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Heathenish   Listen
adjective
Heathenish  adj.  
1.
Of or pertaining to the heathen; resembling or characteristic of heathens. "Worse than heathenish crimes."
2.
Rude; uncivilized; savage; cruel.
3.
Irreligious; as, a heathenish way of living.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Heathenish" Quotes from Famous Books



... among the worst; Joshua, the next in age, changed his glorious prophetic name to the Greek Jason, and going to Antioch, offered a great sum of money to be made High Priest, and for leave to set up at Jerusalem a place for the practice of the heathenish games of strength, where men fought naked. Antiochus was but too glad of the offer; so the good High Priest was carried off to die a prisoner at Antioch, and the apostate was set up in his room in order to pervert the Jewish youth to idolatry. However, ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... from Montaigne? What were really Montaigne's religious and philosophic opinions? We must consider this point also with more circumspection than has been shown by most of Montaigne's critics. The habit of calling him "sceptic," a habit initiated by the Catholic priests who denounced his heathenish use of the term "Fortune," and strengthened by various writers from Pascal to Emerson, is a hindrance to an exact notion of the facts, inasmuch as the word "sceptic" has passed through two phases of significance, and may still have either. In the original sense of the term, Montaigne ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson

... dilapidated patrimony. A court and a political system which were destined soon to disappear were laboring to put an end to Christian education. The prince, cousin of the Emperor, Napoleon III., and the Senator and Academician, Sainte Beuve, held heathenish orgies in the Lenten season, even on Good Friday. To crown the list of evil, apostacy was not wanting. It was of little consequence that one who fell away, although a vehement declaimer, was a shallow theologian; his loss was, nevertheless, ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... which was turned into a temple dedicated to St. John. The idol which formerly was worshiped as Janus is being now worshiped as St. John. In the same temple there is an image now consecrated as St. Mark which was formerly the god Mars. The saint worship in Brazil is just as heathenish. In China Buddhist idols were renamed Jehosaphat by the Jesuits and worshiped. Their practices in Brazil are in keeping with their ...
— Brazilian Sketches • T. B. Ray

... has a heathenish—I mean, a Russian—name like that," says Miss Priscilla. "She is a very little woman, with merry eyes, and she laughs always, and she has the prettiest, the most courteous manners. Quite a relief I found her, after the inanities of ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... thankful that we haven't," she said severely. "That Graveyard Day is a heathenish custom, anyhow. They make a regular picnic of it, and it makes me sick to hear those school girls chattering about what they mean to plant, each one trying to outblow the other. If I had a grave there, I wouldn't make a ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... a single sigh! The foolish wishes we form in youth have something noble and something bodily in them; but those of age are utter shadows, and the shadows of pygmies! Why, what is honour, after all? What is this good name among men? Only a sort of heathenish idol, set up to be adored by one set of fools and scorned by another. Do you not observe, Lucy, that the man you hear most praised by the party you meet to-day is most abused by that which you meet to-morrow? Public men are only praised by their party; and their party, sweet Lucy, are such base ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... child that has been brought up in that heathenish fashion?" continued Simeon Holly. "According to his own story, even his father did nothing but play the fiddle and tramp through the woods day in and day out, with an occasional trip to the mountain village to get food and clothing when ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter

... old horse shoe' must be mentioned, to throw utter contempt upon a custom, then very prevalent, and even now practised, of nailing an old horse shoe over the door of the house, to prevent a witch from entering. When will these absurd heathenish ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... aside with a doubt or a cui bono. It was a witty and refined selfishness, and nothing beyond. Spiritual light, faith, none; hope that to-morrow might pass as smoothly as to-day; love, only that particular affection which man feels for his female fellow-creature. Such a heathenish frame of mind will find little favor in this era of yearnings, seekings, teachings. It was, indeed, a lamentable condition of moral darkness; but the error, though grievous, has its ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... then went away and spoke softly to each other of the life that seemed wasted and the heart that was so hardened with its trouble. "What would the world be if every one were to bear their sorrows so badly?" they would say. "There is something heathenish in such utter want of resignation. Oh, yes, it was very sad, her losing her husband and children, but it all happened four or five years ago; and you know"—And here people's voices dropped a little ominously, for there were vague hints afloat that things had not always ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... Alexander of Russia, was so convinced of the single-mindedness and integrity of the British and Foreign Bible Society, that he promoted their efforts within his own dominions to the utmost of his ability." He pointed to the condition of Spain, which was "overspread with the thickest gloom of heathenish ignorance, beneath which the fiends and demons of the abyss seem to be holding their ghastly revels." He described it as "a country in which all sense of right and wrong is forgotten . . . where the ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... Germans and Italians. Hence arose that unnatural neglect of the vernacular tongue, of which these were ignorant; the private influence of the German, still visible in the Polish language; and the unlimited dominion of the Latin. Slavic, Polish, and heathenish, were to them synonymous words. Thus, while the light of Christianity everywhere carried the first dawn of life into the night of Slavic antiquity, the early history of Poland affords more than any other part of the Christian world a melancholy proof, how the passions ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson

... said the man in black; "eating the bodies of the dead was a heathenish custom, practised by the heirs and legatees of people who left property; and this custom is ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... the cretur sittin wi' a pen in 's hand, and pipe in 's mouth, jotting down a sonnet, or odd, or lyrical ballad! Sometimes I put that black velvet cap ye gied me on his head, and ane o' the bairns's auld big-coats on his back; and then, sure aneugh, when he takes his stroll in the avenue, he is a heathenish Christian. ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... or the most important of them, had distinguishing names—strange, uncouth names; some of them telling of a heathenish origin; others inexplicable and almost unpronounceable—as Ashtaroth, Bael, Belial, Zephar, Cerberus, Phoenix, Balam (why he?), and Haagenti, Leraie, Marchosias, Gusoin, Glasya Labolas. Scot enumerates seventy-nine, the above amongst them, ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding

... robber-sees—rogues' habitations. And thus is each once-blest German state, Deep sunk in the gloom of the desolate! Whence comes all this? Oh, that will I tell— It comes of your doings, of sin, and of hell; Of the horrible, heathenish lives ye lead, Soldiers and officers, all of a breed. For sin is the magnet, on every hand, That draws your steel throughout the land! As the onion causes the tear to flow, So vice must ever be followed by woe— The ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... asserted, that the Bible lends its sanction to this antiquated, and, as he thinks, exploded superstition. He knows how expressly the Bible forbids God's people to have anything to do with it, or with its heathenish professors. "Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven, for the heathen are dismayed at them."[289] And they will be still more surprised to learn, that those who object against the Bible, that it ascribes a controlling influence ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... heads. So he discouraged chess as a degrading game, that did not improve either the mind or the morals, and abolished the tournament summarily. Then he sent for the four priests who had had the effrontery to play better than a Grand Lama, and addressed them as follows: "Miserable and heathenish men, calling yourselves priests! Know ye not that to lay claim to a capacity to do anything better than my predecessor is a capital offence? Take that chessboard and, before day dawns upon the torture chamber, ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... witch breweth her evil decoctions! See how the smoke from her fire broodeth on wood land and meadow! Grant that the sun cometh out to smother the smudge of her caldron! She hath been forth in the night, full of her spells and devices, Roaming the marshes and dells for heathenish musical nostrums; Digging in leaves and at stumps for centipedes, pismires and spiders, Grubbing in poisonous pools for hot salmanders and toadstools; Charming the bats from the flues, snaring the lizards ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field

... you sit in front of me. It's a heathenish custom, this shrouding of one's self in black, and so unbecoming. Lily, get Lizzie Bettie a glass of iced tea, or would you rather have lemonade?" And Mrs. Deford stopped fanning long enough to put her lorgnette to her ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher

... the old woman, aghast. "La! miss, you must not talk in that way,—it's quite wicked and heathenish! One must not ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Dolman, as she turned away with her brother, "of all the heathenish and wicked nonsense that I was ever permitted to witness, this beats everything. It is a right good thing—yes, I will say it frankly, David—that you are going abroad, and that your benighted children are handed over to me. When you come ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade

... thou didst intrust it, had not kept it back. We should rejoice to see thy outward man here, especially on a day which should not be a first day, being liable to worldly callers in on that day. Our little book is delayed by a heathenish injunction, threatened by the man Taylor. Canst thou copy and send, or bring with thee, a vanity in verse which in my younger days I wrote on friend Aders' pictures? Thou wilt find it in the book ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... characterized by that usual shrill volubility and apparent animosity which was at once the delight and scorn of the intelligent Caucasian who did not understand a word of it. Such, at least, was the feeling with which Mr. Tretherick on his veranda, and Col. Starbottle who was passing, regarded their heathenish jargon. The gallant colonel simply kicked them out of his way: the irate Tretherick, with an oath, threw a stone at the group, and dispersed them, but not before one or two slips of yellow rice-paper, marked with hieroglyphics, ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte

... one of the speakers that Dick, alive and uninjured, had been brought by Horoeka into the kainga at nightfall, and was now shut up in one of the whares. But a fierce speech of Horoeka's presently told the painfully interested eavesdropper that nothing less than death, attended by heathenish and gruesome ceremonies, would expiate the boy's outrage on the ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various

... his knees stone dead. I could hardly believe my eyes. The sight of so large an animal being killed at such a distance by one shot had an extraordinary effect. I heard a heathenish scream of joy behind me, and upon turning round I perceived the now courageous gun-bearers running towards me at their best pace. They were two of the Topari villagers, and had been perfectly aghast at the idea of one person, with only a single-barrelled rifle, attacking a tank rogue in the ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... morning with an ill-tempered horse he was breaking, and he felt tired out. He had no idea of compelling a horse with a whip. Sir Shawn had bought this horse at a fair a short time before. He was jet-black and they had called him Mustapha. That was Master Terry's name for him, a queer heathenish name to Patsy's mind, but all Master Terry did and all the mistress, Master Terry's mother did, was right in Patsy's eyes, so ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan

... peace, He has taken your child in order that you may be saved. He knew that was the only way of bringing you to see the great plan of salvation, and to save your innocent little girl from growing up in a heathenish home, where there was no beauty, no kindness, no good example, no God. I beseech you to surrender yourself at once. Remember, the Spirit will not always strive with you, and if you chase it away now ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman

... the want of reverence sometimes attributed to Protestants in the great Catholic temples. "Mary, dear," she whispered, "suppose we had to kiss that dreadful brass toe. If I could only have kept our door-knocker, at Northampton, as bright as that! I think it's so heathenish; but Roderick says he thinks ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James

... interval can be read only on a micrometer scale. Wherefore, Thomas Jefferson had developed a huge disgust on hearing that Major Dabney was going to upset the natural order of things by bringing his granddaughter to Deer Trace Manor. If Ardea—the very name of her had a heathenish sound in his Scripturally-trained ear—had been a boy, the matter would have simplified itself. Thomas Jefferson had a sincere respect for his own prowess, and a boy might have been mauled ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... expressed, through involuntary ignorance, shall not be rejected by that just Being who seeks not to reap where He hath not sowed; but that it may come up as holy incense before Him, when our cold, unloving, orthodox prayers, backed by our heathenish lives, and meaner offerings on the altar of our God, shall return, blighted and blighting, into our own bosoms. Or should you be too petrified with pious horror at this—Popery, as with your longest, dismalest face, you will style it—to think with any charity of those ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... Spoiled their Cities and Settlements, Toasted their fine Ladies, and held their Chief Governors to Ransom,—should be laid in the Bilboes by a Rascally African Pirate Vessel mounting Nine Guns, and belonging to the most Heathenish, Knavish, and Bloodthirsty Town of Algiers. My Gall works now to think of it; but Force was against us, and the Disaster was not to be helped. I was in such a Mad Rage as to be near Braining the Captain ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... the Confessor the tribute paid by the city of Gloucester consisted almost entirely of iron rods wrought to a size fit for making nails for the king's ships. An old religious writer speaks of the ironworkers of that day as heathenish in their manners, puffed up with pride, and inflated with worldly prosperity. On the occasion of St. Egwin's visit to the smiths of Alcester, as we are told in the legend, he found then given up to every kind of luxury; ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... to be done for widows, or poor women who have never been blessed with husbands? Are they to go down to death in heathenish darkness, because the genial light of a husband's countenance has ceased to shine upon them, or, perhaps, has never done so? Must unmarried women forever continue in ignorance of the glorious Gospel of Christ, because they have no husbands to teach them? As girls, according to such a rendering, ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster

... remarks in vol. ii., p. 140, of the above-named work:—"The belief in fairies and Spirits prevailed over all Europe long before the introduction of Christianity. The teachers of the new faith endeavoured to abolish the deeply-rooted heathenish ideas and customs of the people, by representing them as sinful and connected with the Devil." In this way the Devil inherited many attributes that once belonged to the Fairies, and these beings were spoken of as ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... this Body of Eyes; but as he was Pimp for his Mistress Juno, tis probable he used all the modern Leers, sly Glances, and other ocular Activities to serve his Purpose. Some look upon him as the then King at Arms to the Heathenish Deities; and make no more of his Eyes than as so many Spangles of ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... remembering what Penelope had told me about the jugglers, and the pouring of the little pool of ink into the palm of the boy's hand, I instantly suspected that I had disturbed the three Indians, lurking about the house, and bent, in their heathenish way, on discovering the whereabouts of the Diamond ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... they Who wrought their own captivity, fell off From God to worship calves, the deities Of Egypt, Baal next and Ashtaroth, And all the idolatries of heathen round, Besides their other worse than heathenish crimes; Nor in the land of their captivity 420 Humbled themselves, or penitent besought The God of their forefathers, but so died Impenitent, and left a race behind Like to themselves, distinguishable scarce From Gentiles, but ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton

... up the present godless system of State education, and depend on it, as sure as effect follows cause, every species of villany and defilement will flood the land. It is certain that all education which is not based on religion is heathenish, and must prove destructive in the end. It will destroy the very people whom it was expected to save. It will consume ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... God as a gift and comfort in our misery. She, on the other hand, would not hear of this, and told us that she thought she had been called Undine by her parents, and that Undine she wished still to be called. Now this appeared to me a heathenish name, not to be found in any calendar, and I took counsel therefore of a priest in the city. He also would not hear of the name of Undine, but at my earnest request he came with me through the mysterious ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... are thinking of Eleusis, and not of the way to Eleusis; so that we may as well keep our suggestion to ourselves,—also those pious admonitions which we were just about to administer to our companions on heathenish superstitions. A strange fascination these Athenians have; and before we are aware, our thoughts, too, are centred in Eleusis, whither are tending, not Athens only, but vast multitudes from all Greece. Their movement is tumultuous; but it is a tumult ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... trots was lost beneath the bang and clang of drum and cymbals, to which had been added other more ingenious ear tortures in the shape of rattles and whistles. Broken-collared men and faded women struggled for elbow room like a mass of flies caught on sticky paper. There was something both heathenish and pathetic in the whole thing. The ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton

... great heat; "Tobit and his dog baith are altogether heathenish and apocryphal, and none but a prelatist or a papist would draw them into question. I doubt I hae been mista'en ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... island—also. The sea dashes wrecks on all four sides of it, but there is no village on its shores so heathenish that if a man is cast upon the beach the inhabitants do not rejoice because he ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... and hands in; so we had no ice, nor did we miss it, but the judge had a plateful of chips on the table before him, one of which he every now and then popped into his long thin bell—glass of claret, diluting it, I should have thought, in rather a heathenish manner; but n'importe, he worked away, sawing off pieces now and then from the large lump in the blanket, (to save the tear and wear attending a fracture,) which was handed to him by his servant, so that by eleven o'clock at night, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... only distrusts fairies, but, like the Scotch Presbyterians, she fears that they are wicked. "Still, you say they haven't got immortal souls to save, and I don't suppose they're responsible for their actions," she allows; "but as for traipsing up to those heathenish, haunted woods when all Christian folks are in bed, I don't believe in it, and neither would Mr. Beresford; but if you're set on it, ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... which they had so savagely exhibited to the lady of Ardvoirlich, into the old church of Balquidder, nearly in the centre of their country, where the Laird of MacGregor and all his clan being convened for the purpose, laid their hands successively on the dead man's head, and swore, in heathenish and barbarous manner, to defend the author of the deed. This fierce and vindictive combination gave the author's late and lamented friend, Sir Alexander Boswell, Bart., subject for a spirited poem, entitled "Clan-Alpin's Vow," which was printed, but not, I believe, published, ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott

... "Lucky boy! So will I. I had a very early dinner. New York is the most arid place on holidays," he continued as he rattled the ice in the glasses. "When one gets too old to hit the rapids down there, and tired of gobbling food to heathenish dance music, there is absolutely no place where you can get a chop and some milk toast in peace, unless you have strong ties of blood brotherhood on upper Fifth Avenue. But you, why ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather

... involved but uncertain steering, and much lee-way adown the dim ages. Now, when this strange circumstance was made known aft, the carpenter was at once commanded to do Queequeg's bidding, whatever it might include. There was some heathenish, coffin-colored old lumber aboard, which, upon a long previous voyage, had been cut from the aboriginal groves of the Lackaday islands, and from these dark planks the coffin was recommended to be made. No sooner was the carpenter apprised of the order, than taking his ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... sick abbess; lifting her from the bed to the cold floor, and from the cold floor to the bed, and refused a piece of gold the abbess offered for her trouble, begging it might be given to Lisa Behlken, a little gipsy maiden, whose thievish and heathenish parents had left her behind them in the town, but who had been taken in and sheltered by the poor widow, though she had enough to do to ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... of the box don't lift up," she explained, "like all the box lids as ever I saw, and me with Lady Chitterton for six years, traveling constantly. The front of the thing splits in the middle and the bottom half falls on the floor. A heathenish kind of tray lifts off from its hinges like a door, and a clothes rack pulls out on runners. 'T is a sight to curdle your blood; and the number of dresses she's brought would make her out to be richer than Crusoe!—though I have heard from a cousin of mine who was in service ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... stuck at publishing the banns, because they averred it was a heathenish name; parents have lingered their consent, because they suspected it was a fictitious name; and rivals have declined my challenges, because they pretended it was ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... none so little in advance or in arrear of it as I—of easy writing and discursive reading, of ideas unpatented, and books that have outlived copy-right. But this has detained us long enough: for the present, my brain is quit of its heathenish exculpations: let us pass on; many regiments are yet to be reviewed; their uniforms [Hibernice] are various, but their flag ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... pity for a man who is content to live all his life shut in between brick walls. To undertake to bring up a family of boys and girls where all the blessed freedom of out-door life is denied them, is worse than pitiful,—it's heathenish. Not that every boy ought to live on a farm and work in a barn-yard,—hoe corn all summer and chop wood all winter,—but I don't believe a child can grow up strong, healthy, and natural, body-wise and soul-wise, unless he has a chance to scrape an acquaintance with Mother Nature with his own hands. ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner

... see the wonderful object. She saw it, and she saw the holy Fathers, and they converted her against the superstitious heathenish wishes of her husband. And more than that, ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte

... Sussex): while the Irish Church had made its way over all the north, from the Wash to the Firth of Forth. The Roman influence may be partly traced by the Roman alphabet superseding the old English runes. Runic inscriptions are rare in the south, where they were regarded as heathenish relics, and so destroyed: but they are comparatively common in the north. Runics appear on the coins of the first Christian kings of Mercia, Peada and AEthelred, but soon die out ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen

... about me, no doubt," said Fanchon to herself. "I do not care what people say, they cannot be Christians who speak such a heathenish jargon as that: it is enough to sink the canoe; but I will repeat my paternosters and my Ave Marias, seeing they will not converse with me, and I will pray good St. Anne to give me a safe passage to St. Valier." In which pious occupation, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... "Too good to be true"? He has much to answer for. Nothing is too good to be true. Not even the love of a man for a maid, Valerie. You found it so good that you were thoroughly prepared to find it false. And the moment you saw the clouds, you believed the sun to be dead. That is heathenish and the way of the people who imagine a ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... know the enemy may come again at any moment and levy their contributions upon you, yet you take it not in the least to heart, but continue to lead a merry, luxurious life, have balls and drinking bouts, spend a wild, heathenish life in eating, drinking, gambling, and other wantonness, deck yourselves out like peacocks, and those who have the least, and carry all their possessions upon their bodies, ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... hardly worth while, obtained in India until recent years. The consequence was that the children of Christian congregations were neglected and allowed to absent themselves from Christian services and to grow up in ignorance and heathenish darkness. As a result of this many of these boys and girls, when they grew up into manhood and womanhood, reverted to heathenism; and many flourishing Christian congregations of the last generation became defunct. It is now understood, with increasing distinctness, ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones

... sometimes do persuade fools, that they are able by their masses to distribute and apply unto men's commodity all the merits of Christ's death, yea, although many times the parties think nothing of the matter, and understand full little what is done, this is a mockery, an heathenish fancy, and a very toy. For it is our faith that applieth the death and cross of Christ to our benefit, and not the act of the massing priest. "Faith had in the Sacraments," saith Augustine, "doth justify, and not the Sacraments." And Origen saith, "Christ is the Priest, the Propitiation, and ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel

... spouse, and our daughter born in the purple chamber. I remember me, our most amiable and accomplished daughter, that last night you wished to know the particulars of the battle of Laodicea, with the heathenish Arabs, whom Heaven confound. And for certain considerations which moved ourselves to add other enquiries to our own recollection, Achilles Tatius, our most trusty Follower, was commissioned to introduce into this ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne's forehead. Madam Hester would have winced at that, I warrant me. But she,—the naughty baggage,—little will she care what they put upon the bodice of her gown! Why, look you, she may cover it with a brooch, or such like heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as brave ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... flag at a masthead ... Thank God, the enemy was getting away from his big engine, and his ordinary troops were fagged and poor in quality. It was when his fresh shock battalions came on that I held my breath ... He had a heathenish amount of machine-guns and he used them beautifully. Oh, I take my hat off to the Boche performance. He was doing what we had tried to do at the Somme and the Aisne and Arras and Ypres, and he was more or less succeeding. And the reason was that he ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan

... you call Sir Philip Sidney's Princess Pamela, who was born and bred of Christian parents in England, 'a heathen woman,' and therefore he thought that by Heathenish you meant English, and that in calling Kingship heathenish you inferred it was the only proper and natural government of the English nation, as it hath been proved in all ages. To which another objected that such a sense was quite contrary to your purpose; to which he immediately replied that it ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... secret sympathy for "missie"—he would often devote himself to proving the solidarity of all "church priests," Establishments, and prelatical Christians generally. Father Bowles might be in a "parlish" state; but as to all supporters of bishops and the heathenish custom of fixed prayers—whether they wore black gowns or no—"a man mut hae ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... same woman, and as to madame, she also was weary of being married to the same man, so each had decided to try a little change, whereupon Lizzie, the second waitress—a buxom Irish girl who despised "furriners" in general and Japanese in particular—bid Oku hold his tongue and not jabber such heathenish nonsense. ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow

... Old Christians in Abyssinia. The tenets of this tribe, you are aware, are in several instances wonderfully similar to our own; only, they abjure in their totality the filthy rags of the moral law, which has drawn upon them the bitter persecution of the heathenish Mohammedans in their neighbourhood. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various

... festival of Christmas, for the invaders were heathens, and Christianity was swept westward before them. They had lived in a part of the Continent which had not been reached by Christianity nor classic culture, and they worshipped the false gods of Woden and Thunder, and were addicted to various heathenish practices, some of which now mingled with the festivities of Christmastide. Still, as these Angles came to stay and have given their name to our country, it may be well to note that they came over to ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... culprit, 'You know my lord's chateau, of course? My guards will take you there.' 'The devil a furlong know I of this accursed spot,' answered Tibbald viciously, 'seeing that I arrived here a good hour after dark, and by a road as heathenish as yourselves.' ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... neighbourhood. In a town the druggist was usually consulted by the poor, if they consulted any one at all who had learned medicine; but the physicians most in favour were "white witches," namely, old women who dealt in herbs and charms, the former of which were real remedies, and the latter heathenish nonsense. A great deal of superstition mixed with the practice of the best medical men of the day. Herbs must be gathered when the moon was at the full, or when Mercury was in the ascendant; patients ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... was founded a hundred or two hundred years ago; then Bonaparte contemplated transforming it into a Temple of Victory, or building it anew as one. The restored Bourbon remade it into a church; but it still has a heathenish look, and ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... the opportunity for the further addition to his coat of color. He was to them an Indian of an unknown tribe, yet, since he was to be offered to the gods, he was made the very center of ceremonial dances, and infernal heathenish customs. ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan

... possible that she did so, and was unable to find you, for it was very dark, and the sea was very rough," suggested the commander. "But her conduct looks heathenish, and I will warrant that she was not an English steamer; for the British tars never pass by their fellow-beings on the ocean in distress ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic

... for a sight of her bright face, and only half compensated for its absence by the charities which Valencia brought; the smart waiting-maid putting on innumerable airs and making Mrs. Hobbs feel keenly how greatly she thought herself demeaned by coming to such a heathenish place as that. ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes

... Him to be a God, and if the Lord of Hosts is an intelligent Creator and expects us, as His children, to worship Him in an intelligent manner, the Catholic Church and all of her followers are sinning against God every day, as her mode of worship is steeped in the drugs of heathenish superstitions. ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg

... somewhat of a religious man, far from decorating the ship with pagan idols, such as Jupiter, Neptune, or Hercules (which heathenish abominations I have no doubt occasion the misfortunes and shipwreck of many a noble vessel)—he, I say, on the contrary, did laudably erect for a head a goodly image of Saint Nicholas, equipped with a low, broad-brimmed ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... habitual use of forms, especially their exclusive use, seems to many of us to be dangerous, regard being had to the tendency of human nature to rest in them. And it is not without significance that this very prayer of our Lord's, which was given as the corrective of vain repetitions and idle, heathenish chattering of forms of prayer, has itself come to be the saddest instance in all Christendom of these very faults, while the beads slip through the fingers of the mechanical repeater of muttered Paternosters. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... Part of their Belief. And some, it may be feared, have been averse to their becoming Christians because after that, no Pretence will remain for not treating them like Men. When these Obstacles are added to the fondness they have for their old Heathenish Rites, and the strong Prejudices they must have against Teachers from among those, whom they serve so unwillingly; it cannot be wondered, if the Progress made in their Conversion prove slow. After some Experience ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson

... "Sich ignorance as ye two do be showin' is heathenish," he declared. "I suppose now ye wud be for puttin' the cook stove in the parlor an' settin' up the piany in the ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright

... face of God and the law," she said; "that woman," here she lifted her long, boney finger and pointed it towards Mrs. Farnham, "that woman had wronged me and the being I loved better than myself, and this filled me with a heathenish thirst ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens

... we are as much satisfied to accept this double individual under the name of "Currer Bell," as under any other, more or less euphonious. Whoever it be, it is a person who, with great mental powers, combines a total ignorance of the habits of society, a great coarseness of taste, and a heathenish doctrine of religion. And as these characteristics appear more or less in the writings of all three, Currer, Acton, and Ellis alike, for their poems differ less in degree of power than in kind, we are ready to accept the fact of their identity or of their relationship with equal ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... ber-jermun, because they trace a not altogether fanciful resemblance between the sheds stuffed with jungle and the jermun or nest-like huts which wild boars construct for their shelter and comfort. But although the Malays, as a race, despise the Sakai, and all their heathenish ways, on the occasion of which I write, Kria, a man of their nation, was present, and taking an active part in the demon-worship ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford

... said Candace, rather mysteriously, "de Doctor, he don't like to hab us talk much 'bout dese yer tings, 'cause he tinks it's kind o' heathenish. But den, folks as is used to seein' sech tings knows de look ob a sperit out o' de body from de look ob a sperit in de body, jest as easy as you can ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... mere mask for treason, very impolitically allowed to those who are too great cowards to wear their principles barefaced.— Had we not better send up a party and search the house, in case some of the bloody villains concerned in this heathenish butchery may be ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... but Davenant found a public in London to applaud an "entertainment by declamations and music, after the manner of the ancients" (1656). The press began timidly to venture on books of amusement, in a style of humour which seemed ribald and heathenish to the staid and sober covenanter. Something of the jollity and merriment of old Elisabethan days seemed to be in the air. But with a vast difference. Instead of "dallying with the innocence of love," as in England's Helicon (1600), or The Passionate Pilgrim, the sentiment, crushed ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison

... heathenish sort of dress," she exclaimed, "but if it comes to that, I believe that Catherine Sharston will look just as well with a chaplet of leaves round her head as anyone else ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade

... earth, to a mission such as in the popular belief only God's angels know?" With his high ideal of what a musician should be, he could not but be disgusted at times with the Bohemianism of the men who played with him, and with the loose moral life of many more eminent musicians. "Ah, these heathenish Germans!" he exclaims, as he sees some of the orchestra at a church service making fun of the communion service: "Double-bass was a big fellow, with a black mustache, to whom life was all a joke, which he expressed by a comical smile, and Viola was a young ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims

... use of strong drink; and which, besides, if derived, as learned divines have supposed, from the custom of the blinded Pagans, who made libations and invoked idols when they drank, may be justly said to have something in it heathenish, and ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... of Bede, Ado, Usuard, &c. mention St. Almachus, M. put to death at Rome, for boldly opposing the heathenish superstitions on the octave of our Lord's nativity. Ado adds, that he was slain by the gladiators at the command of Alypius, prefect of Rome. A prefect of this name is mentioned in the reign of Theodosius, the father of Honorius. This name, the place, day, and cause seeming ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... line of our narrative, take leave to make a few remarks as to the cause of that day being known as "Sunday." The Romans called it Dies Solis, because it was dedicated to the worship of the sun; and the Saxons gave it the name Sunnan-d[oe]g, or Sun's-day, for a similar heathenish cause. Whether the Saxons received their mythology from the Romans, or whether they had idols of their own, is a matter of doubt. The Romans worshipped the planets by the names of some of their favourite deities; and there is a resemblance in the ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... P———'s. Heaven keep us heart-whole when such stars rain their soft influence upon us. As to the Countess of B———, with her diamond tiara, and eyes brighter than her diamonds, she looked so goddess-like, that I was tempted to turn heathenish and worship. Indeed, that bright eyes should exert their brilliancy amid the dazzling brightness of our fair and elegant hostess's rooms, is no trifle. Dancing commenced at eleven; and, although my vanity allured me to think that the favorable glances ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... why time dragged so for me when being clothed by Annette and Aunt Mary. True, Aunt Mary paused to sniff into her handkerchief every few minutes or to listen to Annette's French raptures as she laid upon me each foolish garment up unto the long swath of heathenish tulle she was beginning to arrange when an interruption occurred in the shape of Rufus, who put his head in the door and mysteriously summoned Polly, who had come in to exhibit her silk muslin frills, in which she was the ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess

... pretty peaceful time the stormiest day and the fruitfullest of future mischiefs should have been a certain Lord's Day, only a week or two after our coming. It was from Mr. Truelocke that I learnt to say 'the Lord's Day,' Sunday, said he, being a heathenish, idolatrous word, nor would he allow of the fashion of calling the day of rest 'the Sabbath.' 'We keep not holy,' said he, 'the seventh-day Sabbath of the people of Israel, but the first day made holy ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling

... In Rheinsburg? Well, never mind, we've had enough of that. [He whistles the first bars of the Dessauer March.] Tell me, you've taken part in those heathenish performances—at my ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... behold, here I am in their heathenish Gehenna, where the Sabbath-day is just clean neglected; indeed, I have lost count myself, and do not know one day from the other. Oh, man, it's just rideec'lous. A body—I mean a soul—does not know where to turn." Here Peter, whose accent I cannot ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang

... in all the larger temples and shrines of the "Strong City," when we turned out of it, and, crossing the stream that divides the two places, went to the Christian hamlet, which by contrast at that moment seemed like a little corner of the garden of the Lord. Behind was the heathenish clash and clang of every possible discord, and here the steady ringing of the bell for evening service; behind was all that ever was meant by the "mystery of iniquity," and here the purity and peace ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael

... accommodation of Big Lena, Miss Penny, and Chloe; and numerous three-room cabins for the housing of whole families of Indians, which the girl fondly pictured as flocking in from the wilderness to have the errors of their heathenish religion pointed out to them upon a brand-new blackboard, and the discomforts of their nomadic lives assuaged by an introduction to collapsible bath-tubs and the multiplication table. For hers was to be a mission as well as a school. Truly the souls north of sixty were destined to owe her much. For ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx

... whisht! Or whisht yer blethers!—whichever way that outlandish, heathenish gibberish your forebears jabbered, would have it. You see, Archie, one great advantage of being Irish—and it's not your fault that you're not, man, I don't blame you—one great advantage is that you can speak all languages ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith

... fellow, Pat Tyhee (big Pat, or chief Pat), not an Irishman. He was a Shoshone who years before had gone to live among the Nez Perces and had married a woman of them. He could interpret Hays, but could he be trusted? He was a very heathenish heathen. The missionary teacher, Miss Frost, consulted with Mr. Hays and myself as to the wisdom of asking Pat to play interpreter for the momentous occasion; after fervently praying we concluded to take the risk and trust to God's leading. Pat, the heathen, was chosen. It was a queer audience. There ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan

... sick with regret, vexation, and shame; at the first flush, death—for Frank—had been preferable to this. She had a considerable store of vanity; she was not very philosophical. Besides, she was not married; and what Captain Vidall, her devoted admirer and possible husband, would think of this heathenish alliance was not a cheer ful thought to her. She choked down a sob, and waved her hand towards Richard to answer for her. He was pale too, but cool. He understood the case instantly; he made up his mind instantly also as to what ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... to the ground. And none of the bonders dared to oppose him. After the death of Ironbeard they had no leader bold enough to encounter the king and his men. So the end of it was that they all forsook their heathenish customs and yielded to the king's demands that they should ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton

... Church fought bitterly against the observance of the Kalends; she condemned repeatedly the unseemly doings of Christians in joining in heathenish customs at that season; she tried to make the first of January a solemn fast; and from the ascetic point of view she was profoundly right, for the old festivals were bound up with a lusty attitude towards the world, a seeking for earthly joy ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles

... his commands with all the emphasis he could give them, but neither Lize nor Lee would consent to go. "It would be heathenish to leave him alone in this lonesome ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland

... movements are impulsive and uncontrolled, and his handsome face looks as if it belonged to a half-tamed creature out of the woods. He talks loud, laughs incessantly, croons a monotonous chant, which sounds almost as heathenish as tom-toms, throws himself out of his saddle, hanging on by one foot, lingers behind to gather fruits, and then comes tearing up, beating his horse over the ears and nose, with a fearful yell and a prolonged sound like har-r-r-ouche, striking my mule and threatening to overturn me as he passes ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... would not defend, surely, their plotting to use the savages against their neighbors—against helpless women and children. That must be heathenish to ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... always forget your last name—and your first is so appropriate." It was worth all it cost, though Richling could ill afford the purchase. The young Latin's sweet, abysmal ignorance, his infantile amiability, his artless ambition, and heathenish innocence started the natural gladness of Richling's blood to effervescing anew every time they met, and, through the sheer impossibility of confiding any of his troubles to the Creole, made him think them smaller and lighter than they had just before appeared. The very ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... A heathenish expression, perhaps; but Weir assured me, with much amusement in his tone, that those were the very words Old Rogers used. Leaving the expression aside, will the reader think for a moment on the old man's reasoning? My condition WAS ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald

... very little, and with the first light of morning he awoke as completely possessed by this woman as if he had been with her all the night before. The unconscious operations of life went on in him only to perpetuate this excitement. His brain held but one image now—vibrated, burned with it. It was a heathenish feeling; without friendliness, almost ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather

... that he had no tact in dealing with other races than his own. He did not mean to be unjust or unfair, but he trampled on the sensitiveness, which he could not understand. In Ireland he called the Roman Catholic faith "a lie and a heathenish superstition"; or, in a lighter mood, made imbecile jokes about pigs and potatoes. In Scotland, thriftiness and oatmeal were the themes of his pleasantry; in Wales, he found the language, the literature, and the local nomenclature equally comic, and ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell

... sheep out of my hand," He indicates that He is no idle spectator of woe, but that mighty and incessant strife is going on. The devil incites his tools to disturb the Church or the political commonwealth, that boundless confusion may enter, followed by heathenish desolation. But the Son of God, who holds in His hands, as it were, the congregation of those who call upon His name, hurls back the devils by His infinite power, conquers and chases them thence, and will one day shut them ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various

... begot [Sidenote: Nuns concubines.] in lawfull matrimonie but on concubines, whether they were nunnes or secular women. Also of paiment of tithes, performing of vowes, auoiding of vndecent apparell, and abolishing of all maner of heathenish vsages and customes that sounded contrarie to the order [Sidenote: Curtailing of horsses.] of christanitie, as curtailing of horsses, and eating of horsses flesh. These things with manie other expressed in 20 principall articles (as we haue said) were first concluded to ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (6 of 8) - The Sixt Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed

... suffering, because it is in the creed of the church; but practically they deny it. Would it not be far better to believe steadfastly in a state of discipline and purification? Would not that be a much better incentive to prepare for the end of life, than the half heathenish idea that there is nothing whatever to fear? As a gentleman said to me lately, when speaking of the Roman Catholic fear of Purgatory, "The Methodists and Presbyterians would need some kind of ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio

... three in the morning. That is the most nearly silent hour, and if the heathenish curs let us alone ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... attire by the priesthood, however, was not confined to the worshippers of Venus Urania; it was widely spread throughout Heathendom; so widely that, as we learn from Tacitus, the priests of the Naharvali (in modern Denmark) officiated in the dress of women. Like many other heathenish customs and costumes, traces of this have descended to our own times; such, for example, may have been the exchange of dresses on New Year's Eve, &c.: see Drake's Shakspeare and his Times, vol. i. p. 124., ed. 4to. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 223, February 4, 1854 • Various

... said Mr. Deighton, and looking at the mystic sign, the use of which he had so often tried to put down as a silly, heathenish practice, he felt a twinge ...
— The Tapu Of Banderah - 1901 • Louis Becke

... bought her place only a few months ago, for she lived in Cheltenham before Mr. Bobby died. The last incumbent had probably been of Welsh extraction, for the cottage had been named 'Dan-y-cefn.' Mrs. Bobby declared, however, that she wouldn't have a heathenish name posted on her house, and expect her friends to pronounce it when she couldn't pronounce it herself. She seemed grieved when at first I could not see the absolute necessity of naming the cottage at all, telling her that in America we named only grand places. She was struck dumb ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... only taken care of number one? Why, she in the workhouse and I hoeing turnips! Where would Black Beauty and Ginger have been if you had only thought of number one? why, roasted to death! No, Jim, no! that is a selfish, heathenish saying, whoever uses it; and any man who thinks he has nothing to do but take care of number one, why, it's a pity but what he had been drowned like a puppy or a kitten, before he got his eyes open; that's what I think," said John, with a very ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell

... saith the Lord, and I will requite it,'" answered the monk. "The heathenish custom of deadly feud which prevails in this land, through which each man seeks vengeance at his own hand when the death of a friend or kinsman has chanced, hath already deluged our vales with the blood of Scottish men, spilled by the hands of countrymen ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... only to be understood as a glorification of the relations and arrangements of the cultus as we find them (say) in the first centuries of the divided kingdom. All that seems offensive and heathenish to a later age is here consecrated and countenanced by Jehovah Himself and His favoured ones,— the high places, the memorial stones (maccceboth), ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... his feelings hurt. He had prepared me in a measure for the visit, but the reality was even worse than I anticipated. And still they are the kindest-hearted people in the world, while Mr. Douglas is a man, they say, of excellent sense. George never lived at home much, and their heathenish ways mortify him, I know, though he never says a word except that they are ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes

... throw away religion for the world; for so surely as Judas resigned the world in becoming religious, so surely did he also sell religion and his Master for the same. To answer the question, therefore, affirmatively, as I perceive you have done, and to accept of, as authentic, such answer, is both heathenish, hypocritical, and devilish; and your reward will be according to your works. Then they stood staring one upon another, but had not wherewith to answer Christian. Hopeful also approved of the soundness of Christian's ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan

... avoid the use of force, perfidiously had five of the kings who came to parley with him put to death. "This unparalleled hellish treachery and anti-christian perfidy more to be detested than any heathenish inhumanity," a contemporary wrote, "cannot but stink most abominably in the nosetrils of as many Indians, as shall be infested with the least scent of it, even to their perpetual abhorring and abandoning of the very sight and name of ...
— Virginia Under Charles I And Cromwell, 1625-1660 • Wilcomb E. Washburn

... Advantage; and the generality of Schools go on in the same old dull road, wherein a great part of Children's time is lost in a tiresome heaping up a Pack of dry and unprofitable, or pernicious Notions (for surely little better can be said of a great part of that Heathenish stuff they are tormented with; like the feeding them with hard Nuts, which when they have almost broke their teeth with cracking, they find either deaf or to contain but very rotten and unwholesome Kernels) whilst Things really perfected of the understanding, ...
— The Orbis Pictus • John Amos Comenius

... an Episcopalian, and preferred to read her prayers rather than to listen to those written and memorised by the Presbyterian minister, seemed to be regarded as a relic of heathenish rites—a thing almost cannibalistic. When she elected to engage a woman and a "hired man" to manage her house, she felt the disapprobation of the entire village, as if she had sunk into some decadent ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris

... internal evidence to prove that their origin must be sought in a period long prior to the spread of Christianity. Indeed the earliest proof of their observance in Northern Europe is furnished by the attempts made by Christian synods in the eighth century to put them down as heathenish rites.[263] Not uncommonly effigies are burned in these fires, or a pretence is made of burning a living person in them; and there are grounds for believing that anciently human beings were actually burned on these occasions. ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... essence and their beneficent sap, its insane eagerness for change, and its ridiculous mania for appropriating to itself foreign ideas which conflict with our beautiful national constitution, might disappear. I fear greatly that among the crowd of mad youth who pursue vain Utopias and heathenish novelties, my desires are not destined to be fulfilled, and that the contemplation of the illustrious virtues of the past will remain confined within the same narrow circle as to-day. What is to be done, my friend? I am afraid that very soon our poor ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos

... the godly. His own views, he said, had been grossly misrepresented. It was reported, that he wished to make himself King; but he abhorred the name, as anti-christian, and prayed that whenever the heathenish sound was uttered, a Samuel might arise among the prophets, and call down lightning and rain even in wheat-harvest. The Parliament, whose humble instrument he was, had forced honours upon him, and had commanded him to go to ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... strong internal evidence to prove that their origin must be sought in a period long prior to the spread of Christianity. Indeed the earliest proof of their observance in Northern Europe is furnished by the attempts made by Christian synods in the eighth century to put them down as heathenish rites. Not uncommonly effigies are burned in these fires, or a pretence is made of burning a living person in them; and there are grounds for believing that anciently human beings were actually burned on these occasions. A brief ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... promptly. "I reckon we can find the trail all right again—Hi, there, Pedro, what sort of a heathenish charm is that you are making?" and he turned abruptly to Pedro, who the moment they had stopped had begun scratching curious lines with his knife on the face of a soft rock, by the side of which they ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil

... 'So spoke this poor heathenish Kentuckian, who had not been instructed in his constitutional relations, and consequently was betrayed into acting in a sort of Christianised manner, which, if he had been better situated and more enlightened, he would not have been left ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453 - Volume 18, New Series, September 4, 1852 • Various

... Thoreau wrote concerning monuments: "When the stone is a light one and stands upright, pointing to the sky, it does not repress the spirits of the traveler to meditate by it; but these men did seem a little heathenish to us; and so are all large monuments over men's bodies from the ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... the same reason they forbore drinking to people, or pledging of them, as the manner of the world is: a practice that is not only unnecessary, but they thought evil in the tendencies of it, being a provocation to drink more than did people good, as well as that it was in itself vain and heathenish. ...
— A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers • William Penn

... in their religious worship,[21] are more after the Mosaic institution, than of Pagan imitation. This could not be the fact if a majority of the old nations were of heathenish descent. They are utter strangers to all the gestures practiced by Pagans in their religious rites. They have likewise an appellative, which with them is the mysterious, essential name of God; the tetragrammaton, which they never use in common speech. They ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... first loosened me from the life I led? How can I love my fellow-men and yet get rich by the sweat of their brows? I couldn't do it. You are not a Christian, and can't call yourself one, I said to myself, if you do that. The heathenish selfishness of business competition started me away from ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... bells was to be executed in inverse ration to the cube o' the velocity. 'The reg'lar routine,' he says, 'was arrogated for reasons o' state an' policy, an' any flat-foot who presumed to exhibit surprise, annoyance, or amusement, would be slightly but firmly reproached.' Then the Gunner mops up a heathenish large detail for some hanky-panky in the magazines, an' led 'em off along with our Gunnery Jack, which is to say, ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling

... opinions are? Perhaps more than one of you hold such as I should think ought to send you straight over to Somerville, if you have any logic in your heads or any human feeling in your hearts. Anything that is brutal, cruel, heathenish, that makes life hopeless for the most of mankind and perhaps for entire races,—anything that assumes the necessity of the extermination of instincts which were given to be regulated,—no matter by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... Wise heads were shaken and the majority opined that it was a great pity. The Master was a likely young fellow; he could have his pick of almost anybody, you might think; it was too bad that he should go and take up with that queer, dumb niece of the Gordons who had been brought up in such a heathenish way. But then you never could guess what way a man's fancy would jump when he set out to pick him a wife. They guessed Neil Gordon didn't like it much. He seemed to have got dreadful moody and sulky of late and wouldn't ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... said, "it is midday, and I for one would not be on these hills on Midsummer Eve. Call me heathenish if you like, but this is an unlucky night whereon to walk in the haunts ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler

... upholstered with a worn piece of Axminster and a bit of yellow silk with half a dragon on it. The ceremony, one could see, was not new. Vanishing into the further mysteries of the rear, he brought out a bowl of tea, steaming, a small dish of heathenish things, nuts perhaps, or preserves, deposited the offering on the minister's pointed knees, and retired behind the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... that the favourite deities of the Finns in his time were Vaeinaemoeinen and the Virgin Mary. But this stage is much less visible in the Kalevipoeg, which is, on the whole, a more archaic and more heathenish poem ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby

... Raikes arrived before us, seated at a table with Hammersley, Finch, and four or five others whose faces were familiar, and a heathenish uproar they were making. Upon our entrance they fell silent, however, and exchanged bows with us ere ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol

... it from me to dispute with you, dear father," she said; "and it is with reluctance that I offer an opinion at all adverse to your own. But it seems to me impossible to connect these pastimes with heathenish and superstitious rites; for though they may bear some resemblance to ceremonials performed in honour of the goddesses Maia and Flora, yet, such creeds being utterly forgotten, and their spirit extinct, it cannot revive in sports that have merely reference to harmless ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... her head; they planted themselves under the lace of her sleeve. If she moved her left hand to frighten them off from one point, another band fixed themselves upon her right hand. Not only did they flutter and sting, but they sang in a heathenish manner, distracting her attention as she tried to write, as she tried to waft them off. Nor was this all. Myriads of June-bugs and millers hovered round, flung themselves into the lamps, and made disagreeable funeral-pyres of themselves, tumbling noisily on her paper in their ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale

... revealed Him, not by the clear discernment and just judgment of us that received that revelation.' I do tell thee, Lettice—what with this man o' the one side with his philosophical follies, and Parson Turnham on the other, with his heathenish fooleries, I am at times well-nigh like old Elias, ready to say, 'Now then, O Lord, take me out of this wicked world, for I cannot stand it ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt

... Thoph Black says he said what he wanted was a snug little den where him and his few remainin' household gods could be together. Thoph said he couldn't make out what household gods was, and I'm plaguey sure I can't. Sounds heathenish to me. And I told Thoph, says I, 'That ain't no way to hunt a boardin' house, goin' round hollerin' for a den. If I was takin' in boarders and a feller hove alongside and says, "Can I hire one of them dens of yours?" he'd get ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... Adams was the only one of the band who wondered at the sight, and thanked God for undeserved and unexpected mercy, for he alone fully understood the polluted stock from which they had all sprung, and the terrible pit of heathenish wickedness from which they had been rescued, not by him (the humbled mutineer had long since escaped from that delusion), but by the Word ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne

... strove to impart to those of the villagers who came to sit and condole with him; while his wife, and an unmarried daughter who lived at home, both deploring the wickedness of Bridgepath, tried to throw in a word of scriptural truth now and then, for the sake of instructing and improving their heathenish neighbours. ...
— Working in the Shade - Lowly Sowing brings Glorious Reaping • Theodore P Wilson

... father, who was a clergyman of the Church of England, and the youngest brother of a noble family, had a lucrative living, and a "soul above buttons," if his son had not. It has been from time immemorial the heathenish custom to sacrifice the greatest fool of the family to the prosperity and naval superiority of the country, and, at the age of fourteen, I was selected as the victim. If the custom be judicious, I had no reason to complain. There was not one dissentient voice, when it was proposed before all ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... in the great fair, among jugglers and tumblers, horse-tamers and snake-charmers, fakirs and pilgrims, I saw a small boy possessed of a devil,—an authentic devil, as of yore, meet for miraculous driving-out. In the midst of dire din, heathenish and horrible,—dissonant jangle of zogees' bells, brain-rending blasts from Brahmins' shells, strepent howling of opium-drunk devotees, delirious pounding of tom-toms, brazen clangor of gongs,—a child of seven years, that might, unpossessed, have been beautiful, sat under ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various

... confusion, the Vidame intervened with an explanation which made America appear in a light less heathenish. "The planting of Saint Barbara's grain," he said, "is a custom that I think is peculiar to the South of France. In almost every household in Provence, and over in Languedoc too, on Saint Barbara's day the women fill two, ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier

... ancient theatre of the Greeks and Romans was continued in some of its grosser forms in Constantinople and in other parts of the fallen empire far into the Middle Ages. But it was essentially mythological or heathenish, and, as such, it was opposed by the Christian church, which, however, provided a substitute for what it thus opposed, by adding a dramatic element to its festivals. Thus the manger at Bethlehem, with the worship of the shepherds and magi, was at a very early period solemnly exhibited every ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... It is heathenish rhyme that has come down out of other and worse times; for though I do not say but that a wreck on Moonfleet beach was looked upon sometimes as little short of a godsend, yet I hope none of us were so wicked as to wish a vessel to be wrecked that ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner

... hallowed gallows; neither could they omit the halter wherewith he was hanged, but it was rescued for holy uses. The same night after the execution, a great crowd flocked about the gallows, and there spent the fore part of the night in heathenish howling, and performing many Popish ceremonies; and after midnight, being then Candlemas day, in the morning having their priests present in readiness, they had Mass after Mass till, daylight being come, they departed to their own houses." There was "sympathy ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan

... stupendously light and airy; the best specimens of Norman art that I have seen (and surely the Crusaders must have carried home the models of these heathenish temples in their eyes) do not exceed its noble grace and simplicity. The mystics make discoveries at home, that the Gothic architecture is Catholicism carved in stone— (in which case, and if architectural beauty ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray

... niceties in religion, as ought rather to be the subject of an humble and uncontradicting faith, than of a scrupulous and inquisitive reason: they abhor a defiling the mysteries of Christianity with an intermixture of heathenish philosophy, and judge it very improper to reduce divinity to an obscure speculative science, whose end is such a happiness as can be gained only by the means of practice. But alas, those notional divines, however condemned by the soberer judgment of ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus

... the system immediately preceding. Protestant sects have transferred many of the false doctrines of Romanism to their own creeds, hence they worship the first beast just as truly as the Papists worshiped the dragon by accepting heathenish principles. The greatest principle of false doctrine that originated with Catholicism, and one that has been transferred to every Protestant sect, is, that a human organization is necessary to complete the church of Christ on earth. The church of Rome has an earthly head and a human government; ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith

... to; but his grandmother, who seemed to have been made rather restless and uneasy by his remarks about ghosts, evidently regarded this talk as something more of the same sort, and said to her granddaughter, "I wish, Laura, you wouldn't let him read such a quantity of fairy tales and heathenish nonsense—'field o' the cloth o' gold, indeed!' Who ever heard of such ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... heathenish story with regard to money is the following, which may be taken as a specimen of the Skazkas which bear the impress of the genuine reverence which the peasants feel for their religion, whatever may be the feelings they entertain towards its ministers. ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston

... think, too," he continued, "that you might have had that adorable young lady, Miss Waboose, who—in spite of her heathenish name—is the most charming, artless, modest young creature I ever saw. Oh! Punch, Punch, what a consummate idiot you ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne

... instance he was wronged, and deeply wronged, by the man who was murdered. When first we came here, his mind brooded upon that, and he seemed to look upon what he had done as an ignorant savage would look upon the vengeance which his heathenish creed had taught him to consider a justifiable act of retaliation. Little by little I won my poor father away from such thoughts as these: till by-and-by he grew to think of Henry Dunbar as he was when they were ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... know how long I had continued to live in this despairing and heathenish condition, when one day, in harvest time, Madelena brought good Father Antonio to see me. This Father Antonio was the priest of the chapel of Santa Maria, who had performed the marriage ceremony between Waldemar ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... is that when I was young and romantic, I bought that altar— it is a Hymeneal altar, they say—and said I would pour a libation upon it at my marriage; a sentimental and heathenish notion enough." ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates

... brain With grammar, and nonsense, and learning, Good liquor, I stoutly maintain, Gives GENUS a better discerning. Let them brag of their heathenish gods, Their Lethes, their Styxes, and Stygians, Their Quis, and their Quaes, and their Quods, They're all but a parcel ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith

... now forgive me my bluntness, fellow-thegn, but ye young courtiers have plenty of need for your mancuses, and when a plain countryman like me comes sight-seeing, he ought to stand payment; wherefore," here he took from his belt a great leathern purse, "wherefore, as these outlandish birds and heathenish puddings ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... find in the Egyptian temples paintings of priests dressed in these gowns: proof that they are antiquely heathenish. And as we always associate a man who wears one with Mr. Mantilini, this proves that they are foolish. Ergo, as they are old and foolish, they are ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various



Words linked to "Heathenish" :   pagan, irreligious, ethnic, heathen



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