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Devotional   /dɪvˈoʊʃənəl/   Listen
Devotional

noun
1.
A short religious service.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Devotional" Quotes from Famous Books



... young persons; and that the singularity of their conduct reflected discredit on the family. Under this impression, she strove by every means in her power to counteract their designs, to thwart them in their devotional and charitable practices, and to induce them to give up more of their time and of their attention to the world. She thus gave them occasion to practise a very peculiar kind of patience, and to gain the more merit in the eyes of God, in that they had daily to encounter ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton

... Muller felt anew the impulse to early rising for purposes of devotional communion. At Halle he had been an early riser, influenced by zeal for excellence in study. Afterwards, when his weak head and feeble nerves made more sleep seem needful, he judged that, even when he rose late, the day would be long enough to exhaust his little fund of strength; ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson

... despite the pious words which her tongue faltered out mechanically, were upon the field of battle, beside the body of her slaughtered parent. The rest of the mourners imitated their young lady in her devotional posture, and in the absence of her thoughts. The consciousness that so many of the garrison had been cut off in Raymond's incautious sally, added to their sorrows the sense of personal insecurity, which was exaggerated by the ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... which the Rationalists had by this time become so able to inflict on almost everything of value. It is a lamentable scene to see those reckless doubters sit down with scalpel in hand to dissect as pure and inspiring hymns as are to be found in the devotional literature of any nation. For a good sacred song is only complete just as its author finishes it. If an authorized hymn committee attempt to alter it, they fill it at once with icicles. They can no ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... the second of "light conceits of lovers." In dealing with sacred themes, particularly when they venture on paraphrases of the Psalms, our poets seldom do themselves justice; but I claim for Campion that he is neither stiff nor awkward. Henry Vaughan is the one English poet whose devotional fervour found the highest lyrical expression; and Campion's impassioned poem "Awake, awake, thou heavy sprite!" (p. 6) is not unworthy of the great Silurist. Among the sacred verses are some lines ("Jack ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various

... young face, not the worn and haggard representation so often seen—talking to one whose handsome robes showed him to be a person of position, who stood with hanging head and pained, disappointed expression. Beneath the picture stood a kneeling-chair with a pile of devotional books on the ledge. The whole effect was that of a quiet corner or "closet," as the Apostle calls it, and Jill was still staring at it with distended eyes when the General turned ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey

... this pious man in devotional exercises, it forewarns you of smooth flattery and deceit pulling you a willing victim into the ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... Jesus (1515-1582), born at Avila; became a Carmelite nun and devoted her life to reforming her Order and founding convents and monasteries. Saint Theresa believed herself inspired of God, and her devotional and mystic writings have a tone of authority. Her chief works in prose are the Castillo interior and the Camino de perfeccion. She is one of the greatest of Spanish mystics, and her influence is ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various

... at a special meeting appointed for this purpose, at the week-night prayer-meeting, or at the young people's devotional meeting Sunday evening, let the studies for the week be reviewed and the memory verses recited. Short talks may also be given on each topic by ...
— The Art of Soul-Winning • J.W. Mahood

... become acquainted with new faces, in a new country, than such a scene as this. All was hilarity and good humour: while, above, was a sky as bright and blue as ever was introduced into an illuminated copy of the devotional volumes printed by the father of the ULM PRESS; to wit, John ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... believe it before they begin to do it. I wonder little at so many rejecting Christianity, while so many would-be champions of it hold theirs at arm's length—in their bibles, in their theories, in their church, in their clergyman, in their prayer-books, in the last devotional page they have read—a separable thing—not in their hearts on their beds in the stillness; not their comfort in the night-watches; not the strength of their days, the hope and joy of their conscious being! ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... arming himself against all ill chances. He learned that the king, during the last fortnight, had been gloomy; that the queen-mother was ill and much depressed; that Monsieur, the king's brother, was exhibiting a devotional turn; that Madame had the vapors; and that M. de Guiche was gone to one of his estates. He learned that M. Colbert was radiant; that M. Fouquet consulted a fresh physician every day, who still did not cure him, and that his principal complaint was one which physicians do not usually cure, ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... implement, or device, to compass some personal end; to carry a point in which he was interested, whether relating to private and domestic affairs, or to movements in academical, political, or ecclesiastical spheres. While according to him entire sincerity in his devotional exercises, and, I trust, truly revering the character and nature of such expressions of devout sensibility and aspirations to divine communion, it is quite apparent that they were practiced by him, in modes and to an extent that cannot be commended, leading to much self-delusion and ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham

... sacred water at second hand, on the tips of her fingers, and proceeds to cross herself, with all due decorum. The Spaniards, who are the most jealous of lovers, are impatient when this piece of devotional gallantry is proffered to the object of their affections by any other hand: on Good Friday, therefore, when a lady makes a tour of the churches, it is the usage among them for the inamorato to follow her from ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving

... varshas or vashavasana (Pali, vassa; Spence Hardy, vass), Eitel (p. 163) says:—"One of the most ancient institutions of Buddhist discipline, requiring all ecclesiastics to spend the rainy season in a monastery in devotional exercises. Chinese Buddhists naturally substituted the hot season for the rainy (from the 16th day of the 5th to the 15th ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien

... and the audiences at the evening sessions numbered from 1,500 to 3,000. The State association sent out 20,000 invitations. Music was provided for every session by the Charles M. Stieff Piano Company and clergymen came from various churches for the opening devotional services. Three men gave unlimited time and assistance to the work of the convention, Dr. J. William Funck, Dr. Janney and Charles H. Holton. As this was the native city of Miss Mary Garrett and Dr. M. Carey Thomas ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... at Tuskegee out of which I get a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction is in the meeting with our students, and teachers, and their families, in the chapel for devotional exercises every evening at half-past eight, the last thing before retiring for the night. It is an inspiring sight when one stands on the platform there and sees before him eleven or twelve hundred earnest young men and ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington

... prayer, Old Clogs declaring that 'hoo were on her knees three minutes and a hawve, by th' chapel clock;' while at the conclusion of the service, after the congregation were on their feet in noisy exit, her devotional attitude led others to brand her both as ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather

... of these prophecies in existence, and these were in the hands of some of the prophets or literary dignitaries of the nation, or in the archives of some of the prophetical schools. The notion that these works were distributed among the people for study and devotional reading is not to be entertained. No such general use of the prophetical writings was ever conceived of by the ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden

... is best portrayed in the story of the days of his decline. A time came when, from the failure of sight, he must desist from his literary labours: his Marquesan hymns, grammars, and dictionaries; his scientific papers, lives of saints, and devotional poetry. He cast about for a new interest: pitched on gardening, and was to be seen all day, with spade and water-pot, in his childlike eagerness, actually running between the borders. Another step of decay, and he must leave his garden also. Instantly a new occupation was devised, and ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson

... walls having four gates fronting the four cardinal points, and that within the enclosure were five hundred dwellings accommodating the priests and priestesses, and others who were devoted to religious dances and devotional ceremonies connected with the worship and service of the idols. Five thousand priests chanted night and day before the altars. Consecrated fountains and gardens of holy flowers were there, mingling barbaric fanaticism with natural beauty. ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou

... 16th, marked the beginning of the end of our year's work. After our usual devotional exercises we commenced the public examination of our school in all the various classes. It was an exhaustive review of as much of the work of the year as could be covered in the given time. All passed off to the satisfaction of the teachers and the great delight of a good number of visiting patrons ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 48, No. 7, July, 1894 • Various

... translates it, so it is. But Payne's version, with its musical subtleties and choice phrases, such as "The thought of God to him his very housemate is," is a delight to the ear and an enchantment of the sense. Mr. Payne in his Terminal Essay singles out the original as one of the finest pieces of devotional verse in the Nights; and worthy of Vaughan or Christina Rossetti. The gigantic nature of Payne's achievement will be realised when we mention that The Arabian Nights contains the equivalent of some twenty thousand decasyllabic lines of poetry, that is to say more than there ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... presided; the devotional service was led by Rev. A. H. Harnly; prayer was offered by Rev. A. C. Dixon. Addresses were made as follows: "Chicago's White Slave Market; the Illegal Red Light District," by Rev. Ernest A. Bell. "The White Slaves and ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various

... and sat down meekly at the table, her hands clasped before her in rather a devotional attitude, while he, standing, fixed her ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... that it was you who drove the French out of Russia in 1812? Yah! then, you ugly old daub, and yah! again!" The Russian staff, not understanding one word of this, were much impressed by their master's devotional behaviour, but Vogue and I had to go into the street and laugh ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton

... his ideas and of his schemes. Deficient in power of initiative and in physical courage, he was obstinate beyond all belief in his adherence to his theories. That he should suddenly yield to a devotional impulse, fall upon his knees before a crucifix and cry mea culpa over his whole past life, was altogether out of the question. In Gianbattista's opinion it was almost as impossible that he should abandon in a moment the plan which he had announced with so much resolution on the previous evening. ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford

... however, Reuben goes on presently to speak: of his first sight of the mother of Adele, and of her devotional attitude as they floated down past the little chapel of Notre Dame to enter upon the fateful voyage; he recounts their talks upon the tranquil moon-lit nights of ocean; he tells of the mother's eager listening to his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... where the devotional spirit has reached a higher level than in Plasden. The truths of the Creator are preached and practised with a far more pleasing result than ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris

... paid to its appropriate duties, the crew are by no means satisfied, and but too readily contract, by degrees, the habit of neglecting their obligations both to God and man. On the contrary, if the day be entirely taken up with devotional exercises, to the fatigue of their minds and bodies, they are exceedingly apt, after a time, to vote the "whole concern," as they call it, a bore, and to make up for this forced attention by the ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... grouping and powerful physiognomizing. Dignified, noble, powerful, and natural, he is the exact counterpart of Fra Angelico, among the Quattrocentisti. Two great, distinct systems,—the shallow, shrinking, timid, but rapturously devotional, piously sentimental school, of which Beato Angelico was facile princeps, painfully adventuring out of the close atmosphere of the miniatori into the broader light and more gairish colors of the actual, and falling back, hesitating and distrustful; and the hardy, healthy, audacious naturalists, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... increased with amazing rapidity. During this persecution, evidence had not been wanting of the moral slackness in the African Church. A large number of lay people apostatized, and a good number of bishops and priests handed over to the pagan authorities, besides the devotional objects, the Scriptures and the muniments of their communities. In Numidia, and especially at Constantine, scandalous scenes took place. The cowardice of the clergy was lamentable. Public opinion branded with the names of traditors, or traitors, those who had weakened ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand

... labouring under a vague impression that, because everything was so still and quiet, it must be Sunday, rode slowly through the scattered clumps of silver birch which shaded the trail, chanting in a loud, sonorous voice a part of the service of the Greek Church, suspending this devotional exercise, occasionally, to curse his vagrant horses in a style which would have excited the envy and admiration of the most profane trooper of ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... wonderfully-robed priest came his choir and many villagers, who occupied one side of the square made by the soldiers standing there in the dusk to do last honors to their dead comrades. With chantings and doleful chorus the choir answered his solemn oratory and devotional intercessions. He swung his sacred censer pot over each body and though we understood no word we knew he was doing reverence to the spirit of sacrifice shown by our fallen comrades. There in the darkness by the edge of the forest, the priest and his ceremony, the firing ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... and would taste a sweetness no tongue can express. Then thou wouldst love thy cross more than all the glory and all the goods of this world.' The author had begun a series of reflections and meditations on the Ten Commandments for devotional use on Tuesday, but got no further than the Fifth. Behmen is so deep and so original in his purely philosophical, theological, and speculative books, that in many places we can only stand back and wonder at the man. But in his Holy Week Behmen kneels down beside ...
— Jacob Behmen - an appreciation • Alexander Whyte

... time—except at evening prayers in the parlour; to which I was escorted by Miss Murdstone after everybody else was placed; where I was stationed, a young outlaw, all alone by myself near the door; and whence I was solemnly conducted by my jailer, before any one arose from the devotional posture. I only observed that my mother was as far off from me as she could be, and kept her face another way so that I never saw it; and that Mr. Murdstone's hand was bound up in a ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... neither perfunctory nor lacking in a really religious tone. It has a directness and a simplicity, without affectation, which would incline one to believe that it was not made mechanically, but composed with a devotional spirit that gave ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins

... heights far enough to add, "It would have afforded us the greatest pleasure imaginable to have dined on that Goose in company with you on New Year's day." It is Susan's diary, however, which affords the most satisfactory glimpses of her true character, serious, devotional, deeply conscientious and ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... When lunch time came he had not returned. His absence caused me such misery that I myself was astonished at the violence of my pain. I came up to my room afterwards, and to ease my heart I wrote a page of my journal, a devotional page, seeking to revive my fainting spirit at the glowing memory of my girlhood's faith. Then I read a few pieces, here and there, of Shelley's Epipsychidion, after which I went down into the park looking for Delfina. But no matter what I did, the thought of him was ever present with me, ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio

... thought it advisable to abridge or alter this naive account of a Christmas-day on the southern borders of the Sahara. Mr. Richardson seems already to feel certain presentiments of the fate that awaited him. In other places I have omitted devotional passages; but in this it seemed to me that it would be unjust to the memory of this amiable ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson

... devotional example, and her perfect rest and peace in the practice of her religion, were strong influences with Anne. She was waiting till circumstances should make it possible to her to enter a convent, and in the meantime she lived a strictly ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... tyrant? The system of our philosopher was, to lay all the wild spirits which have haunted us in the chimerical shapes of nonconformity. I have often thought, after much observation on our Church history since the Reformation, that the devotional feelings have not been so much concerned in this bitter opposition to the National Church as the rage of dominion, the spirit of vanity, the sullen pride of sectarism, and ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... shame that they retain, taken care not to let that change be seen, except among irreligious associates or those of another form of worship. Finally, the tertiary orders, brotherhoods, and pious and devotional associations, old and new, have always had a great number of individuals enrolled in the Filipinas, and even constant and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various

... ignorant as Dagobert, with regard to devotional exercises, for in the desert where they had lived there was neither church nor priest, their faith, as was already said, consisted in this—that God, just and good, had so much pity for the poor mothers whose children were left on earth, that he allowed ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... of his son Tom and the amusement of his daughter Mary. The privacy of family affairs was not entirely respected by the Kimper family, for Sam soon heard remarks from street loafers, as he passed along, which indicated that the devotional exercises of the family had been reported, evidently by his own children, and he heard quotations from some of his weak and halting prayers pass from mouth to mouth and elicit ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton

... Church-organs in the school-rooms, chapel-services at various times as the different sets of workmen come and go, and flourishing schools for the mere child up to the actual young man, supply all the spiritual, intellectual, and devotional requirements of the work-people; games, gardening, excursions, and a general friendliness between masters and people, form their social happiness; and useful arts taught and about to be taught, help to make up the wellbeing of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various

... think. Just opposite me sat a young man with a countenance so solemn that I felt sure he had made up his mind to "be good," and get the full benefit of the services. His black cheeks seemed to glisten with earnestness; his thick lips pouted with devotional good-will. I do not write in ridicule, but merely endeavour to convey my full meaning. He wore a superfine black dress coat, a gaudy vest, and buff corduroy trousers so short that they displayed to advantage his enormous ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne

... she came under these aesthetic, devotional influences—even as her own voice was soaring heavenward in the choir—she thought to herself, "How delicious to have an emotion which you feel will last for ever and which you know won't!" And a gleam of amusement flitted ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill

... for nearly three hours, in a piercingly sharp day, in the saw-pit, employed in gathering the dust and throwing it by handfuls over his body, which was naked to the waist. As the man was in possession of his mental faculties I conceived he was performing some devotional act preparatory to his departure, which he felt to be approaching and, induced by the novelty of the incident, I went twice to observe him more closely; but when he perceived that he was noticed he immediately ceased his operation, hung down his head and, ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin

... ineffectual to the ground, through mere sluggishness in their delivery! How unworthy of one who performs the high function of a religious instructer, upon whom depend, in a great measure, the religious knowledge and devotional sentiment and final character of many fellow beings,—to imagine that he can worthily discharge this great concern by occasionally talking for an hour, he knows not how, and in a manner which he has taken no pains to render correct, impressive, or attractive; and which, simply through want of that ...
— Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching • Henry Ware

... not mention all this to those nearest him until the time for departure came, and he tried, God knew, to work while he performed the small, devotional acts to his mother and Kathryn that would soon stand forth, to one of them at least, as the most ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock

... the shelves a little volume of Whittier, bound in calf, handling it as tenderly as if it were a priceless possession. Some pressed violets dropped out as she opened it, and she replaced them with devotional fingers. After some time she decided upon a lyric lament entitled "Eva." I was asked to run over the verses, and found them remarkably easy to learn; fatally impossible to forget. I presently arose and with an impish betrayal of the poverty of rhyme and the plethora of ...
— Painted Windows • Elia W. Peattie

... nothing to do. These subjects have been discussed comprehensively and finally in Mrs. Jameson's splendid work on the "Legends of the Madonna." Out of the great mass of Madonna subjects are selected, here, only the idealized and devotional pictures of the Mother and Babe. The methods of classifying such works ...
— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll

... valley near Grenoble, was the most austere in its practice. A life of solitude and silence in a cell, a spare and meagre diet, a penitential garment of hair, flagellations, and the rigid practices of devotional exercises, were duties imposed upon every member of ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield

... journey had no object but to render services to my persecuted friends. My present visit ought to be more happy, since its only object is my eternal salvation." It appears, however, that the horses of the travellers had no such devotional feelings; "for," he continues, "whilst my mind was full of these thoughts, the horse of the old abbot, which was walking upon my left, kicking at my horse, struck me upon the leg, just below the knee. The blow was so violent ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... have read family prayers every night since I have been here—my black coat and white tie gave me the natural pre-eminence in such matters—and I feel guilty every time I read. I wonder what the little lady of the devotional eyes would say if she knew that I am a miserable hypocrite, preaching that which I do not practise, exhorting others to believe those marvels which I do not believe? I am a coward not to throw off the saintly mask, and appear as a Freethinker. ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... immortality; but in this very poverty the system met its downfall. The deep yearnings of the human heart craved satisfaction. The inextinguishable poetry of the soul yearned for the spiritual; the devotional instincts of human nature caught the first notes of that heavenly melody to which they were ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... find it to originate from, and end in, some moral or religious principle. Indeed, some objects (the highest in the scale of our perceptions of excellence) bring with them an immediate conviction of the truth of this assertion; witness the devotional sentiment which the view of the main ocean inspires; the rising and setting sun; the contemplation of the celestial orbs, &c. witness the noblest object of the creation, when viewed in his highest character. Does not ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin of - our Ideas of Beauty, etc. • Frances Reynolds

... university, the hospitals, libraries, and collections of all sorts. Neither have I seen anywhere else such fine churches, and I have more than once felt the difference between worshiping within bare walls, and in buildings more worthy of devotional purposes. In one word, I should be enchanted with my stay in Vienna if I could be free from the idea that I am always surrounded by an imperceptible net, ready to close upon me at the slightest signal. With this exception, the only discomfort to a foreigner here, if he is unaccustomed to it, ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz

... the workingman's festival. It is not only a day of rest from manual labor, a breathing space in his struggle for existence, an interval during which his devotional aspirations may have full exercise; it is the forerunner of a new phase of life, in which toil is laid aside for the gentler occupations of home, if he is a man of family, and for rest and ...
— Twenty-Five Cent Dinners for Families of Six • Juliet Corson

... just as at Bologna, in the tomb of St. Dominic, Fra Guglielmo's work is but an inferior copy of the style of his master, so here in this pulpit, built most probably in 1270, we find just Niccolo's work spoiled, in a mere repetition, feeble, and without any of the devotional spirit we might expect in the work of a friar. Beside it, near the next altar, is a very beautiful group in glazed terra-cotta, in the manner of the della Robbia, by Fra Paolino. The holy water basin supported by figures of the ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton

... same theme with all the tenderness of his fine sensitive nature, and with all that exquisite harmony which his refined muse had at ready command. HOME LYRICS is a charming little volume of poems, full of sincerity, grace, and devotional feeling. ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby

... was sitting at his table, and reading according to his invariable custom, first of all in the Bible. He never left the Bible open—he always shut it with a peaceful, devotional air, after he had read therein: there was something grateful as well as reverential in his manner of closing the volume; the holy words should not ...
— Christian Gellert's Last Christmas - From "German Tales" Published by the American Publishers' Corporation • Berthold Auerbach

... was a kind of reading not adapted for her sex, containing dangerous matters: if she was uneasy in her mind she should hear two masses instead of one, and rest contented with her Paternosters and her Primer, which were not only devotional but ornamented with a variety of elegant forms, from the most exquisite pencils of France." Such is the story drawn from a curious letter, written by a Huguenot, and a former friend of Catharine de' Medici, and by which we may infer that the reformed ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... her childhood so earnestly at the side of her mother and sister; and much as she longed, just on this day, to pray for blessings on her beloved king, all her efforts were in vain; she could arouse no devotional feeling. Kassandane and Atossa knelt at her side, joining heartily in the very hymns which to Nitetis were an ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... great; and ministers are allowed longer holidays than other professional men. A couple of hours a day given from a holiday to great reading may shoot threads of fresh colour through the whole web of a season's work. Nor have I said anything of the time necessary for thinking over the devotional portion of the service of the sanctuary, though in our churches, where free prayer prevails, this deserves as ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker

... umbrella, was behind her. She had been across to the Vicarage in all the wet and cold to make the Parson talk to her about her soul, and to get rid of her he had finally given her a host of little cheap devotional books that had from time to time been sent to him from the publishers, and which he himself, disliking most modern books of devotion, had not troubled to read. He knew they were suited to the mentality of the average child of ten, and that therefore ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... At the time we were present, the chapel was well filled, and the broad surface of black faces was scarcely at all diversified with lighter colors. It was gratifying to witness the neatness of dress, the sobriety of demeanor, the devotional aspect of countenance, the quiet and wakeful attention to the preacher which prevailed. They were mostly rural negroes from the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... To swear, to use an oath, 19 It is by the Lord that all ought to swear, 19 Oath sworn with the lifting up of the right hand, 20 Swearing a devotional exercise, 21 In the oath is implied a condensed adoration, 21 The oath a solemn appeal to God, 23 In swearing a lawful oath, a Covenant with God is made, 23 whether given to confirm an assertion, 23 or given to confirm an explicit promise, 26 The civil or moral ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham

... slowly towards the large tank, (lake), he saw that a few men near the front were carrying an image of clay in the shape of a woman. She had been worshipped to avert cholera, and now the worshippers were taking the idol to throw it into the tank, as the last act of their devotional ceremony. Daniel was a close observer of all that was done, and he saw at one time, when those who carried the idol held it up higher than the heads of the people, tears run out of its eyes. Many persons in the crowd saw ...
— Old Daniel • Thomas Hodson

... between morning and evening service, he endeavoured to employ himself earnestly in devotional exercises; and as he has mentioned in his Prayers and Meditations, gave me Les Pensees de Paschal, that I might not interrupt him. I preserve the book with reverence. His presenting it to me is marked upon it with his own hand, and I have found in it a ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... substitute the Host in place of bread, to lessen the number and rigor of the ancient Lents, to determine the effects of diverse pious works, to apply, ascribe and transfer their salutary effects, to assign proper value and reward to each devotional act, to measure the merit derived from them, the sins they efface and the pardons these obtain not only in this world but in the next one. By virtue of her administrative habits, and with the precision of a bookkeeper, she casts up her accounts of indulgences ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... visited several times in Norfolk and Baltimore, where it was said there were a good many. I remember she used to defend them, and say she knew a great many very devout ones. And she admitted that she sometimes went to the Catholic church, and found it devotional; the choral service, she said, satisfied something in her soul. It happened to be in the evening that she was talking about this. She sat down at the piano, and played some of the Gregorian chants she had heard, and it had a soothing influence on everyone. Even ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page

... architecture in the country. It was enlarged subsequently by Rich. Pomeroy (temp. Hen. VIII.), and Bishop Beckington's executors are said to have built the chapel at the other end of the Close. Regarded now-a-days as a devotional superfluity by the singers, it has been turned over to the Theological College. The chapel and muniment room above should be inspected, but admission cannot now be obtained to the hall. Before leaving ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade

... to obtain a suitable education. In 1827, the poet commenced business as an accountant. The hours of relaxation from business he sedulously devoted to the concerns of literature, especially poetry. He produced some religious tracts, and composed verses, chiefly of a devotional character. He died in 1837, and his remains were consigned to the Necropolis of the city. Admiring friends reared an appropriate monument ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... you—except—I suppose there would be no objection to my having a few finer steel pens. 'And to explain his wants, he took up his Prayer-Book, which his sister had decorated with several small devotional prints. Copying these minutely line by line in pen and ink, was the solace of his prison hours; and though the work was hardly after drawing-masters' rules, the hand was not untaught, and there was talent and soul enough in the work ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... appointment, from which they cannot pause without culpability, nor retire without dishonour. Our large trading cities bear to me very nearly the aspect of monastic establishments in which the roar of the mill-wheel and the crane takes the place of other devotional music; and in which the worship of Mammon or Moloch is conducted with a tender reverence and an exact propriety; the merchant rising to his Mammon matins with the self-denial of an anchorite, and expiating the frivolities into which he may be beguiled ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin

... herself had formed the habit of coming to indulge in prayer and meditation when the place was deserted for the day. She commended the place to Jane, and to Jane's mother, whom she believed to be holy persons given to devotional exercises. ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... broad principles of humanity. But they suffered more from mortification of feeling. To think that they had treated the presiding elder of the district after such a fashion was deeply humiliating; and the idea of the whole affair getting abroad interfered sadly with their devotional feelings throughout the whole period ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... may be gilded both for beauty and to make easy the removal of dust. But the top should be rather shaved than trimmed, so that the margin may not be visibly reduced. The gilding of all the edges, or "full gilt," is hardly appropriate to the book beautiful, though it may be allowed in devotional books, especially those in limp binding, and its effect may there be heightened by laying the gilt on red or some other color. Edges may be goffered, that is, decorated with incised or burnt lines, though the result, like tattooing, is more curious than ornamental. ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman

... few devotional fair clouds were soon Breathed o'er the living countenance of Heaven, And under the great galaxies were driven Of stars that group'd together, and they went Like voyagers along the firmament, And grew to silver in the blessed light Of the moon alchymist. It was not night, Not the ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart

... they become voters, if they ever do, it may be feared that the pews will lose what the ward-rooms gain. Relax a woman's hold on man, and her knee-joints will soon begin to stiffen. Self-assertion brings out many fine qualities, but it does not promote devotional habits. ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... as it stands, from Matins to the Consecration of an Archbishop, no reviewer could miss its devotional beauty. It is, perhaps, a misfortune that the most beautiful Office of the Christian Church, the Eucharistic Office, should come in the middle, instead of at the beginning, of our Prayer Book, first in order ...
— The Church: Her Books and Her Sacraments • E. E. Holmes

... enjoyed a reputation for being very devotional, and the interval between his entrance and the commencement of the service was passed by him in a rather scornful survey of the time-worn house. With a sneer in his heart, he mentally compared the old-fashioned pulpit, with its steep flight of steps and faded trimmings, with ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... must not hastily conclude from this that the nobler characters of the building have at present any influence in fostering a devotional spirit. There is distress enough in Venice to bring many to their knees, without excitement from external imagery; and whatever there may be in the temper of the worship offered in St. Mark's more than can be accounted for by reference to the unhappy ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin

... members of which I am now addressing,—that the middle classes in its cities, which will be the depositaries of its increasing political power, and which elsewhere are opposed in their hearts to the Catholicism which they profess,—are here so sound in faith, and so exemplary in devotional exercises, and in works ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... adds that from "intellectual persons "he has heard the complaint that the "effort to follow is too great"; and he entreats him to prepare each sermon "with less intellectual effort, though, of course, not with less devotional purpose." ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... is a great aid to our being devotional. Too few, I fear, realize how important to our spiritual advancement is the cultivation of a taste for devotional reading. As a rule, those who have a taste for spiritual books and gratify that taste prosper in the Lord, while those who have no relish for such books labor at a great disadvantage. ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr

... The Puritans of those early days were very far from holding a negative or colourless faith. Not only was their belief delicately dogmatic to excess; but it all centred round the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Isabel had drunk in this faith from her father's lips, and from devotional books which he gave her, as far back as she could remember anything. Her love for the Saviour was even romantic and passionate. It seemed to her that He was as much a part of her life, and of her actual experience, as Anthony ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... maimed man came slowly round, and took the rope as Tommy let go. For a single minute the bruised giant rested his hands on the lunging stern of the little vessel. He did not look up, and his face had no devotional aspect, but the two men who were saved remembered his words to the end of their lives. He said, "O Lord Jesus, I am even with you now. I am going to die." The stern of the boat flew up into the air as a short sea hit her, and Hob's Tommy lost his grip. He ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman

... or not, it was true that there was a faculty among men which, in its developed state, was as distinct, as unequally distributed, as mysterious in its origin and in its distribution, as was the faculty for pure mathematics, for music, for metaphysics, or for research. They might call it the devotional or religious faculty. Just as there were men whose faculties of insight amounted to genius in other regions of mental activity, so there were spiritual geniuses, geniuses in the region in which man holds ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford

... THE SCRIPTURES in perhaps equal measure to its use of the Bible—The reading is from the two alternately; the singing is from a compilation called the "Christian Science Hymnal," but its songs are for the most part those devotional hymns from Herbert, Faber, Robertson, Wesley, Browning, and other recognized devotional poets, with selections from Whittier and Lowell, as are found in the hymn books of the Unitarian churches. For the past year or two Judge Hanna, formerly of Chicago, has filled ...
— Pulpit and Press (6th Edition) • Mary Baker Eddy

... was a deep devotional sentiment that pervaded the character of Galileo. Before he died, he became totally blind; yet he did not despair. Like Milton, he labored on for mankind—nay, pursued his scientific studies, inventing mechanical substitutes for his loss of vision, to enable ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... had seen very little of him. His devotional studies and habits seemed to draw him from the idle pursuits of myself and my uncle's guests; and Aubrey was one peculiarly susceptible of neglect, and sore, to morbidity, at the semblance of unkindness; so that he required to ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Stephansplatz the idea came to her to go into the church for a while. In the dim, cool, and immense building a profound sensation of comfort came over her. She had never been of a religious disposition, but she could never enter a place of worship without experiencing a devotional feeling and, without clothing her prayers in definite form, she had yet always thought to find a way to send up her wishes to Heaven. At first she wandered round the church in the manner of a stranger visiting a beautiful edifice, then ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler

... that these answers of Taweddud form an excellent compendium of devotional practice, according to the tenets of the ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous

... nothing to which the natural feelings of man respond more readily. Every nation, whose literary remains have come down to us, appears to have consecrated the first efforts of its muse to religion, or rather all the first compositions in verse seem to have grown out of devotional effusions. We know that the book of Job, and others, the most ancient of the Old Testament, contain rhythmical addresses to the Supreme Being. Many of the psalms were composed centuries before the time of king David, and it is not extravagant ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 565 - Vol. 20, No. 565., Saturday, September 8, 1832 • Various

... morning of the 29th, at six o'clock, Mr. Washington Nathan descended from his chamber to call his father to a devotional duty of the day. Entering the chamber of the latter, a most appalling spectacle met his view. His father was lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood, dead, with five ghastly wounds upon his head. The young man at once summoned ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... "After the devotional exercises we had breakfast. I cannot help remarking that the mind is in a better condition spiritually for performing and enjoying sacred devotions before breakfast than it is after it. To have family prayers after breakfast, as many do in the Western world, hinders the freedom and adaptation ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge

... better, and most certainly a happier, woman. My life has a higher aim, my ambition a safer guide, and my efforts a more stable support, but I am not always faithful to my good resolutions and I am easily won away from devotional pursuits." ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... be understood to recommend that any person who does not love the Bible, and the doctrines which it inculcates, and who does not seek after that purity of heart which it every where enjoins, should conduct devotional exercises in school; but I would respectfully inquire whether any who do not delight in such exercises, and who do not esteem it a privilege to lead the devotions of those under their charge, do not lack an essential qualification ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... Their control over the auspices was a favourite weapon of the patricians, and one which could naturally be better used at a distance from Rome. The frequency of its use would seem to argue adaptability in the devotional feelings of the nobles at least, which might modify our reliance upon the statement made above as to the respect for the gods then prevalent ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius

... an harangue on religion, and mistaking me for un philosophe in the continental sense of the word, he talked of Deity in a declamatory style, very much resembling the devotional rants of that rude blunderer, Mr. Thomas Paine, in his Age of Reason, and whispered in my ear, what damned hypocrism all Jesus Christ's business was. I dare aver, that few men have less reason to charge themselves with indulging in persiflage than myself. I should hate it, if it were ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... permitted to see her, at most, once in a year. But outside the threshold of her cell she might never step, save for imminent peril of life, as in the case of fire. She must live there, and die there, her sole occupation found in devotional exercises, her sole pleasure in her friends' visits, the few sights she could see from her window, and through a tiny slit into the chancel of the Church of Saint John the Baptist, which we know as the chapel ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt

... strolling a trifle farther and taking a look at the monastery. Roderick went off alone, and his companion after a while bent his steps to the monasterial church. It was remarkable, like most of the churches of Catholic Switzerland, for a hideous style of devotional ornament; but it had a certain cold and musty picturesqueness, and Rowland lingered there with some tenderness for Alpine piety. While he was near the high-altar some people came in at the west door; ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James

... source of all devotional displays is the Religious Sentiment, a complex feeling, a thorough understanding of which is an essential preliminary to the study of ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton

... Leicestershire." And when at this time he arrived at a point which presented the grandest assemblage of beauty, he paused in silence to gaze on the rocks of St. Vincent, and the Avon, and the dense woods, and the distant Severn, and the dim blue mountains of Wales, when with that devotional spirit which accorded with the general current of his feelings, in an ecstacy he exclaimed; "Oh, if these outskirts of the Almighty's dominion can, with one glance, so oppress the heart with gladness, what will be the disclosures of ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... community, or a popular priest, he often makes a profit in taking in masses to say, and letting out the job at a discount. The whole matter may be summed up by saying that the more profoundly ignorant the people are, the more devotional do they become, so that the priest has always a pecuniary interest in the ignorance of the people, and if he makes any effort toward their enlightenment, it is an effort made directly against his own pecuniary interests and the income of ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... metres to do this sort of thing at all, could not with any propriety have the closely related equivalents that they have here. No; to ask for this kind of effect is really to ask for nothing more valuable than the devotional crosses and altars into which a perverted wit led some of the seventeenth-century poets to contrive their verses in unhappy moments, or Southey's Lodore, in which there is a fond pretence that verbal rhythms are water.[3] ...
— The Lyric - An Essay • John Drinkwater

... The Devotional Library was commenced in 1846. The design of the Proprietors was to publish, at the lowest possible price, a series of Works, original, or selected from well-known Church of England Divines, which, from their ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 14. Saturday, February 2, 1850 • Various

... appeal to a learned and eminent, but by no means devotional sergeant, so tickled the gentlemen of the bar, that they burst out ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... curates, in order to preserve their influence intact, do not look favorably upon the spread of Castilian. About the only ones who know Spanish are the Indians who have been in the service of Europeans. The first reading exercise is some devotional book, then the catechism; the reader is called Casaysayan. On the average half of the children between seven and ten years attend school; they learn to read fairly well and some to write a little, but they soon ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... that the brilliancy of their lights has thrown a splendour over the vulgarity of their subjects; and that they are in general so utterly destitute of all the refinement and sentiment which sprung from the devotional feelings ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison

... Wallbridge said, serene in tone from her devotional reading. "Father wants that I should tell you something. You mustn't feel bad about it. It's that we may soon go out West. Your Uncle Ezra is doing well in Minnesota. Aunt Elvira says so in her ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson

... press work, which had grown to such proportions that it was considered very significant of advance in suffrage sentiment throughout the State. The Rev. George Whitfield, a venerable Baptist minister, came from the neighboring town of Clinton and conducted devotional exercises and gave a talk on woman's position from a Biblical standpoint. R. K. Jayne of Jackson, an early suffragist, also spoke. At this time dues-paying members were reported from seventeen towns. ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... dated earlier than the first century before our era. It consists of four books, of which the chief one is the Vendidad; the other three are the liturgical and devotional works, consisting of hymns, litanies, and songs of praise, addressed to the Deities and angels ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... gloom-the peacemaker with Providence performing devotional exercises in black bile. The leaps of the children were dashed. A sallow two or three minutes composed their motions, and then they jumped again to the step for lively legs. The similarity to the regimental band ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... portion of London was in consequence commonly the gayest of all its districts, with something of the meretricious gaiety of a seaport or city of hotels. And for those who took a more serious view of aeronautics, the religious quarters had flung out an attractive colony of devotional chapels, while a host of brilliant medical establishments competed to supply physical preparatives for the journey. At various levels through the mass of chambers and passages beneath these, ran, in addition to the main moving ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells

... their conversation was enlivened with many a pleasantry—it was always Melville's 'form' at table to 'interlase' discourse on serious subjects with 'merry interludes.' When the company rose from table they held lengthened devotional exercises: in the reading of Scripture each in his turn made his observations on the passage; and we can well believe the estimate of some of those who were present, that had everything been taken down they could not have wished a fuller and better commentary than fell at ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison

... was renowned for his extreme piety and devotional habits. In a dispute concerning the chace of Colwall, near Malvern Forest, from which was derived the Bishop's supply of game, he maintained successfully the episcopal rights. He was also triumphant in a more important quarrel with the Welsh King Llewellyn ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Hereford, A Description - Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • A. Hugh Fisher

... veiled Eros, but the possibilities were all there. He was not a garden god, by any means, nor a genius of the Spring. January and Onslow Square had not frozen his currents; February and the Opera House had heightened his passion. At any moment he might resume his devotional habit—even here in Carlton House Terrace. And what then? Well—and this was odd—this ought to have produced a state of tension very trying to the nerves; and, well—it hadn't. That's all. At that very party in Carlton House Terrace, with a band braying under ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... but, though two or three complied with this request, the great majority were either silent or openly hostile. The Oblate Fathers, whose church was situated in the very heart of the infected district, continued to denounce vaccination; the faithful were exhorted to rely on devotional exercises of various sorts; under the sanction of the hierarchy a great procession was ordered with a solemn appeal to the Virgin, and the use of the rosary ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... be sent, but will not be received. It strikes us as hardly a fanciful supposition that many prayers fail to obtain an answer for a precisely analogous reason, i.e., for lack of attuning. The mere uttering of devotional phraseology, or even the sending forth of anguished appeals, does not of necessity constitute true prayer at all, and hence remains ineffective, because the soul is not really en rapport with God. We ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer

... Edomites; he conquered the Jebusites, and made Jerusalem his capital and the center of national worship. A poet himself, he enriched the religious service, which he organized, by lyrics—some of them composed by himself—of unrivaled devotional depth and poetic beauty. He organized his military force as well, and established an orderly civil administration. His favorite son, Absalom, led away by ambition, availed himself of disaffection among the people to head a revolt against his father, but perished in the attempt. David left ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... I heard him tell a religious person, "In the beginning my mother bore me. When I was a child I was wont to bore my mother. Now we bore each other." That this was primarily intended to shock our friend's devotional sensibilities I do not doubt, but I imagine it contained some small truth all the same. I think he rather shrank from personalities, resolutely refusing even to be photographed, hating that process with ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee

... severe devotional exercises, self-mortification, fasting, and prayer, and a constant attendance at matins, vespers, and on all the services of the Church, "that, being refreshed and satisfied with heavenly food, instructed and stablished with heavenly precepts, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various

... book which Pierre took to be a devotional work, and the traveler became absorbed in it. Pierre looked at him. All at once the stranger closed the book, putting in a marker, and again, leaning with his arms on the back of the sofa, sat ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... love, intense adult sympathies are provoked in quite young children. In Italy, the Italian stimulates adult sex-consciousness and sex-sympathy in his child, almost deliberately. But with us, it is usually spiritual sympathy and spiritual criticism. The adult experiences are provoked, the adult devotional sympathies are linked up, prematurely, as far as the child is concerned. We have the heart-wringing spectacle of intense parent-child love, a love intense as the love of man and woman, but not sexual; or else the great brother-sister devotion. And ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence



Words linked to "Devotional" :   pious, service, religious service, divine service



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