The priesthood encourage this superstition, as they have grafted on it some mystical rites, which add to their power and profit, and which one of our Pundits thinks has a great resemblance to the Eleusinian mysteries.

To hallow the Father's name would abolish all the superstition of the world.

Kurt made an honest confession of his disobedience without once excusing himself by saying that he had only done it to destroy all foolish superstition and by this means to become her helper.

Sir James Harrington, writing in the reign of James I, tells a curious story of their loss: The pavement of Coventry church is almost all tombstones, and some very ancient, but there came in a zealous fellow with a counterfeit commission, that for avoiding superstition, hath not left one pennyworth nor penny breadth of brass upon all the tombs, of all the inscriptions, which had been many and costly.

Now was to be a race for a coronation: he that should win that race, carried the superstition of France along with him.

Mr. Folkard mentions a curious superstition which exists in the neighbourhood of Orleans, where a seventh son without a daughter intervening is called a Marcon.

Only too frequently, also, we find the same superstition assuming a very different appearance as it travels from one country to another, until at last it is almost completely divested of its original dress.

He rejected the superstitions of his country, and looked upon the ritualism of religion as a mere fashion.

5) discusses this curious superstition at length:'And first we hear it in every mouth, and in many good authors read it, that a diamond, which is the hardest of stones, not yielding unto steel, emery, or any thing but its own powder, is yet made soft, or broke by the blood of a goat.

After this, it will be necessary to define superstition, in order to have some tolerably clear understanding of what we are talking about.

It is a mistake to suppose that "literary merit" can be imparted to drama by such flagrant departures from nature; though some critics have not yet outgrown that superstition.

In process of time they have added so many superstitions, they be rather semi-Christians than otherwise.

Preaching and tracts are insufficient to make religious doctrine understandable, or to shake the superstitions which have been imbibed in infancy.

Attacks on the classics by men ignorant of the classical languages tend to perpetuate the superstition.

Morris Fishbein (A); 14Dec56; R183531. Shattering health superstitions.

It is equally obvious how the same reasons of state, which kept up the popular superstition for other prodigies, should take care to encourage it with regard to comets and other celestial appearances.

He will teach a blinding superstitionthe superstition that a theory of human wellbeing can be constructed in disregard of the influences which have made us human.

A small minority entertain the superstition of a savage for his idol; a smaller yet offer the holy homage of a true worshipper to his saint.

Sacred Wind, with a nobler courage, a more devoted love, broke through the customs of her nation, laid aside the superstitions of the tribe, and has thus identified her courage with the name of her native village.

" "Fie, Jack," says I, "'tis an idle superstition.

that invariably, and, it may be said, necessarily, developes itself in hierarchical institutionsa propensity that ought to be closely watched by Protestant lay congregations, as being not only innovating and dangerous in its tendency, but calculated to foster that superstition which is at once the fundamental principle of the faith of the city of the seven hills, and the power of that triple-crowned monster, Popery.

Panegyrists have also done their parts to promote the superstition of presages, as well as the flattering of poets and orators.

Thus, while the Epicureans, urging men to study nature in order to banish superstition, endeavoured to correct the ignorance of physical science which was one of the chief impediments to the progress of the ancient mind, the Stoics for the most part disdained a study which was other than the pursuit of virtue.

As Sandy and his wife warmed to the tale, one tripping up another in their eagerness to tell everything, it gradually developed as distinct a superstition as I ever heard, and not without poetry and pathos.

It was these awful views of protracted and eternal physical torments,not the hell of the Bible, but the hell of priests, of human invention,which gives to the Middle Ages a sorrowful and repulsive light, thus nursing superstition and working on the fears of mankind, rather than on the conscience and the sense of moral accountability.