"Holy water" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the keys to the library, and she was only too willing to let him have them. They all went in, followed by the housekeeper, who grew faint-hearted as soon as she caught sight of all the beautifully bound books in the room. She ran out as if beset, returning immediately with a bowl of holy water and a sprinkler, with which she implored the curate to sprinkle the room, so that none of the magicians who might come out of the books would ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... shall take holy water in an earthen vessel; and of the dust that is in the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall take, and ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... at your enemy, who knows all the mountains and the paths over them, is as difficult to catch as one of their fleas, harasses you while you are on the march, and shirks fighting as the old one shirks holy water. There has only been one fight which could be called a battle since the war began; and as for the sieges, it means that you lose a lot of men, and have little credit when you take a place, especially as the moment you go out one way the enemy enter on the other side, and there is all the ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... amphitheatre; above rise the quaint forms of the apostles, in red, blue, green, and black mosaic, and in the midst of the goodly group a sort of marble chair, cool and penitential enough, where St. Lorenzo Giustiniani sat to hold a provincial council, the Lord knows how long ago! The fount for holy water stands by the principal entrance, fronting this curious recess, and seems to have belonged to some place of Gentile worship. The figures of horned imps cling round its sides, more devilish, more Egyptian, than ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... upward past her face, and for one moment terror seized her and she cried out, "Water! Give me holy water!" but the next moment her fears were gone, and they came no more ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... slaughter, holy water, Sprinkle the Catholics every one; Cut them asunder, and make them lie undher, The Protestant ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... my fault but the contact with the things of the Church that makes me gambol and frisk, just as the Devil they say is a good enough fellow left to himself and is only moderately heated, yet when you put him into holy water all the world is witness ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... church. The Bishop of Paris, attended by his chaplains and the canons of Notre Dame, entered the choir, and celebrated a pontifical mass: he then approached the opening of the cell, sprinkled it with holy water, and after the poor young thing had bidden adieu to her friends and relations, ordered the masons to fill up the aperture. This was done as strongly as stone and mortar could make it; nor was any opening left, save only a small loophole through ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... of Gallic or other bishops. Gregory's advice to Augustine, conveyed through the Abbot Mellitus, may well be pondered by the managers of modern missions. He says: "The temples of the idols in that nation [the English] ought not to be destroyed; but let the idols that are in them be destroyed; let holy water be made and sprinkled in the said temples, let altars be erected, and relics placed. For if those temples are well built it is requisite that they be converted from the worship of devils to the service of the true ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... obscurity. Louis comforted those heavy moments with soft word and gentle touch, pulling his beard lovingly, smoothing his hair, lighting for him a fresh cigar, asking no questions, and, when the dark humor deepened, exorcising the evil spirit with a sprinkling of holy water. Prayers were said together—an overpowering moment for the man who rarely prayed to see this faith and its devotion in the boy—and then to bed, where Louis invariably woke to the incidents of the day and retailed them for an hour to his amused ear; and with the ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... is to Purgatory, about what the varioloid is to the smallpox. The Franciscans, more humane in their doctrine, determined that "dear little infants," though they had never felt the sanctifying influences of holy water, should yet reside, not in dark caverns and holes of the earth, but in the sweet light and pure air of the upper world. Well done, noble Franciscan! we honour thee for thy sweet fancy! Surely thou wert not, like other monks, made so altogether fierce by dark keeping, that thou ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... the month. For two days previous to her death she had failed to perceive the fetal movements. She was kept on her back in a room, covered up and undisturbed, for thirty-six hours, the members of the family occasionally visiting her to sprinkle holy water on her face. There was no remembrance of cadaveric distortion of the features or any odor. When the undertakers were drawing the shroud on they noticed a half-round, bright-red, smooth-looking body between the genitals ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... France:—"The wars of religion were not deplorable catastrophes; these great butcheries renewed the life of France. The incense cast away the smell of the corpses, and psalms covered the noise of angry shouts. Holy water washed away all the bloody stains. With the Inquisition, the most beautiful weather succeeded to storms, and the fires that burned the heretics shone like supernatural torches." The hand that wrote these lines would more gladly light the faggot. ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... specimens up as soon as practicable, or to keep them always in full light, not poking them away in obscure corners, which the Tineidae and other pests love—hating light as the Father of Evil is said to hate holy water. ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... audacity to come to my house, this holy water merchant. They have not told him then ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... of humanity are gone. And the exorcism, it appears, is of the simplest. Let this demon once feel the contact of state ownership of the means of production and his baneful influence will vanish into thin air as his mediaeval predecessors did at the touch of a thimbleful of holy water. ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... uttered terrific threatenings against him, but immediately after shrank away with fear, awed by the holy words and warnings which he denounced against them. Savonarola besides undertook to expel them by night, by sprinkling holy water, and the singing of hymns in a solemn chorus. While however he was engaged in these sacred offices, and pacing the cloister of his convent, the devils would arrest his steps, and suddenly render the air before him ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... baptism. We see that from Tertullian's treatise on baptism and his speculations about the power of the water (c. 1 ff.). The water must, of course, have been first consecrated for this purpose (that is, the demons must be driven out of it). But then it is holy water with which the Holy Spirit is united, and which is able really to cleanse the soul. See Hatch, "The influence of Greek ideas, etc.," p. 19. The consecration of the water is certainly very old: though we have no definite witnesses from the earliest period. ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... snoring of several sorts and ages in the chamber next me, I imagine they must have endured considerable crowding. My bed was large enough to have contained a family. Over its bead there was a little shrine, hollowed in the thickness of the wall, with several sacred emblems and a shallow vase of holy water. On dressers at each end of the room stood glass shrines, occupied by finely dressed Madonna dolls and pots of artificial flowers. Above the doors S. Michael and S. Francis, roughly embossed in low relief and boldly painted, gave dignity and grandeur ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... at nine at night, and did not finish till three this morning; for, each church they passed, they stopped for a hymn and holy water. By the bye, some of these choice monks, who watched the body while it lay in state, fell asleep one night, and let the tapers catch fire of the rich velvet mantle lined with ermine and powdered with gold flower-de-luces, which melted the lead coffin, and burnt off the feet of the deceased ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... the room a long bench was fastened to the sides of the house. They were neither painted, nor cushioned, but were very white, as was also the floor, on which there was no carpet. Beside the door stood a basin of holy water, and directly opposite, an image of the Saviour extended on the cross which ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... maid, devoted to Lord Buddha, having bathed in holy water, and decked the golden tray with lamps and fresh white blossoms, silently raised her dark eyes ...
— Fruit-Gathering • Rabindranath Tagore
... representing the deeds of the gods here on earth. In each niche statues are placed, but they are almost entirely hidden by the coloured drapery and the banners that hang down. Before each idol (and they are all made of tin) stood a little altar of holy water, with flowers and burning wax lights on it. Above all the rest stood Fo, the chief deity, clad in a garment of yellow silk, for yellow is here the sacred colour. At the foot of the altar sat a living being, a young priest. He appeared to be praying, but in the ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... I'll have no call now to be up crying and praying when the wind breaks from the south, and you can hear the surf is in the east, and the surf is in the west, making a great stir with the two noises, and they hitting one on the other. I'll have no call now to be going down and getting Holy Water in the dark nights after Samhain, and I won't care what way the sea is when the other women will be keening. [To Nora]. Give me the Holy Water, Nora, there's a small sup still ...
— Riders to the Sea • J. M. Synge
... the tender and winning side. He found good in others as easily and as surely as the diviner finds the spring hidden under the hard earth's surface. His hazel twig twisted if there was present only one drop of the holy water. ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... "that religion teaches that all wickedness is allowable, so that the churches and clergy flourish. Nay, while the purse is open to lasciviousness, if it be likewise open to enrich the temple walls and roofs, this is better than any holy water, or water to wash away the filth of the other. Rome is held to be the head of superstition; and what stately churches, chapels, and cloisters are in it! What fastings, what processions, what appearances of devotion! ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... company witnessed the ceremony, while the crowd which lined the banks of the river Clyde numbered 10,000. A short service was conducted by three priests of the Greek Church, and the bows of the vessel were then sprinkled with holy water. After the conclusion of this ceremony, the yacht received her name from the Duchess of Hamilton, and was then launched. The launch was a complete success, the Livadia taking the water in gallant style, though the ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... to have recourse to his vial of holy water and make the baptismal signs. Many a soul he truly believed he had saved from burning by such secret administration. And if savages could be thus reclaimed, should he hold back from the only opportunity ever given by this beautiful soul? His face ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... old, past things was gone; and relieved, as if she had waked from a dream of prison, Mary took note of everything round her: the largeness of the church, the effect of bareness, the simple decorations of the altar. She dipped her finger in the holy water, and knelt to pray for a moment, wondering if she had the right: and when she rose from her knees, the cure ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... To-morrow night is Hallowe'en, and the fairy court will then ride through England and Scotland, and if you would borrow me from Elfland you must take your stand by Miles Cross between twelve and one o' the night, and with holy water in your hand you must cast a compass all ...
— More English Fairy Tales • Various
... reader, in that case, is to be pitied, and, if possible, converted. But, just as Pascal admits that the sceptic can only become religious by living as if he were religious—by stupefying himself, as Pascal plainly puts it, with holy water—so it is to be feared that there is but a single way of winning over the general reader to the Sagas. Preaching and example, as in this brief essay, will not avail with him. He must take Pascal's advice, and live for an hour or two as if he were ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... priest—a pale, quiet young fellow—stood under the shade of a sapling which grew at the head of the grave. He took off his hat, dropped it carelessly on the ground, and proceeded to business. I noticed that one or two heathens winced slightly when the holy water was sprinkled on the coffin. The drops quickly evaporated, and the little round black spots they left were soon dusted over; but the spots showed, by contrast, the cheapness and shabbiness of the cloth with which the coffin was covered. It seemed black before; ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... holy water banes! Or who may guide O'er desert plains Thy loved yet sinful people wandering wide, If Aaron's hand unshrinking mould An ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble
... your story to an abrupt termination. I thought you liked the accessories. The procession that marched up the aisle of St. Anne's, the shower of kisses bestowed upon you after possible evil had been exorcised by holy water; the being taken home ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... the power of speech. A father of the Society was called, who found her entirely speechless. And since she had not confessed her sins, although she tried to do so, the father began to recite the holy gospel, and to sprinkle her with holy water; and when this was done she collected her strength and, after pronouncing the name of Jesus, said, "Have mercy upon me!" Then, in the presence of many, she desired to confess; and after less than a quarter of an hour she arose from her bed, so well and whole that the father would not listen to ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various
... The holy water have they poisoned with their lustfulness; and when they called their filthy dreams delight, then poisoned they also ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... Or when her grandson, ALEXANDER, That mighty Northern salamander,[1] Whose icy touch, felt all about, Puts every fire of Freedom out— When he, too, winds up his Ukases With God and the Panagia's praises— When he, of royal Saints the type, In holy water dips the sponge, With which, at one imperial wipe, He would all human rights expunge; When LOUIS (whom as King, and eater, Some name Dix-huit, and some Deshuitres.) Calls down "St. Louis's God" to ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... sweeps away behind it; an' there is an auld burying-ground, wi' the broken ruins o' an auld Papist kirk, on the tap. Ane can see amang the rougher stanes the rose-wrought mullions of an arched window, an' the trough that ance held the holy water. About twa hunder years ago—a wee mair maybe, or a wee less, for ane canna be very sure o' the date o' thae old stories—the building was entire; an' a spot near it, whar the wood now grows thickest, was laid out in a corn-field. The marks o' the furrows may still ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... to the place where the corpses of the young men lay. The king followed after them until he came in sight of the bodies. Declan, full of divine faith, entered the house wherein they lay and he sprinkled holy water over them and prayed for them in the presence of all, saying:—"O Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the living God, for thine own name's sake wake the dead that they may be strengthened in the Catholic faith through our instrumentality." Thereupon, ...
— The Life of St. Declan of Ardmore • Anonymous
... tenaciously on its privileges. Exemption from certain taxes was the chief of these, but there were others as irritating if less important. Quarrels arose with the priest about the lord's right to be first given the holy water. One vicar in his wrath deluged ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... merit and a claim, when with the brain 'tis born and bred? Go, fool, thy foolish way and dip in holy water buried dead! ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... perhaps, within a few days, I should dissent myself.' Travelling in this spirit through countries where the old faith still prevailed, he felt a lively sympathy for the Catholic modes of worship. Holy water and crucifixes do not offend him. He is willing to enter the churches and to pray with the worshippers of other persuasions. He is naturally inclined, he says, 'to that which misguided zeal terms superstition,' ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... outstretched right hand began the Gospel, low and quick, "In the beginning was the Word." The rabid patient cowered, like a frightened hound; but when the words "full of grace and truth" were reached, he put out his tongue derisively. Hugh, not to be beaten, consecrated holy water, sprinkled him, and bade folk put some in his mouth. Then he went on his way; and the mad man, no longer mad, sanely went on pilgrimage, men said, and made a fine end at the last. His own bishop, who had met him, had clapped spurs to his horse and bolted. It may be suspected ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... half afraid Far off her ragged form has seen Sauntering down the alleys green, Or crouched in godless prayer alone At eve before a Druid stone. But now the bitter chase is won, The quarry's caught, her magic's done, The bishop's brought her strongest spell To naught with candle, book, and bell; With holy water splashed upon her, She goes to burning and dishonour Too deeply damned to feel her shame, For, though beneath her hair of flame Her thoughtful head be lowly bowed It droops for meditation proud Impenitent, and pondering yet Things no memory can forget, Starry wonders she has seen Brooding ...
— Spirits in Bondage • (AKA Clive Hamilton) C. S. Lewis
... conferences of the theologians in Sorbonne,—in the assemblies of the doctors of art, after the manner of Saint-Hilaire,—in the disputes of the decretalists, after the manner of Saint-Martin,—in the congregations of physicians at the holy water font of Notre-Dame, ad cupam Nostroe-Dominoe. All the dishes permitted and approved, which those four great kitchens called the four faculties could elaborate and serve to the understanding, he had devoured, ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... you account of numberless numbers that have not only been made to live, but to live forever, by drinking this pure water of life. No disease comes amiss to it. It cures blindness, deafness, dumbness, deadness. This right holy water (all other is counterfeit) will drive away evil spirits. It will make you have a white soul, and that is better than a white skin.'—(Bunyan's Water of Life). Whoever offers to purify the heart, and heal a wounded conscience, by any ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... not. Prostrating my unworthy turban beneath the lovely lilies of your feet, I swear to my gureeb purwar, the destitute-and-humble-protecting lord, by the Holy Water and the Blessed Cow, by the beard of my father and the veil of my mother, that I settled the little ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... here some holy water, blessed by the Pope himself. If we do but sprinkle the walls with that and bid the daring fiend cease, all will be well. It is no work of God; it is a work of the devil, striving to turn us aside from our laudable and righteous purpose. Prove me if ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... girls might very well be the twain that he had seen here so many years ago, stricken forever young in their joyless beauty. The ungraceful gowns of coarse gray, the blue checked aprons, the black crape caps, were the same; they came and went with the same quick tread, touching their brows with holy water and kneeling and rising now as then with the same constrained and ordered movements. Would it be too cruel if they were really the same persons? or would it be yet more cruel if every year two girls so young and fair were self-doomed to renew ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the pagan, who renounces his times and his faith; and Angelico, the monk, the saint, who shuts and bolts his monastery doors and sprinkles holy water in the face of the antique, the two extremes, are both exceptions. The innumerable artists of the Renaissance remained in hesitation; tried to court both the antique and the modern, to unite the pagan and the Christian—some, like Ghirlandajo, in cold indifference to all but ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... span I must return to that mysterious source. So let me gather daily on my course The perfume from the blossoms as I pass, Balm from the pines, and healing from the grass, And carry down my current as I go Not common stones but precious gems to show; And tears (the holy water from sad eyes) Back to God's sea, from which all rivers rise, Let me convey, not blood from wounded hearts, Nor poison which the upas tree imparts. When over flowery vales I leap with joy, Let me not devastate ...
— Poems of Power • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Duhn told me that once when approaching an Italian village in search of inscriptions he was taken for the devil, being unluckily mounted on a black horse and dressed in black, and was met by a priest with a crucifix, who was at last persuaded to "disinfect" him with holy water as a condition of his being admitted to the village. But the Romans of historical times, in this as in so many other ways, discovered easy methods of overcoming these fears and scruples: we find a good example of this in the organised college of Fetiales, who, on entering ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... horses, mules, cows, etc., during the week following the feast of the saint (January 17-23). On the 23rd, the Pope and many persons of the higher classes send their horses here to be blessed and sprinkled with holy water. ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... personages of the court. Soon after, the grand prince also repaired to the church. He was preceded by an ecclesiastic holding in his hand a crucifix, and sprinkling to the right and to the left holy water upon the crowd. ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... upon the mother's feelings, and on behalf of her child induce her to avail herself of the inestimable privileges of the Church in which he is fostered. Secondly, should she repel us—and these lower class heretics are even brutally refractory—we might at least allure her to allow us to make with holy water the sign of the Cross upon the natural reservoirs of infant nourishment each time before she approaches the infant. This, besides overcoming the immediate difficulty and securing for the child ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... next year's Salon, you must take my place. Yes, dear Jojo, I know your picture is a masterpiece, but a masterpiece which will rouse a hue and cry about romanticism; you are doomed to lead the life of a devil in holy water. Adieu. ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... even in the New Testament many things are done in sign of some sacred thing; yet they are not called sacraments; such as sprinkling with holy water, the consecration of an altar, and such like. Therefore not every sign of a sacred thing ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... lord B—-, in the House,—not Mr. Cartlitch, of Astley's Amphitheatre, in his most pathetic passages, could look more crestfallen, and howl more hideously, than Diabolus did now. "Take another year, Gambouge," screamed he; "two more—ten more—a century; roast me on Lawrence's gridiron, boil me in holy water, but don't ask that: don't, don't bid me live ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... as Sally looked at her watch because she saw the clock had stopped. But the nave of the Cathedral of Rheims was very unlike that of St. Satisfax as the bride and bridegroom lingered in out of the sunshine, and the former took the unwarrantable liberty, for a heretic, of crossing herself from the Holy Water at the foot of the column near the door. But she made up for it by the amount of sous she gave to the old blind woman, who must have been knitting there since the days of Napoleon at least, if she began in ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... other admirableness than that which was to result from its being huge; and the religious impressions of those who enter it are to this day supposed to be dependent, in a great degree, on their discovering that they cannot span the thumbs of the statues which sustain the vessels for holy water. ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... first feelin' after I entered wuz the immensity of the place. Some of the statutes you see that didn't look so big as Josiah, when you come clost up to 'em you found wuz sixteen feet high. And the little cherubs holdin' the shell of holy water at the entrance you see are six feet high. You look fur down the meetin'-house as you look down the road into a big piece of woods, only here the distant trees turn into statutes and shrines and altars and things. Fur off like distant stars shinin' down into the ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... aerial chapel of Bonsecours, a fac-simile has been obtained. To render it more sacred it was placed for a period within the holy house, it touched its walls, and was blessed with holy water in the vessel from which our Lord drank. Such is the alleged history of this shrine, and the peculiar sanctity attached ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway
... with a soft and tender, but decided air. We sat near each other at church; we gave each other side-glances; we pushed our chairs to let each other pass; and in our softest voices would say, 'Excuse me, Madame!' 'Oh, Madame!' My glove would fall, she would pick it up; I would offer her the holy water, and receive a sweet smile, with 'Dear Madame!' Once at a concert at the Tuileries we observed each other at a distance, and smiled recognition; when any part of the music pleased us particularly we glanced smilingly at each ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Wealth by Right or Wrong, to gratify their Passions of Rage, Lust, Malice, Ambition: And this they do till they come upon their Death Bed; and then there follows more Ceremonies; Confession upon Confession, more Unction still, the Eucharist is administred; Tapers, the Cross, holy Water are brought in; Indulgencies are procured, if they are to be had for Love or Money; Orders are given for a magnificent Funeral; and then comes on another solemn Contract: When the Man is in the Agony of Death, there's one stands by ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... and raising the dead, I could accept that as proof of your understanding of the teachings of Jesus—and what you really understand you can demonstrate and teach to others. Theological questions used to bother me, but they do so no longer. Holy oil, holy water, blessed candles, incense, images and display do not interest me as they did when a child, nor do they any longer seem part of an intelligent worship of God. But"—his voice rising in animation—"to touch the blind man's eyes and see them open; to bid the leper be clean, and see his skin ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... his sad, stern eyes. He is another of the blue-bloods, Southerner to the backbone. How is it that he is in the old gentleman's employ, I wonder? I supposed father hated ex-Confederates as the Devil does holy water. Bodine, Bodine. I must find out who he is, for he evidently has ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... Bettina was asleep, or pretended to be so. Father Mancia took a sprinkler and threw over her a few drops of holy water; she opened her eyes, looked at the monk, and closed them immediately; a little while after she opened them again, had a better look at him, laid herself on her back, let her arms droop down gently, and with her head prettily bent ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... register in which different persons of the town, who had already sold themselves, had signed their names. However, the clerk, who was a cunning fellow, pulled out of his pocket a pretended bottle of ink, which in reality contained holy water, and with this he sprinkled the devil, who raised frightful shrieks, whilst the clerk took to flight, carrying the register off with him. Then began a wild, mad race, which might last throughout the night, over the mountains, through ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... joke. But he sat blinking on his ox-hide in the middle of the hall. When Eddi (who thought I wasn't looking) made a little cross in holy water on his wet muzzle, he kissed Eddi's hand. A week before Eddi wouldn't have touched him. That was a miracle, if you like! But seriously, I was more glad than I can tell you to get Meon. A rare and splendid soul that never looked back—never looked back!' The ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... great cathedral there is in Baltimore, too. It was very handsome, only so dark. I saw some Irish women saying their prayers round in the pews, and there was a dish of holy water by the door, and they all dipped their fingers in it and crossed themselves as they ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... Berselius had been an object lesson for him, teaching vividly the fact that evil is indestructible; that wash yourself with holy water or wash yourself with soap, you will never wash away the evil being that you have constructed by long years of evil-doing ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... published work of the Rev. C.P. Meehaun. "On the 28th of January, the bishop and priest, being arraigned at the King's Bench, were each condemned of treason, and adjudged to be executed the Saturday following; which day being come, a priest, or two of the Pope's brood, with holy water and other holy stuffs"—(no sneer was that at all, gentlemen; no sneer at Catholic practices, for a crown official never sneers at Catholic practices)—"were sent to sanctify the gallows whereon they were to die. About two o'clock, p.m., the traitors were delivered to the ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... understood their character. He received a grant from the crown, and erected a humble chapel and dwelling-house; which he ascribed partly to the charity, and partly the penance of his flock. He used a common brush to sprinkle them with holy water, and spoke of their faults without much softness or reserve. Occasionally an execution required his services at Launceston, otherwise a place ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... I am lost," exclaimed the affrighted dame. "Ah! Don Lope, this comes of my tender-hearted, complying disposition; there's my reputation sullied with a stain that not all the holy water in Spain will be ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... my good gentleman, you ought to know more than I, though I am seventy years old," replied the old fellow, very humbly and respectfully, falling into the attitude of a giver of holy water; "perhaps you can tell me why conductors and wine-merchants are ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... the country, Ireland will be tossed by Bonaparte as a present to some one of his ruffian generals, who will knock the head of Mr. Keogh against the head of Cardinal Troy, shoot twenty of the most noisy blockheads of the Roman persuasion, wash his pug-dogs in holy water, and confiscate the salt butter of the Milesian Republic to the last tub? But what matters this? or who is wise enough in Ireland to heed it? or when had common sense much influence with my poor dear Irish? Mr. Perceval does not know the Irish; but I know them, and I know that, at every rash ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... Karlee, humbly "squatting" at my back, allowed me to draw from him all that I have here related of his house and family, and much more that I have not space to relate. Of course, he could not have shared the repast with me,—all the holy water of Ganges could never have washed out so deep a defilement,—but he accompanied my hookah with his hubble-bubble. The reader has observed that, although the viands were choice enough, they were laid on the cheapest pottery, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... altars to the scattered kneelers on the floor,—the foul old women and the young girls of the poor, the old-fashioned old gentlemen and devout ladies of the better class, and that singular race of poverty-stricken old men proper to Italian churches, who, having dabbled themselves with holy water, wander forlornly and aimlessly about, and seem to consort with the foreigners looking at the objects of interest. Lounging young fellows of low degree appear with their caps in their hands, long enough to tap themselves upon the breast and nod recognition to the high-altar; ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... "answer me first, you Papists, where did the Scriptures enjoin baby-baptism, churching of women, marrying by priests, holy water to frighten the devil? Come now, you that are called Protestants, and first those who are called Episcopalians, where do the Scriptures own such persecutors, false prophets, tithemongers, deniers of revelations, opposers of perfection, ...
— William Penn • George Hodges
... the tapers at the shrines and where some of the worshipers are kneeling, each with a small wax light to illumine the Prayer Books, to bow with them and receive the blessing from the priest and to be touched by the Holy Water; then the Ave Maria, how I love to hear it chanted with such heartfelt praise by the old and trembling men and women, who throw their whole spirit into the melody. The melody, I know, could not bear cold criticism, but when I kneel there beneath the great, gray vault and see ...
— A Napa Christchild; and Benicia's Letters • Charles A. Gunnison
... basil beads) in her right hand, which she was telling, and she seemed to enjoy the shouts of 'Hari, Hari-bole,' with perfect serenity of mind. We reached Nimtalla Ghat about twelve; after staying there for about ten to fifteen minutes, sprinkling the holy water on the dead body, all proceeded slowly to the Kultalla Ghat, about three miles north of Nimtalla. The dead body, wrapped in new clothes, being placed on the pyre, my aunt was desired to walk seven times round it, which she did while strewing flowers, cowries ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... Giovanni, still with the same fiendish scorn. "Thy very prayers, as they come from thy lips, taint the atmosphere with death. Yes, yes; let us pray! Let us to church and dip our fingers in the holy water at the portal! They that come after us will perish as by a pestilence! Let us sign crosses in the air! It will be scattering curses abroad in the likeness of ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... an horse laden with soules; and be lykelyhode he is come for your soule. Purpos ye to let him have your soule and if he had your soule I wene he shulde be gon. The gentylman, than, meruaylously abasshed, called his chaplayne and sayd: let a candell be light, and gette holy water; and [he] wente to the gate with as manye seruantes as durste go with him; where the chaplayne with muche coniuracyon sayd: in the name of the father, sonne and holy ghost, I commande and charge the ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown
... survived bore the dead to the churches, and went in consternation and dread through the fields carrying crosses and banners. They dug trenches round the villages and sprinkled the dykes with Holy Water; they prayed for bread and for preservation from death, while the air resounded with the tolling ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... then went outside, nor did she show herself again. Then a light was kindled in the room, and the wet clothes of the guests were taken off, and dry ones given them in their place. After this they sat down at table, and blessed their food, while the farmer had holy water sprinkled over all the house. The guests ate their food, and it harmed no man, although Thorgunna had prepared it. They slept there that night, and ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... you shall have that tragedy afterwards. Well, where was I? Oh, Fitzmaurice and the Jesuits land at Smerwick, with three ships, choose a place for a fort, bless it with their holy water, and their moppings and their scourings, and the rest of it, to purify it from the stain of heretic dominion; but in the meanwhile one of the Courtenays,—a Courtenay of Haccombe, was it?—or a Courtenay of Boconnock? Silence, Will, I shall have it in a minute—yes, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... coarse diplomacy that supplied the place of shrewdness. To his failings and his virtues he added incontestable courage, and he would lay his hand upon the collar of the most dangerous criminal as tranquilly as a devotee dips his fingers in a basin of holy water. ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... with a wooden bowl in her hand, and signified that she had brought me a present from the bride. Before I could recover from the surprise which this message created, the woman discharged tine contents of the bowl full in my face. Finding that it was the same sort of holy water with which, among the Hottentots, a priest is said to sprinkle a newly-married couple, I began to suspect that the old lady was actuated by mischief or malice; but she gave me seriously to understand that it was a nuptial benediction from the bride's own person, and which, ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... would vent your spleens with tickling mirth! But, Raymond, peace, and have an eye about, For fear perhaps some of the Nuns look out. Peace and charity within, Never touch't with deadly sin; I cast my holy water pure On this wall and on this door, That from evil shall defend, And keep you from the ugly fiend: Evil spirit, by night nor day, Shall approach or come this way; Elf nor Fairy, by this grace, Day nor night shall haunt ...
— The Merry Devil • William Shakespeare
... the priest came out of his house, with a small boy beside him carrying a basin of holy water. ...
— The Mexican Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... a poor, mad, terrified animal. And all the mists that rise in the Venn when daylight disappears, are they the souls of those who have never been buried, and who in garments that are falling to pieces rise every night from their graves, which have neither been consecrated by a benediction nor by holy water and in which they ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... Campbell, a jolly, hearty Irish-American, with a taste for good books, and an antipathy to negroes, as keen as the proverbial hatred of the devil for holy water. Campbell wrote a book entitled "Negromania," published in 1851, in which his creed was set forth in strong language. He was a regular bidder at book auctions, where his burly form and loud voice made ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... Frohnleichnamsfest), religious rites are not confined to the places of worship—the whole city becomes a church. Altars rise in every street, and high mass is performed in the open air, amid clouds of incense and showers of holy water. The Emperor himself and his family swell ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... was a hundred years ago. They say the old bishop, he prayed 'em down; for he went out a little after on purpose, and gave 'em a precious lot of holy water; most likely he got 'em pretty well under, though my husband's brother says he's heard 'em singing in a small way, like frogs in spring-time; but he gave 'em a pretty wide berth. You see, these spirits are what's left of old heathen times, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... of St. Peter, and represents the three divine powers; the rest-ORDINES INFERIORES-of the ecclesiastical hierarchy bless in the name of the holy archangels and angels. The most humble clerks such as our deacons and sacristans, bless with holy water sprinklers, which resemble an infinite number of blessing fingers. There is the subject simplified. ARGUMENTUM OMNI DENUDATUM ORNAMENTO. I could make of that subject two volumes the size of this," continued the Jesuit; and in his enthusiasm he struck a ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... them in the churches, where they were penned up like lepers. A person was stationed at the door with a roll of their names, to which they were obliged to answer. During the service, the most prominent among them were made to carry the lights, the holy water, the incense, and such things, which to Huguenots were an abomination. They were also required to partake of the Host, which Protestants regarded as an awful mockery of ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... long as I did bear the friar's style In me, God wot, was many wrink and wile, In me was falseness every wight to flatter, Which might be banished by no holy water; I was aye ready ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... nickname or other; to abhor the word and sacraments, but especially to spit at the saying of masse; to spurn at the crosse, and tread saints' images under feet; and as much as possibly they may, to profane all saints' reliques, holy water, consecrated salt, wax, &c.; to be sure to fast on Sundays, and eat flesh on Fridays; not to confess their sins, whatsoever they do, especially to a priest; to separate from the Catholic church, and despise his vicar's primacy; to attend the devill's nocturnal conventicles, sabbaths, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... boasted twenty-one towers and six gates, the West Gate is the only remaining bit. Here, at the inn which stood conveniently near the cathedral, the pilgrims stayed, and in Mercery Lane they bought their souvenirs,—probably rosaries or phials of Holy Water. At the further end of the Lane stood the ancient rush-market. Rushes were then in great demand, you recollect, for people used them to strew over ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... could feel no interest in the colored prints of saints, with gold platters at the backs of their heads, that hung on the wall; and I could see nothing particularly impressive in the two plain little alabaster pots for holy water, fastened, one near the door, the other over the chimney-piece. The only object, indeed, in the whole room which in the slightest degree attracted my curiosity was an old worm-eaten wooden cross, made in the rudest manner, hanging ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... rest, I recall a gaunt Baptist in wood, said to be by Donatello, on one of the altars to the left of the choir; and the bronze Baptist in the Baptistery, less realistic, by Sansovino; the pretty figures of Innocence and S. Anthony of Padua on the holy water basins just inside the main door; and the corners of delectable medieval cities in intarsia work on ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... linger and look round, when he had crossed himself and given me the holy water; and then I saw that the walls were figured all over with stories, a huge St. Christopher with his black beard looking like Will Green, being close to the porch by which we entered, and above the chancel arch the Doom of the last Day, in which the painter had not spared either kings ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... church. . . . Father Hecker called out a noted politician, who had not been to the sacraments for many years until the mission, to receive the scapular as an example, and the good man did not fail to receive a plentiful supply of holy water from the vigorous arm of ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... that the sins which thou hast committed up to the time of the penance will all by virtue thereof be purged and pardoned unto thee, and those which thou shalt commit thereafterward will not be written to thy prejudice, but will pass away with the holy water, as venial sins do now. It behoveth a man, then, in the first place, whenas he cometh to begin the penance, to confess himself with the utmost diligence of his sins, and after this he must keep a fast and a very strict abstinence for ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Well) is situated at Tarradale, Ross-shire. When a sick person asks for a drink of Tober Mhuire water, it is taken as a sign of approaching death. It is a curious thing that this reverence for holy water should be perpetuated among a Presbyterian people. Wishing and curative wells are ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie
... believe that that happy man had been expecting that message and had done his best to be ready for it. And now he was putting the last touch to his preparations by filling the water-pots of his house with fresh water; little thinking, happy man, that as long as the world lasts that water will be holy water in all men's eyes, and shall teach humility to all men's hearts. And, my brethren, you know that all you did all last week against to-day was just to prepare the room. For the room all last week and all this day was your own heart, and not and never this house of stone and lime made with men's ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... garments were hanging; and on the wall facing the bed there was a large, rudely carved, and yet more rudely painted crucifix. By the side of the bed nearest the door there hung, on a nail driven into the wall, a copper receptacle for holy water, the upper part of which was ornamented with a figure of St. Francis in the act of receiving the "Stigmata," in repousse work, by no means badly executed. And pasted on the bare wall, immediately above the pillow of the little bed, was a coloured print of the cheapest and vilest ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... also many prayers, and the Bishop sprinkled holy water over the whole of the ship. Thereafter bade he the crew unship the tilts and row up the fjord, and the King commanded that the other ships ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... that Toddie's weight was materially diminished, and that his complexion was temporarily pallid. Father O'Kelley arrived at a brisk run, and was honestly glad to find that his services were not required, although I assured him that if Catholic baptism and a sprinkling of holy water would improve Toddie's character, I thought there was excuse for several applications. We rode quietly back to the house, and while I was asking Maggie to try to coax Toddie into taking a nap, I heard the ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... was called moly by the Cappadocians.' Rue, like rosemary, and indeed like most herbs, has its magical repute, and if we supposed that Homer's moly was rue, there would be some interest in the knowledge. Rue was called 'herb of grace' in English, holy water was sprinkled with it, and the name is a translation of Homer's [Greek]. Perhaps rue was used in sprinkling, because in pre-Christian times rue had, by itself, power against sprites and powers of evil. Our ancestors may have thought it as well to combine the old charm of rue and the new Christian ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... was silent. He was silent when they drove to the church, silent when the priest sprinkled holy water on him, silent when they took him to his grave and his father helped the gravedigger to lower him, and when they threw clods of earth upon him and left him alone for the ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... that a crow has eaten it. After this the mourners go to a stream and put a little cow's urine on their bodies, and dip ten times in the water or throw it over them. The officiating Brahman sprinkles them with holy water in which he has dipped the toe of his right foot, and they present to the Brahman the vessels in which the funeral cakes have been cooked and the clothes which the chief mourner has worn for ten days. On coming home they also ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... Throne, preceded by two chamberlains who carry two folded banners, one bearing the Pope's personal arms, the other the arms of Holy Church. Behind the cardinal follows an acolyte with the censer and incense-boat and another with the holy water and the aspersorio, and behind these again two prelates with a Missal and a candle. The Pope rises, blesses the folded banners and incenses them, having received the censer from the hands of a priest who has prepared ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... the ordinary formula of exorcism or, to be more exact, of conjuration. In the opinion of Messire Jean Fournier these words, accompanied by a few drops of holy water, would drive away devils, if there should unhappily be any in the body of ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... cut round like a dish a la Caesarine, in his most antique accoutrement liripipionated with a graduate's hood, and having sufficiently antidoted his stomach with oven-marmalades, that is, bread and holy water of the cellar, transported himself to the lodging of Gargantua, driving before him three red-muzzled beadles, and dragging after him five or six artless masters, all thoroughly bedaggled with the mire of the streets. At their entry Ponocrates met them, who was afraid, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... time Rachel and Nora were knocking, at my door and inquiring if I were alive. I opened the door and they came in, Rachel badly frightened and Nora sprinkling holy water ...
— San Francisco During the Eventful Days of April, 1906 • James B. Stetson
... his brother-in-law," interrupted another of the knights, "even more than the devil fears holy water. I was in attendance on his majesty some weeks since when he was going down the Thames upon the royal barge. We were overtaken by as severe a thunder storm as I have ever seen, of which the King was in such abject fear that ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... rechristened, and the sacrificial altars were simply transferred for the use of the eucharistical sacrifice. The vestal virgins became nuns of the church; the Sacerdotes, her priests; the mysteries of Isis, her Agapae. Her incense, her pictures, her image-worship, her holy water, her processions, and her prodigies, too, all came from the same source. Thus were the socialistic and communistic teachings, based on the Philoic-Essenism of the Reformer of Nazareth, paganized, prostituted, and entirely misrepresented. ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran
... February, when it is nearly ripe; and during that month and the following the banks of the river were crowded with people in search of the water. Some of the people came more than one hundred miles to fetch it, and all seemed quite sure that the holy water would save them. Each person gave the Bairagi priest of his own side of the river two half-pence (copper pice), two pice weight of ghi (clarified butter), and two pounds of flour, before he filled his pitcher, to secure his blessings from it. These priests were strangers, and the offerings ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... that with a heart fully set on Thy service, I suffered myself to sit even one hour in the chair of lies. Nor would I be contentious. But hast not Thou, O most merciful Lord, pardoned and remitted this sin also, with my other most horrible and deadly sins, in the holy water? ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine |
