"The Tempter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had not been so trusting as he is, I don't know what I might not have done; but he had such faith in me. You don't know all the words the Tempter can whisper in one's ear. I thought Kari had been happy so long that it would be only fair if he had to die now. It seemed to me that you and I were more akin in our souls, that we had more of the wilds in us. I felt it was he alone that stood ...
— Modern Icelandic Plays - Eyvind of the Hills; The Hraun Farm • Jhann Sigurjnsson
... The tempter often works most successfully through those who are least suspected of being under his control. The possessors of talent and education are admired and honored, as if these qualities could atone for the absence of the fear of God, or entitle men to His favor. Talent and culture, ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... The tempter is vigilant, awaiting only an opportunity to divide the ranks of Christian Science and scatter the sheep abroad; but "if God be for us, who can be against us?" The Cause, our Cause, is highly prosperous, rapidly spreading over the globe; and the morrow will crown ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy
... was rejected has destroyed the last chance of peace. Till that moment, the good angel had prevailed; but now the bad angel is speaking. But if there is one man in Europe who cannot avail himself of this blunder to rid himself of the responsibility of war, that man is surely the tempter of 1868.... ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... many who have bargained with Satan, offering the price of their own souls. When the Tempter came to the Saviour in the wilderness, he offered Him the glory and splendour of the world if Jesus would fall down and worship him. It is the same with us. Satan offers us this world instead of the world to come. He offers us ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... land of Japan the symptoms of forthcoming disorder have not been wanting. I had to succumb occasionally, but rallied in time to preserve a tolerably clean bill of health. But if I have one weakness more than another, it is for the harmony of sweet sounds, and this the tempter knew right well. I met my fate in the famous Temple of Hoonan, in which is the most celebrated "gong" in China. I struck it, and listened. For more than one full minute, I believe, that bowl was a quivering mass of delicious sound. I thought it would never ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... they held no parley with their consciences, or with the tempter; they did not even think of it. On the contrary, they were glad, every one, that the way was made so plain and so easy to them. Each of them had friends whom they especially desired to have know of the recent and great ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... stronger than my love for God. I have succumbed to the lusts of the flesh, and have listened to the voice of the devil. I come not to cry aloud unto you, 'A woman tempted me and I fell!' I blame no one but myself. The voice of the tempter spoke to me in devious ways, ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... in his behalf; but he proposed another challenge: he would try with Savonarola the ordeal of fire. He knew, he said, that he must perish, but at least he should perish avenging the cause of religion, since he was certain to involve in his destruction the tempter who plunged so many souls beside his ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... with overwhelming rapidity; one more visit to that which lay in his desk would, he knew, destroy his judgment; and struggling desperately to do what he deemed right, he put his fists firmly upon the desk lid as if to crush down the tempter and ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... huge black-snake. I can conceive of nothing more overpoweringly terrible to an unsuspecting family of birds than the sudden appearance above their domicile of the head and neck of this arch enemy. One thinks of the great myth of the tempter and the cause of all our woe, and wonders if the Arch-One is not playing off some of his pranks before him. Whether we call it snake or devil matters little. I could but admire his terrible beauty, however; his black, shining folds; his easy, gliding movement—head erect, ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... mourned in wild and bitter grief, but woman's pride, at times her guardian angel, at others her destroyer, took up its stronghold in her heart. The tempter Conrad awoke its tones—with specious wile he recalled De Clairville's lofty ideas of name and birth—how proudly he spoke of his lady mother and the castled state of his father's hall. Was it not likely that, at the last, this pride had ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... said. Cruel indeed was the conflict going on within her. "For the sake of appearances you will have to undergo some penances; but I will take care that they shall be as light as possible, that your health may be in no way injured," he remarked; and with a treacherous smile the tempter left her. ...
— The Last Look - A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition • W.H.G. Kingston
... filth indeed, but all was changed. The smell, which had been supernaturally foul, was changed to angelic fragrance; Christina's saintly resignation had routed the tempter of souls; and they all joined in praising God. What do you ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... that was small, and the Captain's eyes began to fail him at night. So this was a Bible with large type, and a candle was placed on either side of it; and the Captain leaned his elbows on the table, and both his hands were tightly clasped upon his forehead,—tightly, as if to shut out the tempter, and force his ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... envoy, Mr. Mason, to seek what he deems a more hospitable shore. The inducement of cotton for our idle looms and our famishing people has been a strong one to our statesmen as well as to our people, and the Tempter has been at their side. Despotism, like Slavery, is necessarily propagandist. It cannot bear the contagion, it cannot bear the moral rebuke, of neighboring freedom. The new French satrapy in Mexico needs some more congenial and some weaker neighbor than ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... of bearing the name of gentleman: for it is in the name of King Charles II. that an emissary, whom I took for an honest man, came and laid an infamous snare for me. I have fallen into that snare; so much the worse for me. Now, you the tempter," said he to the king, "you the executor," said he to D'Artagnan; "remember what I am about to say to you; you have my body, you may kill it, and I advise you to do so, for you shall never have my mind or my will. And now, ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... footing, though that footing be innocent, and they will work night and day till their wishes are accomplished. Trust not, therefore, to yourself alone, nor suffer your heart to plead in their favour, lest it become as much your enemy as the tempter, man. Place your security in flight, and avoid every evil, lest it lead you into danger, for hard it is to turn the head and look backward when a beautiful or agreeable object is before you. Remember my instructions, O Urad! make a prudent use of your peppercorns, and leave this place, which holds ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... When the tempter had thus spoken, methought his words were sweeter than honey, and I answered, "Alas, my lord, I am ashamed to appear before her face with such a proposal." Whereupon he straightway said, "Then do you write it to her; come, here ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... join himself at present to the body of stanch abstainers. He would wait and see—he preferred moderation, it was more manly, more self-reliant. Ah, there was his grievous mistake. Self-reliant! yes, but that self was blinded, cheated by Satan; it was already on the tempter's side. So Frank put off, at any rate for the present, joining the abstainers. He was, however, very watchful over himself never openly to transgress. He loved Mary, and could not bear the thoughts of losing her, but in very deed ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... sayings and some spurious" ("Hom." ii. chap. 51; see also iii. chap. 50. and xviii. chap. 20). This saying of Christ is found in many of the Fathers. "To those who think that God tempts, as the Scriptures say he [Jesus] said: 'The tempter is the wicked one, who also tempted himself'" ("Hom." ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... now and then. Virtuous people are generally content to resist temptation, but Wallace is apt to attack the tempter. I dare say it isn't wise, but that's the ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... heard a half-suppressed shriek in the room where mother and son were closeted. For one moment he was tempted to place his ear to the keyhole! But a blush covered his fat cheeks at the very thought of acting such a disgraceful part. Like a wise fellow, he did not give the tempter a second opportunity, but, seizing the hand of his ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... had gone upon his mission to Canada he was daily looking for this chance to happen. He must keep himself for that, and not because of them alone, but because those dearest to him had come tacitly to connect his resistance of the tempter with his zeal for the interests of his clients. With no more reasoned motives than these he had walked over the Northwick place, calling himself a fool for supposing that some virtue should enter into him out ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... latter would no longer be the unconscious purity of youthful innocence, but the conscious purity of mature age, i.e., of the soul that has known both good and evil in the course of its experiences, has overcome the serpent of matter, the tempter, and voluntarily chosen the life ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... for pelf, To aid the cause of darkness, murder man— Without inquiry murder, and yet call Their trade the trade of honour—high-soul'd honour— Yet honour shall accord in act with falsehood. Oh, that proud man should e'er descend to play The tempter's part, and lure men to their ruin! Deceit and honour badly ...
— Andre • William Dunlap
... Temptation, as importing provocation to evil, is always an evil of fault in the tempter; but in the one tempted it is not, properly speaking, a fault; unless through the temptation some change is wrought in the one who is tempted; for thus is the action of the agent in the patient. And if the tempted is changed to evil by the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... to your adorable Redeemer, stooping from His Throne, and saying, "I have overcome the world." He came forth unscathed from its snares. With the same heavenly weapon He bids you wield, three times did he repel the Tempter, saying, "It is written."—Is it some crushing trial, or overwhelming grief? He is "acquainted with grief." He, the mighty Vine, knows the minutest fibres of sorrow in the branches; when the pruning knife touches them, it touches Him. "He has gone," ...
— The Words of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... and pray,' was Thy command, Lest, thoughtless, the disciples fall Beneath the tempter's bitter thrall; But Judas ...
— Hymns of the Greek Church - Translated with Introduction and Notes • John Brownlie
... The answer lies in the fact that Fielding, following the doctrine laid down in his initial chapters, has depicted him under certain conditions (in which, it is material to note, he is always rather the tempted than the tempter), with an unvarnished truthfulness which to the pure-minded is repugnant, and to the prurient indecent. Remembering that he too had been young, and reproducing, it may be, his own experiences, he exhibits his youth as he had found him—a ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... of the tempter? All the strong virile blood rushed through his veins, and he only made a feeble fight to subdue it. He did not really want ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... will have as much for every month of the year, if you only say so," said the tempter. "Yes, all this gold; do you ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... to anger, lest they be discouraged, for the tempter is ever at hand to lead them astray. The harsh reproof—the undeserved blame—cold silence, where should be the kind inquiry, or the affectionate welcome—oh, how do these things chill the young heart, and plant reserve where should be the fullest confidence, if you would save ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... had some art by which I could break the charm of the tempter's bowl, and with mailed hand lift out the long serpent of eternal despair, and shake out its coils, and cast it down, and ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... and nobody ever saw me look sulky or balky when I was told to do this or that. It was easy to obey her, because from the first, she took it absolutely for granted that she was going to be obeyed. Of course it was different with general orders designed to cover long periods of time, for here the tempter had his chance at me, and I was forever falling. "Stop kicking the table leg, Archie," is an order easily and instantly obeyed. For "Never kick a table," I cannot say the same. I used to divide her orders into two classes: The now nows and the never nevers. The latter were mostly beyond me. Though ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... "Alas—the tempter always makes himself beautiful in the eyes of the tempted! Sophia, we can yet save this unhappy child, but who knows how soon it may be too late!—You can still repair some of the wrong you have done, but you can ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... his eyes were angry as he met those of the other man in brown. "Stow it!" said Mr. Hoopdriver, stopping and facing the tempter. ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... true, and seemed quite simple. She wondered that she had not thought of that. Yet she felt that the man she loved, in all his nobility and honesty, was playing the tempter to her, though he could not know it. Deeper and deeper she sank, yet ever more conscious that she was sinking. Before him she felt no longer as loving woman to loving man—she was beginning to feel as a guilty prisoner ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... to the renown of our country's prowess; but more enduring than marble, more lasting than brass, should be the monument reared to him who, in the fierce contest with the powers of evil, shall rescue the soul of the child from the grasp of the tempter, and change the brutalized and degraded offspring of crime and lust into a youth of generous, active, and noble impulses. But though earthly fame may be denied to such a benefactor of his race, his record shall be on high; and at that grand assize where ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... seen the whole of long Lake Loeven, the green vales encircling the lake and all the blue hills that shelter the valley. When folks from the shut-in Ashdales climbed to the towering peak they must have thought of the mountain whither the Tempter had once taken Our Lord, that he might show Him all the kingdoms of the world, and ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... resisting the tempter, but more faintly than yesterday, when Little came in, and spoke to him. Both he and Dan were amazed at his appearance on the scene at that particular moment. They glared stupidly ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... of men have been enlightened, and their responsibility pressed home upon them. The subject has been presented to them in a new light, and men cannot but see the absurdity of reprobating the tempted, while the tempter is honored—of blaming drunkards, and holding in reputation those whose business ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... great value residing in devotion to the study of the Torah. Disguised as a Rabbi, he was approached by a man who promised to relieve him of all material cares if he would but abide with him. Refusing to leave Jabneh, the centre of Jewish scholarship, he said to the tempter: "Wert thou to offer me a thousand million gold denarii, I would not quit the abode of the law, and dwell in a place in which ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... reason of incompetency, I have avoided the topics of chief present interest in America, including that proposal to tamper with the true monetary creed which (as we should say) the Tempter lately presented to the Nation in the Silver Bill. But I will not close this paper without recording my conviction that the great acts, and the great forbearances, which immediately followed the close of the Civil War form a group which will ever be a noble object, in his political ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... decided that he could not, the tempter suggested a plan which seemed so feasible and fair that the future, with a secret to guard, did not look so formidable, and to himself ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... conduct, falls by its own weight; moreover, the gods promote discreet force to further advantage; but the same beings detest forces, that meditate every kind of impiety. The hundred-handed Gyges is an evidence of the sentiments I allege: and Orion, the tempter of the spotless Diana, destroyed by a virgin dart. The earth, heaped over her own monsters, grieves and laments her offspring, sent to murky Hades by a thunderbolt; nor does the active fire consume Aetna that is placed over it, nor does the vulture desert ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... provocation. The greatness of temptation does by no means release men from obligation; but Christians are bound to remember that it is a certain consequence of throwing men into strong excitement, that they will act unwisely and wrong, and that the tempter as well as the tempted are held responsible, both by God and man. In all these cases, it cannot but appear that the good aimed at might have been accomplished in a quiet, peaceable, and christian way, and that this was not ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... was not displeasing to him. And the folds of her dress, as they fell across his knee, were welcome to his feelings. He knew that he was as one under temptation, but he was not strong enough to bid the tempter avaunt. "Say that ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... confessor of our Convent of the Stigmata? A young man, tall, emaciated with fasts and vigils, but handsome like the monk playing the virginal in Giorgione's "Concert," and under his brown serge still the most stalwart fellow of the country all round? One has heard of men struggling with the tempter. Well, well, Father Domenico had struggled as hard as any of the Anchorites recorded by St. Jerome, and he had conquered. I never knew anything comparable to the angelic serenity of gentleness of this victorious soul. I don't like monks, but I loved Father ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... Jesus said to the tempter: "Man does not live by bread alone." Do any of you suppose that Jesus meant to inform the devil that man needs other kinds of food in addition, such as meats, and fruits, and vegetables? He had no such thought. He did not mean to inform or instruct the ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... lure him into the broad road which leadeth to destruction. He tried a hundred times to fight against the strange influence he felt upon him; but he did not fight with the right weapons, and therefore he failed. Had the tempter suggested to him that, as he was a young man, he should do as his fellow-clerks, or even Ashton did, and have his way in all things, he would have seen the temptation; but it came altogether in a different way. The evil voice said, "You are under restraint. Ask any young man ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... will have gathered from what precedes that Hinduism has little room for the Devil[72]. Buddhism being essentially an ethical system recognizes the importance of the Tempter or Mara, but still Mara is not an evil spirit who has spoilt a good world. In Hinduism, whether pantheistic or polytheistic, there is even less disposition to personify evil in one figure, and most Indian religious systems are disposed to think of the ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... the well-known love-ditty under his breath, he raised his glass of wine to his lips and drained it off with a relish, while his honest face beamed with gayety and pleasure. Always the same story, I thought, moodily. Love, the tempter—Love, the destroyer—Love, the curse! Was there NO escape possible from this bewildering snare that thus caught and ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... tongue and keep the Fraser," whispered the tempter. "Campbell is your name. You've borne it all your life. And the condition itself is a ridiculous one—no fairness about it. You made the highest marks and you ought to be the winner. It isn't as if you were wronging Stone or any ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the congregation awaiting him shall seem to indicate that "anything will do," then let him, in that moment, consider himself in peril of missing the true end of his calling. Anything will not do. The very best will hardly do! Think of the hardness of the heart! Think of the arguments of the tempter! Think how fair and sweet sin often seems! Think of all the sacrifice and self-denial and self-surrender we are asking from men! Here is need for the utmost diligence; for the development of every latent ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... her dowry of a kingdom was made secure) to her gentle rest. The ceremonial pomp, the regal homage that attended the younger sister thus raised above herself, completed in Isabel's jealous heart the triumph of the Tempter. Her face settled into hard resolve, and she passed at once from the chamber into one near at hand, where the Duke of Clarence sat alone, the rich wines of the livery, not untasted, before him, and the ink yet wet upon a scroll he had ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... will never know it," the tempter whispered, "and it is worth something to see the ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... soul, Such as does murder for a meed; Who, but of fear, knows no control, Because his conscience, seared and foul, Feels not the import of his deed; One, whose brute-feeling ne'er aspires Beyond his own more brute desires. Such tools the Tempter ever needs, To do the savagest of deeds; For them no visioned terrors daunt, Their nights no fancied spectres haunt, One fear with them, of all most base, The fear of death—alone finds place. This wretch was clad in frock and cowl, And shamed not loud to moan and ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... that were passed, on their last interview, when every word had graven itself upon his heart, on the devotedness of his orphan sister, the misery he had once occasioned; he thought on these things, and stood firm,—the tempter fled. He stood before them erect in youthful beauty, no inward stain bade him turn from those fond looks or shrink from the entwining arms of his young sister. And, oh, how blessed is it thus to meet! to feel that vanished years have not estranged us, distance has not diminished ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he afterward hungered. And the tempter came and said unto him, If thou art the Son of God, command that these stones become bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... The tempter prevailed; he had re-aroused the gambling fever in his host, who now advanced to the table and looked ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... So the tempter won and the trust money was speedily converted into ice-cream. The ice-cream once down the transaction began to take on a different phase. The boys plodded home ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... the Dragon, put to second rout, Came furious down to be reveng'd on men, Wo To The Inhabitants On Earth! that now, While time was, our first Parents had bin warnd The coming of thir secret foe, and scap'd Haply so scap'd his mortal snare; for now Satan, now first inflam'd with rage, came down, The Tempter ere th' Accuser of man-kind, 10 To wreck on innocent frail man his loss Of that first Battel, and his flight to Hell: Yet not rejoycing in his speed, though bold, Far off and fearless, nor with cause to boast, Begins his dire attempt, which nigh the birth Now rowling, boiles ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... of something better than I had got. Business had gone wrong ever since I opened shop, and my mind was quite unsettled. Satan tried very hard at me, but it wouldn't do. Sometimes, when my boy had gone home, and shop was shut up, the Tempter would whisper in my ears words like these—'Jehu, you're insured, over and over again, for your stock; let a spark fall on the shavings, and your fortune's made.' Well, sir, once or twice—will ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... the feet of travellers skirts the edge, or, perhaps, runs by way of short cut through the middle of the field. The seed that falls there, left exposed on the surface, is picked up and devoured by birds. Behold in one picture God's gracious offer, man's self-destroying neglect, and the tempter's coveted opportunity! ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... and with so many intermissions, did the change creep on, that she did not dare to assure herself that he was reviving. Now and then the scent made her feel sick with terror; for she knew that his life depended upon her unceasing attention, and the tempter was still beside her, though thrust back for the time by her newly-awakened will. "I will not let him die!" she cried to herself; yet she was inwardly fearful of failing in her resolution, and leaving him to die. Would the ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... to-morrow, then," whispered the tempter again; "if you tell him now, very likely he will deprive you of your ride this afternoon, as ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... unprecedented in any former period of our history. What have been the results? Has crime declined in proportion to the spread of education? Are the best instructed classes the least vicious? Has eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge diminished the power of the Tempter? So far from it, the consequences, hitherto at least, have been melancholy and foreboding ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... it courageously," said Hofer, kindly. "I know very well that what I am about to do is not prudent, but it is right. When the tempter took Jesus up into an exceeding high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and said, 'All these things will I give Thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me,' the Saviour did not accept the offer, but remained true to Himself, ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... happier than you, with all your refined feelings and cultivated tastes," whispered the tempter to his soul. ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... death and the pains of hell get hold upon Thee!" So Satan came; but there was no response in the heart of Christ, no answering voice from the depths of His soul, no traitor within to join hands with the tempter without. There was no square inch of territory in all Christ's nature which the devil could claim, or from which he ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... Ahriman, Angra Mainyus, literally the being of an evil mind, the ill-conditioned being. He was labouring perpetually to spoil the good work of Ormuzd alike in nature and in man. He was the cause of the fall of man, the tempter, the author of misery and death; he was eternal and uncreate as Ormuzd was. But that, perhaps, was a corruption of the purer and older Zoroastrian creed. With it, if Ahriman were eternal in the past, he would not be eternal in the future. Somehow, somewhen, somewhere, ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... had his encounters with the tempter. One day the devil transformed himself into a little blackbird, which fluttered about him, and sang so sweetly that he was nearly drawn away from his devotions and led into sin. By a higher power than his own he overcame ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... that he would go. Stung by the challenge, wrought on by the contempt in which Tavannes held him, he shot a look of hate at the tempter; he caught his breath, and laid his hand on the edge of the shuttering as if he would ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... me, 'twas a place, an hour, The worst that e'er the tempter's power Could tangle me or you in; Sweet Nea, let us roam no more Along that wild and lonely shore. Such walks may be ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... money in charge I may not be proof against the temptation to use it for myself. As strong as my strong arms are my hates and loves, and for some reasons I would do almost anything to gain riches. I might not resist the tempter." ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... of sin and sickness, and if we just let ourselves go and sink into the trend of circumstances we shall go down and sink under the power of the tempter. But there is another law of spiritual life and of physical life in Christ Jesus to which we can rise and through which we can counterpoise and overcome the other law that bears us down. But to do this ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... the tythingmen. On each side of the entrance places were reserved where, on entering, the men could deposit their loaded guns under the care of an appointed guard. While the faithful pastor was warning his devout hearers against the wiles of the tempter within, the sentinel, stationed in the turret above, watched all approaches, to guard against ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... in the world. What were the claims of that man over on the dunes compared to his, should he powerfully press them? What if Captain Billy had given his life to the doing of a duty belonging to another? The Tempter now took on a virtuous, unselfish guise. Think what the girl's life might be! Could any true love, even such stupid love as Billy might bear her, stand in the way? No; Billy would be the first to relinquish his hold ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... passages in which they occur, would be a foolish labour; with such reference, the task is made a sovereign lesson in style. At Hell gates, where he dallies in speech with his leman Sin to gain a passage from the lower World, Satan is "the subtle Fiend," in the garden of Paradise he is "the Tempter" and "the Enemy of Mankind," putting his fraud upon Eve he is the "wily Adder," leading her in full course to the tree he is "the dire Snake," springing to his natural height before the astonished gaze of the cherubs he ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... as God, knowing good and evil." Knowing for yourselves, and able to choose between the evil and the good. Here ambition again overleaped itself. Humility was slain, and a womanly virtue was destroyed by the tempter, who aimed to infuse into the mind of the woman, first, a doubt of the truth of the Word of God, and of the certainty of the divine threatening; second, a suspicion that God was withholding from her a good, instead of guarding her against an evil; and, third, ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... the tempter came to him, he said if thou be the Son of God, command these stones ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... the Tempter. "Say, Yes or No, wilt thou go with me to the conquest of the world? On all sides your influence, which I have undermined, is waning: you and your followers are caught in a ring of iron from which before long you will be ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... powerless in that trying moment. His head drooped upon his heaving breast, and he sighed heavily as, without speaking, he grasped Goisvintha by the hand. The object she had pleaded for was nearly attained;—he was fast sinking beneath the tempter's well-spread toils! ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... "Prologue in Heaven." Faust, so we hear, the daring idealist, the servant of God, is to be tempted by Mephisto, the despiser of reason, the materialistic scoffer. But we also hear, and we hear it from God's own lips, that the tempter will not succeed. God allows the devil free play, because he knows that he will frustrate his own ends. Faust will be led astray—"man errs while he strives"; but he will not abandon his higher aspirations; through aberration and sin he will find the true way toward which his inner nature instinctively ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... that I was to exchange the honors of old age for the vicissitudes of a renewed existence! Had nature taken her course, I should probably now be sleeping in a quiet grave—and my soul might be in the regions of the blessed. But the tempter came, and dazzled me with prospects of endless happiness—and I succumbed! Oh! Faust! would that thou hadst never crossed the threshold of my humble cottage in the Black Forest! How much sorrow—how much misery should I have been spared! Better—better ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... schoolboys in 1830. Then, more than ever, his deep consciousness of the invisible world became evident; then, more than ever, he seemed to be battling with the wicked one. For his sermons ran on the eternal themes of the darkness of evil, the craft of the tempter, the punishment of obliquity, and he justified the persistence with which he dwelt upon these painful subjects by an appeal to a general principle: 'The spirit of Elijah,' he said, 'must ever precede the ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... wounded conscience. About this time I was beset with tormenting fears that I had committed the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost, and an ancient Christian to whom I opened my mind told me he thought so, too, which gave me cold comfort. Thus, by strange and unusual assaults of the tempter was my soul, like a broken vessel, tossed and driven with winds. There was now nothing that I longed for but to be put out of doubt as to my full pardon. One morning when I was at prayer, and trembling ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... to the heart! Still first to check th' encroachment—to declare "Thus far! no further, shall the assailant dare;" Thou keep'st thy ermine white, thy State secure, Thy fortunes prosperous, and thy freedom sure; No glozing art deceives thee to thy bane; The tempter and the usurper strive in vain! Thy spear's first touch unfolds the fiendish form, And first, with fearless breast, thou meet'st the storm; Though hosts assail thee, thou thyself a host, Prepar'st to meet the invader on the coast: Thy generous sons contending which shall be First in the phalanx, ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... know: give it a rest." (This when you have not written a line for a week!) And so on. We knew them all, these specious lures to idleness, and strangled them with a firm hand each morning after breakfast. Well we knew that on a dark dismal rainy day we would hear the Tempter saying, "Who could work on a day like this? Leave it until the sun shines in the window. Try that interesting novel you brought home. After all, you know, you must read to see how the accepted masters do ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... angel, Mary, for your hand it was which saved me from violating a solemn oath; but I now feel an assurance that I have broken the tempter's chains forever." I am happy to add that from this hour he gained a complete victory over the evil habit which well-nigh had proved his ruin; and in after years, when peace and prosperity again smiled upon them, he often called to mind the evening when his affectionate and ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... future that he followed whither the gentle drawing led him, until he also reached the questionable ground of the World. There he became still further entangled until he was utterly under the sway of the tempter. ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... tempted her way—not one way suits them all— They have tastes in their sins as they have in their clothes, The tempter, of course, has to first study those. One needs to be flattered, another is bought; One yields to caresses, by frowns one is caught. One wants a bold master, another a slave, With one you must jest, with ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... masters, and submit yourselves under their hands. I sent your fathers, and I send you, into bondage. I mean it unto good, and I will bring it to pass to save much people alive." Then, turning to the tempter, he says, "Thou, a statesman! thou, a reader of my word and providence! why hast thou not understood my speech to Hagar? I gave her, a slave, to Sarah. She fled from her mistress. I sent her back. Why hast thou not ...
— Slavery Ordained of God • Rev. Fred. A. Ross, D.D.
... him; but of course Master Charley did not confide this fact to me, but allowed me to discover it for myself. In the evening I went back to my grandmother's. I wanted Charley to accompany me, but he said that he thought he had better keep out of the way, or out of sight. This I have since found the Tempter—that great enemy of man—always does when he can. He does his best to hide the hook with which he angles for souls, as well as to conceal himself; and we may justly be suspicious of people who dare not come forward to explain their objects and intentions regarding us. Even in a worldly ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... but the stranger was immediately at her side again. "You were born to rule," he whispered to her. "Believe me, and I understand the matter, that you will live to be a Sultaness, if you have any luck." The girl did not give him any answer, but walked on. "But, at any rate, listen to me," the tempter continued. "I will not listen to anything; because I am poor, you think it will be easy for you to seduce me," Viteska exclaimed: "but I am as virtuous as I am poor, and I should despise any position which I had to buy with shame." They had reached the little house where her ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... her bosom, and all the view waned before her eyes with the waning moon. She saw no sea, no sky. Death, the Tempter, was busy at her heart. Death, the Tempter, pointed homeward, to the grave of her dead parents ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... were laid; our vanity was irritated by his pretension. It was my fortune to overhear my young master and his friend Robert Penfold speak about a loan of two thousand pounds. In an evil hour I listened to the tempter and wrote a forged note for that amount. I took it to Mr. Penfold; he presented it to Adams, and it was cashed. I intended, of course, to call next day, and tell Mr. Penfold, and take him to Adams, and restore the money and get back the note. It was not due for three months. Alas! ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... and, upon the assembling of the Legislature, in January, 1833, signs of disintegration were apparent among the Anti-Masons. Albert H. Tracy, despairing of success, began accepting interviews with Martin Van Buren, who sought to break anti-Masonry by conciliating its leaders. It was the voice of the tempter. Tracy listened and then became a missionary, inducing John Birdsall and other members of the Legislature to join him. Tracy had been an acknowledged leader. He was older, richer, and of larger experience than most of his associates, and, in appealing to him, Van Buren exhibited the rare tact that ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... pardon which he continued to assert, or to name the victorious name in which he trusted. But his faith did not abandon him, though he lacked for a time the power of expressing it. "Say what you will," was his answer to the Tempter; "I know there is as much betwixt the two boards of this Book as can insure me forgiveness for my transgressions, and safety for my soul." As he spoke, the clock, which announced the lapse of the fatal hour, was heard to strike. The speech and intellectual powers of the youth were instantly ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various
... over his face. The tempter was not yet defeated without hope. It was not enough to give up his first intention (no great sacrifice, as he perceived, now that he had time to think how Philip would be certain to treat a challenge), it was not enough to wish ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... character of Burns. Both gifts are alike from heaven, and both alike tend heavenward. Therefore we lament to see genius soiled by earthly stain; therefore we lament to see virtue, where no genius is, fall before the tempter. But we, in our own clear natural perceptions, refuse the counsels of those who with the very breath of their warning would blight the wreath bound round the heads of the Muses' sons by a people's gratitude—who, in affected zeal for religion and morality, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... more she thought, the more it distracted her; she was a thousand times about to end her Life, and, at one stroke, rid her self of the Infamy, that, she saw, must inevitably fall upon her; but Nature was frail, and the Tempter strong: And after a thousand Convulsions, even worse than Death it self, she resolv'd upon the Murder of Henault, as the only means of removing all the obstacles to her future Happiness; she resolv'd on this, but after she had done so, she was seiz'd with so great Horror, that she imagin'd, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... maintains one's vows. The party assembles at half- past five. It is very silent; individually, somewhat snappy; inclined to grumble with its food, also with most other things; the atmosphere charged with compressed irritability seeking its vent. In the evening the Tempter's voice is heard: ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... least overt offence, he had learnt only too well. Sometimes the mere omission of a man's name from a list of authors can mortify and injure. In our day the manipulation of such paragraphs has become a fine art; but you recall numerous illustrations. Alfred knew well enough how incessantly the tempter would be at his ear; he said to himself that in certain instances yielding would be no dishonour. He himself had many a time been mercilessly treated; in the very interest of the public it was good that certain men should ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... might operate as a warning to others, I am by no means anxious to be held up as a moral scarecrow. Rather let me take warning myself, amend my life, abandon intemperance, which leads to all manner of wickedness, and suffer myself no more to be ensnared by the wiles and delusions of the tempter in the form of a fair woman. No—no—I will alter and ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... argued with himself and coquetted with the tempter. Before the afternoon was over he felt (as he imagined) quite comfortable in his own mind over the affair. The rod was tied up again in its bag exactly as it had been before, and only wanted an opportunity to ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... destruction on the one hand, and of deliverance on the other,—of destruction in order to deliverance. That is the conception of his mission embodied in the first promise. The bruising of the serpent's head by the bruised heel of the Saviour, in order to repair the ruin wrought by the tempter, suggests very significantly the truth which is so explicitly announced here. And a similar combination runs through the ancient providential history. The destruction of the old world in order to the salvation of the righteous, and the fulfilment of the promise of redemption; ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... strange monster called a Devil. It is the success with which you have diverted the attention of men from their real purpose, which in one degree or another is the same as mine, to yours, that has earned you the name of The Tempter. It is the fact that they are doing your will, or rather drifting with your want of will, instead of doing their own, that makes them the uncomfortable, false, restless, artificial, petulant, ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... reason," urged the tempter. "You get in my way, but I don't want to let you be sponged out. The devil of it is that if I get you a pardon—and I'm not sure that I can get it—you'll marry the girl. I might have you shipped to the Barbadoes ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... The tempter, in making a second attack, became more positive. In contradiction to the divine assurance, he affirmed, with unhesitating effrontery, that they should not die, even though they tasted the fruit of the interdicted tree; but on the contrary, that they should be "as gods, knowing good and ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... this priest had been the only one whom I have known to be lost through the auricular confession! But, alas! how few are those who have escaped the snares of the tempter compared with those who have perished! I have heard the confessions of more than 200 priests, and, to say the truth, as God knows it, I must declare that only twenty-one had not to weep over the secret or public sins committed through the irresistibly ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... ostendunt.'' That is a golden maxim for the criminalist. Opportunity, the chance to taste, is close to every man, countless times; is his greatest danger; for that reason it was great wisdom in the Bible that called the devil, the Tempter. A man's behavior with regard to the discovered or sought-out opportunity exhibits his character wholly and completely. But the chance to observe men face to face with opportunity is a rare one, and that falling-off with which ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... husband, "that man, passing one night under our roof, was able to deprive us of your love, to destroy with a phrase, a word, the happiness of a family! Oh, my dear Balthazar, did he make the sign of the cross? did you examine him? The Tempter alone could have had that flaming eye which sent forth the fire of Prometheus. Yes, none but the devil could have torn you from me. From that day you have been neither husband, nor father, ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... the Scriptures, and a familiarity with God's Word is one of the best preventives in the case of drifting. One verse of Scripture committed to memory each day would help us to overcome the tempter; would keep us in loving touch with Jesus Christ; would inspire us to higher and holier living; and these suggestions made to those whom we win to Christ would keep them from wandering. It is the man who does not know his Bible who finds himself an easy prey to the wicked ...
— The Personal Touch • J. Wilbur Chapman
... the weakness of the flesh was there, the shrinking and the shame; And the low voice of the Tempter like whispers to me came: "Why sit'st thou thus forlornly," the wicked murmur said, "Damp walls thy bower of beauty, cold earth thy ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... centre of one of the little courts! But, whether from past experience or innate philosophy in the insect I know not, the pronged hooks, though coming together with a click once or twice at the near proximity of the tempter, failed in their opportunity, and the trap was soon seen carefully set again, flush with the ground at the mouth ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... of the tempter during his agency in Paradise; for angels had sinned and fallen from heaven. But the existence and agency of fallen spirits had not been disclosed in the Bible,—the time for the disclosure had not come,—and therefore it is said, with beautiful simplicity, 'Now the serpent was more ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams
... The tempter was gone; Florence was left alone, her head reeling with pain, her heart aching within her bosom. Jameson's last words had fallen upon her heart like fire; what if this refusal to share his fate had confirmed him in evil? What if she, by partaking of his ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... At the beginning the Tempter addressed himself to natural desires to procure physical gratification (bread), and to the equally natural desire to avoid suffering and pain, and to secure His kingdom by an easier method ('All these will I ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... the high, close fence, and then they began to look wistfully at the rich bunches of grapes, which were within their reach. The lady had not told them that they might gather any, and they felt that they ought not to do so. But the tempter was near, and they listened to ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... had a certain affection for her husband; and it was the more piteous that in his present state he only regarded her as the tempter who had ruined his life—his false Duessa, who had led him away from Una. On one unhappy evening he had been almost maddened by her insisting on arguing with him; he called her a hag, declared she had been the death of his children, the death ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... behaved disgracefully, and that, if she had married, she must have led a very unhappy life. He caused the engagement to be broken off. She knew it was right, and made no complaint to anybody; but she always believed that it was her brother James who had been the tempter, who had led his friend astray; and from that time, though she was more devoted than ever to her sick sister, she was soft and bright to nobody else. She did not complain, but she thought that things had been very hard with her; and when people repine their troubles do ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Prayer, "Lead us not into Temptation," which, on the face of it, seems to support Nietzsche's extravagant reaction against Christianity. Yet surely the Church has misunderstood that petition. Jesus himself faced the Tempter, and it is evident that he could not have so lacked insight into the soul's secrets as to countenance the impossible notion of eliminating Temptation from the world. It was the power to meet the Tempter and yet ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... off now for a short space," said the tempter, "and go out and drink a pint of beer; you have still one shilling left—if you go on at this rate, you will go mad—go out and spend sixpence, you can afford it, more than half your work is done." I was about to obey the suggestion of the tempter, when the idea struck me that, if I did not complete ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... a sophistry somewhere, but could not, for the life of me, detect it. I thought of the Tempter; I almost feared to listen to another word; but the daemon seemed so fair, so rational, and, above all, so confident of truth, that I could not entertain ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... am to speak of 'Home, sweet Home,' and of those that dwell there, the great multitude of the redeemed. It is a very holy place, there is no speck on the golden pavement, no evil to be found within the city. The tempter can never enter there, sin is unknown; all is very, very holy. And on the white robes of those who dwell there is no stain; pure and clean and spotless, bright and fair as light, are those robes of theirs. ...
— Christie's Old Organ - Or, "Home, Sweet Home" • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... splendidly endowed young man. He reminded him of a fallen angel, with his glorious plumage all soiled and polluted with the mire and corruption of earth. He never had had faith in his integrity; be believed him to be the tempter of Louis, the deceiver of Mittie, reckless and unprincipled where pleasure was concerned, but he did not believe him capable of such a daring transgression. Had he been alone, he would have released him, for his magnanimity and generosity would have triumphed over his sense of justice, ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... the bloodiest of our persecutors the unmitigated agony of my soul, when I believed that all I had done and suffered for thee was at the instigation of a mocking fiend! But I yielded not; I knelt down and wrestled with the tempter, while the scourge bit more fiercely into the flesh. My prayer was heard, and I went on in peace and ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... women; and Eve, taking no direct notice of his compliments and in appearance surrendering only to the other bait of novelty and surprise; "how cam'st thou speakable of mute?" So the scene begins. Flattery has ensured the tempter a favourable reception; curiosity gives him the chance of an apparently telling argument. I ate, he says, of the fruit of a certain tree and received from it speech and reason. But I have found nothing ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... As my hand stole mechanically down to caress it, it crept upon my knees and licked my face, as if it meant to tell me that there was one who understood; that I was not alone. And the love of the faithful little beast thawed the icicles in my heart. I picked it up in my arms and fled from the tempter; fled to where there were lights and men moving, if they cared less for me than I for them—anywhere so that I saw and heard ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... man should be suffocated by heaping over him a mass of clothes, and that every one should then leave the chamber. Such was the miserable and unpitied end of the Emperor Tiberius, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. Such was the death, and so miserable had been the life, of the man to whom the Tempter had already given "the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them," when he tried to tempt with them the Son of God. That this man should have been the chief Emperor of the earth at a time when its true King was living as ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... of the Tempter," John said gently; "it ill becomes Christ's minister to do that. Would you have me pray for guidance, and then refuse to follow it when it comes? God will give me the strength and courage to make her suffer that she may ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... wondrous love Can make our nature clean, While Christ and grace prevail above The tempter, ...
— Hymns and Spiritual Songs • Isaac Watts
... me in sorrow's hour When life seems dark and drear; I'll shield thee from the tempter's power; Dear child, thou need'st ...
— The Mountain Spring And Other Poems • Nannie R. Glass
... extreme pleasure in reading the magical book, and it always had the effect of bringing the demon to attend upon him. At the end of two or three days the agreement was arranged and completed, and, it having been fairly written on parchment, the priest signed it with his blood. The tempter then told him, that whenever he breathed on maid or woman, provided his breath reached their nostrils, they would immediately become desperately in love with him. He soon made a trial of the demon's ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... fire-hearted young vaquero. The old husband had twisted his skinny fingers around her arm and dragged her before the Alcalde, who had ordered her beautiful black braids cut close to her neck, and sentenced her to sweep the streets. Carlos, the tempter of that childish unhappy heart, was flung into prison. Such were law and justice in California before ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... of the cardinal, in the scornful face of Eck, even in the thoughts of his own soul. He knew how powerful they had been in Rome. Even in his youth apparitions had tormented him; now they reappeared. From the dark shadows of his study the spectre of the tempter lifted its claw-like hand against his reason. Even while he was praying the Devil approached him in the form of the Redeemer, radiant as King of Heaven with the five wounds, as the ancient Church represented Him. But Luther knew that Christ appears ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... contend with two sets of enemies—those from within and those from without; and no temptations are more subtle than those which come in the name of our holiest affections. But the sword of the spirit must keep the tempter away. There is the Judas in all of us, and he will betray us with a kiss if ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... delusion and error within the kingdom of light. Such is the course of things that every truth has its shadow; and the greatest truth is attended by the greatest shadow. Above all things take care that the tempter do not introduce his craft into the congregation of the faithful. There will be those for whom the simple gospel will not suffice. When a man has experienced the forgiveness of his sins, and has for a little ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... trembled before it; how he had walked his floor and struggled with the evil spirit; how he had even dropped upon his knees and tried to pray for strength; how he had even lain down at last, considering the tempter vanquished; how it was not until he was called toward morning to minister to his mother's needs, and she had said, as ...
— Three People • Pansy
... of reason, as his friends declared, Rich consolation he at all times shared. Death—man's "last foe"—for him no terrors had, His blighted prospects did not make him sad. To leave his wife and babes he was resigned, And this while all deemed him of unsound mind. The tempter, true, his faith and feelings tried, But his suggestions met "God will provide." This simple text was strong enough to stay Each wavering thought that rose ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... live above them? Are there no noble women, sensible, beautiful, winning, with the grace that all the world loves, albeit with the feminine weaknesses that make all the world hope? Is there no manliness left? Are there no homes where the tempter does not live with the tempted in a mush of sentimental affinity? Or is it, in fact, more artistic to ignore all these, and paint only the feeble and the repulsive in our social state? The feeble, the sordid, and the repulsive in our social state nobody denies, nor does anybody ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... His smiling children. Oh, a dream of joy Were those unclouded years, and, more than all, He had an interest in the world above. The big "Old Bible" lay upon the stand, And he was wont to read its sacred page And then to pray: "Our Father, bless the poor And save the tempted from the tempter's art, Save us from sin, and let us ever be United in Thy love, and may we meet, When life's last scenes are o'er, around the throne." Thus prayed he—thus lived he—years passed, And o'er the sunshine of that happy home, A cloud came from the ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... passion. Hence, to avoid any obstacle, the skilful fiend had been clever enough to lay such a train that the poor girl, prompted by her devotion, had merely to utter her consent to swindling actions already done, or on the point of accomplishment. This subtlety, revealing the mastery of the tempter, also characterized the methods by which he had subjugated Lucien. He created a terrible situation, dug a mine, filled it with powder, and at the critical moment said to his accomplice, "You have only to nod, and the whole ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... Lord of men * the sovran of men * the God of men * from the Tempter, the Demon * who tempteth in whisper the breasts of men * and from Jinnis ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... I to Canaan flee, To dwell, my blessed Lord, with Thee In thine eternal rest:[4] Beyond the tempter's roar and dart, And every foe to cause me ...
— Favourite Welsh Hymns - Translated into English • Joseph Morris
... necessary to his party that the seat should not be allowed to be lost without fighting. He had had the pleasant things of parliamentary adventure, and now must undergo those which were unpleasant. No doubt he could have refused, but he had listened to the tempter, and could not now go back, though Mr. Ruddles was hardly ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... paid for masses to be said, and prayed fervently. She expected every day to see the demon forsake the body he had animated, but her vows, offerings, and prayers had no result. But Heaven sent her an idea which she wondered had not occurred to her sooner. "If the Tempter," she said to herself, "has taken the form of my beloved husband, his power being supreme for evil, the resemblance would be exact, and no difference, however slight, would exist. If, however, it is only another man who resembles him, God must ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... preacher, and that was a source of sympathy between them. She was very much in the habit of doing the same thing. He, on the other hand, was very well satisfied that the daughter of such a mother must be perverse and vain; and he was moralist enough to know that there is no heart so accessible to the tempter as the proud and wilful heart. But few words had passed between them, but those were expressive, and they both parted, with the firm conviction that they must necessarily ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... in a circle in the drawing-room, watched and listened to the group at the piano—Neroda, short and swarthy, with a rancorous voice; Anita, in her blonde beauty, looking like another St. Cecilia, and Broussard, dark and handsome, like Faust, the tempter. ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... had fallen from the wagon, and which Obed and I afterwards picked up, was a small cask of brandy. We were both of us very abstemious, or we should not have been the strong, hearty fellows we were. The cask, therefore, had not even been broached. The tempter, however, now came suggesting to me that I might soon forget all my miseries if I would but occasionally take a taste of the fire-water. I resisted him, however. I knew that if I once began I might go on, and not know when to stop. I was sure ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... was,ye needna mind me o' that. She brought me up abune my station, and wi' knowledge mair than my fellowsbut, like the tempter of auld, wi' the knowledge of gude she taught ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... its meshes surrounded. He had not power to explain the assurance of pardon which he continued to assert, or to name the victorious name in which he trusted. But his faith did not abandon him, though he lacked for a time the power of expressing it. 'Say what you will,' was his answer to the Tempter; 'I know there is as much betwixt the two boards of this Book as can ensure me forgiveness for my transgressions and safety for my soul.' As he spoke, the clock, which announced the lapse of the fatal hour, was heard to strike. The speech and ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Lord had fasted forty days in the desert, accumulating reserves of spiritual energy, just as we in our poor human fashion try to accumulate in Lent reserves of spiritual energy that will enable us to celebrate Easter worthily, He was assailed by the Tempter more fiercely than ever during His life on earth. The history of all the early Egyptian monks, the history indeed of any life lived without losing sight of the way of spiritual perfection displays ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... it, but voluntarily of his own mind, contrary to his God's command: so then, God by suffering sin to break into the world, did it rather in judgment, as disliking Adam's act, and as a punishment to man for listening to the tempter; and as a discovery of his anger at man's disobedience; than to prove that he is guilty of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... utter them aloud to his congregation; and at other seasons, when he was about to apply to the sinner some searching and fearful text of scripture, he was tempted to withhold it, on the ground that it condemned himself also; but, withstanding the suggestion of the tempter, to use his own simile, he bowed himself, like Samson, to condemn sin wherever he found it, though he brought guilt and condemnation upon himself thereby, choosing rather to die with the Philistines than to deny ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... laid the case before Mr. Kendal with so much earnestness, that he allowed that it would be better to send the boy from home; and in the meantime, Albinia obtained that Mr. Kendal should ride some way on the Tremblam road with his son in the morning, so as to convoy him out of reach of the tempter; whilst she tried to meet him in the afternoon, and managed so that he should be seldom without ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... pledged thyself," said she; "but know thou the tempter is on every side. Should the wine-cup touch thy lips, dash it aside, and ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... one?" asked the tempter. Then there was a very long struggle in Dell's heart, but the tempter conquered, and Dell carried the composition down to her own room to copy it. When she had finished it, she read it over, trying to think that it ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... of a land-wind from the West!" —Wherefore? Ah yes, you frolic it to-day! To-morrow, and the pageant moved away Down to the poorest tent-pole, we and you Part company: no other may pursue Eastward your voyage, be informed what fate Intends, if triumph or decline await The tempter of ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... yield; and finally that wretch, wearied by so long a siege and vanquished by the constancy of a weak girl, withdrew and left her in peace. Which is indeed a good deal when we consider the following: One woman for twelve long years resisted the tempter, fortified by holy confession and communion. Another, although she resisted for a shorter time, showed even greater constancy; for the base and cruel seducer went so far as to aim a dagger against her breast twice; the third time he went beyond threats, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... had been put on several occasions, both in the company of the tempter and in the privacy of the domestic hearth, and both in the gayly suggestive and the pensively argumentative key. Why might they not, by means of a clever purchase in the stock market, occasionally procure some of the agreeable extra pleasures of life—provide the ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... the time may come when you Shall miss a mother's tender care, A sinfu' world to wander through, Wi' a' its stormy strife to share; Then mind my words, whare'er ye gang, Let fortune smile or thrawart be, Ne'er let the tempter lead ye wrang— If sae ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... you tie to us," suggested the tempter. "Thousand-dollar bills will be as common in Helena in a few days as nickels in a contribution box. I'm about out of 'em myself, but the old man's bringing in a stack to-night. They come in ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman |
