish between the offence and the offender. Nothing should be done on our part, by word or deed, to mock the penitential sighings of a guilty spirit, or send the trembling outcast away, with the despairing feeling of "No hope." "This man receiveth sinners," and shall not we? Does He suffer the veriest dregs of human depravity to crouch ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff

... Charles and Mary Lamb! What peace is possible under the curse which even now is gathering against your heads? Is there peace on earth for the lunatic—peace for the parenticide—peace for the girl that, without warning, and without time granted for a penitential cry to heaven, sends her mother to the last audit?" And then, without treachery, speaking bare truth, this prophet of woe might have added—"Thou also, thyself, Charles Lamb, thou in thy proper person, shalt enter the skirts of this dreadful hail-storm; ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... being burdened with the obligation of repairing it, but it is only a soul well steeped in malice that will take seriously such a contention. Neither is restitution a penance imposed upon us in order to atone for our faults; it is no more penitential in its nature than are the efforts we make to avoid the faults we have fallen into in the past. It atones for nothing; it is simply a desisting from evil. When this is done and forgiveness obtained, then, and not till ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... Christian Churches. To give a few examples: the Apostles' Creed, the distinctive symbol of the Roman Church, was preserved by oral tradition only down to the fourth century, and was not imparted to any catechumen until the time of his baptism. The minute rules of penitential discipline were first committed to writing by Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury, towards the close of the seventh century; and this innovation was sharply criticised by some ecclesiastical ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis

... gifted in prayer. Here all his intellectual, imaginative, and spiritual powers were fused into one and poured themselves forth in an unbroken stream of penitential and adoring affection. When he said, "Let us pray," a divine influence seemed to rest upon all present. His prayers were not mere pious mental exercises, ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... procession moving along London streets from the Fleet prison to St. Paul's Cathedral. The warden of the Fleet was there, and the knight marshal, and the tipstaffs, and "all the company they could make," "with bills and glaives;" and in the midst of these armed officials, six men marching in penitential dresses, one carrying a lighted taper five pounds' weight, the others with symbolic fagots, signifying to the lookers-on the fate which their crimes had earned for them, but which this time, in mercy, was remitted. One of these was Barnes; the other ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... Abraham Lincoln, President of the 'United States, cordially concurring with the Congress of the United States, in the penitential and pious sentiments expressed in the aforesaid resolutions, and heartily approving of the devotional design and purpose thereof, do hereby appoint the first Thursday of August next to be observed by the people of the United States as ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... magnanimity in Burns to use his talent in reviling the minister, who had done nothing more than his duty. One can hardly doubt but that in his inmost heart he must have been visited with other and more penitential feelings than those unseemly verses express. But, as Lockhart has well observed, "his false pride recoiled from letting his jovial associates know (p. 017) how little he was able to drown the whispers of the still small ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp

... our accounts of this experience, but for purposes of valuation it is of little moment to us whether the dynamic flash came to him in his cell at Wittenberg as he was studying the Epistle to the Romans, or whether it came while he was climbing the penitential stairway in Rome.[7] When all legendary coverings are stripped away we have left an inner event of the first importance, a live idea bursting into consciousness like a new star on the field of vision. By ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones

... I would designate as the awakening on the morn of a day that throughout its tardy course shall fulfil not a single desire: not one. [FOOTNOTE: "Den Tag zu sehen, der Mir in seinem Lauf Nicht einen Wunsch erfullen wird, nicht Einen." Faust.] None the less it is a penitential prayer, a conference with God in the faith of the eternally good. The eye turned inwards here, too, sees the comforting phenomena it alone can perceive (Allegro 6/8), in which the longing becomes a sweet, tender, melancholy disport with itself; [FOOTNOTE: ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)

... books were closed, to open no more for the rest of the year. Up till twilight there was yet time, but then what was written was finally sealed, and he who had not truly repented had missed his last chance of forgiveness. What wonder if early in the ten penitential days, the population of the Ghetto flocked towards the canal bridge to pray that its sins might be cast into the ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... the congregation kept this fast I do not know. But it was a dreadful day for us. I was awakened in the pitchy night to go off with my Father to the Room, where a scanty gathering held a penitential prayer-meeting. We came home, as dawn was breaking, and in process of time sat down to breakfast, which consisted—at that dismal hour—of slices of dry bread and a tumbler of cold water each. During the morning, I was not allowed to paint, or write, or ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse

... expressing their symbolism so curtly! The Romanesque is the La Trappe of architecture; we find it sheltering the austerest Orders, the sternest Brotherhoods, kneeling in ashes, and chanting in an undertone with bowed heads none but penitential Psalms. These massive cellars speak of the fear of sin, but also of the dread of a God whose wrath could only be appeased by the Advent of the Son. The Romanesque seems to have preserved from its Oriental origin an element antedating the Birth of Christ; prayer seems to rise there to the implacable ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... shall be satisfied," she answered, roguishly. "Really, that's right. Four girls offered to substitute for me in this penitential pilgrimage and write some long ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter

... honest; Beside, the whole proceeding is so like The hair-brained rout, I guessed as much before. Know then, it is resolved to seize the king, When next he goes in penitential weeds Among the friars, without his usual guards; Then, under shew of popular sedition, For safety, shut him in a monastery, And sacrifice his ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... of this series of penitential sonnets are not known. It is clear that they were written in old age. It will be remembered that the latest piece of marble on which Michael Angelo worked, was the unfinished Pieta now standing behind the choir of the Duomo at Florence. Many of his ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella

... Munich, also, with the Penitential Psalms, etc., by Hans Mielich. Vienna, too, can show a magnificent Missal by Georg Hoefnagel, bearing the dates 1582 to 1590. Venice is represented in the work of Benedetto Bordone and the Ducali. Florence in the splendid Missals, etc., of ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley

... innocence, and much more to the satisfaction of Jones than of the lady; for the former was greatly transported with the news she had brought him; but the latter was not altogether so pleased with the penitential behaviour of a man whom she had, at her first interview, conceived a very different opinion of from what she now ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... took a long time to reach the luxuriant growth they have attained in the tablets. For ceremonial offences a ceremonial purification was felt to suffice. But there were others which, as the Babylonian Penitential Psalms testify, were felt to go deeper and to be sins, personal sins of the worshipper against his ...
— The Idea of God in Early Religions • F. B. Jevons

... in the heathen times. The happy souls of departed Christians were invoked; it was believed that they were wandering about the world, or haunting their graves. There was a multiplication of temples, altars, and penitential garments. The festival of the purification of the Virgin was invented to remove the uneasiness of heathen converts on account of the loss of their Lupercalia, or feasts of Pan. The worship of images, of fragments of the cross, or bones, nails, and other relics, a ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... girls do, they would immediately have devised toilets appropriate to such exigencies. If it were any part of their plan of life to appear statedly in public to confess themselves 'miserable sinners,' we should doubtless have sent over here the design of some graceful penitential habit, which would give our places of worship a much more appropriate air than they now have. As it is, it would form a subject for such a court of inquiry and adaptation as we have supposed, to draw a line between the costume of the theatre ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various

... God, in His love and mercy, bestows freely on the faithful. But nothing of this kind, they said, was to be found in the confessional. The conscience was tormented with the enumeration of single sins, and burdened with all sorts of penitential formalities; and it was just with a view that everyone should be drawn to this discipline of the Church, should use it regularly, and should seek for no other way to make his peace with God, that the educational activity of the Church, both with ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin

... must have been that erudition which could form a pretended language and its grammar, and fertile the genius which could invent the history of an unknown people: it is said that the deception was only satisfactorily ascertained by his own penitential confession; he had defied and baffled the most learned.[45] The literary impostor Lauder had much more audacity than ingenuity, and he died contemned by all the world.[46] Ireland's "Shakspeare" served to show that commentators are not blessed, necessarily, with an interior and unerring ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... Brian's door and knocked. There was no answer. He knocked again. Ordinarily he would have flung back the door with a show of temper. Penitential, he opened it with an air of gentle forbearance. The room, which gave evidence of anger and hurried packing, was empty, the door that opened into the ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple

... point of differentiating divorces, but classed them indistinctively as disgraceful incidents, in which the woman was always to blame, but the man, though her innocent victim, was yet inevitably contaminated. The time involved in the "proceedings" was viewed as a penitential season during which it behoved the family of the persons concerned to behave as if they were dead; yet any open allusion to the reason for adopting such an attitude would have been regarded as ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... were formerly to be seen in India, and, especially, in its southern peninsula, whose custom it was to traverse the country in a state of nudity, and who had been rendered impotent by the following regimen. The children destined for this penitential state are taken away from their parents at the age of six or seven years, and made to eat, daily, a quantity of the young leaves of a tree called Mairkousie. At first, the dose given them is not larger than a filbert. This regimen must be persisted in until the party reaches ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport

... great threnes Idolatrous, as on soft gorgeous wings, If Time's least kiss had subtly disallowed Their beauty's sacred unisons?—Fair things Desire their revel-raiment be their shroud. Yet, fierce insurgent, cease vain wars to wage! Art thou so pure as to decline, forsooth, These penitential usages of age That expiate proud cruelties of youth, And bring thee to the last and perfect art, To love the ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor

... comes upon me: I cannot help thinking of him while I wake; and when I do wake from Sleep, I have a feeling of something lost, as in a Dream, and it is J. S. I suppose that Carlyle amused himself, after just losing his Wife, with the Records he has left: what he says of her seems a sort of penitential glorification: what of others, just enough in general: but in neither case to be made public, and so immediately after his Decease. . . . I keep wondering what J. S. would have said on the matter: but I cannot ask him now, as I might have done a ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald

... cells, and were horror-struck at the self-inflicted tortures. Each bed consists of a wooden plank raised in the middle, and on days of penitence crossed by wooden bars. The pillow is wooden, with a cross lying on it, which they hold in their hands when they lie down. The nun lies on this penitential couch, embracing the cross, and her feet hanging out, as the bed is made too short for her upon principle. Round her waist she occasionally wears a band with iron points turning inwards; on her breast a cross with nails, of which the points enter the flesh, of the truth ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... of the nave—passed into the choir—and halted before a monument of black marble. He paused for a few moments: then cried with a loud voice in Welch, English, and Latin, "Bastard of Walladmor!" to which summons the choir sang a penitential antiphony. Then he raised his spear and struck the outside of the tomb: to which again the organ muttered and the choir sang a response. Then a second time he raised the golden spear, and plunged it through an iron grating which occupied the place of heart in the stony figure of a ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey

... moments. After the passion was finished—which lasted until near dawn, on account of so many pauses—he begged pardon of all for his omissions and neglect. He asked them to remember him in their masses and prayers. They recited the penitential psalms and other prayers, at the end of which, the sick man, very happy, conversed with his brethren with great affability. He charged them to keep their vows and the observance of the rules of the order. He persuaded them to persevere steadfastly ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various

... wondered, in passing, why everybody should not make their cards of invitation such thorough works of art as his. Now I am going to do even-handed justice all the way round; and I must say that Dr. Lynn's experiment of fastening his attendant to a sort of penitential stool with copper wire, surrounded by scrutineers from the audience, and then making the man's coat come off, and a ring pass over his arm, behind a simple rug held in front of him, is quite as wonderful as anything I have ever witnessed at a seance. It has the great advantage of being done ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies

... is each doubt, gone every fear; My spirit seems in heaven to stay; And e'en the penitential tear Is ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... shining in upon her little bed beside theirs, her parents leant over her face, diviner in dreams, and wept as she wept, her lips all the while murmuring, in broken sentences of prayer, the name of Him who died for us all. But plenteous as were his penitential tears—penitential, in the holy humbleness of her stainless spirit, over thoughts that had never left a dimming breath on its purity, yet that seemed, in those strange visitings, to be haunting her as the shadows of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 479, March 5, 1831 • Various

... a thing to make rude and vulgar merriment; while the man, the gentleman, and the Christian had been demonised out of that fair form by the drink. Oh, what bitter tears she shed that night as she lay awake, racked with thoughts of the past and despairing of the future. The next day came a penitential letter from Frank; he threw himself on her pity—he had been overcome—he abhorred himself for it—he saw his own weakness now—he would pray for strength as she had urged him to do—surely she would not cast him off for one offence—he had been most strictly moderate up to that ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson

... prayers; But even as one who, followed unawares, Suddenly in the darkness feels a hand Thrill with its touch his own, and his cheek fanned By odors subtly sweet, and whispers near Of words he loathes, yet cannot choose but hear, So, while the Rabbi journeyed, chanting low The wail of David's penitential woe, Before him still the old temptation came, And mocked him with the motion and the shame Of such desires that, shuddering, he abhorred Himself; and, crying mightily to the Lord To free his soul and cast the demon out, Smote with his ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... concerned. It does not imply any love for holiness, or any hatred of sin. Nay, it may exist without any sorrow for sin, as in the instance of the hardened transgressor who writhes under its awful power, but never sheds a penitential tear, or sends up a sigh for mercy. The distinction between the human conscience, and the human heart, is as wide as between the human intellect, and the human heart.[2] We never think of confounding the functions and ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd

... at the Infirmary, going from ward to ward, and from bed to bed, I met with a young man, S. B——. He was very bad, and was afraid he was going to die. I talked with him often and long, pointing him to the Saviour, and prayed with him. With penitential tears and earnest cries he sought mercy, and at length professed to obtain salvation. He recovered. One Sunday, when at Hessle, visiting my dying mother, I met this young man, and I shall never forget his agitated frame, and terrified ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock

... knees beside the bed of death, took the cold hand of Nora between his own, and bowed his head upon it for a little while in penitential homage, and then arose ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... she had been brought in already, and placed on the penitential stool before the altar, after which the organ struck up ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... shook off dull sloth, and, lashing his sides in a penitential manner with his tail, glided through the opening in the mimosa-bush, bounded into the branches of a neighbouring tree, ran nimbly out to the end of one of them, and leaping with a magnificent spring over a gully, alighted softly on the turf at the other side. Trotting calmly into an ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne

... the penitential court, and the court of archives shall be established in the place of ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... wrote to her friend. Litanies were being said in the chapel. The distant, melancholy sounds mounted to her now and then. Otherwise the house was wrapped in a mourning silence; and outside, trailing clouds hung round the old walls, making a penitential barrier all ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... celebrated socially, but not among those in which polygamy prevails. The formula observed on the occasion differs in different tribes; in some the union is effected under painful ceremonies to the bride, in others with fasting and penitential torments to the bridegroom. In general the Indian selects a wife for himself. In the greater number of tribes a maiden is set up as a prize, and the young men commence a life or death contest for her. The oldest warriors are arbitrators, and from their hands ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... troop was already moving away, with a slight consciousness that its zeal about the head-gear had been superabundant enough to afford a dispensation from any further demand for penitential offerings. ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... into silence, he still knelt with bent head and clasped hands, so steeped in penitential thoughts that he did not hear the sea-door open, did not hear the entrance of a man, grizzled, bronzed, eagle-faced, ascetic, clad in the brown robe of his order. Father Hieronymus paused for a moment, seeing with ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... subsides; yet how often, as our horses' hoofs rang on the slippery stones, my thoughts went suddenly back to the scene when Saint Gregory passed over, chanting litanies, at the head of the whole populace, who formed one vast penitential procession, and saw the avenging angel alight on the mausoleum of Adrian and sheath his sword in sign that the plague was stayed; or to that terrible day when the ferocious mercenaries of the Constable ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various

... stories of magic, black and white, ancient beliefs and legends without end. Mr King, whose knowledge of the country was at once vast and minute, is quoted as having said 'that he believed almost every form of superstition or superstitious observances condemned in the Penitential of Bartholomew, Bishop of Exeter, 1161-1184, might be found sheltering itself under the Dartmoor Tors.' (This remark must have been made about the middle of the nineteenth century.) 'The same wild ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... for being audacious," laughed Christy; and he was laughing very earnestly, as though the extra cachinnation was assumed for a purpose. "I suppose I ought to dress myself in ash cloth and sashes, shut myself up in my state room always when off duty, and shed penitential tears from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, and during the lone watches of the night, and in fortifying my soul against the monstrous sin of audacity. I will think ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic

... infinite goodness? And is this sentiment combined with a sacred resolution to go and sin no more,—to devote yourself to the service of your divine Benefactor? If you can live without an habitual sense of penitential tenderness and reverential fear, be assured you can not love God; you have no experience of those Scripture declarations: "They shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days;" "There is forgiveness with thee, that ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser

... cleared of its trees, the decayed stumps of which were half concealed by the new growth that had been suffered to repair the ravage wrought by the ax. Apparently the man's zeal for agriculture had burned with a failing flame, expiring in penitential ashes. ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce

... philosophical anarch, the believer in man's individuality, in the state for the individual, not the individual for the state. It is at least more dignified than the other's flood of confessions, of hysterical self-accusations, of penitential vows, and abundant lack of restraint. Yet no one doubts Tolstoy's repentance. Like Verlaine's it carried with ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... were all that could be given at any one time to discourse upon it. It is characteristic of his strong, cheerful faith, even during those last trying moments, that he on one occasion asked to have the more supplicatory, penitential Psalms exchanged for those of praise and thanksgiving, in which he joined, knowing them already by heart; and in the same strain of calm yet triumphant hope, he whispered to himself on the night when his alarming state was first made ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... anger). But let me only lay hands on that infernal quill-driver! I'll make him skip—be it in this world or the next; if I don't pound him to a jelly, body and soul; if I don't write all the Ten Commandments, the seven Penitential Psalms, the five books of Moses, and the whole of the Prophets upon his rascally hide so distinctly that the blue hieroglyphics shall be legible at the day of judgment—if ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... an unmuzzled misogynist. But nobody would have suspected it from his answers to Rachel's questions, or from any portion of their animated conversation. Certainly the aquiline lady whom Langholm had taken in, and to whom he was only attentive by remorseful fits and penitential starts, had not that satisfaction; for her right-hand neighbor did not speak to her at all. There was thus one close and critical follower of a conversation which without warning took the one dramatic turn for which Rachel was forever ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung

... Feet! 'tis only sinners see the depth of beauty there; Angels never have bowed o'er them with a penitential tear. Angels may regard the nail-print, with a holy, reverent calm; Ye who read the love it tells of, must break ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings

... to Chaucer, Spenser, and Milton is almost equally continuous. A course of what Lowell calls "penitential reading," in Restoration criticism, will convince anyone that these four names already stood out distinctly, as those of the four greatest English poets. See especially Winstanley, "Lives of the English Poets," 1687; Langbaine, ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... of neglected duty, and of those great practical truths, which ought ever to be kept before your mind. You may bring up your sins, and set them in order before you; and discover your easily besetting sins. You may be led to exercise penitential sorrow of heart, and be driven anew to the cross of Christ for pardon, and for strength to subdue indwelling corruption. Whenever you discover that you have exercised any correct feeling, or that your conduct has in any respect ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb

... was often pensive, and forming itself; for it was in the height of these irregularities that Steele composed his "Christian Hero," a moral and religious treatise, which the contritions of every morning dictated, and to which the disorders of every evening added another penitential page. Perhaps the genius of Steele was never so ardent and so pure as at this period; and in his elegant letter to his commander, the celebrated Lord Cutts, he gives an interesting account of the origin of this production, ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... tears and choked by sobs, Barbara pointed out the line. That, at least, was true. The old man raised it to his lips as a monk might raise his crucifix when kneeling in penitential prayer. ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed

... tears" as he looked out on the sea toward his country; "for the nymph was no longer pleasing to him," whatever may have been the case once. Surely the hero is in bonds which he cannot break, though he would; a penitential strand we may well find in his sorrow; thus ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider

... to-morrow morning; you will find me in my box just before mass; I will hear you then. My child, I know that in your heart, now, you begrudge the time it would take; and that is right. There are moments when we are not in place even on penitential knees. It is so with you now. We must find your mother. Go you at once to your house; if she is there, comfort her as best you can, and keep her in, if possible, until I come. If she is not there, stay; leave me to find her; one of ...
— Madame Delphine • George W. Cable

... love of fame, which is the spur to extraordinary attempts. Sparkles of this keen temper sometimes showed themselves. On one occasion, a harsh superintendant imposed on the future emperor, for some trifling fault, the disgrace of wearing a penitential dress, and being excluded from the table of the students, and obliged to eat his meal apart. His pride felt the indignity so severely, that it brought on a severe nervous attack; to which, though otherwise of good constitution, he was subject upon ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various

... In penitential form, And hypocritically say The country needs "Reform!" Out on reformers such as these; By Freedom's sacred powers, We'll run the country as we please; We ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford

... he wished to leave the temple at once; but afterward he thought that they might not open the gate to him. The sight of his dirty legs, of the ashes falling out of his hair, the roughness of his penitential rags, all this disgusted him. If he had had his sword even! But would he, dressed as he was in that place, ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... would make himself invulnerable. The young man was arrested, confessed his guilt, and himself asked for punishment. Condemned to be strangled, he heard the sentence without a murmur, and went to his death singing the penitential psalms. Soon afterwards Mathurin Lejeusne, the instigator of the sacrilege, was shot for some breach of military duty. This was regarded as a proof of Divine justice, and the citizens resolved that something must be done to appease ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond

... tribulation with yonder enemy of God; wherefore I would have you say me forty masses of Saint Gregory for her and their souls, together with certain of your own prayers, so God may deliver them from that penitential fire.' So saying, she put a florin into his hand, which the holy father blithely received and confirming her devoutness with fair words and store of pious instances, gave her his benison and let her go. The lady ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... countess, whose present aim was to throw the virtue of Wallace off its guard, and to take that by sap, which she found resisted open attack, with a penitential air disappeared by another passage. Edwin's gentle mother was followed by the same youth who had brought Helen's packet to Berwick. It was Walter Hay, anxious to be recognized by his benefactor, to whom his recovered health had rendered ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... them, mix them with the best honey, and administer an electuary. (At an earlier period such drugs appear to have met with some opposition from the Church, which seems to have seen in them only an application of magic; thus I note that in Burchard's remarkable Penitential of the fourteenth century, as reproduced by Wasserschleben, 40 days' penance is prescribed for the use of human urine or excrement as a medicine. Wasserschleben Die Bussordnungen der ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... in my penitential sheet, and when one goes in that guise, one goes alone. I had half a ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... sinners out in every walk of life, and it is said that in family jars a husband sometimes has the last word of his wife by accusing her of blaspheming the sovereign, and so having her silenced for three months at least behind penitential bars. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... father!" She kissed his hand; and having lighted the chamber lamp, read one of the penitential psalms of the King of Israel, when sin, and the wretchedness that follows sin, became too heavy for ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... two cousins breathed a penitential sigh, dropped her bare, jewelled arms out of her ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... tender-hearted baronet and his wife ran out as if to welcome a prince and princess of the blood. They were overjoyed to see their spoilt child return safe and sound—though she was only Mrs. Willowes, wife of Edmond Willowes of nowhere. Barbara burst into penitential tears, and both husband and wife were contrite enough, as well they might be, considering that they had not a guinea to call ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy

... the moment was swelling over Roma like a flood. If she could unburden her heart like that! If she could cast off all the trouble of her days and nights of pain! One of the confessional boxes had a penitential rod protruding from it, and going past the front of it she had seen the face of a priest. It was a soft, kindly, human face. She had seen it before somewhere—perhaps ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... experience of the past, Assur-bani-pal did not treat it severely. The leaders of the revolt, it is true, were punished, but the city and people were spared, and its shrines, like those of Kutha and Sippara, were purified, while penitential psalms were sung to appease the angry deities, and the daily sacrifices which had been interrupted were restored. A certain Kandalanu was made viceroy, perhaps with ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce

... afternoon, Mr. Lorry sat at his desk, and Charles Darnay stood leaning on it, talking with him in a low voice. The penitential den once set apart for interviews with the House, was now the news-Exchange, and was filled to overflowing. It was within half an hour or so ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens



Words linked to "Penitential" :   penitence, penitent, penitentiary



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