Many even of the Jews became apostate, profaned the Sabbath, and sacrificed to idols, rather than lose their lives; for the persecution was the most unrelenting in the annals of martyrdom, even to the destruction of women and children.

IPHIGENIA Do not profane Diana's sanctuary with rage and blood.

No beadle here impounds you, to suit his crabbed mood; No strife profanes our little church, tho' there it rages high, But then we have no little church, and that, perhaps, is why!

But they said, We will not come forth, neither will we do as the king commands, to profane the sabbath day.

The principal charges made against Paul were that he was a public pest and leader of seditions; that he was a ringleader of the Nazarenes (the contemptuous name which the Jews gave to the Christians); and that he had attempted to profane the Temple, which was a capital offence according to the Jewish law.

ANDOCIDES, an orator and leader of the oligarchical faction in Athens; was four times exiled, the first time for profaning the Eleusinian Mysteries (467-393 B.C.).

How chang'd, alas!Now ghastly desolation, In triumph, sits upon our shatter'd spires; Now superstition, ignorance, and errour, Usurp our temples, and profane our altars.

It seemed as if a demon from hell, in the disguise of a priest, occupied the chair of Peter and profaned the sacred mysteries of religion by his insolent courses.

I heard the suffering Saviour's sad lament Over His sanctuary shamed in sin; I heard His words'Deliver me from hands That have profaned the holiest with guilt!

Now while the temple smoked with hallow'd steam, They wash the virgin in a living stream; The secret ceremonies I conceal, Uncouth, perhaps unlawful, to reveal: 200 But such they were as Pagan use required, Perform'd by women when the men retired, Whose eyes profane their chaste mysterious rites Might turn to scandal, or obscene delights.

But, whatever were the motives, the result was an iniquitous combination of the worst of a set of men, before selected from all that was bad in the nation, to profane the name of justiceto sacrifice an unfortunate, but not a guilty Princeand to fix an indelible stain on the country.

A base concession was made to the sacerdotal party, by making it a capital offence to profane the sacred vessels of the churches or the consecrated wafer; thus putting the power of life and death into the hands of the clergy, not for crimes against society but for an insult to the religion of the Middle Ages.

Otherwise, if we do venture to swear, without due advice and care, without much respect and awe, upon any slight or vain (not to say bad or unlawful) occasion, we then desecrate swearing, and are guilty of profaning a most sacred ordinance: the doing so doth imply base hypocrisy, or lewd mockery, or abominable wantonness and folly; in bodily invading and vainly trifling with the most august duties of religion.

This rule was observed by the supreme pontiff of the Zapotecs in Mexico; he profaned his sanctity if he so much as touched the ground with his foot.

The people could hardly expect to resist the invaders, for their warrior king, Loku, had profaned the word of the god, and, in the form of a lizard, was fulfilling his punishment.

A sense she was not until later able to find words for, that she was guarding something, his quite as much as her own, from profaning eyes, gave her the resolution it needed to carry on like that until she could be alone.

Why do we deal faithlessly with one another, Profaning the covenant of our fathers?

Oh, had the poet ne'er profaned his pen, 80 To varnish o'er the guilt of faithless men, His other works might have deserved applause; But now the language can't support the cause; While the clean current, though serene and bright, Betrays a bottom odious to the sight.

I have been told that, when a very holy man dies, who always clothed himself in ashes and never profaned his hands with work, his disciples sometimes break a coconut over his head.

But while it would be very unjust to blame her for the vagaries that have followed, and to which nothing could be less desirable than any building of the house or growth of the race, any responsibility or service, we must still believe that it was she who drew the curtain first aside and opened the gates to imps of evil meaning, polluting and profaning the domestic hearth.

Modern idolaters of a policy of blood and iron may profane history by their glorification of human monsters; but no sophistry can blind an independent reader to the real nature of Sulla's character and acts.

Leonard was so inexpressibly shocked by what he beheld, that unable to contain himself he mounted the steps of the pulpit, and called to them in a loud voice to desist from their scandalous conduct, and no longer profane the house of God.

No Christian footstep has yet profaned Kairouiyin, but fairly definite information as to its plan has been gleaned by students of Moroccan art.

In reply to Governor Boutwell, when the tumultuous applause had subsided, Kossuth spoke, in substance as follows: He apologized for profaning Shakespeare's language in Faneuil Hall, the cradle of American liberty.

I do not want to handle, to profane the leaves, their winding-sheets.