Cleopatra had taken practically all the offerings from even the holiest shrines and so helped to swell the spoils of the Romans, while the latter on their own part incurred no defilement.

And have I vainly hoped that, guarded here, Secluded from the fortunes of my race, I, with pure heart and hands, some future day Might cleanse the deep defilement of our house?

They went to a temple made of stone, to immolate and to sacrifice that lamb which was but a symbol, and they left the true Paschal Lamb, who was being led to the Altar of the Cross by the cruel executioners; they were most careful not to contract exterior defilement, while their souls were completely defiled by anger, hatred, and envy.

The Pharisees endeavoured to avoid the neighbourhood of the sentinels, for fear of being questioned by them, and of contracting defilement by answering their questions.

She knew the defilements of which they had been guilty.

To continue to wear them, then, in a consecrated place, would be a tacit insinuation that the ground there was equally polluted and capable of producing defilement.

The veil had been rudely torn from her eyes; she had seen with horror the defilement and impurity of what she had ignorantly adored in holy places, and the revelation seemed to have wrought a change in her whole nature.

Yet, on this morning of the day before Christmas, were these Shining Ones, moving to and fro with the crowd, whose faces were loving and serene as the invisible stars, whose robes took no defilement from the spatter and the rush of earth, whose coming and going was still as the falling snow-flakes.

Not a thread leaves the garden, lest it should carry defilement into the city.

Nothing but the blood of sprinkling can wash away my defilement.