"Surplice" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was once the most northern border-fortress of Christendom, and stood grandly with its white towers, the far-echoing tones of its bells and its sacred song, like a giant bishop in white surplice, who bore St. Olaf's consecration and altar lights into the darkness among the Finmark trolls. Its power over men's minds has been correspondingly deep and great. Thither past generations for miles round have wended in Sunday dress before other churches were built up there. If the soapstone font ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... Wordsworth since hall-time, when the ringing of the chapel-bell summoned him to put on his surplice, and walk quietly down to chapel. As there was plenty of time, he took a stroll or two across the court before going in. While doing so, he met De Vayne, and in his company suddenly found himself vis-a-vis with his ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... as if they were very trivial things compared with the last Congressman's speech or the great election sermon; but Nature knows well what she is about. The maiden's ribbon or ruffle means a great deal more for her than the judge's wig or the priest's surplice. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... predecessor, Routh, a doctor of divinity, who was then in his hundredth year. It was curious to see that, while this change had been made to lay control, various relics of clerical dominance were still in evidence, and, among these, the surplice worn by Bryce, a member of Parliament, when he read the lessons from the lectern in Oriel chapel. At another dinner I was struck by a remark of his, that our problems in America seemed to him simple and easy compared with those ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... finds the problem difficult; finds he will have to run into Spain, to persuade a refractory pope there, if eloquence can (as it cannot): all which requires money, money. At opening of the council, he "officiated as deacon"; actually did some kind of litanying "with a surplice over him," though Kaiser and King of the Romans. But this passage of his opening speech is what I recollect best of him there: "Right reverend Fathers, date operam ut illa nefanda schisma eradicetur," exclaims Sigismund, intent on having the Bohemian ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... religion, is either a public or a concealed unbeliever, drunkard, and whoremaster; whereas, I conceive, that priests are extremely like other men, and neither the better nor the worse for wearing a gown or a surplice: but if they are different from other people, probably it is rather on the side of religion and morality, or, at least, decency, from their ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... therefore shut herself into the chapel at Komorn, and, with doors fast bolted, cut up a rich and beautiful vestment of his grandfather's, the Emperor Sigismund, of red and gold, with silver spots, and made it into a tiny coronation robe, with surplice and humeral (or shoulder-piece), the stole and banner, the gloves and shoes. The queen was much alarmed by a report that the Polish party meant to stop her on her way to Weissenburg; and if the baggage ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... bride away. I was never more struck with its odious and ludicrous features than on once seeing a tall, queenly-looking woman, magnificently arrayed, married by one of the tiniest priests that ever donned a surplice and gown, given away by the smallest guardian that ever watched a woman's fortunes, to the feeblest, bluest-looking little groom that ever placed a wedding ring on bridal finger. Seeing these Lilliputians around her, I thought, when the little priest said, "Who gives this woman ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... a robe of innocence white as snow. Every sin is a stain upon it, and if you could see now, as angels see, your baptismal garment, you would find it spotted and smeared all over. Suppose I were to take this surplice and splash it over with ink, I might with much labour take out the ink stains, but never so entirely cleanse it that no trace remains. Or I might walk in it through the bushes, and get it torn with the thorns and brambles. Then all the rents might be carefully darned up, but—the ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould
... faithfulnesse in the late Treaty, but also by the zeale and example of the Generall Assemblies of this Kirk in former times, as may appeare by the Assembly at Edinburgh, Decemb. 25. in the year 1566. which ordained a Letter to be sent to England against the Surplice, Tippet, Cornercap, and such other Ceremonies as then troubled that Kirk, that they might be removed. By the Assembly at Edinburgh, April 24. 1583. humbly desiring the Kings Majesty to command his Ambassadour, then going to England, to deale with the Queen, that ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... of the manor; and 3l. from the several inhabitants of L——, settled upon the tenements as a rent-charge; the house and gardens I value at 4l. yearly, and not worth more; and I believe the surplice fees and voluntary contributions, one year with another, may be worth 3l.; but as the inhabitants are few in number, and the fees very low, this last-mentioned sum consists merely ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... were amongst them; the cardinal named you. Mousquetaires, indeed, who allow themselves to be arrested! But it is my fault for not choosing my men better. What the devil possessed you, Aramis, to ask me for a guardsman's uniform, when a priest's surplice would have fitted you better? And you, Porthos, what is the use of your wearing that magnificent embroidered sword-belt, if the weapon it supports is of such small service to you? And Athos, I do not ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... and some sweet-smelling leaves impressed with certain characters, set both on fire; after which, holding the hands of the minister over the ashes, he pronounced some words which rendered the oath inviolable. By way of a parallel to this solemnity, Correa ordered his priest to attend in his surplice with his breviary; but that was so tattered and torn that it was unfit to be seen by these heathens, on which he ordered a book of church music to be brought, which had a more creditable appearance, being larger and better ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... before the restoration of Badsey Church; the Vicar's surplice might be seen hanging over the side of one of the square pews which obstructed the chancel, and when the Vicar appeared he was followed by the clerk, who assisted at the public ceremony of robing. Church decorations at Christmas consisted at that time of sprigs of holly stuck upright in holes ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... provision for the accommodation of dust, except in the churchyard, where the facilities in that respect are very limited. The Captain, Uncle Sol, and Mr Toots are come; the clergyman is putting on his surplice in the vestry, while the clerk walks round him, blowing the dust off it; and the bride and bridegroom stand before the altar. There is no bridesmaid, unless Susan Nipper is one; and no better father than Captain Cuttle. A man with a wooden leg, chewing a faint apple and carrying a blue bag ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... lamentations, while the procession started down the long village street towards the cemetery. The priest intoned the first words of the Service for the Dead, walking at the head of the procession with his black biretta on his head; he had thrown a thick fur cloak over his surplice; the wind made the ends of his stole flutter; the words of the Latin hymn fell from his lips at intervals, dully, as though they had been frozen; he looked bored and impatient, and let his eyes wander into the distance. The wind tugged at the black banner, and the ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... banker, was good enough to die. In his will he stipulated that he should be borne straight to the cemetery. 'He is a Catholic,' reflected the Abbe Mouchaud, 'he belongs to us.' Quickly making a parcel of his stole and surplice, he rushed off to the dead man's house, administered extreme unction, and brought him into ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... chimney, every village child and straggling cur seeming strange and weird of aspect in the semi-darkness, Phoebe Marks and her Cousin Luke made their way through the churchyard of Audley, and presented themselves before a shivering curate, whose surplice hung in damp folds, soddened by the morning mist, and whose temper was not improved by his having waited five minutes ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... those from the tavern continued their scandalous behavior upon the high altar. A huge, massive butcher among them, a young man, had taken off his white apron and tied it around his neck, so that it hung down his back like a surplice, and he celebrated mass with the wildest and maddest words, full of obscenity and blasphemy. An oldish little fellow with a fat belly, active and nimble in spite of his weight, with a face like a skinned pumpkin was the sacristan and responded ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen
... steps of houses, tying kettles to dogs' tails, and marching in a white jersey, with the curate's hat on, through the streets of the village. "Gol dern my skin!" said the dear old clergyman, as he tried to emerge from a surplice which Golly had stitched together; "what spirits the child DO have!" Yet everybody loved her! And when John Gale returned from Canada, and looked into her big blue eyes one day at church, small wonder that he immediately ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... At the carriage door appeared the Mayor with his scarf round his waist, saluting me with this remark: "Sir, this place is but a hole, but it is a hole in which hearts devoted to your august family are throbbing;" while at the other the village priest and his clergy, all in surplice and alb, struck up ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... the type. When Lily showed her in some little magazine the weakest of poetry, and called it so sweet, just like 'dear Mr. Grant's lovely sermon, the last she had heard. Did he not look so like a saint in his surplice and white stole, with his holy face and beautiful blue eyes; it was enough to make any one feel good to look at him,' Gillian simply replied, 'Oh, I never think of the clergyman's looks,' and hurried to her book, feeling infinitely disgusted and contemptuous, never guessing that these ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and, in truth, Archdeacon Mackenzie's residence there was a troublous time. The endeavour, by the wish of the Bishop, to establish a weekly offertory, was angrily received by the colonists, who were furious at the sight of the surplice in the pulpit, and, no doubt, disguised much real enmity, both to holiness of life and to true discipline, under their censure of what they called a badge of party. Their treatment of the Archdeacon, when they found him resolute, amounted to persecution; the most malignant rumours were ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Surplice fiercely fearful, praying on his bony both knees, crossing himself.... The Fake French Soldier, alias Garibaldi, beside him, a little face filled with terror ... the Bell cranks the sharp-nosed priest on his knees ... titter from bench ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... avenues. As the priests paused, the warriors knelt; and there was a low murmur as if of confession, and the sign of lifted hands, as if in absolution and blessing. Suddenly, from the outskirts of the camp, and full in sight, emerged, from one of the cross lanes, Odo of Bayeux himself, in his white surplice, and the cross in his right hand. Yea, even to the meanest and lowliest soldiers of the armament, whether taken from honest craft and peaceful calling, or the outpourings of Europe's sinks and sewers, catamarans from the Alps, and cut-throats from the Rhine,—yea, ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of tradesmen in London who, at considerable give out of swag, get swell fellers to write articles for them. Then you plunge in, romp around, fill your pockets with the pick of the lot, and go and sell it on your own hook. That's good. But what I like best is the putting on of the bands and surplice, the taking of the good book in the right hand, the uprising of the eyeballs, and the general trotting out of the loftiest principles, the purest motives, and the general welfare of our brother men. You are a regular wonner, old pal, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, January 18, 1890 • Various
... church, with a roof like a wedge of cheese, a square tower, a stained window, and a trained rector, who read the service with such ventral depth of utterance and rrreduplication of the rrresonant letter, that his own mother would not have known him for her son, if the good woman had not ironed his surplice and put it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Roman, it would proceed thus. First an antiphon, which came to be called an introit, or psalm of entrance, with a verse having special reference to the lesson of the day or season, was sung, as the priest, wearing a long white surplice or alb and a chasuble (the robe worn alike by lay and by clerical officials), entered with two deacons, wearing probably similar garments. In the Gallican rite, as in the eastern, there followed the singing of the "Trisagion": and in both Gallican and Roman the "Kyrie Eleeson," as in our own office ...
— The Church and the Barbarians - Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 • William Holden Hutton
... costume of the three brothers. They had no longer their robes of serge, made of bits and scraps, stained mud colour, but robes of violet-brown, like plums on which was spread the white twilling of a new surplice. ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... almost entirely of farmers, with their wives, sons, and daughters, opened a door to admit us. Mrs. Petulengro, however, appeared to feel not the least embarrassment, but tripped along the aisle with the greatest nonchalance. We passed under the pulpit, in which stood the clergyman in his white surplice, and reached the middle of the church, where we were confronted by the sexton dressed in long blue coat, and holding in his hand a wand. This functionary motioned towards the lower end of the church where were certain benches, partly occupied by poor people and boys. Mrs. Petulengro, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... Berkeley's well meant designs for shuffling off the trammels of his ecclesiastical habit. He was destined to appear in public at least once more, not only in the black coat and white tie of his everyday professional costume, but even in the flowing snowy surplice of a solemn and decorous spiritual function. The very next morning's post brought him a little note from Ernest Le Breton specially begging him, in his own name and Edie's, to come down to Calcombe Pomeroy, and officiate as parson at their approaching wedding. The note had cost ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... not only by Catholics but by Puritans. As she felt herself seated more strongly on the throne she determined to enforce more strictly than hitherto the Act of Uniformity. In 1565 the London clergy were ordered to wear the surplice and to conform in other particulars. Between thirty and forty of them—and those the most intelligent and active of them—refused and resigned their cures. Their congregations supported them, and thus a large body of good Protestants were driven into opposition. But there all action against them ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... this instance that "discretion was the better part of valour," for he gave poor "Joe" the slip by incontinently bolting up the hatchway, leaving his comrade to encounter alone the chaplain, who the next moment, in full canonicals, surplice and hood and ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... without being excluded from the established church; but when Elizabeth felt herself secure, then they were obliged to conform, or suffered imprisonment, fines, and other punishments. The original difficulty was their repugnance to the surplice, and to some few forms of worship, which gradually extended to an opposition to the order of bishops; to the temporal dignities of the church; to the various titles of the hierarchy; to the jurisdiction of the spiritual courts; to the promiscuous ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... door stood open and just within it a priest in his short white surplice awaited their arrival. Juanita recognised the sunburnt old cura ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... that made them so mad to-day first was, several letters in the House about the Fanatickes, in several places, coming in great bodies, and turning people out of the churches, and there preaching themselves, and pulling the surplice over the Parsons' heads: this was confirmed from several places; which makes them stark mad, especially the hectors and bravadoes of the House, who shew all the zeal on this occasion. Having done with him, I home vexed in my mind, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... invested in the cap and blue gown, and after some further waiting was installed into lodgings in Bridge Street. At 4 o'clock I went to the College Hall and was introduced by Mr Hustler to several undergraduates, generally clever men, and in the evening I attended Chapel in my surplice (it being St Luke's day) and witnessed that splendid service of which the occasional exhibition ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... the gardener's wife, "my poor little boy has lost the gift of the Reverend Mother of San Surplice! His own cross which has been blessed by his holiness the Pope! It is because I left his cross in his little shirt that he is getting better, but now it is lost and I am sure these thieving doctors have ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... later, all the officers, Harry and Rose, were assembled in what might be termed the light-house parlour. The Rev. Mr. Hollins had neither band, gown, nor surplice; but he had what was far better, feeling and piety. Without a prayer-book he never moved; and he read the marriage ceremony with a solemnity that was communicated to all present. The ring was that which had been used at the marriage ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... ceremony, all three awaited the procession. They heard a drum beating, and then beheld a silver cross. After this appeared two torches borne by the chanters, then the cure, with stole, surplice, cope, and biretta. Four altar-boys escorted him, a fifth carried the holy-water basin, and in the rear came the sacristan. He got up on the raised edge of the hole in which stood the poplar tree, adorned with tri-coloured ribbons. ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... fancied a likeness of himself in his surplice, which his parishioners might buy and engrave, if they had a mind to preserve his lineaments when he was no longer among them. The Justice took a notion to have his big girls and his little girls, his boy and nurse, his ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... finds he will have to run into Spain, to persuade a refractory Pope there, if eloquence can (as it cannot): all which requires money, money. At opening of the Council, he "officiated as deacon;" actually did some kind of litanying "with a surplice over him," [25th December, 1414 (Kohler, p. 340).] though Kaiser and King of the Romans. But this passage of his opening speech is what I recollect best of him there: "Right Reverend Fathers, date operam ut illa nefanda schisma eradicetur," ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... goodness, tenderness, pity, piety; such as, if my audience will think their reading and hearing over, doctors and divines but seldom have the fortune to inspire. And why not? Is the glory of Heaven to be sung only by gentlemen in black coats? Must the truth be only expounded in gown and surplice, and out of those two vestments can nobody preach it? Commend me to this dear preacher without orders—this parson in the tye-wig. When this man looks from the world, whose weaknesses he describes ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... great honor the host had welcomed home, Then first into the city came the Bishop don Jerome. He left his horse; to chapel straightway the Bishop wet. With all men that he could gather who were of like intent And surplice-clad, with crosses of silver, once again They greeted good Minaya and the ladies of the train. He who was born in happy time tarried but little there. He has put on his surcoat. His beard was long and fair. On Bavieca saddle and caparisons they threw. The Cid took wooden ...
— The Lay of the Cid • R. Selden Rose and Leonard Bacon
... nations became complete. The oldest man living does not remember to have heard any demagogue breathe a wish for separation. Do you believe that this would have happened if England had, after the Revolution, persisted in attempting to force the surplice and the Prayer Book on the Scotch? I tell you that, if you had adhered to the mad scheme of having a religious union with Scotland, you never would have had a cordial political union with her. At this very day you would have had monster ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... door, he glanced towards the choir, and there before the high altar stood Quatremain in his surplice, with the earl and Amabel, attended by Etherege and Pillichody. The ceremony had just commenced. Not a moment was to be lost. Grasping his staff, the apprentice darted along the nave, and, rushing up to the pair, exclaimed in a loud voice, "Hold! I forbid this ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... solicitude for his happiness and health, seems, I scarcely know why, even stronger in me now than before I was married. Papa has taken no duty since we returned; and each time I see Mr. Nicholls put on gown or surplice, I feel comforted to think that this marriage has secured papa good ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... part of the homage that his nature rendered to its Creator, and instead of flowering into a morbid and maudlin sentimentality which craves low-browed, long straight-nosed, undraped statuettes in every nook and corner,—or dwarfs the soul and pins it to the surplice of some theologic dogmata claiming infallibility—or coffins the intellect in cramped, shallow, psychological categories,—it bore fruit in a wide-eyed, large-hearted, liberal-minded eclecticism, which, waging no crusade against the various Saladins of modern systems, quietly possessed ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... crepe, with purple lilacs strewed over its surface, and frills of violet ribbon for ornament; a Christmas dress of soft, white camel's hair, with bands of white-fox fur round the slightly pointed neck and elbow-sleeves; and, last of all, a Quaker gown of silver-gray nun's cloth, with a surplice and full undersleeves of ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... Church shows its great displeasure when Catholics do not keep its laws, but marry persons not of their own religion. At a mixed marriage the couple cannot be married in the church, nor even in the sacristy; the priest cannot wear a surplice or stole or any of the sacred vestments of the Church; he cannot use holy water, or the Sign of the Cross; he cannot bless the ring or even use the Church's language—Latin. Everything is done in the coldest manner, to remind Catholics that ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine • Thomas L. Kinkead
... did dislike and persecute the Puritans, not, I think, so much because they made war on the surplice, liturgy, and divine right of bishops, as because they were at heart opposed to all absolute authority both in State and Church, and when goaded by persecution would hurl even kings from their thrones. It is to be regretted that ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... and they took their position in two little groups, the happy couple in the centre. At the same moment the clang of the church-clock sounded above them, and the vicar, shrugging his shoulders to get his white surplice into position, came bustling out of the vestry. To him it was all the most usual, commonplace, and unimportant thing in the world, and both Frank and Maude were filled with amazement at the nonchalant way in which he whipped out a ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... had reached that supreme moment when the bravest feel a shudder in their veins, when suddenly, in the direction of the Rue de l'Arbre-Sec, the crowd opened, crying: "Long live the coadjutor!" and Gondy, in surplice and cloak, appeared, moving tranquilly in the midst of the fusillade and bestowing his benedictions to the right and left, as undisturbed as if he were leading a ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... books were closed to be slipped into pockets or reticules. The presiding celebrate moved down from the altar, his surplice tugged aside by the wandering breeze revealing the worn cavalry boots ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... it is producing amongst Jews, Gypsies, and Quakers. It is breaking up their venerable communities. All the better, some one will say. Alas! alas! It is making the wealthy Jews forsake the synagogue for the opera-house, or the gentility chapel, in which a disciple of Mr. Platitude, in a white surplice, preaches a sermon at noon- day from a desk, on each side of which is a flaming taper. It is making them abandon their ancient literature, their "Mischna," their "Gemara," their "Zohar," for gentility novels, "The Young Duke," the most ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... sense of gratitude," as Grigory expressed it; he was an unfriendly boy, and seemed to look at the world mistrustfully. In his childhood he was very fond of hanging cats, and burying them with great ceremony. He used to dress up in a sheet as though it were a surplice, and sang, and waved some object over the dead cat as though it were a censer. All this he did on the sly, with the greatest secrecy. Grigory caught him once at this diversion and gave him a sound beating. He shrank into a corner and sulked there for ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... to them a holy day, and the Sabbath simply a day of rest. We can readily see how this must have scandalized the Puritans. William Penn became a Quaker while in college at Oxford. Refusing to wear the customary student's surplice, he with others violently assaulted some fellow-students and stripped them of their robes. For this he was expelled. His father would not allow him to return home. Afterward relenting, he sent him to Paris, Cork, and other cities, to soften his Quaker ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... not only as to the importance of the step they were about to take, but as to the minor points to be observed in the ceremony. At the appointed time a few friends gathered in Portland-street chapel, and as we approached the altar, our friend appeared in surplice and gown, his pale, spiritual face more tender and beautiful than ever. This was the last marriage service he ever performed, and it was as pathetic as original, his whole appearance so in harmony with the exquisite sentiments he uttered that we who ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... they gained largely by the transaction. It followed that the clergy, instead of a powerful and wealthy order, had to become salaried functionaries. Their income was made a charge on the State; and as the surplice fees went with the abolished tithe, the services of the parish priest to his parishioners were gratuitous. It was not intended that the priests should be losers, and the bargain was a bad one for the public. It involved an expenditure of at least two millions a year, at a time ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... like Barnaby Rudge's raven. He used to say he could "do nothin' at exhortin' without a white handkercher on his neck and money in his pocket,"—a fact going far to confirm the opinions of the Bishop of Exeter and the Puseyites generally, that there can be no priest without tithes and surplice. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... carven on his shoes In hosen red he went full fetisly*. *daintily, neatly Y-clad he was full small and properly, All in a kirtle* of a light waget*; *girdle **sky blue Full fair and thicke be the pointes set, And thereupon he had a gay surplice, As white as is the blossom on the rise*. *twig A merry child he was, so God me save; Well could he letten blood, and clip, and shave, And make a charter of land, and a quittance. In twenty manners could he trip and dance, After the school of Oxenforde tho*, *then And ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... woman picked a branch or spray of it when she left her home on Sabbath morn. To this day, on hot summer Sundays, many a staid old daughter of the Puritans may be seen entering the village meeting-house, clad in a lilac-sprigged lawn or a green-striped barege,—a scanty-skirted, surplice-waisted relic of past summers,—with a lace-bordered silk cape or a delicate, time-yellowed, purple and white cashmere scarf on her bent shoulders, wearing on her gray head a shirred-silk or leghorn bonnet, and carrying ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... on—she needs mothering badly enough. Yes, Miss Philly ought to be making smearkase and apple-butter for that pale and excellent young man. He intimated that I was a follower of the Scarlet Woman because I wore a surplice." ...
— The Voice • Margaret Deland
... but under no consideration cows or bulls. The method of sacrifice practiced by them is [as follows]. Having tied all the animals not prohibited about the house of the sacrificer, after the ceremony an old man or old woman, having placed on the ground a painted cloth that resembles a surplice, and which they call salili, they continue to kill the animals, and make a great feast. They keep that up for two or three days until they have finished eating what they have, when their feast or magunito also finishes. He who keeps up such entertainment longest and kills ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... ornaments, I took a rich cushion in my arms, together with the bible I had from your majesty, and the beautiful psalter, ornamented with fine paintings, which the queen bestowed upon me. My companion carried the missal and a crucifix; and the clerk, clothed in his surplice, carried a censer in his hand. In this order we presented ourselves, and the felt hanging before the lords door being withdrawn, we appeared, in his presence. Then the clerk and interpreter were ordered to make three genuflexions, from which humiliation we were exempted; and they admonished us to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... cannot pray without them. The present sense, feeling, and pressure that lieth upon his spirit, provokes him to groan out his request unto the Lord. When David had the pains of hell catching hold on him, and the sorrows of hell compassing him about, he needs not a bishop in a surplice to teach him to say, "O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul" (Psa 116:3, 4). Or to look into a book, to teach him in a form to pour out his heart before God. It is the nature of the heart of sick men, in their pain and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... bramble, dwarfed and old, Shrinks like a beggar in the cold; In [v]surplice white the cedar stands, And ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... the steps, he held the rail, and steadied himself. Twice he faltered. His face was as white as his surplice. He closed his eyes, and threw back his head, turning his face heavenward; his lips parted, and he seemed to be on the verge ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... vestment worn by bishops, abbots, and other dignitaries, in the form of a surplice, but shorter and open at ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... the voice of a child, singing to the corner accompaniment—low, in the beginning, brooding, tentative, but in a moment rising sure and clear and tender. It was not hard for the Rev. John Fithian to slip a cassock and surplice upon this wistful child, to give him a background of lofty arches and stained windows, to frame the whole in shadows. And, lo! in the chancel of the Church of the Lifted Cross there ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... minister to pronounce them man and wife; but he coughed and poked the fire. "I am of age," Alfred insisted; "I am twenty-two." Then Mr. Smith said he must first go and put on his bands and surplice; and Alfred said, "If you please, sir." And off went Mr. Smith—and sent a note to ...
— An Encore • Margaret Deland
... execution of Thomas Idle, in the "Industry and Idleness" series, Hogarth depicts the little hangman smoking a short pipe as he sits on the top of the gallows, waiting for his victim. The familiar plate of A Modern Midnight Conversation shows a parson in surplice and wig smoking like a furnace while he ladles punch from a bowl—probably meant for a portrait of the notorious Orator Henley. Most of the other guests are also shown smoking long ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... the pastoral staff but of the Bible. The very dress of the four consecrating bishops showed the same confusion. Barlow, with the Archbishop's chaplains who assisted him in the office of the Communion, wore the silken copes of the older service; Scory and Hodgskins the fair linen surplice of the new. Yet more noteworthy was the aged figure of Coverdale, "Father Coverdale," as men used affectionately to call him, the well-known translator of the Bible, whose life had been so hardly wrung by royal ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... the old chaplain who had been Michael's father's tutor and was now an almost doddering old nonentity also stood waiting in his white surplice at ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... to be feared that she had to form this opinion, but on the other hand, by the early dinner-time, tidings pervaded the school that Lord Northmoor had been at St. Basil's, and sung in his surplice just as if nothing had happened! The more sensational party of girls further averred that he had been base enough to walk thither with Miss Burford, and that Miss Marshall had been crying all church time. Whether this was true or not, ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... it just now. It's a surplice, that's what it is. Thing our clergymen wear, you know,' explained Miss Jenny, in consideration of ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... respectable persons, who were not in general friendly to Cromwell, allowed that, on this occasion, he had been a public benefactor. The presentees whom the Triers had approved took possession of the rectories, cultivated the glebe lands, collected the tithes, prayed without book or surplice, and administered the Eucharist to communicants ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the kraal there was a halt, while the keepers of the gate despatched a messenger to their king to announce the advent of the white man. Of this pause Owen took advantage to array himself in the surplice and hood which he had brought with him in readiness for that hour. Then he gave the mule to John to ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... 'occupation's gone,'" she said. "We are supplanted by a boy choir. The present minister likes that better. A saucy little fellow who brings our evening paper and fights his business competitors once in a while is one of our successors. He looks quite cherubic in a surplice." ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... arrange it. She might have been a young gentlewoman of fifty years back when costume was gayer than nowadays, arrayed for a fashionable wedding or for a bull-fight. And in another church I saw a youthful Saint in priest's robes, a cassock of black silk and a short surplice of exquisite lace; he held a bunch of lilies in his hand and looked very gently, his lips almost trembling to a smile. One can imagine that not to them would come the suppliant with a heavy despair, ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... in a gardener's cottage, and as a child he was the bell-ringer. When still a young man he exchanged his smock-frock for a surplice, but was of a merry and jesting disposition. The Duke of Parma heard him laugh one day so gayly, that the poor duke, who did not laugh every day, asked who it was that was so merry, and had him called. Alberoni related to him some grotesque adventure. His highness laughed heartily; and ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... not been advancement, progress, unhoped-for good fortune, that made him a member of that learned corporation? He shook his head. Nothing could change the fact now. After fifteen years' experience of that Elysium, he could not put on the cassock and surplice with all his youthful fervour. He had settled into his life-habits long ago. With the quick perception which made up for her deficiency, his mother read his face, and saw the cause was hopeless; yet with female courage and pertinacity made one ...
— The Rector • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... were carried from Whitehall to Westminster and laid in Henry the Seventh's Chapel, the service being conducted wholly in English, the communion taking the place of the mass, and the priests being vested in a surplice only, in accordance with the provisions of the Book of Common Prayer. For a short time after Mary's accession it was thought that she would be content if the Church were restored to the position it was in at the time when Henry VIII died. ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... fell under the influence of Thomas Loe, a preacher of Quaker doctrine and became imbued with his teachings. This clashed at once with his surroundings and the College requirements. He refused to attend chapel or to wear the customary gown, deeming it a sort of surplice. A little group of students who had accepted Loe's principles joined him in this obduracy, going so far as to strip the gowns from the persons of willing wearers. ...
— The Tryal of William Penn and William Mead • various
... and their laborious, self-denying lives; still, I do not shrink from saying that I think them misguided, and the cause of mischief in the Church. So much for my feeling in regard to the vestments. I prefer the surplice at all times ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... and Theron saw the priest standing in the doorway with an uplifted hand. He wore now a surplice, with a purple band over his shoulders, and on his pale face there shone ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... Miss Rachel; and one night, the excellent Zack excused his failure in geography by saying that Mr. Touchett had thrown away his book, and said that it was no better than sacrilege, omitting, however, to mention that he had been caught studying it under his surplice during ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... nothing: but his tongue preaches at fit times, and his conversation is the every day's exercise. In matters of ceremony, he is not ceremonious, but thinks he owes that reverence to the church to bow his judgement to it, and make more conscience of schism, than a surplice. He esteems the church hierarchy as the church's glory, and however we jar with Rome, would not have our confusion distinguish us. In simoniacal purchases he thinks his soul goes in the bargain, and is loath to come by promotion ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... service according to the Book of Common Prayer, held at first in the library room of the Town House, and afterwards by arrangement in the South Church, and conducted by the Reverend Robert Ratcliffe in a surplice, before a congregation composed not only of professed Anglicans but also of many men of Boston who had never before seen the Church of England form of worship. The Anglican rector, by his somewhat unfortunate habit ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... could expand, and then only upon written lines, with hardly a gesture, and the most perfunctory glances, at conscientious intervals, toward his hearers. A poor creature, indeed, in this respect, Dr Drummond thought him—Dr Drummond, who wore an untrammelled surplice which filled like an agitated sail in his quick tacks from right to left. "The man loses half his points," said Dr Drummond. I doubt whether he did, people followed so closely, though Sandy MacQuhot was of the general opinion when he said ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... and had no nearer relatives, did hear some remarks to this effect as he girded himself for the coming campaign. But he evaded them with an "Oh, yes, I know, all serene," and was far more interested in the prospect of a new Eton jacket and Sunday surplice than in a detailed examination ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... cross in Baptism, of bowing at the name of Jesus, of the ring in marriage, and of the rite of confirmation. The words "priest" and "absolution" they sought to have expunged from the Prayer Book, and they desired that the wearing of the surplice should be made optional. ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... apologised. Then the king shook hands with Prigio in public, and thanked him, and said he was proud of him. As to Lady Rosalind, the old gentleman quite fell in love with her, and he sent at once to the Chaplain Royal to get into his surplice, and marry all the young people off at once, without waiting for wedding-cakes, and milliners, and all the ...
— Prince Prigio - From "His Own Fairy Book" • Andrew Lang
... and particularly Lady Bothwell. He was barefooted, excepting a species of sandals in the antique fashion; his legs were naked beneath the knees; above them he wore hose, and a doublet of dark crimson silk close to his body; and over that a flowing loose robe, something resembling a surplice, of snow-white linen; his throat and neck were uncovered, and his long, straight, black hair was carefully combed ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... minister to pronounce them man and wife; but he coughed and poked the fire. "I am of age," Alfred insisted; "I am twenty-two." Then Mr. Smith said he must go and put on his bands and surplice first; and Alfred said, "If you please, sir." And off went Mr. Smith—and sent a note to Alfred's ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... our parish, and who was as a god to us country folk, because he was occasionally visited by the then Prince George of Cambridge. I remember turning my pinafore wrong side forwards in order to represent a surplice, and preaching to my mother's maids in the kitchen as nearly as possible in Sir Herbert's manner one Sunday morning when the rest of the family were at church. That is the earliest indication I can ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... one of them that the Italian-ironed double frills of its net-cap surrounded the brows of a preordained, specially-sanctified successor of St. Paul, St. Peter, or St. John; nor could you have foreseen in the folds of its long night-gown the white surplice in which it was hereafter cruelly to exercise the souls of its parishioners, and strangely to nonplus its old-fashioned vicar by flourishing aloft in a pulpit the shirt-like raiment which had never before ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... Taylor, a decayed church-ironmonger who appeared to have been of a religious turn in earlier years, but was somewhat blasphemous now; also a red-nosed auctioneer; also two Gothic masons like himself, called Uncle Jim and Uncle Joe. There were present, too, some clerks, and a gown- and surplice-maker's assistant; two ladies who sported moral characters of various depths of shade, according to their company, nicknamed "Bower o' Bliss" and "Freckles"; some horsey men "in the know" of betting circles; a travelling actor from the theatre, ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... so intoxicate and bewitch him." It little matters what form superstition takes—image-worship, priest-worship, or temple-worship; nothing is transforming except Christ in the heart, a Saviour realized, accepted, and enthroned. Whilst adoring the altar, and worshipping the surplice, and deifying the individual who wore it, Bunyan continued to curse and blaspheme, and spend his Sabbaths in the same riot ...
— Life of Bunyan • Rev. James Hamilton
... together on the subject of the conversation he Messrs. Ketchum and Gardner, had with Messrs. Bunce and Palmer, in Albany, (where it was alleged that they Ketchum, Cowles and Gardner, had complained of vanity, neglect and ill-treatment of Mr. Young.) That I expressed my surplice to Mr. Cowles, that he, (Cowles) Ketchum and Gardner should lend their names to an instrument denying the conversation above alluded to, when he Cowles, Ketchum and Gardner, knew they had not only complained to Bunce and Palmer, but to ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector
... exclusive privilege, which was to present the Gospel to the royal lips. Assisting him in the general service was the hacienda curate. This curate, obscurely found in the Huasteca wilds and yet not a Mexican, was a large sleek man whose paunch bulged repulsively under the priestly surplice. His flabby jowls hung down, and gave his head the shape of a pea, in the top of which were the eyes set close together. They were restless fawning little eyes and they roved constantly. But more than aught else, they were adventurous; two bright, glowing beads of adventure. From the folds of ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... written on her heart after her death. The words that have the best chance of being found inscribed on the heart of the Rev. Mr. Cumming are, bishop, liturgy, apostolical succession, burial service, organ, and surplice. The ideas attached to these vocables pervade his whole style, and form from their continual recurrence a characteristic portion of it. They tumble up and down in his mind like the pieces of painted glass in a kaleidoscope, ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... after rolling past taverns and shops full of tombstones and crosses, was turning to the right into the short avenue leading to the cemetery. They overtook it, and passed through the gateway with the little procession. The priest in his surplice and the choirboy carrying the holy water receiver, who had both alighted from the mourning coach, walked ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... He resigned his archbishoprick, and retired to voluntary poverty on account of the persecution of the Presbyterians, saying, 'I should not dare to introduce Christianity itself with such cruelties, how much less for a surplice, and the name of a bishop.' If there could be an intermediate space between inspired, and uninspired writings, that space would be occupied by Leighton. No show of learning, no appearance, or ostentatious display of eloquence; and yet both may be shown in him, conspicuously ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... time the place was a little too Protestant for her. Strype writes: 'Here Her Majesty took a great dislike to the impudent behaviour of most of the ministers and readers, there being many weak ones among them, and little or no order observed in the public service, and few or none wearing the surplice, and the Bishop of Norwich was thought remiss, and that he winked at schismatics. But more particularly she was offended with the clergy's marriage, and that in cathedrals and colleges there were so many wives and children and widows seen, which, she said, was contrary to the intent of the ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... church. But the poor child had to remain naked throughout the ceremony. It was interminable. The priest stammered over the Latin words and mispronounced them horribly. He walked slowly and with a ponderous tread. His white surplice chilled my heart. It seemed as though, in the name of a pitiless and barbarous god, he had wrapped himself in another kind of snow in order to torture this little piece of humanity that suffered ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... they had not carried the matter too far. They, however, brought in as bride one Elizabeth Pitto, daughter of the hog-herd of the town. Saunders received her, disguised as a parson, wearing a shirt or smock for a surplice. He then married the Lord of Misrule to the hog-herd's daughter, reading the whole of the marriage service from the Book of Common Prayer. All the after ceremonies and customs then in use were observed, and the affair was carried to ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... gentleman, about to undergo a great public and private change, eulogized for the firmness and clearness of its letters, with the perfect mastery of the supplementary flourish. However, what is written is written; whether penned to the rustling of bridesmaids' satins, or the surplice of the consolatory ordinary—whether to the anticipated music of a marriage peal, or to the more solemn accompaniment of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... in Brentford, and wore a cassock there. But I hear he's sold out his living, and gone in his surplice to study ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... soldier who had fallen in the Battle of Dinwiddie), was the oblong wooden rectory in which Gabriel Pendleton had lived since he had exchanged his sword for a prayer-book and his worn Confederate uniform for a surplice. The church, which was redeemed from architectural damnation by its sacred cruciform and its low ivied buttresses where innumerable sparrows nested, cast its shadow, on clear days, over the beds of bleeding hearts and lilies-of-the-valley in the neglected ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... old man eloquently discoursed of the ascent instead of the descent of man, and pictured the sublime development of the race by heroic endeavor from the animal to the archangel; when this good man welcomed us warmly as brothers to his hearth and home and loaned me his silken surplice to cover my seedy clothes when I delivered my orations at the class exhibitions, is it strange that I embrace his Darwinian theory instead of the mythological story of the fall of man tempted by a snake in the garden ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... every country, however enlightened, there are always minds inclined to grovelling superstition—minds fond of eating dust and swallowing clay—minds never at rest, save when prostrate before some fellow in a surplice; and these Popish emissaries found always some weak enough to bow down before them, astounded by their dreadful denunciations of eternal woe and damnation to any who should refuse to believe their Romania; ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... creaking on his great heels. Mr. Tom had divested himself of his alb or surplice, and came forward habited in his cassock and great black periwig. How had Esmond ever been for a moment jealous ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... beautiful life-size effigy of Dr. Selwyn, for upwards of forty years Canon of Ely, and for many years St Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge;[48] who died in 1875. The figure is represented as vested in cassock, surplice, and stole, with the hands joined as in prayer, in white statuary marble, and resting on a moulded base of Purbeck marble. The cost was defrayed by subscriptions from several noblemen ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous
... and died again; then taking up another strain, they rang out into the sky with hurrying notes and clang of joy. The effect upon myself was wonderful. I no longer felt any fear. The illusion was complete. I was a child again, serving the mass in my little surplice—aware that all who loved me were kneeling behind, that the good God was smiling, and the Cathedral bells ...
— A Beleaguered City • Mrs. Oliphant
... stone steps, descended these in their curving course round a pillar, and came upon a little arched doorway. Virginia opened it. It led directly into the church of San Lorenzo. We saw the hanging lamps before the altars, and a boy in a short surplice asleep in a confessional. ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... sermon, of which no one could remember more than the text half an hour after it was delivered. Even the doctor himself had the recollection of the words he had uttered swept out of his mind, as, having doffed his gown and donned his surplice, he came out of the dusk of his vestry and went to the church-door, looking into the broad light which came upon the plain of the church-yard on the cliffs; for the sun had not yet set, and the pale moon was slowly rising through the silvery ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell |
