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Cyprian, when the churches were already adorned and illuminated for the festival of the martyr whom three centuries of superstition had almost raised to a local deity. The Arians, conscious that their reign had expired, resigned the temple to the Catholics, who rescued their saint from profane hands, performed the holy rites, and loudly proclaimed the creed of Athanasius and Justinian.
Then, having placed her before the presence, the merchant said, "O King of the age, besides being peerless in her time and beauty and loveliness, she is also versed in all learning, sacred and profane, including the art of government and the abstract sciences." Quoth the King to the trader, "Take her price, according as thou boughtest her, and go thy ways."
"It sounds rather profane to me." "I mean a picture in words, where more is meant than meets the ear." "But why call it a parable?" "Because it is one." "Why not speak in plain words then?" "Because a good parable is plainer than the plainest words. You remember what Tennyson says that 'truth embodied in a tale Shall enter in at lowly doors'?"
'Therefore God will cast thee, as profane, out of the mountain of God, and will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire'; yea, he will cast thee to the ground, and lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee. 'And when thou art spoiled, what wilt thou do?
Who wants to be a miserable Franciscan on the desert hills? It's so unutterably profane. Here begins the new life." They sat in silence together on the creeping, earth-rooted ivy out of which all the little flowers and things grew; and all round them the birds sang how it was spring-time.
I don't know whether it was a Bible or some profane magazine that this poor woman read, but most probably the latter, for the words all ran together and made such sad nonsense that she was forced at last to put the book down and turn to that dearer volume which lay before her in the cradle, with its white initial leaf as yet unsoiled, and try to look forward to its mysterious future.
But at daybreak, forgetting all his fears of things divine and human, he would become again a plague to all the Romans both in public and in private. And he conversed commonly with sorcerers, and constantly listened to profane oracles which portended for him the imperial office, so that he was plainly walking on air and lifted up by his hopes of the royal power.
Bodies were organized to keep strict watch of the non-conformists. They were forbidden their simpler church worship and fined if they did not attend that of the English Church. They were "scoffed and scorned by the profane multitude, and so vexed, as truly their affliction was not small."
When walking in procession, they warn the profane out of the way by striking one slip of wood upon another. They are wilder in appearance than the Hindu Jogi or Sanyasi, who also affects the use of ashes, but neglects that of the palm-thatch.
He is warning us of the approach of some profane person, and tells us to seek some other retreat to renew our pleasures. Let us go." We rose and slowly advanced towards Donna Cecilia and the advocate, who were just emerging from a neighbouring alley.
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