In the primitive church, it was customary for the Holy Eucharist to be celebrated on the anniversary of the death of a martyr - if possible, on his tomb.Collection: Death
History, whether sacred or profane, hides her teaching from those who study her through coloured glasses. She only reveals truth to those who look through the cold clear medium of passionless inquiry, who seek the Truth without determining first the masquerade in which alone they will receive it.Collection: Alone
At the Norman Invasion, the Saxon thanes were themselves humbled in turn; the manors were given a more legal character and transferred to favourites of William the Conqueror.Collection: Legal
Happiness is only attained by the free will agreeing in its freedom to accord with the will of God.Collection: Happiness
I went to Iceland in 1861 and went over nearly every bit of the ground made famous by the adventures of Grettir.Collection: Famous
The fold is that place where He keeps His flock shut behind the hurdles of the Ten Commandments. Every now and then, a sheep leaps one of these hurdles or pushes his way between them and runs away into forbidden pastures. Then the Good Shepherd goes after the erring sheep and brings it back.
The love of Louis XVI for mechanical works is well known. He had a little workshop at Versailles where he amused himself making locks, assisted by Francois Gamain, to whom he was much attached and with whom he spent many hours in projecting and executing mechanical contrivances.
As a boy, I had an uncle, T. G. Bond, who lived near Moreton Hampstead and who was passionately devoted to Dartmoor. He inspired me with the same love.
Cornish wrestling was very different from that in Devon - it was less brutal, as no kicking was allowed.
The Breton peasant is said to have a hard head. He is obstinate and resists outside pressure to alter his creed or his customs.
In Ireland, the tribes are called after the founder, as the Hy Conaill, Hy Fiachra, or sons of Conal, sons of Fiech, through grand, great-grand, and great-great-grandchildren.
Each man seeks his own interest, not the general interest. Let his own selfish interests be touched, and all concord is at an end.
God's truth is helped by no man's ignorance.
I have wandered over Europe, have rambled to Iceland, climbed the Alps, been for some years lodged among the marshes of Essex - yet nothing that I have seen has quenched in me the longing after the fresh air, and love of the wild scenery, of Dartmoor.
The great majority of the nobility and gentry of England clung to the doctrine and ceremonies of the ancient church, and yet were united in determination to oppose the papal claims.
Among the old Norse, it was the custom for certain warriors to dress in the skins of the beasts they had slain, and thus to give themselves an air of ferocity, calculated to strike terror into the hearts of their foes.
The universal practice of closing the eyes of the dead may be thought to have originated in the desire that he might be prevented from seeing his way.
Cornwall, peopled mainly by Celts, but with an infusion of English blood, stands and always has stood apart from the rest of England, much, but in a less degree, as has Wales.
The original settlers in Iceland were the nobles of Norway who left their native land to avoid the tyranny of Harold Fairhair, who tried to crush their power so as to make himself a despotic king in the land.
Dartmoor proper consists of that upland region of granite, rising to nearly 2,000 feet above the sea, and actually shooting above that height at a few points, which is the nursery of many of the rivers of Devon.
Mediaeval mythology, rich and gorgeous, is a compound like Corinthian brass, into which many pure ores have been fused, or it is a full turbid river drawn from numerous feeders, which had their sources in remote climes.
The Welsh have everywhere adopted the Cymric tongue; they hug themselves in the belief that they are pure descendants of the ancient Britons, but in fact, they are rather Silurians than Celts.
A residence of many years in Yorkshire, and an inveterate habit of collecting all kinds of odd and out-of-the-way information concerning men and matters, furnished me, when I left Yorkshire in 1872, with a large amount of material, collected in that county, relating to its eccentric children.
One of the great advantages of the study of old Norse or Icelandic literature is the insight given by it into the origin of world-wide superstitions. Norse tradition is transparent as glacier ice, and its origin is as unmistakable.
In the depths of the moor, the peat may be seen riven like floes of ice, and the rifts are sometimes twelve to fourteen feet deep, cut through black vegetable matter, the product of decay of plants through countless generations.
It is somewhat remarkable that Cornwall has produced no musical genius of any note, and yet the Cornishman is akin to the Welshman and the Irishman.
English churchmen have long gazed with love on the primitive church as the ideal of Christian perfection, the Eden wherein the first fathers of their faith walked blameless before God and passionless towards each other.
Man, double-faced by nature, is placed by Revelation under a sharp, precise external rule, controlling his actions and his thoughts.
I gave up the notion of writing the life of Joan of Arc, as I found that there was absolutely no new material to be gleaned on her history - in fact, she had been thrashed out.
Brittany can hardly claim the attention of the tourist as a superlatively beautiful country. The way in which trees are clipped and tortured out of shape disfigures the sylvan landscape; and of mountain scenery, there is none.
The charm of Brittany is to be found in the people and in the churches. The former, with their peculiar costumes and their customs, are full of interest, and the latter are of remarkable beauty and quaintness.
The north coast of Brittany is eaten into bays from which the sea retreats to considerable distances, and is fringed with reefs and islands. It is a favourite resort of Parisians throughout its stretch, from Dinard to Plestin.
The martyrologies are catalogues in which are to be found the names of the saints with the days and places of their deaths and, generally, with the distinctive character of their sanctity and with an historic summary of their lives.
The Saints are the elect children of the spouse of Christ, the precious fruit of her body; they are her crown of glory. And when these dear children quit her to reap their eternal reward, the mother retains precious memorials of them and holds up their example to her other children to encourage them to follow their glorious traces.
Saint Mochua was the son of a certain Cronan, of noble race, and spent his youth in fighting. At the age of thirty, he laid aside his arms and burnt a house, with all its contents, which had been given to him by his uncle, saying that a servant of Christ should take nothing from sinners.
Saint Ignatius was a convert and disciple of S. John the Evangelist. He was appointed by S. Peter to succeed Evodius in the see of Antioch, and he continued in his bishopric full forty years.
Ireland was, of old, called the Isle of Saints because of the great number of holy ones of both sexes who flourished there in former ages or who, coming thence, propagated the faith amongst other nations.
In art, S. Bridget is usually represented with her perpetual flame as a symbol, sometimes with a column of fire, said to have been seen above her head when she took the veil.
Verdiana was the child of poor though well-born parents, and her knowledge of the sufferings of the poor from her own experience in early years made her ever full of pity for those in need.
In winter, the Icelanders told the tales of the brave men of old in their families, and so the tradition was handed on from father to son, the same stories told every winter, till all the particulars became well known.
About two hundred or two hundred and fifty years after the death of Grettir, his history was committed to writing, and then it became fixed - nothing further was added to it, and we have his story after having travelled down over two hundred years as a tradition.
According to Celtic law, all sons equally divided the inheritance and principalities of their father.
When the British became Christian, Christianity in no way altered their political organisation.
The Celtic Church as we know it, till gradually brought under Roman discipline, was purely monastic. The monasteries were the centres whence the ministry of souls was exercised.
Black was not the universal hue of mourning in Europe. In Castile, white obtained on the death of its princes.
In North Germany, a troublesome ghost is bagged, and the bag emptied in some lone spot or in the garden of a neighbour against whom a grudge is entertained.
In 1559, Duke Frederick III was summoned before the Emperor Ferdinand I at Breslau to answer the accusations of extravagance and oppression brought against him by the Silesian Estates and was deposed, imprisoned, and his son Henry XI given the Ducal crown instead.
In France, successive waves of Gaul, Visigoth, and Frank have swept over the land and have dominated it. But the fair hair and blue eyes and the clear skin of the conquering races have been submerged by the rising and overflow of the dusky blood of the original population.
The Dumnonii, whose city or fortress was at Exeter, were an important people. They occupied the whole of the peninsula from the River Parret to Land's End. East of the Tamar was Dyfnaint, the Deep Vales; west of it Corneu, the horn of Britain.
The Devonian and Cornishman will be found by the visitor to be courteous and hospitable. There is no roughness of manner where unspoiled by periodic influx of strangers; he is kindly, tender-hearted, and somewhat suspicious.