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Secular   /sˈɛkjələr/   Listen
Secular

adjective
1.
Of or relating to the doctrine that rejects religion and religious considerations.
2.
Characteristic of or devoted to the temporal world as opposed to the spiritual world.  Synonyms: temporal, worldly.  "Temporal possessions of the church"
3.
Not concerned with or devoted to religion.  Synonym: profane.  "Secular drama" , "Secular architecture" , "Children being brought up in an entirely profane environment"
4.
Of or relating to clergy not bound by monastic vows.
5.
Characteristic of those who are not members of the clergy.  Synonyms: laic, lay.  "The lay ministry"



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"Secular" Quotes from Famous Books



... the passages respecting the Flood evidently belong. Like the passages cited, and, with these, almost all the texts of Scripture in which questions of physical science are involved, the limiting, modifying, explaining facts and circumstances must be sought for in that outside region of secular research, historic and scientific, from which of late years so much valuable biblical illustration has been derived, and with which it is so imperatively the duty of the Church to keep up an acquaintance at least as close and intimate as that maintained ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller

... respected by the secular press as it never has been before, and compelled an honorable recognition.—Hudson ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, September 1887 - Volume 1, Number 8 • Various

... supposed to be ad majorem Dei gloriam, were really for the greater glory of Goya. They are something more than secular, often little short of blasphemous. That they were tolerated proves the cynical temper of his times. When the fat old scoundrel of a Bourbon king ran away with all his court and the pusillanimous Joseph Bonaparte came upon the scene, Goya swerved and ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... rank among these same secular writers any theologists whom I repute to be men of profound learning and sober manners, and therefore hold in great esteem and veneration; yet it vexes me when they would constrain science by the authority ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... minds have been intuitively impressed with the idea of the future greatness and power of this government. In view of the grand results developed and developing, the discovery of America by Columbus, not four hundred years ago, is set down as the greatest event of all secular history. The progress of empire to this land was long ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith

... chants and the other accustomed ceremonies. It may be suspected that his religious zeal proceeded often to the length of persecution, and that the Magian priests were not the only persons who, under the orders which he issued, felt the weight of the secular arm. His Zoroastrian zeal was soon known through the provinces; and the Jews forthwith resumed the building of their temple, trusting that their conduct would be consonant with his wishes. This trust was not misplaced: for, when the Samaritans once more interfered and tried to induce the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson

... which consists in expression of itself to others, Pindar says very well, that it was not mercenary in old time, nor indeed is it so now; but by the baseness and ambition of a few it is made use of to serve their poor secular interests. For if the poets represent Venus herself as much offended with those who make a trade and traffic of the passion of love, how much more reasonably may we suppose that Urania and Clio and Calliope have an ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... anciently a chapel, founded by King Stephen about the year 1141, and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin; however, it obtained the name of St. Stephen's Chapel. It was rebuilt by King Edward III., anno 1347, who placed in it a dean, twelve secular canons, thirteen vicars, four clerks, five choristers, a verger, and a keeper of the chapel, and built them a convent, which extended along the Thames, endowing it with large revenues, which at ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales

... and for which no opportunity is found under the present arrangement. Besides, much talent not available upon Sunday, at the time of the session of the Bible-school, might be utilized. This is an age of clubs organized for the study of ancient and modern secular literature, where careful and scholarly papers are read upon subjects given out long in advance. This study-club idea ought to be utilized by the church for the investigation of the best literature which the world knows, namely, that found in ...
— Studies in the Life of the Christian • Henry T. Sell

... were not in the making. They were old civilisations stamped with the seal of creed. In such countries the Jew may be right to stand out. But here in this new secular Republic we must ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill

... college a new raison d'etre. In 1749 he published a pamphlet entitled "Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania," in which he advocated the establishment of an academy whose purpose was not the training of ministers but the secular one of developing the practical virtue necessary in the opening up of a new country. The Academy was opened in 1751, and the charter, granted in 1755, designated the institution as "The College, Academy, and Charitable School of Philadelphia." Though the ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... stirring up strife, had been discontinued for many generations; [Buchholz, i. 148-151.] and the Crypto-Protestantism was again become a mythical romantic object, ignored by Official persons. However, in 1727, there came a new Archbishop, one "Firmian", Count Firmian by secular quality, of a strict lean character, zealous rather than wise; who had brought his orthodoxies with him in a rigid ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... stood high above his rivals and contemporaries; his compositions are not devoid of wit and eloquence; and he seems to have preserved as much reason and humanity as may be reconciled with the character of a saint. In a secular life, he would have shared the seventh part of a private inheritance; by a vow of poverty and penance, by closing his eyes against the visible world, [30] by the refusal of all ecclesiastical dignities, the abbot ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... seems to have pushed them to their utmost bearings. With these sentiments, he published his treatise de Imperio summarum potestatum circa sacra. It was disliked by King James and his bishops: Grotius, in their opinion, gave too much authority, in sacred things, to the secular power. ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler

... in your program,' says Paisley, chewing up a piece of a railroad tie. 'I'd give in to you,' says he, 'in 'most any respect if it was secular affairs, but this is not so. The smiles of woman,' goes on Paisley, 'is the whirlpool of Squills and Chalybeates, into which vortex the good ship Friendship is often drawn and dismembered. I'd assault a bear that was annoying you,' says Paisley, 'or I'd endorse your note, ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry

... are Baptist and Episcopal churches—and a dancing-master. Young Benjamin Franklin, born in 1706, professes a high respect for the Mathers, but he does not go to church, "Sunday being my studying day," and neither the clerical nor the secular arm of Boston is long enough and strong enough to compel that ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry

... Martin Dupin found himself at the head of the Commune of Semur—since who else could have kept his self-control as he did?—caring for all things and forgetting nothing; who else would, with so much courage, have entered the city? and what other man, being a person of the world and secular in all his thoughts, as, alas! it is so common for men to be, would have so nobly acknowledged his obligations to the good God when our misfortunes were over? My constant prayers for his conversion do not make me incapable ...
— A Beleaguered City • Mrs. Oliphant

... breach of contract. His plea was that as a churchman he was not amenable to civil law. The American decided that, while he could not tell what peculiar privileges a clergyman enjoyed as a priest, it was quite evident that when he departed from his religious calling and entered into a secular bargain with a citizen he placed himself on the same footing as the citizen, and should be required like anybody else to comply with his agreement. This principle, which was good sense, ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White

... bursts of laughter issuing from his study when they two were by themselves; there was something in him that took that grave, beautiful, melancholy face. One can fancy him in the midst of his books, and sacred work and thoughts, pausing and looking at the secular Toby, who was looking out for a smile to begin his rough fun, and about to end by coursing and gurrin' round the room, upsetting my father's books, laid out on the floor for consultation, and himself nearly at times, as ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... purposes. In arranging and fitting up this room, reference must be had to the requirements of the district; for this one room is to be occupied by children of all ages, for summer and winter schools, and for the secular, but more especially for the religious meetings of the neighborhood. But in its construction primary reference should be had to the convenience of the scholars in school, for it will be used by them more, ten to ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... past ages. The multitude of lights, the polished floor of costly wood, the bare whiteness of walls wainscotted with marble, the vastness of the room, the imposing forms of furniture, carved heavily in ebony, impressed me with a sense of secular and austere magnificence. For centuries there had always been a Riego living in this fortress-like palace, ruling this portion of the New World with the whole majesty of his race. And I thought of the long, loop-holed, buttressed walls that this ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... full-blooded, with all the vices and natural instincts of a captain of condottieri, had very great trouble in assuming even the appearance of a Churchman's virtue; but as he knew from his own father's mouth that the highest secular dignities were reserved far his elder brother, he decided to take what he could get, for fear of getting nothing; but his hatred for Francesco grew stronger, for from henceforth he was doubly his rival, both in love ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... ex-chancellor of the Gothic king Theodoric, and Benedict, the founder of the Benedictine order, is due the gratitude of the modern world. It was through their foresight in setting the monks at work copying the scriptures and the secular literature of antiquity that we owe the preservation of most of the books that have survived the ruins of the ancient world. At the monastery of Monte Cassino, founded by Saint Benedict in the year 529, and at that of Viviers, founded by Cassiodorus ...
— Printing and the Renaissance - A paper read before the Fortnightly Club of Rochester, New York • John Rothwell Slater

... jurisprudence, it is no wonder if the functions of those who administer the law should tend to display a similar fusion of aspects. The chief, or king, has a "divine right," and is himself in one or another sense divine, even whilst he takes the lead in regard to all such matters as are primarily secular. The earliest written codes, such as the Mosaic Books of the Law, with their strange medley of injunctions concerning things profane and sacred, accurately reflect the politico-religious character of all ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett

... will be no limits to the recognition of your ability,' he would say. 'Of course you must take care of the motives—right motives—always.' The long reaches that were like one and the same reach, monotonous bends that were exactly alike, slipped past the steamer with their multitude of secular trees looking patiently after this grimy fragment of another world, the forerunner of change, of conquest, of trade, of massacres, of blessings. I looked ahead—piloting. 'Close the shutter,' said Kurtz suddenly one day; 'I can't bear to look at this.' I did so. There was a silence. 'Oh, ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad

... princes in Europe; they almost governed China in the reign of Cangghi; and they are now actually in possession of the Paraguay in America, pretending, but paying no obedience to the Crown of Spain. As a collective body they are detested, even by all the Catholics, not excepting the clergy, both secular and regular, and yet, as individuals, they are loved, respected, and ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... assist the prediction of the course and occurrence of storms. 3. To assist the study of the disturbances of the magnetic elements and their relations to the auroral light and sun spots. 4. To study the distribution of the magnetic force and its secular and other changes. 5. To study the distribution of heat and submarine currents in the polar regions. 6. To obtain certain dimensions in accord with recent methods. Finally, to collect observations and specimens in the domain of zoology, botany, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various

... far influenced by considerations of prudence or policy, or even by certain natural instincts and affections, as to be just in his dealings, faithful to his word, courteous in his manners, and obedient to the laws. But this secular, prudential morality, is as precarious in its practical influence as it is defective in its radical principle. Atheism saps and undermines the very foundation of Ethics. The only law which it can recognize (if that can be called a ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan

... to be comparing or contrasting the secular form opera and the sacred oratorio, and it is interesting to know that the origin of both may be traced back to the same source—viz., early miracle plays and moralities. For some time after the introduction of Christianity ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various

... true, had been stormy, like that of many a brand afterwards promoted to being a vessel. His worldly education was of the most elementary and indeed eleemosynary description, consequently he despised secular learning, and science "falsely so called." It is recorded of him that he had almost a distaste for those difficult chapters of the Epistles in which St. Paul mentions by name his Greek friends and converts. ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang

... the reminder to the man of his secular duties, and its material varies, in consequence, according to the occupation of the wearer. Thus, while the thread of the Brahmans is made of pure cotton, that of the Kshatriyas (the warriors) is composed ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various

... Sunday evening as it was, there was a quiet meeting of some few friends at The Poplars. It was such a great occasion that the Sabbatical rules, never strict about Sunday evening,—which was, strictly speaking, secular time,—were relaxed. Father Pemberton was there, and Master Byles Gridley, of course, and the Rev. Ambrose Eveleth, with his son and his daughter-in-law, Bathsheba, and her mother, now in comfortable health, aunt Silence and her husband, Doctor Hurlbut and his wife (Olive Eveleth ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... and learning were one and the same thing. As was the case in Christianity, and for the same reasons, religion filled the whole of life and engrossed all branches of knowledge. There was no such thing as secular science; religion placed its stamp on everything, and turned the currents of thought into its own channels. One must not hope therefore to find, among the Jews of Northern France, those literary species which blossomed and flourished in Spain; philosophy ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber

... boys and girls of more advanced age severe, sombre gymnasiums and grammar-schools did indeed open their doors. These were under a sort of supervision and in case of necessity were recruited by the secular arm, if new comers did not enlist of their own accord. But in these institutions too, only the merest manual training was given, in spite of the pompous sounding names which they flaunted, and which to this hour ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... had not revealed it. God is the author of all knowledge and understanding whatsoever. He is the author of the knowledge that is obtained by human learning: He is the author of all moral prudence, and of the knowledge and skill that men have in their secular business. Thus it is said of all in Israel that were wise-hearted, and skilful in embroidering, that God had filled them with the spirit of ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser

... a sixth figure had suddenly presented itself just inside the doorway—a figure so incongruous in the scene as to be almost comic. It was a very short man in the black uniform of the Roman secular clergy, and looking (especially in such a presence as Bruno's and Aurora's) rather like the wooden Noah out of an ark. He did not, however, seem conscious of any contrast, but said with dull civility: "I believe Miss Rome sent ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... Secular life was not so low but that it had its bright spots. Bands of music were not so well organized or so numerous as they are to-day, but there was much more of what may be styled chamber music in those days than is imagined. ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston

... this merriest day of the year. How the little people look forward to it. It comes to the older ones as a joy, and yet tender and sad with the memories of other Christmases. The religious and the secular elements of the day. The countries where it is most observed. The long contest between the two days, Thanksgiving and Christmas. The compromise that Massachusetts and Virginia, New England and the South, have unanimously agreed upon; namely, to keep ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger

... to exhibit, such as the enormous old Abbey of St. Vaast—with its huge expansive roof, which somehow seems to dominate the place, and thrusts forward some fragment or other—where a regiment might lodge. Its spacious gardens are converted to secular uses. Then I find myself at the old-new cathedral, begun about a century ago, and finished about fifty years since—a 'poorish' heartless edifice in the bald Italian manner, and quite unsuited to these old Flemish cities. I ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald

... aspect. They want to run out of the world entirely, and are unwilling to associate with anyone; or they proceed to disturb civil regulations and to overthrow all order; or again, as with the Pope, they interfere in secular rule, desiring temporal authority, wholly under the ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... Madinah, Al Qasim, Al Qurayyat, Ar Riyad, Ash Sharqiyah, 'Asir, Ha'il, Jizan, Makkah, Najran, Tabuk Independence: 23 September 1932 (unification) Constitution: none; governed according to Shari'a (Islamic law) Legal system: based on Islamic law, several secular codes have been introduced; commercial disputes handled by special committees; has not accepted compulsory ICJ jurisdiction National holiday: Unification of the Kingdom, 23 September (1932) Executive branch: monarch and prime minister, crown prince and deputy prime minister, ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... were similarly saluted; and by degrees some of the salutations have become the due of all.[3] Thus, no sooner does the originally-homogeneous social mass differentiate into the governed and the governing parts, than this last exhibits an incipient differentiation into religious and secular—Church and State; while at the same time there begins to be differentiated from both, that less definite species of government which rules our daily intercourse—a species of government which, as we may see in heralds' colleges, ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... are worthy of study. They are primarily remarkable as indicating that the City of London was, at the time, subject to a government which combined the secular authority of the port-reeve with the ecclesiastical authority of the bishop. It was said, indeed, to have been greatly due to the latter's intercession that the charter was granted at all, and, in this belief, the mayor and aldermen were long accustomed to pay a solemn ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... reform higher education and introduce into the universities a wide, liberal, and scientific programme of secular studies. His chief work, the "Opus Majus," was written for this purpose, to which his exposition of his own discoveries was subordinate. It was addressed and sent to Pope Clement IV., who had asked Bacon to give him an account of his researches, and was designed to persuade the Pontiff of the utility ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury

... known art, therefore, was the art of destruction, growing out of the wicked and brutal passions of men,—envy and hatred, ambition and revenge; in a word, selfishness. Race fought with race, kingdom with kingdom, and city with city, in the very infancy of society. In secular history the greatest names are those of conquerors and heroes in every land under the sun; and it was by conquerors that those grand monuments were erected the ruins of which astonish every traveller, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord

... made up a religious house,—cloisters, dormitories, chapels, hospitals, granaries, barns, storehouses, whose foundations when all else is gone still show in the rugged surface of some modern field. Regular and secular clergy were alike spurred on in their work by jealous rivalry. Archbishop Roger of York was at the opening of Henry's reign building his beautiful church at Ripon, of whose rich decoration traces still remain, while he gave scant sympathy and encouragement ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green

... which pass for supernatural. Now it is the folly, the vain credulity, the prepossession of such people that the law of God interdicts, that Moses condemns to death, and that the Christian Church punishes by its censures, and which the secular judges repress with the greatest rigor. If in all these things there was nothing but a diseased imagination, weakness of the brain, or popular prejudices, would they be treated with so much severity? Do we put to death ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... gibe and scoff they dragged their victims forth, The abused old man, the proud, insulted youth, O'er the late path of his triumphal march, Befouled with mud, with raiment torn, wild hair And ragged beard, to Vladislaw. He sat Expectant in his cabinet. On one side His secular adviser, Narzerad, Quick-eyed, sharp-nosed, red-whiskered as a fox; On the other hand his spiritual guide, Bishop of Olmutz, unctuous, large, and bland. "So these twain are chief culprits!" sneered the Duke, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... to the old school, these sable philosophers; to the days when the priest was arbiter of life and death, and his mere word sufficient to send a man to the galleys; when the cleverest boys of wealthy and influential families were chosen for the secular career and carefully, one might say liberally, trained to fulfil those responsible functions. The type is becoming extinct, the responsibility is gone, the profession has lost its glamour; and only the clever sons of pauper families, or the ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... remarked that Shintoism has nothing corresponding to our public worship; but every morning and evening the priests—whose office seems held in no particular sanctity, and who are at liberty, at any time, to adopt a more secular calling—perform a service before the altar, vested in white dresses, somewhat resembling albs and confined at the waist by a girdle. The service consists of the presentation of offerings and of the recital of various invocations, chiefly laudatory. The devotions of the people are remarkable ...
— Religion in Japan • George A. Cobbold, B.A.

... inexpediency of establishing any religious orders in the new colony, but if he could have proved his opinion to be correct with foot and rule he would none the less have drawn on his head the implacable hatred of the monks, and of the bishop in whose diocese the new colony was situated. The secular clergy supported Olavides, but the monks cried out against his impiety, and as the Inquisition was eminently monkish in its sympathies persecution had already begun, and this was one of the subjects of conversation at the dinner at ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... main entrance of the Temple; that he had pillaged David's tomb; that he had set aside the great council of their nation, and blinded the saintly Jochanan; that the religious leaders, men like Caiaphas and Annas, were quite willing to wink at the crimes of the secular power, so long as their prestige and emoluments were secured; that the national independence for which Judas and his brothers had striven, during the Maccabean wars, was fast being laid at the feet of Rome, which was only too willing to take advantage of the ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer

... interests of peace that we turn our swords into—corkscrews, and our bayonets into—button-hooks. That extremely secular reading of a sacred passage, appears to be the accepted one, however, in Ordnance Departments, and other places ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 93, August 13, 1887 • Various

... it!' She answered, 'peace! and why should I not play The Spartan Mother with emotion, be The Lucius Junius Brutus of my kind? Him you call great: he for the common weal, The fading politics of mortal Rome, As I might slay this child, if good need were, Slew both his sons: and I, shall I, on whom The secular emancipation turns Of half this world, be swerved from right to save A prince, a brother? a little will I yield. Best so, perchance, for us, and well for you. O hard, when love and duty clash! I fear My conscience will not count me fleckless; yet— Hear my conditions: promise ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... its crenelated walls and pepper-pot roofs from the summit of a hill overlooking the town. He made of it a refuge where all who were pursued by the secular arm might find a place of refuge. In the lower hall, the largest to be seen in all Vervignole, the table laid for meals was so long that those who sat at one end saw it lose itself in the distance in an indistinct point, and when ...
— The Miracle Of The Great St. Nicolas - 1920 • Anatole France

... institutions in the preceding century, and as a consequence, though the physical sciences still numbered successful cultivators, originality of mind was all but extinct. Things, nevertheless, wore a gayer aspect than of late. The very completeness of the triumph of secular and spiritual despotism had made them less suspicious, surly, and austere. Spanish power was visibly decaying. The long line of zelanti Popes had come to an end; and it was thought that if the bosom of the actual incumbent could be scrutinized, no little complacency in Swedish victories over ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett

... nations and tribes of both hemispheres are brought forward as witnesses to the existence of a middle state in the after life. Nor is Protestantism itself wanting in this great and overwhelming mass of evidence, as the reader will perceive that some of its most eminent divines and secular writers have joined, with no hesitating or faltering voice, in the grand Credo of the nations and the ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier

... dignity Whitgift bishop of Worcester, known to polemics as the zealous antagonist of Cartwright the puritan, and further recommended to her majesty by his single life, his talents for business, whether secular or ecclesiastical, his liberal and hospitable style of living, and the numerous train of attendants which swelled the pomp of his appearance on occasions of state and ceremony, when he even claimed to ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1272. Hist. August. p. 67. Severus celebrated the secular games with extraordinary magnificence, and he left in the public granaries a provision of corn for seven years, at the rate of 75,000 modii, or about 2500 quarters per day. I am persuaded that the granaries of Severus were supplied for a long term, but I am not less persuaded, that policy on ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... eastward-stretching spurs and their eastward-falling rivers. On the mountain-flanks, as the last landmark of Christian civilization, nestled the village of Marcapata, whose square, thatched belfry faded gradually from sight, reminding the travelers of the ghostly ministrations of the padre and the secular protection of the gobernador. Neither priest nor edile would they encounter until their return to the same church-tower. Their patron, Don Juan Sanz de Santo Domingo, was already picking his way along the snowy defiles of the mountains to attain again his luxurious home in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various

... town of Nueva Cordoba by English pirates, together with their final defeat, were touched upon; but more was made of the yield to the Church of heretic souls, in all of whom Satan stood fast. The Holy Office had delivered them to the secular arm, and the letter closed with a circumstantial account of a great auto-de-fe in the square of Cartagena. Without the wood, upon the edge of white sand, the men of the Sea Wraith waited for their Captain. At last he came, so quiet of mien and voice that only ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston

... its familiarity, though he had never understood its position in the county, believing it further to the west. If report spoke truly there was some excellent vaulting in the interior, and a change of study from ecclesiastical to secular Gothic was not ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... court system introduced in 1971; all emirates except Dubayy (Dubai) and Ra's al Khaymah have joined the federal system; all emirates have secular and Islamic law for civil, ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... it rests upon the merits of its own evidence, and is supported by the voluntary contributions of the people. But in Europe, where the mass of our infidel literature comes from, Christianity is not free and independent, but entangled with the affairs of state, and supported by the secular arm. The result is that difficulties are continually arising out of the unholy alliance which are disgusting to the independent scientific mind. The natural result is to drive such persons into irreligion. Where men are educated in both science and religion, and have not been all their lives called ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 12, December, 1880 • Various

... amongst all the torrents of eulogy passed upon The General and his Army since his death, than the almost invariable silence amongst Christian as well as secular papers about these Holiness Meetings, and that teaching of Holiness which were the root and secret of all the success of ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton

... Folz. It was doubtless largely due to the influence of Hans Sachs that the guild of mastersingers built the first German theatre in Nuremberg in 1550. Before then plays with religious subjects were performed in St. Catherine's church, as we have seen, the meeting place of the guild. Secular plays ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... has been divested of its sanctified aspect, and made to look like a handsome modern room. They have not thought it necessary that a place in which a hundred gentlemen in surtouts meet to discuss secular matters in this nineteenth century, should be made to resemble a chapel of the fifteenth. Antiquity is here represented in the person of two halberdiers, who stand to guard the door, dressed in extravagant ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various

... identifying our Saxo with the scribe of that name—a comparative menial—who is named in the will of Bishop Absalon; and hardly more warranted is the theory that he was a member, perhaps a subdeacon, of the monastery of St. Laurence, whose secular canons formed part of the Chapter of Lund. It is true that Sweyn Aageson, Saxo's senior by about twenty years, speaks (writing about 1185) of Saxo as his "contubernalis". Sweyn Aageson is known to have had strong family connections with the monastery of St. Laurence; but there is only ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... course, was inevitable," he replied. "We had to deal with the question of education, of religious education. How could I keep, then, from dealing with personal matters? You believe in a mere secular education, and proclaim your views with no uncertain voice. I, who am convinced that a mere secular education would ruin the country, had to oppose you, and had to deal with your personal attitude to the whole matter. You cannot ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking

... Arrangements. Art. Extension of Suffrage. Woman's Rights. Higher Education for Women. Socialism and State Socialism. Widened Scope of Governmental Action. Restriction of Immigration. Catholics. Their Attitude to Public Schools. Peril to Family. Mormonism. Divorce. Danger from a Secular Spirit. New Sense of Nationality. Benign Results. Greely Expedition to Polar Regions. Lesson of our National Success to Other Nations. Our ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews

... adults whose early training has been imperfectly attended to, and to the building up of a religious character where no correct early foundation has been laid, when the time and energies of a people upon whom labor is bestowed are devoted chiefly to absorbing secular pursuits. The competent and faithful teacher, on the contrary, enters upon the discharge of his duties under circumstances widely different, and with infinitely better prospects of success. Jesus said, Suffer ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... Pope of Rome, born at Carpineto; distinguished at college in mathematics, physics, and philosophy; took holy orders in 1837, was nuncio to Belgium in 1843, became bishop of Perugia in 1846, cardinal 1853, and Pope in 1878; holds to his rights as Pope both secular and spiritual; believes in the Catholic Church as the only regenerator of society, and hails every show of encroach it makes on the domain of Protestantism as promise of its universal restoration; ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... you approach us, With books to your taste in your hands; For, alas! though you offer to coach us, Yet the soul of no man understands Why the grubby is always the moral, Why the nasty's preferred to the nice, While you keep up a secular quarrel With a ...
— New Collected Rhymes • Andrew Lang

... Cousin and Germain Pilon, and thus heals that rupture between the middle age and the Renaissance which has so often been exaggerated. But it is not so much the ecclesiastical art of the middle age, its sculpture and painting—work certainly done in a great measure for pleasure's sake, in which even a secular, a rebellious spirit often betrays itself—but rather the profane poetry of the middle age, the poetry of Provence, and the magnificent after-growth of that poetry in Italy and France, which those French writers have in view, ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater

... on from matters secular to matters spiritual and sacred was a transition to be expected in the course of the grave and complicated discussion which he had volunteered to initiate. It was, therefore, not without curiosity that his ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas

... enormous mountains, presents not less notably than inanimate Nature a singular compound of change and solidity, of the catastrophic and the secular. The little state of Kashmir, overrun from time immemorial, in peace or war, by hordes of many races and tongues, preserves a language and a physiognomy of its own. About forty per cent. of the words in Kashmiri are Persian, twenty-five ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various

... become accustomed to looking upon vows as the exclusive monopoly of the Catholic Church and her religious men and women. Such things are rarely met with outside monasteries and convents, except in the case of secular priests. 'Tis true, one hears tell occasionally of a stray unfortunate who has broken away from a state voluntarily, deliberately, chosen and entered upon, and who struggles through life with a violated vow saddled upon him. But one does not associate ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... fleshly pagan is he. In Antwerp Cathedral his "Descent from the Cross," although its bravura is, as always with him, more noticeable than its piety, might be called a religious picture, but I doubt if even that would seem so here. At any rate his Uffizi works are all secular, while his "Holy Family" in the Pitti is merely domestic and robust. His Florentine masterpieces are the two Henri IV pictures in this room, "Henri IV at Ivry," magnificent if not war, and "Henri's entry into Paris after Ivry," ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas

... will initiate you in the customs peculiar to women at the Persian court, and Oropastes, the high-priest, has been ordered by the king to make you acquainted with the religion of Iran. He will be your spiritual, and I your secular guardian." ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... put to secular use some of the lands which, at the end of the First Sacred War (see p. 108), had been consecrated to the Delphian Apollo. Taken to task and heavily fined for this act by the other members of the Delphian Amphictyony, the Phocians deliberately robbed the temple, and used the treasure ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... the school was explained to them, they consented to receive secular instructions but objected to any religious teaching. They asked to have schools opened in the pueblos on the plan of our public schools where the children could attend during the day and return home at night, and their home life be not broken up, ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk

... was a new sound in the house. An indecent, secular sound. A door near the top of the house was burst violently open, and there was a scuffle. A loud voice shouted twice unmistakeably and distinctly, "So—o, good bitch!" And then the astounded Tom heard the worrying of a terrier, and the squeak of a dying rat. There was no ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... not the easiest of subjects to deal with. It is indeed not so huge as the Grand Cyrus, but it is much more difficult to get at—a very rare flower except in the "grey old gardens" of secular libraries. It and its author have indeed for a few years past had the benefit (as a result partly of another doubtful thing, an x-centenary) of one[140] of the rather-to-seek good specimens among the endless number ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... her, and seems not to have doubted her brother’s and sister’s concurrence in this act of liberality. But they, on the contrary, were both for a time deeply offended that she should apparently prefer strangers to her own kindred. They took the matter “in an entirely secular manner.” This greatly grieved her in turn; and, balked at once in her wishes and her sisterly trust, she pictures in the most lively colours the distress she endured. La Mère Agnès consoled her in her disappointment, ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch

... call the social system a violation of the pledges to the country, but I do affirm that the business tyranny of Mormon leaders is an express violation of the covenant made, for they do not leave their followers free in secular affairs. They tyrannize over them, and their tyranny spreads even to the Gentiles. In all this I charge that every apostle is a party to the wrong and to the violation. Although I speak of the president of the church as the leader, the monarch in fact, every ...
— Conditions in Utah - Speech of Hon. Thomas Kearns of Utah, in the Senate of the United States • Thomas Kearns

... backwardness than I had feared; but the Dean ultimately left me with the utmost expressions of goodwill, promising to reassure the most exacting spirits in Cathedral society as to my soundness on the questions of (1) Disestablishment and (2) Secular Education ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay

... starvation, while the Chinese naturally resented the attempt to remove the capital to any other place. This abnegation of authority by Hienfung, for his absence meant nothing short of that, could not have been prolonged indefinitely, for a Chinese emperor has many religious and secular duties to perform which no one else can discharge, and which, if not discharged, would reduce the office of emperor to a nonentity. Prince Tsai and his associates had no difficulty in working upon ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... introducing scripture phrases into secular discourse. This seemed to me a question of some difficulty. A scripture expression may be used, like a highly classical phrase, to produce an instantaneous strong impression; and it may be done without being at all improper. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... harmony with his doctrine. Rousseau had taught him that the people ought to be sovereign, and now the people were being recognised as sovereign de facto no less than de jure. Any limitations on the new divine right united the horror of blasphemy to the secular wickedness of political treason. After the Assembly had come to Paris, a famishing mob in a moment of mad fury murdered an unfortunate baker, who was suspected of keeping back bread. These paroxysms led to the enactment of a new martial law. Robespierre spoke vehemently against ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley

... praetorians, and Gordian, a grandson of the first of that name, was elevated to the imperial dignity. He, again, was soon murdered in a mutiny of the soldiers, who elected Philip as his successor, A.D. 244. This emperor, whose reign was marked by the celebration of the secular games with unwonted magnificence, to commemorate the one thousand years since Rome was founded, was put to death by the praetorian guards the following year, and the dignity of Augustus was ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... of the Muses defies seduction. Harmony is intrinsically chaste. There is no secular music; all music is sacred. Whatever the song the Sirens sang, its music was pure; and no less pure were the notes which breathed from Nero's lute, whilst the blaze of ten thousand homes glutted his Imperial ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... down the cuckstool, and the whipping-post was becoming in a complete state of desuetude. A pump in the men's yard was used as a place of occasional punishment for the stubborn and refractory. The prisoners were without any instruction, secular or religious. No chaplain attended. The allowance to each prisoner was a two-penny loaf, two pounds of potatoes, and salt daily. I believe, from all I could learn, that the Liverpool prisons, bad as they undoubtedly were at the close of the last and the beginning of the present century, ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian

... owing to Richelieu that the Thirty Years' War terminated. It was owing to Richelieu that the peace of Westphalia was made in 1643, although I believe he had been dead a year before that time; but it was owing to him, and it was the first peace ever made between nations on a secular basis, with everything religious left out, and it was ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll

... received from working-men who had read his book. These letters often surprised him by the acuteness and capacity displayed by their writers. The nobility would perish utterly, if it were not constantly recruited from commoners. Lord Brougham was the first member of the secular peerage who continued after his elevation to sign his name in full, "H. Brougham," which he did to show his continued sympathy with the class from which he sprang. Buckle remarked that the history of the peasantry of no European country has ever been written, or ever can ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various

... to our scientists, our statesmen, our economists, our authors, inventors, and scholars that we must look for counsel and reform: such secular aid is useless, and we shall be wise to rely entirely upon His Holiness the Pope and His Grace ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford

... of itself sufficient to impair faith in the modern creation, and simply demonstrates the fallacy of the theory that what can not be proven did not exist. If the same analysis to which the career of Columbus has been subjected should be applied to every character in sacred and secular history, there would be little left among the world's great heroes to admire. So we ask permission to retain the old ideal, and remember the discoverer of our hemisphere as a man of human weaknesses but of stern purpose, inflexible will, undaunted ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... above is a letter from a Manila Jesuit, relating events in that city during the year 1690-91. As in the lifetime of Pardo, there are dissensions between the ecclesiastical and the secular powers, the former represented by Bishop Barrientos, acting ruler of the archdiocese; the latter by the Audiencia until July, 1690, and after that by the new governor, Zabalburu. The bishop attempts to remove by force some of his prebends from ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin

... founded, a perfect college. It was only a house for some eight or ten graduates in arts who were studying divinity. The first perfect college was founded by Walter de Merton, the Chancellor of Henry III., to whom is due the conception of uniting the anti-monastic pursuit of secular learning with monastic seclusion and discipline, for the benefit of that multitude of young students who had hitherto dwelt at large in the city under little or no control, and often showed, by their faction fights and other outrages, that they contained ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... this morning in answering questions which my father put to me about secular things in England. This I did for the following reasons:—1. I had scarcely ever spoken about these things in my letters, indeed so little, that my father told me, he had often intended to ask me whether it was ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, First Part • George Mueller

... no doubt about his eagerness for the power which would have enabled him to carry out a reformation. As legate he demanded from the Pope authority to visit and reform the secular clergy as well as the monasteries; this was refused on the ground that it would have superseded the proper functions of the episcopate (L. and P., ii., ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... must have forgotten that Tolstoy, in proclaiming his ideas on religion and humanity, prepared himself, not for Epicurean pleasures, but for seclusion in one of the terrible dungeons of a Russian monastery (now in disuse) under the persecutions of a temporal and secular authority, and it was not his fault that, by a sort of ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky

... contain an eternal truth: but in their literal sense they expressed a mistaken judgment. The world—that is, secular society— did not pass away. It is with us still. For a period of some three hundred years it persecuted the Church. At the end of that period it accepted baptism, but not its implications. The Church has been ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson

... visit of an hour I learned much from him about the religious societies, the moral reforms, the "Dashaways,"—total abstinence societies, which had taken strong hold on the young and wilder parts of society,—and then of the Vigilance Committee, of which he was a member, and of more secular points ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... philosophies and ethical rules are invented to try to justify the new ways. The whole vast body of modern mores has thus been developed out of the philosophy and ethics of the Middle Ages. So the mores which have been developed to suit the system of great secular states, world commerce, credit institutions, contract wages and rent, emigration to outlying continents, etc., have become the norm for the whole body of usages, manners, ideas, faiths, customs, and institutions which embrace the whole life of a society and characterize an historical epoch. Thus ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... its peculiar impress of thought and reasoning in religious, not less than in secular matters. Although the gospel itself remains always the same, and those who sincerely embrace it have also substantially the same character from age to age, there is, nevertheless, continual progress and change in men's apprehension of the gospel and its institutions, and consequently ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows

... Here was another son gone, in a different way, beyond her reach. She had seen comparatively little of him since his University days; and though always a good and conscientious person, there had been nothing to draw her out of secular modes of thought; nor had she any connection with the clerical world, so that she had not, as it were, gone along with the tone of mind that she ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the worde of God withoute the exposition of the Fathers of the Churche, at leaste let them beleve St Chrisostome, and give eare to that which he hath written upon this place: That these thinges be comaunded to all men, saieth he, bothe to prestes and monckes, and not onely to secular or laymen, the Apostle declareth, even in the very begynnynge, when he saieth in this manner: Let every soule be subjecte unto their higher powers, thoughe thou were an apostle, thoughe thou were ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt

... miser to be studied, namely, Rigou,—Rigou, the miser-egoist; full of tenderness for his own gratifications, cold and hard to others; the ecclesiastical miser; the monk still a monk so far as he can squeeze the juice of the fruit called good-living, and becoming secular only to put a paw upon the public money. In the first place, let us explain the continual pleasure that he took in sleeping under ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... anonymous writer to whom we are indebted for information concerning his imprisonment and his subsequent life, says that Bunyan, "contenting himself with that little God had bestowed upon him, sequestered himself from all secular employments to follow that of his call to the ministry." The fact, however, that in the "deed of gift" of all his property to his wife in 1685, he still describes himself as a "brazier," puts it beyond all doubt that though his ministerial duties were his chief concern, he prudently kept fast hold ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables

... the hues of its own imagination, one composing an idyll, the other framing a melodrama, one imagining peasants as sentimental swains, the other convinced that the nobles are horrible tyrants.—Through this mutual misconception and this secular isolation, the French lose the habit, the art and the faculty for acting in an entire body. They are no longer capable of spontaneous agreement and collective action. No one, in the moment of danger, dares rely on his ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... himself emperor, celebrated, upon his arrival in Rome, the secular games, in the year 247 of the Christian era—that being the completion of a thousand years from the foundation of Rome. But Nemesis was already on his steps. An insurrection had broken out amongst the legions stationed in Moesia; and they had raised to the purple ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... I do not now speak of any power contained in the truths it inculcated to convert to Islam by the rousing and quickening of spiritual impulses; for that lies beyond my present purpose, which is to inquire whether there is not in material causes and secular motives enough in themselves to account for success. I speak rather of the effect of the indulgences granted by Islam, on the one hand, as calculated to attract; and of the restraints imposed and sacrifices ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir

... other boys; they are a sort of laity to him. All this proceeds, I have no doubt, from the continual consciousness which he carries about him, of the difference of his dress from that of the rest of the world; with a modest jealousy over himself, lest, by overhastily mixing with common and secular playfellows, he should commit the dignity of his cloth. Nor let any one laugh at this; for, considering the propensity of the multitude, and especially of the small multitude, to ridicule anything unusual in dress—above all, where such peculiarity may be construed by malice into a ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... termination to have been the beginning of the reign of secularism. He says: "Up to the period of the Thirty Years' War religion was the chief moving power of the time. The question regarding the confession prevailed over everything, and even secular questions, that they might excite interest and be carried, were compelled to clothe themselves in the garb of religion. But the result of the Thirty Years' War was indifference, not only to the confession, but to religion in general. Ever since that period secular ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... I was particularly struck with, as what I recognized so very lately at Harrow Church on entering in it after a hot and secular day's pleasure,—the instantaneous coolness and calming, almost transforming, properties of a country church just entered; a certain fragrance which it has, either from its holiness, or being kept shut all the week, or the air that is let in being pure country,—exactly what you have reduced into ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... proportion as Spain herself. Large estates came into possession of the church, and in the city of Santo Domingo imposing churches and spacious cloisters were erected, which still stand, either in ruins or used for religious or secular purposes. There were three monasteries, two nunneries, and some ten churches and ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich

... received with a certain momentary respect—as though some beautiful old lady should stroll up to a battery of artillery, engaged in some difficult and dangerous attack, and offer her advice as to the sighting and management of the guns. The modern clergyman's interference in the working out of the secular problems of modern life has no such picturesque beauty—and it ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne

... and every needed assistance. You will not permit that any of the other communities shall in any way interfere with their edifices, or with their worldly matters or concerns, or, in short, with any of their affairs, either secular or religious, that thus they may be free to exercise the usages ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson

... scarce dare to read his own; gloating on the rhythm, dwelling with delight on assonances and alliterations. I know very well my mother must have been all the while trying to educate my taste upon more secular authors; but the vigour and the continual opportunities of my nurse triumphed, and after a long search, I can find in these earliest volumes of my autobiography no mention of anything but nursery rhymes, the Bible, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... her life Theodora made the monastery or convent of S. Andrew in Krisei her home.[165] To retire thus from the troubled sea of secular life to the haven of a monastery, and there prepare for the voyage beyond earthly scenes, was a common practice in the fashionable world of the men and women of Byzantine days. And it was natural for a wealthy traveller to leave at the port of call ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen

... that in delineating the early career of Badman, 'Bunyan drew the picture of his own boyhood.'[15] But the difference is broadly given. Badman is the child of pious parents, who gave him a 'good education' in every sense, both moral and secular;[16] the very reverse of Bunyan's training. His associates would enable him to draw the awful character and conduct of Badman, as a terrible example to deter others from the downward road to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... appointed commissioners to examine into the conditions of their episcopal brethren. Convocation was about to meet, and must undergo a preliminary purification. Unhappy Convocation! So lately the supreme legislative body in the country, it was now patched, clipped, mended, repaired, or altered, as the secular government put on its alternate hues. The Protestant bishops had accepted their offices on Protestant terms—Quamdiu se bene gesserint, on their good behaviour; and, with the assistance of so pliant a clause, a swift clearance ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude

... pride, or laziness, with a pretended acquiescence in the unexamined opinions of men who very probably never examined their own opinions themselves, but professed those which lay nearest at hand, and which best suited their base secular interest." Vol. II, ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... Quin's account of Haines in Davies's Miscellanies; Tom Brown's Works; Lives of Sharpers; Dryden's Epilogue to the Secular Masque.] ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... moment was broken by the arrival of the first of the guests. It was Keruish, the churchwarden, a very-secular person, deep in the dumps over a horse which he had bought at Castletown fair the week before (with money cheated out of Davy), and lost by an attack of the worms that morning. "Butts in the stomach, sir," he moaned; "they're bad, ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine

... secular buildings of Rouen, the Palais de Justice holds the chief place, whether we consider the magnificence of the building, or the importance of the assemblies which once ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner

... convinced of the immorality of that person. He had a bluff jolly way of speaking, and was popular in his parish—a good cricketer, a still better fisherman, a fair shot, though, as he said, he could not really afford time for shooting. While disclaiming interference in secular matters, he watched the tendencies of his flock from a sound point of view, and especially encouraged them to support the existing order of things—the British Empire and the English Church. His cure was hereditary, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... national Church, and secure for themselves and children Catholic faith and worship in the Book of Common Prayer. They builded wiser than they knew. They secured for the Church self-government, free from all secular control. They preserved the traditions of the past, and yet every feature of executive, legislative, and judicial administration was in harmony with the Constitution of the Republic. They gave the laity a voice in the council of the Church; they provided that bishops and clergy should ...
— Five Sermons • H.B. Whipple

... of the Puritans, and the habit of discussing all manner of secular concerns in meeting, originated this same ability in America. To this, more than to aught else, do we owe the growth of our country. One hundred Americans, transplanted to the wild West and left alone, will, in one week, have a mayor, and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... sum of sciences,—seven, according to the Florentine mind—necessary to the secular education of man and woman. Of these the modern average respectable English gentleman and gentlewoman know usually only a little of the last, and entirely hate the prudent applications of that: being unacquainted, ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin

... power, he had relinquished a few of the royal prerogatives. He had thus far evaded many of the claims which had been made upon him, and which he had partially promised to grant, and now, being both king and emperor, he was disposed to grasp all power, both secular and ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... a few coming all the way from Hawthorne, among these Enderby, the Cockney butcher, and his wife and daughter, and as soon as Ringfield had made a few appropriate remarks, couched this time in safe and secular terms, the first number was given, consisting of an orchestral selection by four players belonging to St. Ignace and to the choir of Father Rielle's big church, St. Jean-Baptiste-on-the-Hill. A cornet, two fiddles and a flute ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison

... Benefit of Clergy; Partial Codification; The Statute of Westminster I; Law Extended to All People; Labor Makes Men Free; The Freedom of Elections; "Cruel and Unusual Punishment"; Sexual Offences Made Secular Crimes; Earliest Duties on Imports; Early Duties on Wool; ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... grieved to hear such sentiments from you, Mr. Worthing. They savour of the heretical views of the Anabaptists, views that I have completely refuted in four of my unpublished sermons. However, as your present mood seems to be one peculiarly secular, I will return to the church at once. Indeed, I have just been informed by the pew-opener that for the last hour and a half Miss Prism has been waiting for me in ...
— The Importance of Being Earnest - A Trivial Comedy for Serious People • Oscar Wilde

... Burleigh, Dr. Elder, and Rev. Edward Smith, three giants in those days, and there seemed no hope that any anti-slavery paper could be supported in Pittsburg, while all anti-slavery matter was carefully excluded from both religious and secular press. It was a dark day for the slave, and it was difficult to see hope for a brighter. To me, it seemed that all was lost, unless some one were especially called to speak that truth, which alone could make ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm

... work dear brother White is doing, but some criticise the idea of his opening the house of God every evening for amusements as well as prayer. Some don't believe in mingling secular things ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley

... intelligent; but he had only one thing to read for many weeks, a vapid French novel. He said he would willingly read something better if he had it. At the next French town I searched for some better book, and this caused me to find the agent of the Bible Society, and so a parcel of books, religious and secular, were sent off to the telegraph station; but my attention once drawn to the French soldiers and their reading, it was impossible not to follow a subject so interesting and important. The regiment quartered in ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor

... keep me here somewhat longer than I had intended to stay. On the other hand, it has opened to me sources of information and facilities for observation which I could not, in a brief visit to a land of strangers, have otherwise hoped to enjoy. I spend each secular day at the Exhibition—generally from 10 to 3 o'clock—and have my evenings for other pursuits and thoughts. I propose here to jot down a few of the notes on London I have made since the sailing of ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... have to repent. Moreover, they must read Burns a little more, and cavaliers and Jacobites a little less. As it is, their efforts have been as yet exactly in that direction which would most safely secure the blessings of undisturbed obscurity. Whether "secular" or "spiritual," they have thought proper to adopt a certain Tommy-good- child tone, which, whether to Glasgow artisans or Dorsetshire labourers, or indeed for any human being who is "grinding among the iron facts of life," is, to say the least, ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... transformed into the headquarters for the new school, which I called BRAHMACHARYA VIDYALAYA {FN27-1} in accordance with the educational ideals of the rishis. Their forest ashrams had been the ancient seats of learning, secular and divine, for ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... were used, partly as commercial exchanges, partly as halls of justice. It is still often said that the Christian basilicas were merely adaptations of such buildings to sacred purposes. Some of the features of the Christian plan are akin to those of the secular basilica. The apse with its semi-circular range of seats and its altar reproduces the judicial tribune, with its seats for the praetor and his assistant judges, and its altar on which oaths were taken. The open galleries, ...
— The Ground Plan of the English Parish Church • A. Hamilton Thompson

... condemnation of all was in the same words, "that the Holy Inquisition found it impossible, on account of the hardness of their hearts and the magnitude of their crimes, to pardon them. With great concern it handed them over to secular justice to undergo the penalty of the laws; exhorting the authorities at the same time to show clemency and mercy towards the unhappy wretches, and if they must suffer death, that at all events it might be without the spilling of blood." What mockery was this apparent intercession ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... marriage or otherwise, in the business of this life; out of which would flow nepotism, Simony, and Erastian submission to those sovereigns who ought to be the servants, not the lords of the Church. For this end no means were too costly. St. Dunstan, in order to expel the married secular priests, and replace them by Benedictine monks of the Italian order of Monte Casino, convulsed England, drove her into civil war, paralysed her monarchs one after the other, and finally left her exhausted and imbecile, a prey to the invading Northmen: but he had at least done his best ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley

... sidewalks that lead to Elm Crest on Elm Street, they all fell to singing that tune; and as one good tune deserved another, and as they were going to practice the funeral music that evening, they sang other tunes of a highly secular nature that need not be enumerated here. And as Miss Mueller had a substantial dinner folded snugly within her, and the ambition of her life was looming but a few blocks ahead of her, she walked closer to Mr. Fenn, county attorney in and for Greeley county, than was really necessary. So ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... three preceding centuries, Milan, the oldest archbishopric of Lombardy, had been the central point at which the collision between the secular and ecclesiastical power took place in Europe. The Guelph and Ghibelline naturally met and warred throughout the plain of Lombardy; but the intense civic stubbornness and courage of the Milanese population formed a kind of rock in their tide-way, ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... generous co-operation; the government scheme of elementary Bible-reading, though more widely favoured, was so feebly advocated that its opponents could with some justice pronounce it a "farce"; and finally the secular party won the day by a considerable majority. Nothing was left to the Churches of the land but the opportunity for their ministers to enter the schools, before or after school hours, and to give instruction to such children as ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas

... other cases suffice to account for every ascertained corruption of the text. But it is far otherwise here, as I propose to make fully apparent by and by. Various disturbing influences have been at work for a great many years, of which secular productions know absolutely nothing, ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon

... brethren there (1585?) to ask the king that more religious be sent to the Philippines and to other Oriental lands; that these friars be sent from Spain by way of India instead of Nueva Espana; that the authorities of India, secular and ecclesiastical, be commanded to aid the friars in their missionary journeys; that the latter be permitted to build monasteries as they may choose, "in remote and infidel lands," without awaiting government permission; and that the authorities at Manila be not allowed to send, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair

... magisterial authority this secular day has been hushed into the sacred quiet of a national Sabbath. From savannahs and prairies, from valleys and mountains, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, more than fifty millions of freemen have been invited to gather around the altars of the God of our fathers, and pour forth the libation of ...
— 'America for Americans!' - The Typical American, Thanksgiving Sermon • John Philip Newman



Words linked to "Secular" :   mundane, common man, sophisticated, common person, lay, commoner, laity, sacred, impious, material, earthly, temporalty, unworldly, profanatory, materialistic, layperson, clergyman, secular humanism, lay reader, economic, terrestrial, worldly-minded, mercenary, religious



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