Most of them engaged in the empirical practice of physic, and some through the credulity of the times, even arrived at a degree of eminence in it; yet although the whole foundation of their art was folly and deceit, they nevertheless gained many proselytes and dupes, both among the well-informed and the ignorant.

In proportion as they doubt the truth of their own doctrines, they are desirous to gain the attestation of another understanding: and industriously labour to win a proselyte, and eagerly catch at the slightest pretence to dignify their sect with a celebrated name .

Such being the disposition of Dryden's mind, and such the peculiar facilities of the Roman Churchmen in making proselytes, it is by no means to be denied, that circumstances in the poet's family and situation strongly forwarded his taking such a step.

He may, like Raleigh, "in his prison hours enrich the world," and add new proselytes to the cause of freedom.

When Mrs. Knowles said that she had the New Testament before her, he said that it was the "most difficult book in the world," and he proceeded to attack the unlucky proselyte with a fury which shocked the two ladies.

He has long ceased to talk eagerly of the ideas which possess him, or to attempt making proselytes.

The sect of Anabaptists, whose wild opinions were subversive of all principles of social order and every sentiment of natural decency, had its birth in Germany, and found many proselytes in the Netherlands.

Perhaps none of the secondary causes which Gibbon has assigned for the rapidity with which Christianity spread over the world, while Judaism scarcely ever acquired a proselyte, operated more powerfully than this feeling.

The ardour of those especially who had newly espoused the Unitarian view and found it precious to themselves may be easily understood, and they might be forgiven some impatience with the apparent apathy of those who had no great desire to multiply proselytes.

His congregation numbers some fifty or sixty proselytes, who are mostly from the schismatic sects of the Armenians.

The rivalry of the Baptist and Methodist churches, each striving by similar methods to excel the other, tempted many to become oscillating proselytes, yielding to the allurements first of the one and then of the other, and on each occasion holding the center of the stage as a brand snatched from the burning, a lost sheep restored to the fold, a cause and participant of rapture.

As materialism has been generally taught, it is utterly unintelligible, and owes all its proselytes to the propensity, so common among men, to mistake distinct images for clear conceptions, and, vice versâ, to reject as inconceivable whatever from its own nature is unimaginable.

Their objects were political, and they used religion in any form, and adapted it in all modes, to secure proselytes, to whom they imparted only so much of their doctrine as they were able to bear.

These people, abstracted by their own gloomy reflections, look with contempt on all who are in the pursuit of "worldly wealth"; and regard the arrival of a whaler as an enemy coming to interfere with the spiritual interests of "their flock," as they term the inhabitants, though I never yet saw one proselyte of their converting.

Though our lean faith these rigid laws has given, The full-fed Mussulman goes fat to heaven; For his Arabian prophet with delights Of sense allured his eastern proselytes.

That may, of course, be attributable to the obscurity which veils the history of those countries; but the exceedingly mild character of their religion, together with their unceasing inculcation of forbearance towards all living things, and the fact that Brahmanism by its caste system properly admits no proselytes, allows one to hope that their adherents may be acquitted of shedding blood on a large scale, and of cruelty in any form.