Fear

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  4:5, this great theologian stops with saying, that, in justification, an act of faith is required to the extent that a man believe that God is the justifier of men through the atonement of Christ.1814 The Schoolmen did not understand Paul. The Reformers were obliged to re-proclaim the doctrine of justifying faith as taught in the epistles to the Romans and the Galatians. On the other hand, it is the merit of the Schoolmen that they emphasize the principle, that true faith worketh by love and that all other faith is vain, inanis. The failure of Protestant theologians always to set this forth distinctly has exposed the Protestant doctrine to the charge that faith is sufficient, even if it be unaccompanied by good works, or works of love towards God and man.1815 The fault of the Schoolmen lay chiefly in their unscriptural and dangerous theory of sacramental grace which led to the substitution of a series of outward exercises, recommended by the priest, for simple trust in Christ’s free grace. § 121. The Future State. The unseen world of spirits was divided by the mediaeval theology into five distinct regions or abodes,—receptacula animarum,—as Thomas Aquinas calls them—heaven, hell, purgatory, the limbus patrum, or the temporary abode of the Old Testament saints, and the limbus infantum, or the abode of children who die without being baptized. Hell, the place of punishment or eternal dolors,1816 is the lake of sulphur and fire in which lost men and demons suffer eternal torment. It is a region of jet darkness, a deep prison as compared with heaven, into which the demons are thrust down.1817 The longings and passions of those confined there go on continually burning and are never satisfied. Its fires burn but do not consume. No other heat can compare with its heat.1818 The Schoolmen are agreed that the passages of Scripture, bearing on the fire of hell, are not figurative. The fire is material fire which afflicts both the spirits and bodies of the lost.1819 The degree of torture is according to the desert. The limbus patrum corresponds to Abraham’s bosom in the parable of Dives and Lazarus, the place where the worthies of the Old Testament dwelt till Christ descended into hades and released them. Before that time they enjoyed exemption from pain. Since then they have enjoyed heavenly bliss. Circumcision released them from original sin. Hell and this locality are probably in the same region or, at any rate, contiguous.1820 The view, that the patriarchs remained in hades till Christ’s death, goes back to Hermas and Clement of Alexandria. The limbus puerorum or infantum is the abode of children dying in infancy without having been baptized. They are there for original sin which only baptism can wash away.1821 According to Thomas Aquinas, this region is probably a little lower than the limbus patrum. These children are free from pain, but are like the lost in being deprived of the vision of God and physical light.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The jealous wretch, who thought to have very adroitly surprised his wife's secrets, hearing this, avouched himself befooled and without answering otherwhat, held the lady for virtuous and discreet; and whenas it behoved him to be jealous, he altogether divested himself of his jealousy, even as he had put it on, what time he had no need thereof. Wherefore the discreet lady, being in a manner licensed to do her pleasures, thenceforward no longer caused her lover to come to her by the roof, as go the cats, but e'en brought him in at the door, and dealing advisedly, many a day thereafter gave herself a good time and led a merry life with him." THE SIXTH STORY [Day the Seventh] MADAM ISABELLA, BEING IN COMPANY WITH LEONETTO HER LOVER, IS VISITED BY ONE MESSER LAMBERTUCCIO, OF WHOM SHE IS BELOVED; HER HUSBAND RETURNING, [UNEXPECTED,] SHE SENDETH LAMBERTUCCIO FORTH OF THE HOUSE, WHINGER IN HAND, AND THE HUSBAND AFTER ESCORTETH LEONETTO HOME The company were wonder-well pleased with Fiammetta's story, all affirming that the lady had done excellently well and as it behoved unto such a brute of a man, and after it was ended, the king bade Pampinea follow on, who proceeded to say, "There are many who, speaking ignorantly, avouch that love bereaveth folk of their senses and causeth whoso loveth to become witless. Meseemeth this is a foolish opinion, as hath indeed been well enough shown by the things already related, and I purpose yet again to demonstrate it. In our city, which aboundeth in all good things, there was once a young lady both gently born and very fair, who was the wife of a very worthy and notable gentleman; and as it happeneth often that folk cannot for ever brook one same food, but desire bytimes to vary their diet, this lady, her husband not altogether satisfying her, became enamoured of a young man called Leonetto and very well bred and agreeable, for all he was of no great extraction. He on like wise fell in love with her, and as you know that seldom doth that which both parties desire abide without effect, it was no great while before accomplishment was given to their loves. Now it chanced that, she being a fair and engaging lady, a gentleman called Messer Lambertuccio became sore enamoured of her, whom, for that he seemed to her a disagreeable man and a tiresome, she could not for aught in the world bring herself to love. However, after soliciting her amain with messages and it availing him nought, he sent to her threatening her, for that he was a notable man, to dishonour her, an she did not his pleasure; wherefore she, fearful and knowing his character, submitted herself to do his will.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  CREIGHTON HORTON: You also indicated to our investigators that you weren’t ashamed to be characterized as a religious fanatic? DAN LAFFERTY: No, I have no problem with that. * In August 1995, during the endless rounds of motions and hearings that preceded Ron Lafferty’s retrial, there happened to be an occasion when both Dan and Ron were hauled into Judge Steven Hansen’s Provo courtroom at the same time. Their eyes met, and Ron offered a friendly greeting: “Hey, Bro, what’s happening?” “Good to see you,” Dan replied with a smile. It was the first time the brothers had spoken to each other in eleven years, since they were confined together in the Utah County Jail. Despite the cordial exchange in Judge Hansen’s court, by 1995 Dan had come to believe that Ron was a “child of the devil”—an agent of Satan who was bound and determined to kill Dan in order to prevent him from fulfilling the rest of the vital mission God has given Dan to carry out. Dan actually had good reason to believe that Ron wanted to end his life, because the last time they were together he had tried to do just that, and very nearly succeeded. It had happened in December 1984, five months after the murders, while they were sharing a cell in the Utah County Jail as they awaited trial. Dan was lying in his bunk trying to sleep, he remembers, when “I had a funny feeling and opened my eyes to catch Ron creeping up on me.” Discovered in the act, Ron stopped and went back to his own bunk. “But then,” Dan says, “curiously, he asked me if I thought he would be able to kill someone as big as me, and I answered, ‘Yes, I suppose so.’ ” From that moment, Dan resolved to watch his back. The rest of that night passed without incident. The next day, however, while Dan was standing in their cell, he says, Ron “blindsided me in the left temple with a roundhouse haymaker that stunned me but didn’t knock me out.” As Dan turned to face his attacker, Ron unleashed a flurry of blows, smashing Dan’s nose, loosening several of his teeth, and breaking a rib. Dan, who kept his hands by his sides and offered no resistance, says Ron didn’t stop beating him “until his hands hurt too bad to hit me anymore. There was blood all over the floor and walls.” At the time, Dan attributed the assault to problems Ron was having with “bad spirits.” After the beating, their jailers separated the brothers, placing them in adjoining cells. Not long thereafter, Ron handed Dan a piece of paper through the bars. Written on it was a revelation Ron said he’d just received, in which God commanded Dan to let Ron kill him. After praying for guidance, Dan says, “I felt that I should submit to what it said, and we discussed how it might be done.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  They castrated him, cut his throat, sliced off one of his ears, and shot him two or three times. As Joseph had preached three years earlier, some sins were so heinous that the only way the guilty party could atone for them was to “spill his blood upon the ground, and let the smoke thereof ascend up to God.” By now passions were at flash point on both sides of the conflict. Posses of enraged Mormons and Gentiles ranged back and forth across the county in a rampage of arson and plunder, burning more than two hundred homes. Worried that Hancock County was again on the brink of full-blown civil war, Governor Thomas Ford dispatched four hundred troops to Nauvoo, along with a committee of respected dignitaries (including renowned statesman Stephen A. Douglas) who were implored to negotiate a lasting solution to the hostilities. It had become clear to Brigham that there was no future for the Saints anywhere near Hancock County. On September 24 he sent a letter to Governor Ford’s blue-ribbon committee saying that in return for a cease-fire from the Gentiles, the Mormons would promise to vacate not only Illinois but the whole of the United States: they would depart the following spring, as soon as the prairie grass along their intended route west was high enough to provide forage for their beasts of burden. The Gentiles agreed to the deal on the first of October, giving the Saints a window of relative peace in which to build wagons and stockpile supplies in preparation for their mass evacuation. For the Saints’ next homeland, Brigham Young wanted to find a place that was both a long way from civilization and would seem repugnant to Gentile settlers, so that his people might live free from persecution. After considering Oregon, California, and Canada’s Vancouver Island, he and his counselors decided the Saints would make their final stand amid the sparsely inhabited deserts of the Great Basin, which at the time belonged to Mexico. The Saints didn’t intend to abandon the City of Joseph until the weather warmed, but when news arrived that a warrant had been issued for Brigham’s arrest on charges of harboring counterfeiters, an earlier departure suddenly seemed like a good idea. * On February 4, 1846, the first platoon of Mormon emigrants boarded flatboats at the Nauvoo dock, rowed west across the dark, near-freezing waters of the Mississippi River, and clambered uncertainly onto the Iowa shore, which was still in the iron grip of winter. The great exodus was launched. Disillusioned by Joseph’s murder, as well as by disturbing rumors of clandestine debaucheries practiced by their leaders, hundreds of Mormons had split away from the church in the preceding months. * But the overwhelming majority loaded up whatever possessions would fit into their wagons, abandoned the rest to their enemies, and followed Brigham into the wilderness.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  then Chloe Low, then Richard Stowe. And it is My will that they be removed in rapid succession and that an example be made of them in order that others might see the fate of those who fight against the true Saints of God. And it is My will that this matter be taken care of as soon as possible and I will prepare a way for My instrument to be delivered and instructions be given unto My servant Todd. * And it is My will that he show great care in his duties for I have raised him up and prepared him for this important work and is he not like unto My servant Porter Rockwell[?] † And great blessings await him if he will do My Will, for I am the Lord thy God and have control over all things. Be still and know that I am with thee. Even so Amen. Upon receiving this revelation, before sharing it with others in the School of the Prophets, Ron showed it to Dan. “Ron was a little bit frightened by the things he was receiving,” says Dan. “I told him, ‘Well, I can see why you’re concerned, as well you should be. . . . All I can say is make sure it’s from God. You don’t want to act on commandments that are not from God, but at the same time you don’t want to offend God by refusing to do his work.” Over the days that followed, both Ron and Dan pondered the removal revelation intensely. During this period Ron had yet another revelation, in which he was told that he was “the mouth of God” and Dan was “the arm of God.” The brothers interpreted this to mean that Dan was to do the actual killing. Seeking further guidance, they considered a passage near the beginning of The Book of Mormon in which Nephi—the obedient, highly principled prophet “who had great desires to know the mysteries of God”—is commanded by the Lord to cut off the head of Laban of Jerusalem—a scheming, filthy-rich sheep magnate who turns up in the pages of both The Book of Mormon and the Old Testament. Nephi at first resists the commandment: “I said in my heart, never at any time have I shed the blood of man, and I shrunk and would that I might not slay him.” But then God speaks to Nephi again: “Behold the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth His righteous purposes: It is better that one man should perish, than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief.” Thus reassured, Nephi says in The Book of Mormon, “I did obey the voice of the Spirit, and took Laban by the hair of the head, and I smote off his head with his own sword.” *

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  eight miles past Fredonia (population 1,036, the second-largest town on the Strip), Colorado City suddenly materializes in the middle of nowhere: a sprawl of small businesses and unusually large homes squatting beneath a towering escarpment of vermilion sandstone called Canaan Mountain. All but a handful of the town’s residents are Mormon Fundamentalists. They live in this patch of desert in the hope of being left alone to follow the sacred principle of plural marriage without interference from government authorities or the LDS Church. Straddling the Utah-Arizona border, Colorado City is home to at least three Mormon Fundamentalist sects, including the world’s largest: the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. More commonly known as the United Effort Plan, or UEP, it requires its members live in strict accordance with the commandments of a frail, ninety-two-year-old tax accountant–turned– prophet named Rulon T. Jeffs. * “Uncle Rulon,” as he is known to his followers, traces his divinely ordained leadership in an unbroken chain that leads directly back to Joseph Smith himself. Although his feeble bearing would seem to make him poorly cast for the role, the residents of Colorado City believe that Uncle Rulon is the “one mighty and strong” whose coming was prophesied by Joseph in 1832. “A lot of people here are convinced Uncle Rulon is going to live forever,” says DeLoy Bateman, a forty-eight-year-old science teacher at Colorado City High School. Not only was DeLoy born and raised in this faith, but his forebears were some of the religion’s most illustrious figures: his great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather were among the thirteen founding members of the Mormon Fundamentalist Church, and his adoptive grandfather, LeRoy Johnson, was the prophet who immediately preceded Uncle Rulon as the leader of Colorado City. At the moment, DeLoy is driving his thirdhand Chevy van on a dirt road on the outskirts of town. One of his two wives and eight of his seventeen children are riding in the back. Suddenly he hits the brakes, and the van lurches to a stop on the shoulder. “Now there’s an interesting sight,” DeLoy declares, sizing up the wreckage of a television satellite dish behind some sagebrush off the side of the road. “Looks like somebody had to get rid of their television. Hauled it out of town and dumped it.” Members of the religion, he explains, are forbidden to watch television or read magazines or newspapers. The temptations of the outside world loom large,

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Not long after this it chanced that, by Crivello's contrivance, Giacomino went to sup with a friend of his, whereupon Crivello gave Giannole to know thereof and appointed with him that, whenas he made a certain signal, he should come and would find the door open. The maid, on her side, knowing nothing of all this, let Minghino know that Giacomino was to sup abroad and bade him abide near the house, so that, whenas he saw a signal which she should make he might come and enter therein. The evening come, the two lovers, knowing nothing of each other's designs, but each misdoubting of his rival, came, with sundry companions armed, to enter into possession. Minghino, with his troop took up his quarters in the house of a friend of his, a neighbour of the young lady's; whilst Giannole and his friends stationed themselves at a little distance from the house. Meanwhile, Crivello and the maid, Giacomino being gone, studied each to send the other away. Quoth he to her, 'Why dost thou not get thee to bed? Why goest thou still wandering about the house?' 'And thou,' retorted she, 'why goest thou not for thy master? What awaitest thou here, now that thou hast supped?' And so neither could make other avoid the place; but Crivello, seeing the hour come that he had appointed with Giannole said in himself, 'What reck I of her? An she abide not quiet, she is like to smart for it.' Accordingly, giving the appointed signal, he went to open the door, whereupon Giannole, coming up in haste with two companions, entered and finding the young lady in the saloon, laid hands on her to carry her off. The girl began to struggle and make a great outcry, as likewise did the maid, which Minghino hearing, he ran thither with his companions and seeing the young lady being presently dragged out at the door, they pulled out their swords and cried all, 'Ho, traitors, ye are dead men! The thing shall not go thus. What is this violence?' So saying, they fell to hewing at them, whilst the neighbors, issuing forth at the clamour with lights and arms, began to blame Giannole's behaviour and to second Minghino; wherefore, after long contention, the latter rescued the young lady from his rival and restored her to Giacomino's house. But, before the fray was over, up came the town-captain's officers and arrested many of them; and amongst the rest Minghino and Giannole and Crivello were taken and carried off to prison. After matters were grown quiet again, Giacomino returned home and was sore chagrined at that which had happened; but, enquiring how it had come about and finding that the girl was nowise at fault, he was somewhat appeased and determined in himself to marry her as quickliest he might, so the like should not again betide.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  But polygamy is a crime in all fifty states, as well as in Canada, and police officers are sworn to uphold the law. This point became problematic for Chief Roundy on February 6, 2002, when Ruth Stubbs—the third wife of one of his police officers—fled Colorado City with her two children and appeared on the evening news in Phoenix, complaining that she had been beaten by her husband, Rodney Holm, and that polygamy is intrinsically abusive. Ruth, nineteen when she left Holm and visibly pregnant with her third child, had been pulled out of school following the sixth grade. Immediately after her sixteenth birthday, she was summoned to a meeting with Uncle Rulon and his son Warren Jeffs, who informed her that in twenty-four hours she would be marrying Officer Holm—a handsome, taciturn man who was exactly twice as old as she was. Ruth had wanted to marry someone else, a boy much closer to her own age. When she balked at becoming Holm’s plural wife and asked for some time to consider her options, her older sister Suzie Stubbs—one of the two women already married to the police officer—called Ruth “an asshole for doing that to Rod.” Suzie leaned hard on Ruth to become Holm’s third wife, until Ruth finally caved in and married him. “They told me who to marry,” Ruth asserted after she escaped from Colorado City. “I think women should have the right to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’—to have the right to say what’s going on in their lives.” Not only had Holm broken the law by marrying three women, he had committed statutory rape—a felony in both Utah and Arizona—by having sexual intercourse with Ruth when she was sixteen. To date, the Colorado City police department has not disciplined Officer Holm, who is acting like the aggrieved party in this dispute. Assisted by UEP attorneys, Rodney Holm is presently trying to obtain legal custody of Ruth’s children so they can be “raised with FLDS values,” in the company of his other eighteen kids. In October 2002, the Utah attorney general’s office charged Holm with felony bigamy and three counts of unlawful sex for his relationship with Ruth. The state’s case against Rodney Holm is crippled, however, by a rather significant impediment: in November 2002, Ruth Stubbs disappeared after submitting a signed, handwritten note to the court stating that she did not want Holm to “go to jail!” and refusing to testify against him. As an editorial in the St. George daily

• From Trash (1988)

  At any moment of the day we know what she will be doing, where she will be, and what she will probably be talking about. We know, not only because her days are as set and predictable as the schedule by which she does the laundry, we know in our bodies. Our mother’s body is with us in its details. She is recreated in each of us; strength of bone and the skin curling over the thick flesh the women of our family have always worn. When I visit Mama, I always look first to her hands and feet to reassure myself. The skin of her hands is transparent—large-veined, wrinkled, and bruised—while her feet are soft with the lotions I rubbed into them every other night of my childhood. That was a special thing between my mother and me, the way she’d give herself the care of my hands, lying across the daybed, telling me stories of what she’d served down at the truck stop, who had complained and who tipped specially well, and most important, who had said what and what she’d said back. I would sit at her feet, laughing and nodding and stroking away the tightness in her muscles, watching the way her mouth would pull taut while under her pale eyelids the pulse of her eyes moved like kittens behind a blanket. Sometimes my love for her would choke me, and I would ache to have her open her eyes and see me there, to see how much I loved her. But mostly I kept my eyes on her skin, the fine traceries of the veins and the knotted cords of ligaments, seeing where she was not beautiful and hiding how scared it made me to see her close up, looking so fragile, and too often, so old. When my mama was twenty-five she already had an old woman’s hands, and I feared them. I did not know then what it was that scared me so. I’ve come to understand since that it was the thought of her growing old, of her dying and leaving me alone. I feared those brown spots, those wrinkles and cracks that lined her wrists, ankles, and the soft shadowed sides of her eyes. I was too young to imagine my own death with anything but an adolescent’s high romantic enjoyment; I pretended often enough that I was dying of a wasting disease that would give lots of time for my aunts, uncles, and stepfather to mourn me. But the idea that anything could touch my mother, that anything would dare to hurt her, was impossible to bear, and I woke up screaming the one night I dreamed of her death—a dream in which I tried bodily to climb to the throne of a Baptist god and demand her return to me.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Presently, 'What meaneth this?' quoth one. 'I smell the worst stench meseemeth I ever smelt.' So saying, he raised the lantern and seeing the wretched Andreuccio, enquired, in amazement. 'Who is there?' Andreuccio made no answer, but they came up to him with the light and asked him what he did there in such a pickle; whereupon he related to them all that had befallen him, and they, conceiving where this might have happened, said, one to the other, 'Verily, this must have been in the house of Scarabone Buttafuocco.' Then, turning to him, 'Good man,' quoth one, 'albeit thou hast lost thy money, thou hast much reason to praise God that this mischance betided thee, so that thou fellest nor couldst after avail to enter the house again; for, hadst thou not fallen, thou mayst be assured that, when once thou wast fallen asleep, thou hadst been knocked on the head and hadst lost thy life as well as thy money. But what booteth it now to repine? Thou mayst as well look to have the stars out of the sky as to recover a farthing of thy money; nay, thou art like to be murdered, should yonder fellow hear that thou makest any words thereof.' Then they consulted together awhile and presently said to him, 'Look you, we are moved to pity for thee; wherefore, an thou wilt join with us in somewhat we go about to do, it seemeth to us certain that there will fall to thee for thy share much more than the value of that which thou hast lost.' Whereupon Andreuccio, in his desperation, answered that he was ready. Now there had been that day buried an archbishop of Naples, by name Messer Filippo Minutolo, and he had been interred in his richest ornaments and with a ruby on his finger worth more than five hundred florins of gold. Him they were minded to despoil and this their intent they discovered to Andreuccio, who, more covetous than well-advised, set out with them for the cathedral. As they went, Andreuccio still stinking amain, one of the thieves said, 'Can we not find means for this fellow to wash himself a little, be it where it may, so he may not stink so terribly?' 'Ay can we,' answered the other. 'We are here near a well, where there useth to be a rope and pulley and a great bucket; let us go thither and we will wash him in a trice.' Accordingly they made for the well in question and found the rope there, but the bucket had been taken away; wherefore they took counsel together to tie him to the rope and let him down into the well, so he might wash himself there, charging him shake the rope as soon as he was clean, and they would pull him up.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  Polygamy was, in fact, one of the most sacred credos of Joseph’s church—a tenet important enough to be canonized for the ages as Section 132 of The Doctrine and Covenants, one of Mormonism’s primary scriptural texts. * The revered prophet described plural marriage as part of “the most holy and important doctrine ever revealed to man on earth” and taught that a man needed at least three wives to attain the “fullness of exaltation” in the afterlife. He warned that God had explicitly commanded that “all those who have this law revealed unto them must obey the same . . . and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory.” Joseph was murdered in Illinois by a mob of Mormon haters in 1844. Brigham Young assumed leadership of the church and led the Saints to the barren wilds of the Great Basin, where in short order they established a remarkable empire and unabashedly embraced the covenant of “spiritual wifery.” This both titillated and shocked the sensibilities of Victorian-era Americans, who tended to regard polygamy as a brutish practice on a par with slavery. † In 1856, recognizing the strength of the anti-polygamy vote, Republican candidate John C. Frémont ran for president on a platform that pledged to “prohibit in the territories those twin relics of barbarism—Polygamy and Slavery.” Frémont lost the election, but a year later the man who did win, President James Buchanan, sent the U.S. Army to invade Utah, dismantle Brigham Young’s theocracy, and eradicate polygamy. The so-called Utah War, however, neither removed Brigham from power nor ended the doctrine of plural marriage, to the annoyance and bafflement of a whole series of American presidents. An escalating sequence of judicial and legislative challenges to polygamy ensued, culminating in the Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887, which disincorporated the LDS Church and forfeited to the federal government all church property worth more than $50,000. With their feet held fast to the fire, the Saints ultimately had no choice but to renounce polygamy. But even as LDS leaders publicly claimed, in 1890, to have relinquished the practice, they quietly dispatched bands of Mormons to establish polygamous colonies in Mexico and Canada, and some of the highest-ranking LDS authorities secretly continued to take multiple wives and perform plural marriages well into the twentieth century. Although LDS leaders were initially loath to abandon plural marriage, eventually they adopted a more pragmatic approach to American politics, emphatically rejected the practice, and actually began urging government agencies to prosecute polygamists. It was this single change in ecclesiastical policy, more than anything else, that transformed the LDS Church into its astonishingly successful present-day iteration. Having jettisoned polygamy, Mormons gradually ceased to be regarded as a crackpot sect. The LDS Church acquired the trappings of a conventional faith so successfully that it is now widely considered to be the quintessential American religion.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  The strain of the sudden complete rupture with Morton had told on the faithful little grey woman. She would scarcely have known how to counsel Stephen had the girl come to her and asked for her counsel. Sometimes she would lie awake now at nights thinking of that ageing and unhappy mother in the great silent house, and then would come pity, the old pity that had come in the past for Anna—she would pity until she remembered Stephen. Then Puddle would try to think very calmly, to keep the brave heart that had never failed her, to keep her strong faith in Stephen’s future—only now there were days when she felt almost old, when she realized that indeed she was ageing. When Anna would write her a calm, friendly letter, but with never so much as a mention of Stephen, she would feel afraid, yes, afraid of this woman, and at moments almost afraid of Stephen. For none might know from those guarded letters what emotions lay in the heart of their writer; and none might know from Stephen’s set face when she recognized the writing, what lay in her heart. She would turn away, asking no questions about Morton. Oh, yes, Puddle felt old and actually frightened, both of which sensations she deeply resented; so being what she was, an indomitable fighter, she thrust out her chin and ordered a tonic. She struggled along through the labyrinths of Paris beside the untiring Stephen and Brockett; through the galleries of the Luxembourg and the Louvre; up the Eiffel Tower—in a lift, thank heaven; down the Rue de la Paix, up the hill to Montmartre—sometimes in the car but quite often on foot, for Brockett wished Stephen to learn her Paris—and as likely as not, ending up with rich food that disagreed badly with the tired Puddle. In the restaurants people would stare at Stephen, and although the girl would pretend not to notice, Puddle would know that in spite of her calm, Stephen was inwardly feeling resentful, was inwardly feeling embarrassed and awkward. And then because she was tired, Puddle too would feel awkward when she noticed those people staring. Sometimes Puddle must really give up and rest, in spite of the aggressive chin and the tonic. Then all alone in the Paris hotel, she would suddenly grow very homesick for England—absurd of course and yet there it was, she would feel the sharp tug of England. At such moments she would long for ridiculous things; a penny bun in the train at Dover; the good red faces of English porters—the old ones with little stubby side-whiskers; Harrods Stores; a properly upholstered arm-chair; bacon and eggs; the sea front at Brighton. All alone and via these ridiculous things, Puddle would feel the sharp tug of England.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The time come, he seated the gentlemen and the ladies at table and so ordered it that his mistress should be placed right over against the spot where the thing should befall. Accordingly, hardly was the last dish come when the despairful outcry of the hunted damsel began to be heard of all, whereat each of the company marvelled and enquired what was to do, but none could say; whereupon all started to their feet and looking what this might be, they saw the woeful damsel and the knight and the dogs; nor was it long ere they were all there among them. Great was the clamor against both dogs and knight, and many rushed forward to succour the damsel; but the knight, bespeaking them as he had bespoken Nastagio, not only made them draw back, but filled them all with terror and amazement. Then did he as he had done before, whereat all the ladies that were there (and there were many present who had been kinswomen both to the woeful damsel and to the knight and who remembered them both of his love and of his death) wept as piteously as if they had seen this done to themselves.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  But when it happens I’m sure it won’t be mistaken for anything else.” By applying his singular logic to the matter, Dan has also figured out why Ron tried to strangle him with a towel back in 1984: it was because the devil had revealed to Ron that Dan was Elijah and had been assigned to let the world know when Jesus had returned. Dan surmises that the devil actually told Ron about Dan’s crucial assignment long before God got around to telling Dan about it. “At some point,” Dan explains, “I believe Ron was instructed that it was important to kill me. The basic reason for it was his father”—the devil—“was trying to prevent the unpreventable.” The devil had been given the world for six thousand years, but those six thousand years are just about over, Dan says, so “it should come as no surprise that the devil wouldn’t want to give up control when his time is up.” And the way the devil hopes to extend his reign is to have Ron kill Dan/Elijah, and thus prevent him from announcing Christ’s return. “I feel confident,” Dan declares, “that this is what was behind Ron’s attempts to take my life. Because the Bible says that if Elijah doesn’t fulfill his calling, Christ can’t return.” Dan says that he should have recognized that Ron was one of Satan’s minions back in the spring and summer of 1984, when he and Ron were driving across the West in Ron’s Impala, because—contrary to the determination of the experts who testified for the state in Ron’s 1996 retrial—his brother was “showing signs of schizophrenia. . . . As we were traveling together and getting to know each other, it was a fairly common phenomenon for Ron to kind of space out and be gone somewhere mentally. I suspect that at such times he was probably listening to voices.” And those voices, Dan speculates, were instructions from the devil. Dan is sure, moreover, that Ron remains determined to murder him and is patiently waiting for an opportunity to do so: “I’m confident that he is still hearing the voices telling him to kill me.” Dan is aware of everything churned out by the prison rumor mill. And the buzz from death row, he says, is that “Ron is in very good shape and has been working out like a boxer getting ready for a title fight.” Dan takes it for granted that Ron hopes to have one more chance to find himself in Dan’s company, and when that opportunity presents itself, “he wants to be ready to take care of business.” For his part, Dan doesn’t think God will let Ron kill him.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  and had pushed their way to Constantinople.970 The Bogomili, who were of later origin, had a position of some prominence in Constantinople in the early part of the twelfth century.971 It is also possible that seeds of Manichaean and Arian heresy were left in Italy and Southern France after these systems were supposed to be stamped out in those regions. The Paulicians rejected the Old Testament and taught a strict dualism. The Bogomili held to the Sabellian Trinity, rejected the eucharist, and substituted for baptism with water a ritual of prayer and the imposition of hands. Marriage they pronounced an unclean relationship. The worship of images and the use of the cross were discarded. It was in the early years of the eleventh century, that the first reports of the appearance of heresy were bruited about here and there in Italy and Southern France. About the year 1000 a certain Leuthard, claiming to be inspired, appeared in the diocese of Châlons, destroying crosses and denouncing tithes. In 1012 Manichaean separatists appeared for the first time in Germany, at Mainz,972 and in 1022 at Orleans, where King Robert and his consort Constance were present at their trial. Fifteen were tried, and thirteen remained steadfast and perished in the flames. Constance is said to have struck one of them, her former confessor, with a staff and to have put out one of his eyes.973 Heretics appeared at Liège in 1025. About the same time a group was discovered in Treves who denied transubstantiation and rejected infant baptism.974 The castle of Monteforte near Turin became a stronghold for them, and in 1034 Heribert, archbishop of Milan, seized some of their number, including their leader Gerard. They all accepted death in the flames rather than adore a cross. In 1052 they appeared at Goslar, where the guilty were discerned by their refusal to kill a chicken. With these notices, and a few more like them, the rumor of heresy is exhausted for nearly a century. About the middle of the twelfth century, heresy suddenly appeared again at Liége, and prosecutions were begun. In 1145 eight men and three women were burnt at Cologne. The firmness of the victims was exemplified in the case of a young woman, who was held back for a time with the promise of marriage, but, on seeing her coreligionists burnt, broke from her keepers and, hiding her face in her dress, threw herself into the flames. And so, Caesar of Heisterbach goes on to say, she descended with her fellow-heretics to hell.975 At Rheims, 1157, and again at Cologne in 1163 we hear of trials and burnings, but thereafter the Cathari are no more heard of in Germany. Their only appearance in England was at Oxford, 1161, when more than thirty illiterate Germans, men and women, strove to propagate their errors. They were reported as "detesting" marriage, the eucharist, baptism, and the Catholic Church, and as having quoted Matt.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Both parties organized for war, which broke out in 1529, and ended in a disastrous defeat of the Protestants in 1531. Sixteen years later, the Lutheran princes suffered a similar defeat in the Smalcaldian War against the Emperor (1547). The five Forest Cantons—Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Luzern, and Zug—formed a defensive and offensive league (November, 1528; the preparations began in 1527), and even entered, first secretly, then openly, into an alliance with Ferdinand Duke of Austria and King of Bohemia and Hungary (April, 1529). This alliance with the old hereditary enemy of Switzerland, whom their ancestors had defeated in glorious battles, was treasonable and a step towards the split of the confederacy in two hostile camps (which was repeated in 1846). King Ferdinand had a political and religious interest in the division of Switzerland and fostered it. Freiburg, Wallis, and Solothurn sided with the Catholic Cantons, and promised aid in case of war. The Protestant Cantons, led by Zürich (which made the first step in this direction) formed a Protestant league under the name of the Christian co-burghery (Burgrecht) with the cities of Constance (Dec. 25, 1527), Biel and Mühlhausen (1529), and Strassburg (Jan. 9, 1530).258 Zwingli, provoked by the burning of Kaiser, and seeing the war clouds gathering all around, favored prompt action, which usually secures a great advantage in critical moments. He believed in the necessity of war; while Luther put his sole trust in the Word of God, although he stirred up the passions of war by his writings, and had himself the martyr’s courage to go to the stake. Zwingli was a free republican; while Luther was a loyal monarchist. He belonged to the Cromwellian type of men who "trust in God and keep their powder dry." In him the reformer, the statesman, and the patriot were one. He appealed to the examples of Joshua and Gideon, forgetting the difference between the Old and the New dispensation. "Let us be firm," he wrote to his peace-loving friends in Bern (May 30, 1529), "and fear not to take up arms. This peace, which some desire so much, is not peace, but war; while the war that we call for, is not war, but peace. We thirst for no man’s blood, but we will cut the nerves of the oligarchy. If we shun it, the truth of the gospel and the ministers’ lives will never be secure among us."259 Zürich was first ready for the conflict and sent four thousand well-equipped soldiers to Cappel, a village with a Cistercian convent, in the territory of Zürich on the frontier of the Canton Zug.260 Smaller detachments were located at Bremgarten, and on the frontier of Schwyz, Basel, St. Gall. Mühlhausen furnished auxiliary troops. Bern sent five thousand men, but with orders to act only in self-defence.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  With this she made an end of her discourse, and the young lady came to an understanding with her that, whenas she chanced to spy a certain young spark who passed often through that quarter and whose every feature she set out to her, she should know what she had to do; then, giving her a piece of salt meat, she dismissed her with God's blessing; nor had many days passed ere the old woman brought her him of whom she had bespoken her privily into her chamber, and a little while after, another and another, according as they chanced to take the lady's fancy, who stinted not to indulge herself in this as often as occasion offered, though still fearful of her husband. It chanced one evening that, her husband being to sup abroad with a friend of his, Ercolano by name, she charged the old woman bring her a youth, who was one of the goodliest and most agreeable of all Perugia, which she promptly did; but hardly had the lady seated herself at table to sup with her gallant, when, behold, Pietro called out at the door to have it opened to him. She, hearing this, gave herself up for lost, but yet desiring, an she might, to conceal the youth and not having the presence of mind to send him away or hide him elsewhere, made him take refuge under a hen-coop, that was in a shed adjoining the chamber where they were at supper, and cast over him the sacking of a pallet-bed that she had that day let empty.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  forgetful of the Christian precept, "If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him to drink; for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head. Be not overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good" (Rom. 12:20, 21). Zwingli spent the last months before his death in anxiety and fear. His counsel had been rejected, and yet he was blamed for all these troubles. He had not a few enemies in Zürich, who undermined his influence, and inclined more and more to the passive policy of Bern. Under these circumstances, he resolved to withdraw from the public service. On the 26th of July he appeared before the Great Council, and declared, "Eleven years have I preached to you the gospel, and faithfully warned you against the dangers which threaten the confederacy if the Five Cantons—that is, those who hate the gospel and live on foreign pensions—are allowed to gain the mastery. But you do not heed my voice, and continue to elect members who sympathize with the enemies of the gospel. And yet ye make me responsible for all this misfortune. Well, I herewith resign, and shall elsewhere seek my support." He left the hall with tears. His resignation was rejected and withdrawn. After three days he appeared again before the Great Council, and declared that in view of their promise of improvement he would stand by them till death, and do his best, with God’s help. He tried to persuade the Bernese delegates at a meeting in Bremgarten in the house of his friend, Henry Bullinger, to energetic action, but in vain. "May God protect you, dear Henry; remain faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ and his Church." These were the last words he spoke to his worthy successor. As he left, a mysterious personage, clothed in a snow-white robe, suddenly appeared, and after frightening the guards at the gate plunged into the water, and vanished. He had a strong foreboding of an approaching calamity, and did not expect to survive it. Halley’s comet, which returns every seventy-six years, appeared in the skies from the middle of August to the 3d of September, burning like the fire of a furnace, and pointing southward with its immense tail of pale yellow color. Zwingli saw in it the sign of war and of his own death. He said to a friend in the graveyard of the minster (Aug. 10), as he gazed at the ominous star, "It will cost the life of many an honorable man and my own. The truth and the Church will suffer, but Christ will never forsake us."282 Vadian of St. Gall likewise regarded the comet as a messenger of God’s wrath; and the famous Theophrastus, who was at that time in St. Gall, declared that it foreboded great bloodshed and the death of illustrious men. It was then the universal opinion, shared also by Luther and Melanchthon, that comets, meteors, and eclipses were fireballs of an angry God.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The tragedy began in the silence of the night, from July 18th to 19th, by the murder of sixty defenceless adult Protestants of Tirano; the Podesta Enderlin was shot down in the street, mutilated, and thrown into the Adda; Anton von Salis took refuge in the house of a Catholic friend, but was sought out and killed; the head of the Protestant minister, Anton Bassa of Poschiavo, was posted on the pulpit of the church. The murderers proceeded to Teglio, and shot down about the same number of persons in the church,

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Farel was aided in his evangelistic efforts chiefly by Viret and Froment, who agreed with his views, but differed from his violent method. Peter Viret, the Reformer of Lausanne, was the only native Swiss among the pioneers of Protestantism in Western Switzerland; all others were fugitive Frenchmen. He was born, 1511, at Orbe, in the Pays de Vaud, and educated for the priesthood at Paris. He acquired a considerable amount of classical and theological learning, as is evident from his writings. He passed, like Luther and Farel, through a severe mental and moral struggle for truth and peace of conscience. He renounced Romanism before he was ordained, and returned to Switzerland. He was induced by Farel in 1531 to preach at Orbe. He met with considerable success, but also with great difficulty and opposition from priests and people. He converted his parents and about two hundred persons in Orbe, to whom he administered the holy communion in 1532. He shared the labors and trials of Farel and Froment in Geneva. An attempt was made to poison them; he alone ate of the poisoned dish, but recovered, yet with a permanent injury to his health. His chief work was done at Lausanne, where he labored as pastor, teacher, and author for twenty-two years. By order of the government of Bern a public disputation was held Oct. 1 to 10, 1536.353 Viret, Farel, Calvin, Fabri, Marcourt, and Caroli were called to defend the Reformed doctrines. Several priests and monks were present, as Drogy, Mimard, Michod, Loys, Berilly, and a French physician, Claude Blancherose. A deputy of Bern presided. The discussion was conducted in French. Farel prepared ten Theses in which he asserts the supremacy of the Bible, justification by faith alone, the high- priesthood and mediatorship of Christ, spiritual worship without ceremonies and images, the sacredness of marriage, Christian freedom in the observance or non-observance of things indifferent, such as fasts and feasts. Farel and Viret were the chief speakers. The result was the introduction of the Reformation, November 1 of the same year. Viret and Pierre Caroli were appointed preachers. Viret taught at the same time in the academy founded by Bern in 1540. Caroli stayed only a short time. He was a native of France and a doctor of the Sorbonne, who had become nominally a Protestant, but envied Viret for his popularity, took offence at his sermons, and wantonly charged him, Farel, and Calvin, with Arianism. He was deposed as a slanderer, and at length returned to the Roman Church.354 In 1549 Beza was appointed second professor of theology at the academy, and greatly strengthened Viret’s hands. Five young Frenchmen who were trained by them for the ministry, and had returned to their native land to preach the gospel, were seized at Lyons and burned, May 16, 1553, notwithstanding the intercession of the Reformed Cantons with King Henry II.