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Holy water   /hˈoʊli wˈɔtər/   Listen
Holy water

noun
1.
Water that has been blessed by a priest for use in symbolic purification.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Holy water" Quotes from Famous Books



... am lost," exclaimed the affrighted dame. "Ah! Don Lope, this comes of my tender-hearted, complying disposition; there's my reputation sullied with a stain that not all the holy water in Spain will be able ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... stand on the wall. Wilson's sparrows, it is reputed, fly; ours won't. As we made them, so they stand looking at us, waiting apparently. If some one does not sprinkle holy water on them soon they will either go to bits or have to be kneaded into the common lump ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham

... (St Mary's Well) is situated at Tarradale, Ross-shire. When a sick person asks for a drink of Tober Mhuire water, it is taken as a sign of approaching death. It is a curious thing that this reverence for holy water should be perpetuated among a Presbyterian people. Wishing and curative wells are numerous in ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie

... was surely Rand the Wizard who, by his sorcery, had caused the winds to blow, and he ascended to the ship's forecastle and raised a large crucifix, lighting tapers around it and sprinkling holy water about the decks. It is told that the storm abated near to the ships while it still roared wildly some distance away from them. The lashed waves stood like a wall on either side, leaving a track of calm water, ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton

... a favorite resort of the gallants of fashion at the hour of Vespers, whose practice it was to salute the ladies of their acquaintance at the door by sprinkling their dainty fingers with holy water. Religion combined with gallantry is a form of devotion not quite obsolete at the present day, and at the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... uncouth enchanted forms. They change maybe to a field of turnips, and I have seen a farmer priding himself on a flock of sheep that I knew were really a most merry company of dryads and fauns in disguise. I had but to make the sign of the cross, sprinkle some holy water upon them, and call them by their sweet secret names, and the whole rout had been off to the woods, with mad gambol and song, before the eyes ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne

... stifling from the fumes of gas, and the heat was like that of a vapor bath. The priest took from the altar some pieces of red and white candied sugar, held them, praying, before his idols, sprinkled them with holy water, and handed them to us on a ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... to sprinkle him with holy water, and see if he flies up the chimney? Why not baptize ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling

... of Our Lady in the centre, and of St. Anne and St. Cecilia on either side, with skies behind of most ethereal blue, and robes tenderly trimmed with gold. A little shrine of purple spar, with a crystal front, contained a fragment of sacred bone; a silver shell help holy water, perpetuated from ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... finished I painted it again twice over so that it may last a long time. If it is kept clean I know it will remain bright and fresh 500 years, for it is not done as men are wont to paint. So have it kept clean and don't let it be touched or sprinkled with holy water. I feel sure it will not be criticised, or only for the purpose of annoying me; and I answer for it it will please you well. No one shall ever compel me to paint a picture again with so much labour. Herr Georg Tausy himself besought me to paint him ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore

... discussion on the laicisation of the schools; for, seeing what he had in his mind, Comte de Chassepot simply moved an adjournment of the council. His evil genius is M. Petit, now a senator, the present mayor of Amiens. I have caught M. Goblet offering the holy water with his hand behind my back to his wife; but M. Petit is an outspoken unbeliever, and a very type of the ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... Lollards; he had drunk deep into the Scriptures, and, therefore, while not free from superstition—no man then was—he was very much more free than the majority. Charms and incantations, texts tied round the neck, and threads or hairs swallowed in holy water, had little value to the masculine intellect of Alexander Neville. And along with this masculine intellect was a heart of feminine tenderness, which would enable him to enter, so far as it was possible for a celibate priest to enter, into the sad yearnings of the ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... conjectured to be that of the first hermit, on his knees, with his head resting on his right hand, and his left placed upon his breast. On the wall, on the same side, is cut a basin for the reception of holy water; and between the principal figure and the door are two small windows. At the west end is a third small window, in the form ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould

... the law, contained in Num. v. 16 to 24, be now considered. The accused Woman having been brought near, and set before the Lord, the priest took 'holy water in an earthen vessel,' and put 'of the dust of the floor of the tabernacle into the water.' Then, with the bitter water that causeth the curse in his hand, he charged the woman by an oath. Next, he wrote the curses in a book and blotted them out with the bitter water; causing ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon

... ill—and in mind as well as body, signore. May the Blessed Virgin rest his soul! He hated the crucifix, he hated the scapular, he hated the priests. Signore, he—he died without the sacrament, and cursed the holy water. I have never dared to touch those relics, signore. But he was a good man, and the best of husbands"; and she buried her ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various

... back to Sutthun next day, where he died, having first blessed this well, so that many precious gifts of healing are shown thereat. His relics were removed first to Braceleam, then to Buccingaham (Buckingham), where his shrine is venerated by the faithful. But come, you must drink of the holy water." ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... Among usages borrowed from Hinduism may be mentioned the daily washing in holy water of the image in the Arakan temple at Mandalay. Formerly court festivities, such as the New Year's feast and the festival of ploughing, were performed by Ponnas and with Indian rites. On the other hand the Ramayana does not seem to have the same influence on art and literature that ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... at the S. end of the village; it dates from the fourteenth century. The nave is wide, with clerestory; the narrow chancel has a chapel on the N. side. The tower is embattled, and contains a ring of eight bells. There are triple sedilia, and stalls of carved oak in the chancel; what was once a holy water basin is in the porch. Note also (1) the oaken rood-screen, surmounted by a large cross; (2) the memorial to the Caesar family (1622-61); (3) the (supposed) tomb of Sir John de Benstede (1432), a baron who sat in Parliament in the time of Edward II., as we learn from Dugdale's Monasticon; ...
— Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins

... martyrs whose remains, according to tradition, were deposited in the church of S. Prassede, at the beginning of the ninth century, by Paschal I. Two stones may be observed upon the gable wall immediately above the basins of holy water in the interior of the church of S. Nicolo in Carcere, near the Ghetto. Two others are inserted in the wall of the Baptistery of St. John Lateran, between the vestibule and the octagonal area containing the so-called gigantic font in which Constantine ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... of St. Philip at Brompton on a Sunday morning in the following January, dipped her finger into one of the Italian basins at the entrance, and signed herself with the holy water. She was dressed in black; she had the face of a pretty martyr; her brow was crumpled by the world's sorrow; she looked and actually was at the moment intensely religious. She had months earlier chosen the Brompton ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett

... published work of the Rev. C.P. Meehaun. "On the 28th of January, the bishop and priest, being arraigned at the King's Bench, were each condemned of treason, and adjudged to be executed the Saturday following; which day being come, a priest, or two of the Pope's brood, with holy water and other holy stuffs"—(no sneer was that at all, gentlemen; no sneer at Catholic practices, for a crown official never sneers at Catholic practices)—"were sent to sanctify the gallows whereon they were ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan

... gay; xlij.[AG] crossis ther were of Religioune[AH], And seculere, and alle thay went a precessioun, Agens that prince withoute the toune, And euery Cros as thay stode He blessid hem with milde mode, And holy water with her hande Thay gaf the prince of oure lande. And at[AI] the porte Kaux so wide He in passid withoute[AJ] pride; Withoute pipe or bemys blaste, Our kyng worthyly he in paste. And as a conquerour in his righte Thankyng[AK] euer god almyghte; And alle the pepulle in that Citie 'Wilcome ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... it," continued he. "The first time was when she went to mass; it came on to rain suddenly, and Modeste, her maid, begged me to go for an umbrella. As soon as I came back I went in and saw Mademoiselle Sabine standing by the receptacle for holy water, talking to a young fellow. Of course I dodged behind a pillar, and kept ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau

... parchment and bound." Gutch's Collectanea Curiosa, vol. ii., 276. At page 115, ante, the reader will find a definition of the word "Antiphoner." He is here informed that a "gradale" or "grail," is a book which ought to have in it "the office of sprinkling holy water: the beginnings of the masses, or the offices of Kyrie, with the verses of gloria in excelsis; the gradales, or what is gradually sung after the epistles; the hallelujah and tracts, the sequences, the creed to be sung at mass, the offertories, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... rose and fell in Chris's soul like a deep organ-note sounding and waning. How homely and tender were these last rites, this accompaniment of the departing soul to the edge of eternity with all that was dear and familiar to it—the drops of holy water, the mellow light of candles, and the sonorous soothing Latin! And yet—and yet—how powerless to save a soul that had not troubled to make the necessary efforts during life, and had lost the power of making ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson

... about the same time that the States-General were meeting at Tours that, under the direction of this legate, Onofrio de Santa-Croce, the cathedral was purified with holy water, and Louis of Bourbon celebrated his very first mass, though he had been seated on the episcopal throne for twelve years. Then Onofrio tried to mediate between the city and the Duke of Burgundy. To Bruges he went to see Charles, and obtained permission to draft a project ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... priest walked swiftly and sternly through the wood, and to the church; and he dipped a vessel in the stoup of holy water, turning his eyes aside, and wrapped it in a veil of linen. Then he took a lantern in his hand, and with a grave and fixed look on his face he walked sadly up the valley, putting one foot before another, like a man who ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson

... near the Hospitalet to receive the benediction of the Church. The ceremony is called La benediction des betes. The animals are chiefly goats, sheep, donkeys, and mules. They are sprinkled with holy water, and prayers are said, so that they may increase and multiply or prosper in any other way that their owners may desire. As the meeting of the beasts took place very early in the morning, I reached the scene just as it was breaking up, and the ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... at the church a halt was made. A choir-boy came out carrying a great silver cross, followed by another pink and white urchin carrying the holy water with the brush in it; behind them came three old choristers, one of whom limped, then the serpent-player, then the cure in a stole with a gold cross embroidered on it. He saluted the baron's party with a smile and a nod, then, with half-closed eyes, ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893

... canonized her saints. The ghosts of the departed were the gods of the heathen; and the papists supplicate the dead. The Pagans burned incense to their gods; the Papists burn incense in their religious ceremonies. The ancient heathen sprinkled themselves with "holy water;" the Papists use the same material in a similar manner. Lactantius says of the Pagans, they "light up candles to God as if he lived in the dark; and do they not deserve to pass for madmen who offer lamps to the author and giver of light?" This custom is imitated by the Papists ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss

... Santa Maria in Ara Coeli possessed the miraculous little Jesus, the "Bambino," who healed sick children, and Sant' Agostino had the "Madonna del Parto," who grants a happy delivery to mothers. Then others were renowned for the holy water of their fonts, the oil of their lamps, the power of some wooden saint or marble virgin. Others again seemed forsaken, given up to tourists and the perquisites of beadles, like mere museums peopled with ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... from her devotions, and went with downcast eyes, her lips still repeating prayers, to the font of holy water, which was in a dim shadowy corner, where a painted window cast a gold and violet twilight. Suddenly there was a rustle of garments in the dimness, and a jewelled hand essayed to pass holy water to her on the tip of its finger. This mark ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... since thou, O lord of all the worlds, thus liest on the bare ground, stained with dust! Alas, this scorcher of foes used to walk at the head of all Kshatriyas that had their locks sprinkled with holy water at ceremonies of coronation! Alas, he now eateth the dust! Behold the reverses that Time bringeth on its course! Where is that pure white umbrella of thine? Where is that fanning yak-tail also, O king? Where hath that vast army of thine now gone, O best of monarchs? The course of events ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... I expostulated, "your czars believed in icons. My grandmother believed in werewolves and banshees, and we burned blessed candles and sprinkled holy water in our houses on All Souls' night to keep away demons. I have seen a clergyman, educated in Paris and Louvain, exorcising devils with bell, book, and candle in Maryland, in one of the oldest and proudest cities of the United ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... debonaire and buxome one to another, giuing them selues to procreacion, and not to lecherous luste. And that thei honestly and diligently bringe vp, suche children as God sendeth them of theyr bodies. Aftre that he affiaunceth them both with one ringe. And sprinckling holy water vpon them, reacheth them a stole, and leadeth them into the churche, where (yf thei ware not blessed afore) he blesseth them knieling before the altare. The woman hath on a redde fillet or frontelette, and ouer that a white veile, withoute the whiche it ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt

... the river from the brow of the broken cliff, {129} beyond the march of your land, and return again without looking behind. Then cleanse your house with the fire of unmixed sulphur first, and then, as is ordained, with a filleted bough sprinkle holy water over all, mingled with salt. {130} And to Zeus supreme, moreover, do ye sacrifice a young boar, that ye may ever have the mastery over all ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang

... own counsel, and not rouse the suspicions of the household. The villagers were at first a bit reluctant to enter such a dreadful place, but the priest said they would be under his protection while there, and no harm could come to them, particularly if they carried a trifle of holy water along and kept their beads and crosses handy. This satisfied them and made them willing to go; envy and malice made the baser sort ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... sorceress! How is a Christian man to win a game off you? I should have sprinkled the board with holy water before we began. You've not won that game by fair means, ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... night the streets were deserted on account of the bad weather, and the abbe reached his church without interruption. He dipped his finger in the holy water, crossed himself, made a brief reverence before the grand altar, and went towards his confessional. At least he had not come for nothing. A penitent ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee

... well understood their character. He received a grant from the crown, and erected a humble chapel and dwelling-house; which he ascribed partly to the charity, and partly the penance of his flock. He used a common brush to sprinkle them with holy water, and spoke of their faults without much softness or reserve. Occasionally an execution required his services at Launceston, otherwise a place ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... Well, what they call the Incarnation is really the point. Everything else flows from that. And, once a man believes that, I must confess that all the rest follows—even down to scapulars and holy water." ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson

... such reward." His eyes slowly uplifted to the face of his questioner. "Jesu hath not as yet opened before my understanding the way which leadeth to their hearts. I can but work, and pray for guidance. I have only baptised one who was dying of a fever, and sprinkled with holy water an infant, unknown to its mother. It is not much, yet I bless the good Mary for the salvation ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... of the guard, and threatened them with the most severe punishment if they failed to watch all night. They did their best to obey, but in vain; they could only sleep. When they awoke they found, not only roses and pearls, but little gold-fish swimming in the holy water. ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko

... allowed themselves to be baptized, or adopted Christianity, in appearance at least. After the Crusaders were at a distance, on the way to their death in the Orient, the Jews left behind could again breathe freely. Of many of them, Gregory of Tours might have said that "the holy water had washed their bodies but not their hearts, and, liars toward God, they returned to their original heresy." The emperor of Germany, Henry IV, it seems, even authorized those who had been forced into ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber

... he spoke, the kindly Kundry bathed The feet of Parsifal, who looked at her With gentle wonder and a pitying love, And said: "So humbly hast thou washed my feet, Perchance the good and faithful Gurnemanz May sprinkle my poor head with holy water, And give ...
— Parsifal - A Drama by Wagner • Retold by Oliver Huckel

... they would never have dreamed of sacrificing me in honour of a mere idol! Why had I been so lukewarm, why had I backslidden, why had I endeavoured to make myself agreeable by joining in promiscuous dances, when I should have been thundering against Pagan idolatry, holy water, idols, sacrifices and the whole abominable system of life on the island? True, I might have goaded them into slaying me; I might have suffered as a martyr; but, at the least, I would have deserved the martyr's crown. And now I was to perish at the ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang

... He loves him as the Devil loves holy water, i.e. hates him mortally. Holy water, according to the Roman Catholics, having the virtue to chase away the Devil and ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... his bier this Innocent doth lie Before the altar while the Mass doth last: 185 The Abbot with his convent's company Then sped themselves to bury him full fast; And, when they holy water on him cast, Yet spake this Child when sprinkled was the water; And sang, O ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth

... it," counselled Heller. "Being worshipped is infinitely more agreeable than being eaten. Besides, consider the interests of the Church. If you are set up as a god, you can use the position to sprinkle holy water on your adorers, and so convert the whole island ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various

... formerly attended the reading of the English Scriptures in church; a courteous reception of the Protestant Rector; a capability of praying morning and evening without crucifix or rosary; a quiet dropping of crossings and holy water, oaths by our Lady's merits and Saint Peter's hosen: a general calm acquiescence in the new order of things. But how much did it mean? Only that her eyes were becoming accustomed to the light?—or that age had weakened her prejudices?—or that ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt

... whereas the Canon showed the blunt side of sincerity, he usually showed the tender and winning side. He found good in others as easily and as surely as the diviner finds the spring hidden under the hard earth's surface. His hazel twig twisted if there was present only one drop of the holy water. ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... which held holy water. Near the altar in old churches, or where the altar has been, is sometimes found another niche, distinguished from the stoup, by having in it at the bottom, a small aperture for carrying off the water; it is often double with a place ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various

... we hated that hill and that camp as the devil hates holy water, but that Sunday morning, marching into a British camp, with British soldiers, eager to keep right on across the channel and clean up Kaiser Bill and feeling as though we were able to do it, single-handed—why, the meanest private in the Twenty-first Canadians considered himself just ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride

... chair; and that was all. On the table, however, were flowers and embroidery; in a recess at the farther end of the room was the narrow little bed where Juana dreamed. Above the bed were three pictures; and near the pillow a crucifix, with a holy water basin and a prayer, printed in letters of gold and framed. Flowers exhaled their perfume faintly; the candles cast a tender light; all was calm and pure and sacred. The dreamy thoughts of Juana, but above all ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac

... hanging; and on the wall facing the bed there was a large, rudely carved, and yet more rudely painted crucifix. By the side of the bed nearest the door there hung, on a nail driven into the wall, a copper receptacle for holy water, the upper part of which was ornamented with a figure of St. Francis in the act of receiving the "Stigmata," in repousse work, by no means badly executed. And pasted on the bare wall, immediately above the pillow of the little bed, was a coloured print of ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... cemetery. The little procession halted at the foot of the cross in the middle. There were several prayers and psalms, and then the cure made the tour of the cemetery, sprinkling all the graves with holy water and saying a short prayer at each. The procession broke up into groups, all kneeling at the different graves praying for their dead. There were not many men; a few old ones. They were not kneeling, but stood reverently, with ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington

... London. Although the city-wall then boasted twenty-one towers and six gates, the West Gate is the only remaining bit. Here, at the inn which stood conveniently near the cathedral, the pilgrims stayed, and in Mercery Lane they bought their souvenirs,—probably rosaries or phials of Holy Water. At the further end of the Lane stood the ancient rush-market. Rushes were then in great demand, you recollect, for people used them to strew ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson

... day from a drive, I met two priests descending one of the upper flights of stairs in the house where I lived. As my rooms had been blessed once, and holy water sprinkled upon them, I thought perhaps another process of that kind had just been gone through, and was about to pass them, when one of them, accosting me, asked if I were the Signorine Mitchell,—changing his Italian to good English as he saw that I was, and introducing himself as Father ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell

... ambles forth by her proud father's side, she will answer with so sweet a smile, and greet me with a wave of her riding-switch—with what a grace!—and then grow red thereby, and then grow pale. When I offer her the holy water as she passes from the church, she will cast down her trembling eyelids, and yet will see withal who offers it; and when I stand at yon window, as she rambles in the garden, she will pluck flower after ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various

... her question a distant clock struck five. "Five o'clock!" murmured Beppina, and, struggling to her knees in her great carved bed, she dipped a dainty finger in the vase of holy water which hung on the wall near by, and crossed herself devoutly. Then, folding her hands, she murmured an Ave Maria before the image of the Virgin which stood on the little table beside her bed. This duty done, she ...
— The Italian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... there are six, stretched on two waggons. Smoothed out, and covered with rags, they are taken to an open pit at the foot of a Calvary. Some priests conduct, rather than celebrate, the service, military as they have become. A little straw and some holy water over all, and so we pass on. After all, these dead are happy: they are cared-for dead. What can be said of those who lie farther on and who have passed away after nights of the ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous

... these. Delighted with his courtesies:— "We too have goodly fruit in store, Grown on the trees that shade our door; Come, if thou wilt, kind Hermit, haste The produce of our grove to taste; And let, O good Ascetic, first This holy water quench thy thirst." They spoke, and gave him comfits sweet Prepared ripe fruits to counterfeit; And many a dainty cate beside, And luscious mead their stores supplied. The seeming fruits, in taste and look, The unsuspecting ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... with a heart fully set on Thy service, I suffered myself to sit even one hour in the chair of lies. Nor would I be contentious. But hast not Thou, O most merciful Lord, pardoned and remitted this sin also, with my other most horrible and deadly sins, in the holy water? ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine

... satisfied,—when we had even ascended to the rude confessional, which was a mere excavation in the soft stone of the wall,—when we had put our hands in the hollow, not unlike a swallow's nest in a mud-bank, once the receptacle for holy water,—when we had descended the stony pathway, for it was so worn as scarcely to merit the name of staircase,—when, standing once more on the chapel-pavement, with minds excited by the thought of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... much goodness, virtue palls on us, and if we hear only psalms sung, we will long for the clink of glasses and the brave choruses of unrestrained good-fellowship. A slap on the back may give you a thrill of delight that the touch of holy water on your ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... hundred years ago. They say the old bishop, he prayed 'em down; for he went out a little after on purpose, and gave 'em a precious lot of holy water; most likely he got 'em pretty well under, though my husband's brother says he's heard 'em singing in a small way, like frogs in spring-time; but he gave 'em a pretty wide berth. You see, these ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various

... weeks in St. Pedro de Cardea, doing honour to the Cid. And the Bishop Don Hieronymo, and the other Bishops who came with King Don Alfonso, said every day their masses, and accompanied the body of the Cid there where it was placed, and sprinkled holy water upon it, and incensed it, as is the custom to do over a grave. And after three weeks they who were there assembled began to break up, and depart to their own houses. And of the company of the Cid, some went with the King of Navarre, and other some with the Infante of Aragon; ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various

... And they fast not on the Saturday, no time of the year, but it be Christmas Even or Easter Even. And they suffer not the Latins to sing at their altars; and if they do, by any adventure, anon they wash the altar with holy water. And they say that there should be but one Mass said at ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown

... straight out of the church and away to her grandmother. The old woman gave her two phials, the one full of holy water, the other of the water of life, and told her what she was to do. Next day both Marusia's husband and her son died. Then the Fiend came flying ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston

... the curtains, and looked upon the corpse. He sprinkled holy water on the bed, and for a short time his lips were seen to move in silent prayer. He then ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat

... mala (string of basil beads) in her right hand, which she was telling, and she seemed to enjoy the shouts of 'Hari, Hari-bole,' with perfect serenity of mind. We reached Nimtalla Ghat about twelve; after staying there for about ten to fifteen minutes, sprinkling the holy water on the dead body, all proceeded slowly to the Kultalla Ghat, about three miles north of Nimtalla. The dead body, wrapped in new clothes, being placed on the pyre, my aunt was desired to walk seven times round it, which she did while strewing flowers, ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones

... to reconcile the intolerance of his doctrine with the charities of his heart. We imagine such a one lost in the philosophy and sentiment of the "Nouvelle Heloise," and suddenly summoned by the convent-bell to the droning of the Mass, the mockery of Holy Water, the fable of the Real Presence. Such contrasts might be strange and dangerous. No, no, Padre Lluc! keep these unknown spells from your heart,—let the forbidden books alone. Instead of the Confessions of Jean Jacques, read the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... soon give you the signal; take care to provide yourselves with hatchets, and especially three-pronged forks, for a Frenchman does not weigh more than a sheaf of corn. I shall have mass said for the wounded, and holy water to hasten their cure. I shall then join General Kutuzoff, and we shall soon set about sending those guests to the devil, forcing them to give up the ghost, and reducing ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... Venn when daylight disappears, are they the souls of those who have never been buried, and who in garments that are falling to pieces rise every night from their graves, which have neither been consecrated by a benediction nor by holy water and in which they ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig

... bells and Holy Water could comfort me? I've tried them; they only made things worse. I felt like the Devil when he sees the sign of the cross. (Pause.) Let's ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg

... baptism and his speculations about the power of the water (c. 1 ff.). The water must, of course, have been first consecrated for this purpose (that is, the demons must be driven out of it). But then it is holy water with which the Holy Spirit is united, and which is able really to cleanse the soul. See Hatch, "The influence of Greek ideas, etc.," p. 19. The consecration of the water is certainly very old: though we have no definite witnesses from the earliest period. Even for the exorcism of the baptised ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... are you going?" Putting its arms akimbo, with dignity, it went skipping all about the cottage. . . . You may laugh, but it was no laughing-matter to our grandfathers. And in vain did Father Athanasii go through all the village with holy water, and chase the Devil through all the streets with his brush; and my late grandfather's aunt long complained that, as soon as it was dark, some one came knocking at her door, and scratching at ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various

... crypt is a Corinthian capital turned upside down and converted into a holy water stoup; also a very early and curious altar, the slab of which is just two feet square, and has in the midst a square hole cut, probably of later date, for the reception of relics; the height of the altar is three feet three and a-half ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... d'oeuvre, which ought most certainly to have been preserved for the honor of the Church. Unfortunately, this curious and most remarkable piece of eloquence was never printed, and history has inscribed but a few lines in its annals. When the priest approached the bier, he sprinkled the holy water, made the sign of the cross, and commenced his discourse in the following terms:—"I receive the body of the most high and powerful lady, Madame le Marquise de Pompadour, maid of honour to the queen. She was in the school of all virtues," &c. The remainder of this ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... under-linen being put with hers when the laundress took it away or brought it home. If she was asked to sew a button on his underclothes, she ran to her room when the task was over, and washed her hands, when, it was said, she sprinkled them with holy water. She compressed her figure to a hurtful extent, and the height of the collar of her dresses was contrary to the regulations of fashion; her under-garments were only changed in the dark, and she never shook hands with a man unless she had gloves on. The history of her marriage ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds

... river bank there are stone steps leading down to the water. Standing in the stream are men and women and children who have come from all parts of India. They wash themselves in the stream, and pour the holy water over their heads as ...
— Highroads of Geography • Anonymous

... same time Giovanni made the holy water vessel in marble for the same church of S. Giovanni Evangelista, borne by three figures, Temperance, Prudence and Justice, and as it was then considered a work of great beauty, it was placed in the middle of the church as a remarkable ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari

... recall a gaunt Baptist in wood, said to be by Donatello, on one of the altars to the left of the choir; and the bronze Baptist in the Baptistery, less realistic, by Sansovino; the pretty figures of Innocence and S. Anthony of Padua on the holy water basins just inside the main door; and the corners of delectable medieval cities in ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas

... great Pope Julius II. This illustrious pontiff feared that the excessive excitability of my feelings would cause me to commit some deadly sin at the moment of my death, after I had received the blessed ointment. He made me a present of a flask of holy water that gushed forth from a rock in the desert. I kept the secret of the theft of the Church's treasure, but I am authorized to reveal the mystery to my son 'in articulo mortis.' You will find the flask in the drawer of the Gothic table which always stands at my bedside. ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... her son. The corinthian order prevails throughout the interior, the statues are bold and finely conceived, some of the paintings are exquisite, that of the ceiling, particularly. Two immense shells, placed within the entrance, for containing holy water, resting on rocks of marble, were presented to Francis I, by the Republic of Venice. The pulpit is supported by two flights of steps, with the figures of Faith, Hope, and Charity, producing a most splendid appearance. The organ is ornamented with ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve

... shrewdness. To his failings and his virtues he added incontestable courage, and he would lay his hand upon the collar of the most dangerous criminal as tranquilly as a devotee dips his fingers in a basin of holy water. ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... were being rung, and science is positive in declaring that the electric fluid is attracted by an artificial commotion of the atmosphere. On the causses of the Quercy, the peasants place bottles of holy water on the tops of their chimneys as a protection against lightning. The idea is that the evil power will not strike the dwelling of those who put up a sign that their habitation is blessed. These bottles on the chimney-tops puzzled ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... the palm-branch into the holy water and sprinkled the bed and the bystanders; then ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels

... me linger and look round, when he had crossed himself and given me the holy water; and then I saw that the walls were figured all over with stories, a huge St. Christopher with his black beard looking like Will Green, being close to the porch by which we entered, and above the chancel arch the Doom of the last Day, in which the painter had not spared either ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris

... the bones were coming through the skin. I wonder what the good father at Blarney, where I come from, you know, Corporal, would say to sich goings on. Faith, then, and if he were here, I'd buy a bottle of holy water, and sprinkle it over the little hathen. I suspict he'd fly straight up the chimney, when ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty

... and a genius! What a double curse! Believe me, Lucy, a certificate of baptism was a necessary card of admission to European culture. Neither my mother nor my money-bag of an uncle sympathized with my shuddering reluctance to wade through holy water to my doctor's degree. And yet no sooner had I taken the dip than a great horror came over me. Many a time I got up at night and looked in the glass, and cursed myself for my want of backbone! Alas! my curses were more potent than those ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... cannon of the 'Favorite' and 'Oreste' fired minute-guns during this ceremony, which terminated by a solemn absolution; and the Prince de Joinville, the gentlemen of the mission, the officers, and the premiers maitres of the ship, sprinkled holy water on the coffin. At eleven, all the ceremonies of the church were accomplished, all the honors done to a sovereign had been paid to the mortal remains of Napoleon. The coffin was carefully lowered between decks, and placed in the chapelle ardente which had been prepared at Toulon for its ...
— The Second Funeral of Napoleon • William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA "Michael Angelo Titmarch")

... of blood demanded of us. We found the Queen in bed with her curtains undrawn, the chamber not disposed with the pomp and ceremonies of our religion, but after the simple manner of the Huguenots; that is to say, there were no priests, no cross, nor any holy water. We kept ourselves at some distance from the bed, but Madame de Nevers, whom you know the Queen hated more than any woman besides, and which she had shown both in speech and by actions,—Madame de Nevers, I say, approached the ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various

... what they cannot understand to persons they can only dream about. They put down the whole of your miracles to a special reward for their zeal in hounding down the Carmelite and his mistress. They want the order expelled; I think they would like the house razed and the church washed out with holy water, or Fra Battista's blood—the latter for choice. Now, I cannot pull down religious houses, lord of Verona though I be, because a herd of frightened peasants have gone capering over the city singing, 'Salve festa dies.' I must really do the parties the honour ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... dear Joseph; if I am still absent, and should send nothing to next year's Salon, you must take my place. Yes, dear Jojo, I know your picture is a masterpiece, but a masterpiece which will rouse a hue and cry about romanticism; you are doomed to lead the life of a devil in holy water. Adieu. ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... sees her? I don't think she is so hard-hearted as she seems; but her grandmother and the priests won't so much as allow her to lift up her eyes when one of us young fellows goes by. Twice these five years past have I seen her eyes, and then it was when I contrived to get near the holy water when there was a press round it of a saint's day, and I reached some to her on my finger, and then she smiled upon me and thanked me. Those two smiles are all I have had to live on for all this time. Perhaps, if I work very well, she will give me another, and perhaps she will ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various

... congregation, To watch the fervour of his prayers to heaven; With deep-drawn sighs and great ejaculations, He humbly kissed the earth at every moment; And when I left the church, he ran before me To give me holy water at the door. I learned his poverty, and who he was, By questioning his servant, who is like him, And gave him gifts; but in his modesty He always wanted to return a part. "It is too much," he'd say, "too much by half; I am not worthy of your pity." Then, When I refused to ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere

... out of sight, until the people had stopped going in, then they walked boldly into the vestibule. Here they saw a marble basin filled with clear, cool-looking water. They stopped and drank it, not knowing it was the holy water the Catholics cross themselves with ...
— Billy Whiskers - The Autobiography of a Goat • Frances Trego Montgomery

... request to know when the Establishment was ever so much in danger as when Hoche was in Bantry Bay, and whether all the books of Bossuet, or the arts of the Jesuits, were half so terrible? Mr. Perceval and his parsons forget all this, in their horror lest twelve or fourteen old women may be converted to holy water and Catholic nonsense. They never see that, while they are saving these venerable ladies from perdition, Ireland may be lost, England broken down, and the Protestant Church, with all its deans, prebendaries, ...
— English Satires • Various

... previous to her death she had failed to perceive the fetal movements. She was kept on her back in a room, covered up and undisturbed, for thirty-six hours, the members of the family occasionally visiting her to sprinkle holy water on her face. There was no remembrance of cadaveric distortion of the features or any odor. When the undertakers were drawing the shroud on they noticed a half-round, bright-red, smooth-looking body between the genitals which they mistook for a prolapsed uterus. Early on April 2d, ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... speech, and the first rude ideas of fetishes and spirits have persisted in various forms down to our days. We have a plain proof of this in a work dedicated to Pius IX. by M. Gaume, in which he sets forth the virtue of holy water against the innumerable powers of evil which, as he declares, still people the cosmic spaces, and similar rites may be traced in the liturgies of all modern religions. This belief is directly founded on the fanciful personification and incarnation of a power in speech itself, ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli

... daybreak we drove on, and the day after we reached Fontevrault. The Abbess, accompanied by her entire community, came to welcome us at the main gate, and her surpliced chaplains offered me holy water. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... have finished making their salaam there come from within priests, and they bring rice and other cooked edibles, and water, and fire, and many kinds of scents, and they offer prayers and throw the water over the horses and elephants, just (as our priests do with) holy water; and they put chaplets of roses on them. This is done in the presence of the King, who remains seated on a throne of gold and precious stones; he never sits on this except only this once in the year. ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell



Words linked to "Holy water" :   water, H2O



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