"Vestry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... relative or friend, and the mother of the bride, or, if she be not present, the mother of the gentleman, or one of the oldest female relations or friends of the bride's family, are to lead the way towards the altar from the vestry. ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... get at the books in the vestry myself," the Q.C. muttered low between his clenched teeth, "before the fellow has time to see them and ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... bought it; and it is a wonder what will be the fashion after the plague is done as to periwigs, for nobody will dare to buy any hair, for fear of the infection, that it has been cut off the heads of people dead of the plague. My Lord Brouncker, Sir J. Minnes, and I up to the vestry at the desire of the justices of the peace, in order to the doing something for the keeping of the plague from growing; but, Lord! to consider the madness of the people of the town, who will, because they are forbid, come in crowds along with the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... a fine day I left home at 7.15 A.M., walked to London (twelve miles), got to Spurgeon's at 10.30. Had a permit from a seat-holder, was close to the platform, heard a good earnest sermon, was introduced to Spurgeon in the vestry after service, went home to one of his deacons for dinner, there met an American who had under Mr. Moody been converted from drunkenness to God, and whose craving for drink was as instantaneously ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... mind's eye, I mean — a blushing bride All bib and tucker, frill and furbelow! How exquisite she looked as she was borne, Recumbent, in her foster-mother's arms! How the bride wept — nor would be comforted Until the hireling mother-for-the-nonce Administered refreshment in the vestry. And I remember feeling much annoyed That she should weep at marrying with me. But then I thought, "These brides are all alike. You cry at marrying me? How much more cause You'd have to cry if it were broken off!" These were my thoughts; I kept them to myself, For at that age ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... incomprehensible to the Englishman who comes among us taking notes, and not the least is that no one wants his cut-and-dried schemes of reforming what we do not wish to reform. As for conforming to his method and rule by vestry and county council autocracy in a methodical manner, it is utterly at variance with the national temperament. Very often, too, the stranger falls a victim to the Irishman's love of fun, and goes back hopelessly 'spoofed' and quite unaware what nonsense he is talking when ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... vestry of the Marrow kirk in Bell's Wynd the synod met, and was constituted with prayer. Sederunt, the Reverend Gilbert Peden, moderator, minister of the true kirk of God in Scotland, commonly called the Marrow Kirk, in which place the synod for the time ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... skilled traveller in the Holy Land, Carleton frequently opened this "Fifth Gospel" to delighted listeners. There hung on the wall of the "vestry," or social prayer-room, above the leader's chair, a steel-plate picture of modern Jerusalem, showing especially the walls, gates, and roadways leading out from the city. Carleton often declared that this ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... Wace, frankly, couldn't be depended on. Not only was he too unmistakably English and of the middle-class; but the clerical profession, although he had so unfortunately failed it, or it so unkindly rejected him, still seemed to soak through, somehow, when you saw him in public. A whiff of the vestry queerly clung to his coats and his trousers, thus meanly giving away his relinquished ambitions; unless, and that was worse still, essaying to be extra smart, a taint of the footlights declared itself in the over florid curl of a hat-brim or sample of "neck-wear." To head ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... certain, however, that Caxton's books have experienced many ups and downs. Mr. Blades tells us of an incident in which he was personally concerned. He happened on a copy of the 'Canterbury Tales' in a dirty pigeon-hole close to the grate in the vestry of the French Protestant Church, St. Martin's-le-Grand; it was fearfully mutilated, and was being used leaf by leaf—a book ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... holiday on the croquet ground at Wimbledon. Yes, when the present wrongs of women are exchanged for equality with men, I will cheerfully marry; and to do the thing generous, I will not oppose Mrs. M.'s voting in the vestry or for Parliament. I will give her ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... talking somewhere behind him, in the vestry evidently, a deep utterance suggestive of intoning a service, and ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... clergyman appears at the altar rail; the groom, accompanied by his best man, emerges from the vestry, and takes his place at the right, awaiting the arrival of the bride. At this instant, the organist stops dreaming, wakes up, and starts boldly into the wedding march, as the bridal party move up the aisle, in the following ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... voice. His right hand traces in the air the sign of peace. Then he wipes his humid forehead, his eyes sparkle with divine light, he descends the narrow stairs, and we hear on the pavement the regular taps of the rod of the verger, who is reconducting him to the vestry. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... and the sudden peal of the organ in the well-known wedding march recalled my attention to the occasion itself, and as at that moment the bridegroom stepped from the vestry to await his bride at the altar, I was absorbed by his fine appearance and the air of mingled pride and happiness with which he watched the stately ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... leaving the interior of the church, some one stepped out of the vestry, followed her for a second, and then addressed her. She turned and recognised Mr. Jacomb. He had not been officiating; he was in ordinary clerical costume; and there was something in the primness ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... married, and people whispered what a beautiful bride, and how good-looking the American bridegroom was, while she and Sidney were in the vestry signing their names in the book. Then, down the aisle they came, Di radiant, Major Vandyke flushed and brilliant eyed. "He looks as if he had just fought a successful engagement," I heard an American man in the pew behind say to his wife. Well, ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Indian muslin, the collar likewise of lace; the cap, of black velvet, was adorned with two plumes and surrounded by a coronet of diamonds, which "the regent" used as a clasp. Such was the costume which the emperor wore in the procession from the Tuileries to Notre Dame. In the vestry of the cathedral he put on the ample state-robes, that is to say, the robe and mantle of emperor. [Footnote: Constant, "Memoires," vol. ii., ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... surprise! But thirty dollars seemed so small beside The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents (For that was all they figured out apiece), Three cents so small beside the dollar friends I should be writing to within the hour Would pay in cities for good trees like those, Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools Could hang enough on to pick off enough. A thousand Christmas trees I didn't know I had! Worth three cents more to give away than sell, As may be shown by a simple calculation. ...
— Mountain Interval • Robert Frost
... concluded Schneider's biography, we had grown tolerably intimate, and I imparted to him (with that experience so remarkable in youth) my whole history—my course of studies, my pleasant country life, the names and qualities of my dear relations, and my occupations in the vestry before religion was abolished by order of the Republic. In the course of my speech I recurred so often to the name of my cousin Mary, that the gentleman could not fail to perceive what a tender place she had ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... silver-printed cards in which Marion's name of Ramboat was stricken out by an arrow in favour of Ponderevo. We had a little rally of Marion's relations, and several friends and friends' friends from Smithie's appeared in the church and drifted vestry-ward. I produced my aunt and uncle a select group of two. The effect in that shabby little house was one of exhilarating congestion. The side-board, in which lived the table-cloth and the "Apartments" card, was used for a display of ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... the vestry!" Jim was whispering, smiling his dear, easy, reassuring smile as he guided her to the nearby door. And in a second they were all about her, her first kiss on the wet cheek of Aunt Sanna, the second to her mother—"Evelyn, ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... cars, waggons, beyond counting; a mail cart, a road-cleaner's cart marked "Vestry of St. Pancras," a huge timber waggon crowded with roughs. A brewer's dray rumbled by with its two near ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... right cheek from my wilful companion sent me off at a fresh angle, and presently I came in sight of the village church, sitting solitary within its circle of elms. From forth the vestry window projected two small legs, gyrating, hungry for foothold, with larceny—not to say sacrilege—in their every wriggle: a godless sight for a supporter of the Establishment. Though the rest was hidden, I knew the legs well enough; they were usually attached to the body ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... is it that the means of spiritual life have been so confused with the purely material, that it occasions no surprise when a neighbourhood having changed from the residence district of the comparatively well-to-do to the very poor, the vestry feels bound to consider the moving of the church to a more ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... saw that it was useless to attempt to get in without a ticket. He stood there for a few moments trying to think what he should do, when he saw several men carrying violins and other musical instruments going through a small side door on the side street, off Fifth Avenue, that led into the vestry situated at the end of the great church. "I am a musician; I go in with the musicians," said Von Barwig, and he followed the men, unchallenged and unquestioned through the passage leading to the vestry and from thence into the ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... which a forgotten tomb lies mouldering behind the railings. In the grass to the right of the old apse you can see a pointed arch springing from a capital, which shows how the surrounding soil has risen since the thirteenth century. This old building is all used as the vestry of the new church, through which you must pass to see the interior of the ancient buildings. Once within them, you will find nearest to you the fourteenth-century work of which a fragment showed outside. Then comes the Norman chapel, that recalls ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... quiet Sabbaths at Eastbourne. Debated this till twenty minutes past six, the SOLICITOR-GENERAL heartily joining in the service; then questions, seventy or eighty of them, not seven or eight of public interest, the rest of character that might be raised on dull days in Vestry-hall. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 19, 1892 • Various
... One window in the north transept aisle and all three in the south have fine geometrical tracery. The three chapels in the south transept were used as vestries until a few years ago, when the space beneath the bell-tower and part of the north aisle of the nave was converted into a large vestry for both clergy and choir. In the chapel here nearest the choir there remains the lower part of the newel staircase which led to an upper chapel. On the west side of the south transept has been erected a building ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... notes in his last testimony, his faith stood the supreme test, as he drew near the borderland. He died on September 8th, 1834, aged 74 years. The remains of Mary and William Black rest in the old graveyard at Grafton Street Methodist Church, Halifax, and near the vestry door are their tombstones and those of their children. Within the church there are marble tablets to the memory of these pioneers of the faith, who laid the foundations of Methodism in the maritime provinces, and in the Methodist Church at Amherst, ...
— William Black - The Apostle of Methodism in the Maritime Provinces of Canada • John Maclean
... was thought sound, except that part of it which was hereditary. My friend considered this very wrong, and ranged himself on the side of the gentleman who was the cause of the dispute. The dispute waxed so hot that the parties almost came to blows in the vestry room. ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... head gardener to the Squire, and Master Cole, the farmer, and various others, the original inhabitants of Yokelton; discussing the weather and the crops, the probability of Mr. Tomson getting in again at the vestry as waywarden; what kind of a highway rate there would be for the coming year; how that horse got on that Mr. Sooby bought at the fair; and various other matters of importance to a village community. They would also pass remarks upon any striking personage who passed them on his way to church. Mr. ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... nuisance of a Rachel Lynde was here again today, pestering me for a subscription towards buying a carpet for the vestry room," said Mr. Harrison wrathfully. "I detest that woman more than anybody I know. She can put a whole sermon, text, comment, and application, into six words, and throw it at you ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... of a big church and the beautiful music are wonderfully impressive. Dick says it's the proper thing to tie the bridal knot with all the kinks you can invent—it makes it more secure. He said it was miles from the vestry to the chancel and his knees got mighty wobbly before he arrived, but after thinking it over, he concluded I was worth the walk—the heathen! Oh, I almost forgot to tell you that the sun shone on the bride most gloriously and the old church was a perfect bower of apple-blossoms ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... appears from the vestry in his robes. The clerk takes his place. The clergyman's eye rests with a sudden interest and curiosity on the bride and bridegroom, and on the bride's friend; notices the absence of elderly relatives; remarks, in the two ladies especially, ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins
... Pleasures, and persists in a Course of a voluptuous Life for many Years, without Repentance: A Man, I say, who does this, cannot be a more real Christian, tho' he conform'd to all the Rites and Ceremonies, and bore a great Sway in the Vestry, than a Linnen-Draper could be a real Blacksmith, tho' he was free of the Blacksmiths Company, and ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... the Dusautoys. She left off subscribing to anything when they came; and he behaved very ill to the Admiral and everybody at a vestry-meeting.' ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... had intended making when Elijah found her gathering a few sticks. He demonstrated that it was a seed cake. The sermon was really very amusing, and more than once he saw a smile pass over the sea of faces underneath him. The Bishop was very angry, and gave my hero a severe reprimand in the vestry after service was over; the only excuse he could make was that he was preaching ex tempore, had not thought of this particular point till he was actually in the pulpit, and had then been carried away ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... vertebra. Vertex supro, pinto. Vertical vertikala. Vertigo kapturno. Very tre. Vesicle veziketo. Vespers Vespera Diservo. Vessel (ship) sxipo, boato. Vessel vazo, ujo. Vest vesxto, jaketo. Vestibule vestiblo. Vestige postsigno. Vestment vestajxo. Vestry pregxejocxambro. Veteran malnovulo. Veterinary surgeon bestokuracisto. Veto vetoo, malpermeso. Vex cxagreni. Vexation cxagreno. Viaduct vojponto. Vial boteleto. Viands viando, mangxajxo. Vibrant multesona. Vibrate vibri. Viburnum viburno. Vicar parohxestro. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... vestry of any parish or place in the metropolis may allow such compensation as they think just to any engine keeper or other person employed in the service of fire engines who has hitherto been paid out ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood
... reports of the Cholera Board of Health, and I daresay they have also read reports of certain vestries. I have the honour of belonging to a constituency which elected that amazing body, the Marylebone vestry, and I think that if the company present will look to what was done by the Board of Health at Glasgow, and then contrast those proceedings with the wonderful cleverness with which affairs were managed at the same period by my vestry, there will be very little difficulty ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... in the vestry-room one day Seven influential members who subscribe more than they pay, And having asked God's guidance in a printed pray'r or two, They put their heads together to ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... so old Brevoort stood in the doorway, blunderbuss in hand, and defied the invaders to such purpose that to this day Eleventh Street has never been cut through. Instead, Grace Church, its garden and rectory cover the site of the old homestead. Later the vestry of Grace Church was to play old Brevoort's game. "Boss" Tweed determined to cut through or make the church pay handsomely for immunity. The vestry ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... the time. He won't know what to do at a party. I believe he makes ever so much money with his fish, and pays bills with it." Becky relented a little now. "Oh, dear, I haven't anything nice enough to wear," she added suddenly. "We never have parties in Tideshead, except at the vestry in the ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... year we had a tremendous stimulus in the meetings from the active participation of four of the most prominent theosophists in the country—two of whom are members of the vestry. They sharpened the line between spiritual and material things. They brought to the notice of working-class Socialists the essential things of the soul. They made the meetings a melting-pot in which the finest, best and most permanent things were made to stand out distinctly. ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... vestry, he caught sight of her at the other end of the room among a group of girls. At the sound of the closing door she glanced up with an involuntary gesture of expectancy, and their eyes met. She looked confused, and instantly averted her face. There was plenty of recognition in her expression, but she ...
— Hooking Watermelons - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... by the vestry-door into the little cloisters, and skirting the end of the creek that ran up by Chichele's water-tower began to pace up and down the part of the garden that looked ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... the names signed in the vestry, Mr. Wesley marched out to the porch for a view of the weather. Half a score of gossips were gathered there among the sodden graves awaiting the bridal party. They gave back a little, nudging and plucking one ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... then, one of the smallest churches in the kingdom, the ceremony was performed and duly witnessed, names written in the vestry book, the clergyman's fee, the clerk, and the pew-woman, paid by the bridegroom. And thus we see how a pair of lovers, blind with the one object of lovers in view; and a miserly uncle, all on edge to save himself the expense of supporting his niece; and an idolatrous old admiral, on ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... unfortunate Governor Leisler, who was hanged for treason, which haunted the old fort and the government house. The gossiping knot dispersed, each charged with direful intelligence. The sexton disburdened himself at a vestry meeting that was held that very day, and the black cook forsook her kitchen, and spent half the day at the street pump, that gossiping place of servants, dealing forth the news to all that came for water. In a little time, the whole town ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... in the vestry," said the vicar, impressed by the fact that the stranger had chosen the finest brass in the church, one that had been saved from Cromwell's Puritans by the ingenuity of the then incumbent, who had caused it to be covered with cement. Then as an ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... sown by the wayside has been protected by the peculiar appropriation of part of the church-rates in our country parishes. See the remonstrance from a "Country parson," in The Times of June 4th (or 5th; the letter is dated June 3rd,) 1862:—"I have heard at a vestry meeting a good deal of higgling over a few shillings' outlay in cleaning the church; but I have never heard any dissatisfaction expressed on account of that part of the rate which is invested in 50 or 100 dozens ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... church on his wedding-day. Everybody ran after him; the bride's father and bride followed, the Sexton closed the door immediately after the last one had passed through it and betook himself to the vestry, which had a private exit. In a few seconds the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... indifference had there been nobody there to see her? Mrs. Trevelyan was certainly not in love with Colonel Osborne. She was not more so now than she had been when her father's friend, purposely dressed for the occasion, had kissed her in the vestry of the church in which she was married, and had given her a blessing, which was then intended to be semi-paternal,—as from an old man to a young woman. She was not in love with him,—never would be, never could be in love with him. Reader, ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... of a colony (let not the comparison be too much disdained) is only the vestry of a larger parish, which may lay a cess on the inhabitants, and enforce the payment; but can extend no influence beyond its own district, must modify its particular regulations by the general law, and, whatever may ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... therefore as literally fire-proof as is conceivable. The principal features are the auditorium, seating eleven hundred people and capable of holding fifteen hundred; the "Mother's Room," designed for the exclusive use of Mrs. Eddy; the "directors' room," and the vestry. The girders are all of iron, the roof is of terra cotta tiles, the galleries are in plaster relief, the window frames are of iron, coated with plaster; the staircases are of iron, with marble stairs of rose ...
— Pulpit and Press • Mary Baker Eddy
... in a fury, after Henry II. refused to perform his vow of joining the Crusades in person, to atone for the murder of Becket. The figure more probably represents Silverston de Eversdon, Bishop of Carlisle, 1255. In the vestry are monuments to Lords Eldon and Stowell, and that of Lord Thurlow (1806) ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... they was mad by the way they asted for father. i tell you i got fealing prety sick but i coodent see what they was mad about. when they went into the parlor you wood have thougt it was a chirch meating when they was voating for the carpet in the vestry. evry woman talked to onct jest as loud as they cood. i never head such a noise in my life before. bimeby father come in and told me to come in and told me not to say a word unless to answer questions ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute
... dread of a foreign mission, under the name of banishment!" In this letter Mr. O'Connell made some magnificent promises to the electors of Clare and the people of Ireland at large. He would obtain the repeal of the disfranchisement act, of the sub-letting act, and of the vestry bill; would assail the system of "grand jury jobbing, and grand jury assessment;" would procure an equitable distribution of church property between the poor on the one hand, and the laborious portion of the Protestant clergy on the other; would cleanse ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... are giants on the earth in these days, ay, and famous giants of their cubits! But when a giant is made to drivel, his drivelings are very little better than those of a pigmy. And we swear to you, (under correction from the parish vestry, which is entitled to half-a-crown an oath,) that the circulating libraries would make a driveler of Seneca! Under the circulating library tyranny, Johnson himself would have been forced to break up his long words into smaller pieces, to supply due volume ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... fell into error. I did not, as I had been warned and entreated to do—and as I knew I ought to do—join myself to a class at once; but, at the end of a month or six weeks, I connected myself with one which met in the vestry, at seven o'clock on Sunday mornings, and for about eight or ten months I went on pretty well; but when winter came, I was not regular in my attendance, and as every one acquainted with the benefits of class-meetings will judge, was not so prosperous in ...
— The Village Sunday School - With brief sketches of three of its scholars • John C. Symons
... strong language and straightforward observations at the chapel meetings, the private vestry of the managers; the elder being one of the founders, and his name on the deed could not be excluded—gall and wormwood—without his signature nothing could be done. Bitterer still, the chapel was heavily in debt to him. Had he chosen, in American phrase, he could have 'shut up the shebang ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... again to the damsel that waited upon these women, Go into the vestry and fetch out garments for these people; so she went and fetched out white raiment, and laid down before Him; so He commanded them to put it on. 'It was fine linen, white and clean.' When the women were thus ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... is quite ignorant of their admiration, and therefore quite innocent. I am the only woman he loves, and he never even remembers me when he is in the sacred office. If you could see him come out of the vestry in his white surplice, with his rapt face and prophetic eyes. So mystical! So beautiful! You would not wonder that ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... defended the entrance, Gabriel shouted to Father d'Aigrigny: "Fly, father! fly through the vestry! the ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... Chelsea, adheres to this opinion, and says that the tomb in that church is but "an empty cenotaph." His grandson, in his Life, says, "his body was buried in the Chapel of St. Peter, in the Tower, in the belfry, or, as some say, as one entereth into the vestry;" and he does not notice the story of his daughter's ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... left to myself, to make studies. The school-room was in the vestry of the church, a building near grand'ther's house. Each girl had a desk before her. Miss Black occupied a high stool in a square box, where she heard single recitations, or lectured a pupil. The vestry yard, where the girls romped, and exercised with skipping ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... "dogs," and rabbits is "dogs," and so's parrots; but this 'ere tortis is a hinsect, and there ain't no—need—for it. And the tone of Punch's more serious utterances is now that of the dining-room rather than of the debating society and the vestry room. Mr. Ruskin, among others, deplored Punch's kid gloves and evening-dress, when amiable obituary notices on Baron Bethell—(had he not been Punch's counsel in the old days?)—and the Bishop of Winchester were published. "Alas, Mr. Punch," he wrote, "is it come to this? And ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... certainly is beautiful and like the English Universities," he broke into a sentence genially. "But I wish to talk to Mr. Fairfax. I've come to bring you the first news, Mr. Fairfax, of what you will hear officially within a day or two—that the vestry of St. Eric's hope you will consider a call to be our assistant rector." Rex's heart almost stopped beating, and his smile faded as he stared breathless at this portly and beneficent Mercury. Mercury went on "A vestry meeting was held last night in which this was decided upon. Your ...
— A Good Samaritan • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... a tax called church cess, levied by Protestants in vestry meetings upon Roman Catholics for cleaning the church, ringing the bell, washing the minister's surplice, purchasing bread and wine for the communion, and paying the salary of the parish clerk. This tax was felt to be a direct and flagrant violation of the rights of conscience, and of the principles ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... the parish. For example, the old habit of bowing to the altar was retained by the rustics on entering church, and bowing respectfully to the clergyman in his place. A copy of the Scriptures was in the vestry chained to the desk on which it lay, and where it had evidently been since that mode of introducing the Bible was practised in the time of Edward VI. The passing bell was always sounded on notice of the death of a ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... respective families have been roped off with wide white satin ribbons; those on the right for the bridegroom's family, those of the left for the bride's. The bridegroom and the best man are with the clergyman in the vestry; the bridesmaids have assembled at the bride's house, and have entered their carriages; the relatives, including the bride's mother, and guests are in their seats. The carriages containing the bridesmaids precede that of ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... obsequies of Henry VII. also contains mention of these funeral palls: the Earls and Dukes came in procession, from the Vestry, with "certain palls, which everie of them did bring solemnly between their hands and coming in order one before another as they were in degree, unto the said herse, they kissed their said palls... and laid them upon the King's corpse." At Ann of Cleves' burial the same ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... slowly filling, the choir filed into their places, the organ stopped playing Cavalleria Rusticana, a hush fell over the place and Doctor Leslie, his white hair and black gown passing through the changing lights of the windows, came slowly out of the vestry and up to the pulpit. He was an old man now, but a vigorous one, and his sermons were still strong and full of the fire of his earlier years. He had never walked quite so smartly, nor spoken with quite his old vim since the day he had been left ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... their hearts that baths and wash-houses should be built, and that the cost thereof should be defrayed out of the tax imposed on the relief of the poor in the land." This use, or misuse, of the public money caused strife among the people, who for the most part opposed the scheme. A vestry meeting, however, was called, and though very thinly attended, the opportunity was taken to elect the Commissioners of the Baths and Wash-houses, and it was decided to proceed with the erection of the building, the cost of which was estimated at 6,000 pounds. But when this money had ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... to reckon up the infinite helps of interlinearies, breviaries, synopses, and other loitering gear. But as for the multitude of sermons ready printed and piled up, on every text that is not difficult, our London trading St. Thomas in his vestry, and add to boot St. Martin and St. Hugh, have not within their hallowed limits more vendible ware of all sorts ready made: so that penury he never need fear of pulpit provision, having where so plenteously to refresh his magazine. But ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... its stages in the House of Lords, not without some angry and vehement discussions, during which personal recriminations were made that would have been considered disorderly at the meeting of a parish vestry. One noble lord denounced the conduct of Lord Grey as atrocious, and even the stately Lord Grey was roused to so much anger by this expression that he forgot his habitual self-control and dignity and replied that he flung back the noble lord's atrocious words ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... congregation as slowly followed. Mary loitered as long as possible, even going back for her handkerchief, which she had purposely dropped in the pew to give her an excuse to return. But her anxious glances revealed nothing. The vestry door was closed, and nobody ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... stone in St. Ann's churchyard for your old friend King Theodore; in short, his history is too remarkable to be let perish. Mr. Bentley says that I am not only an antiquarian, but prepare materials for future antiquarians. You will laugh to hear that when I sent the inscription to the vestry for the approbation of the ministers and churchwardens, they demurred, and took some days to consider whether they should suffer him to be called King of Corsica. Happily they have acknowledged his title! Here is the inscription; over it is a crown ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... watched Miss Gladys enter her motor. Then he bade good-by to Ethel and her mother, and hurried back into the vestry room to tell Dr. Vince ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... was the first to reach her. She caught the thin little body from the arms of white-faced, terrified Faith and carried it into the vestry. Mr. Meredith forgot the hymn and everything else and rushed madly after her. The congregation dismissed itself ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... vestry," said Miss Brooke. "You had better not take her away just yet—look at the crowd outside. I will get ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... deformity. But, as he read the service, he was the priest again, solemn and austere, standing at the gates of Life and Death. He followed the ritual with scrupulous detail, scorning to give short measure to the poor. In the vestry they signed their names with tremendous effort, holding the pen as if it were a prop. Mrs Yabsley, being no scholar, made a mark. The Canon left them with an apology, as another party ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... Mr. Forsyth," she cried, "I am so glad to see you; we must get this horrid thing, which can only have come here by mistake, into the house. The man says we'll have to take off the door, or knock two of our windows into one, or be fined by the Vestry or Custom House or something for leaving our ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ring was on her finger; she was Roland's wife. Nothing could ever make her less. She heard the preacher say: "Come into the vestry, Mrs. Tresham, and sign the register." And then Roland gave her his arm and kissed her, and she went with the little company, and took the pen from her husband's hand, and wrote boldly for the last time ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... hay, Vestry intrigues, the rates they had to pay, The thriving stock, the lands too wet, too dry, And all that bears on fruitful husbandry, Ran mingling through the crowd—a crowd that might, Transferr'd to canvas, give the world delight; A scene that ...
— May Day With The Muses • Robert Bloomfield
... voice even in church. Although her sins might have been proclaimed throughout the diocese without any shame to herself, or ill effects to the community, the cure thought it advisable to receive her confession in the vestry-room. ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert
... through the initiation of suffering: it is no wonder, then, that Janet's restoration was the work that lay nearest his heart; and that, weary as he was in body when he entered the vestry after the evening service, he was impatient to fulfil the promise of seeing her. His experience enabled him to divine—what was the fact—that the hopefulness of the morning would be followed by a return of depression and discouragement; and ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... light in the order. On St. John's Day, December 27, 1777, the Antiquity Lodge of London, of which Preston was Master—one of the four original Lodges forming the Grand Lodge—attended church in a body, to hear a sermon by its Chaplain. They robed in the vestry, and then marched into the church, but after the service they walked back to the Hall wearing their Masonic clothing. Difference of opinion arose as to the regularity of the act, Preston holding it to be valid, if for no other reason, by ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... bad measures, and other iniquities which are incident to the sinful race of publicans, endeavored to make his peace with Heaven by bequeathing the tavern to St. Michael's Church, Crooked Lane, toward the supporting of a chaplain. For some time the vestry meetings were regularly held there, but it was observed that the old Boar never held up his head under church government. He gradually declined, and finally gave his last gasp about thirty years ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... with their myth of a dying and rising god and of salvation by sacramental rite; how it decked itself in the white robes of Greek philosophy and with many a gewgaw of ceremony and custom snatched from the flamen's vestry; how it created a pantheon of saints to take the place of the old polytheism; how it became first the chaplain and then the heir of the Roman Empire, building its church on the immovable rock of the Eternal City, asserting like ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... virtue in Virginia. The Assembly, indeed, enacted that nonconformist ministers be compelled to depart the colony, an act which did much to sour Virginia's relations with New England. What was significant about the act, however, was that, with certain exceptions and qualifications, it gave the vestry of every parish power to elect the minister of the parish. Because established landlords and nobles did not exist to build and endow churches as in England, the representatives of the people, in the vestry, had to assume ...
— Virginia Under Charles I And Cromwell, 1625-1660 • Wilcomb E. Washburn
... hymn was over Uniacke mechanically gave the blessing and knelt down. But he did not pray. His mind stood quite still all the time he was on his knees. He got up wearily, and as he made his way into the little vestry, he fancied that he heard behind him a sound as of some one tramping in sea-boots upon the rough church pavement. He looked round and saw the bland face of the clerk, who wore perpetually a little smile, ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... the Trinity Chapel, and descending the steps, we find on our right the door of St. Andrew's Chapel which is now used as a vestry. Formerly, it was the sacristy, a place from which the pilgrims of humble rank were excluded, but where those of wealth and high station were allowed to gaze at a great array of silken vestments and golden candlesticks, and also the Martyr's pearwood pastoral staff with its black horn crook, ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers
... tells how the devils of Hell were in one of their churches celebrating Christmas in such manner as the devils observe that day; and how Jurgen came through the trapdoor in the vestry-room; and how he saw and wondered over the creatures which inhabited this place. For to him after the Christmas services came all such devils as his fathers had foretold, and in not a hair or scale or ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... forward as a lay-reader under the auspices of the Rev. Ebenezer Kneeland, successor in the Church at Stratford to the Rev. Dr. Johnson whose granddaughter, Charity, he had married. From the records of the Episcopal Church in the adjoining town of Milford, it appears that at a vestry meeting, held April 17, 1776, after electing wardens and vestrymen, Mr. Kneeland being present, it was "voted that Mr. Henry Van Dyke be desired to read prayers on such Sundays as Dr. Kneeland shall be absent, and that we will see him rewarded ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut
... Beadle, over the churchyard wall—knocked down Jeremy Tullinger, the Watchman, an' then—went to sleep. While 'e were asleep they managed, cautious-like, to tie 'is legs an' arms, an' locked 'im up, mighty secure, in the vestry. 'Ows'ever, when 'e woke up 'e broke the door open, an' walked out, an' nobody tried to stop 'im—not a ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... of talent and well acquainted with the science of antiquities. The painted windows of the upper galleries of the nave represent the seventy four ancestors of Jesus Christ; higher up are the images of saints and martyrs; in the right aisle, over the vestry, is seen the gigantic figure of saint Christopher: on the South side, of the six windows that have each sixteen divisions, the four first contain some scenes from the history of the Bible; the two last, the day of Judgment and the celestial Jerusalem. On the North side, ...
— Historical Sketch of the Cathedral of Strasburg • Anonymous
... the vestry stair, He laid his vestments in their place, And turned—a pale ghost met him there With beads of ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... the rector, accompanied by his son, appeared from the vestry. There was a dignity and solemnity in the manner in which this pious divine entered on the duties of his profession, which disposed the heart to listen with reverence and humility to precepts that were accompanied with so impressive an exterior. The stillness of expectation pervaded the church, ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... and best man alight at the vestry. They remain in the back of the chancel until the first notes of the wedding march notify them of the presence of the bride. The best man must see before the ceremony that the bridegroom's top hat, as well as his own, is sent ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... Tyrol: but all the real power is with the Emperor. I do not say that you cannot have one executive power and two mock parliaments, two parliaments which merely transact parish business, two parliaments which exercise no more influence on great affairs of state than the vestry of St Pancras or the vestry of Marylebone. What I do say, and what common sense teaches, and what all history teaches, is this, that you cannot have one executive power and two real parliaments, two parliaments possessing ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... a special meeting of the wardens and vestry of St. Jude's Church held this day, it was unanimously decided to grant your request for leave of absence from your duties as rector of this parish from June 1st till September 13th, inclusive, proximo, with permission to go abroad. ...
— A Temporary Dead-Lock - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier |
