Were they goaded through a round of ceremonies, to them senseless and disgusting mummeries; and drilled into the tactics of a creed rank with loathed abominations?

Is it a mere mummery of speech?

With that rationalism which religious sects are so skilful in applying to some unimportant point of ritual, and so careful not to apply to vital questions of dogma, the Baptists reasonably argue that to baptise an unthinking infant, and, by an external rite which has no significance except as the symbol of an internal decision, declare him a Christian, is nothing more than an idolatrous mummery.

It is true the prestige of respected names will rise up to oppose the new views, which, I confess, to be sustained in their main features by my own views and researches here on the ground and in the midst of the Indians, and men will rise to sustain the old viewsthe original literary mummery and philological hocus-pocus based on the papers and letters and blunders of Heckewelder.

It was a simple enough ceremonial denuded of many of the mediaeval mummeries which have been revived by a newer emotional Church for the edification of the weak-minded.

At Captain Renfrew's gate this mental mummery paused long enough for him to vacillate between walking in or going around and shouting from the back gate.

In a half dreamy state she had seen all this terrible mummeryno mummery to her; for she thought it real: and as every one stood forward by name, she often said to herself, "When will it be Johnnie's turn, poor man?

He made no mark in the House of Lords, and was sick of what he called "parliamentary mummeries."

But it is their God who is evil, as Proudhon said, that senseless and ludicrous God who delights in grotesque saturnalia, in ridiculous prayers, in shameful mummeries, in vows contrary to nature.

His angry old eyes jerked Peter out of his slight mummery.

The fact is, that the soi disant "teachers" of mankind, in all ages and countriesthe African fetish, the American Indian sachem, the Hindu jogi, the Musalman mulla, and the Romish priest and miracle-mongerhave all agreed on one point, viz., to impose on their silly victims a multitude of unmeaning ceremonies, and absurd mummeries, in order to conceal their own contemptible vacuity of intellect.

Having engaged in this solemn mummery, you mentally record the fact that you have been squandering your time, and enter into a compact with yourself that no more will you so do.

They must now persuade the curate to take the saint out, and that good priesta fat, kindly, but rather shrewd fellowalways objected to what he called a bit of old-fashioned mummery.