United States or Taiwan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The door was opened by a duke. The issue before him was now perfectly clear. There was one road to freedom and one only. He must sign the form of recantation in full. The form was drastic. He must renounce all his previous religious opinions. He must acknowledge the Holy Catholic Church and submit to her in all things.
A flattering murmur greeted the end of his exordium; for the French people in general, and the political world in particular, manifest a depraved taste for that sort of eloquence. Encouraged, the fine speaker entered the heart of his subject, and cynically sang his recantation. The forbearance of the Government was abused. And he threatened the assembly; became prophet; let loose the dogs of war.
He was the most interesting young man she had met this long while. He had been about to tell her why he had recanted his Wagnerian faith when they had been interrupted by Owen.... She could conceive nothing more interesting than the recantation by a man of genius of the ideas that had first inspired him. His opera had been accepted, and would be produced if she undertook the principal part.
Or boldly carry out their purposes by a fictitious execution, trusting in the authority which official statements always carry, and shrewdly foreseeing that, after her recantation, the disgraced Maid would no more venture to claim for herself the leadership of the French forces? Clearly, the latter would have been the wiser course.
Am I not right, comrades? Was not the play as I have stated it? 'Neither more nor less, the poet answered; and the tribune and the prætorian captain spoke to the same effect. The comedian still looked unconvinced, and, for the moment, gazed inquiringly from one to the other, in the hope that some newer recollection would come to the mind of either of them and lead to a recantation.
Stowe says, that these Arians were offered their pardon at the stake, if they would merit it by a recantation. A madman, who called himself the Holy Ghost, was without any indulgence for his frenzy, condemned to the same punishment. Twenty pounds a month could, by law, be levied on every one who frequented not the established worship.
The accused was not allowed to know the name of his accuser. He was not permitted to have any legal adviser. There was no appeal. The Inquisition was ordered not to lean to pity. No recantation was of avail. The innocent family of the accused was deprived of its property by confiscation; half went to the papal treasury, half to the inquisitors.
This change is greatly to Mary's credit. As, in his Introduction to "St. Leon" he made his public recantation of faith, so in the course of the story he elaborated his new doctrines, and, by so doing, paid tribute to the woman who had wrought the wonder. His hero's description of married pleasures being based on his own knowledge of them, he writes:
A few who recanted were pardoned, but for the majority recantation only meant long imprisonment in cells where many hearts broke after years of solitude. The property of the accused was confiscated in any case; and this rule was a sore temptation to informers, who received a certain share of their neighbour's goods if they denounced him.
This crowning moment was approaching, Christian had but to reply suitably to the intimidating riddles of the hymn, and the final act would open in all its solemnity. For, as has been said, the spirit of revolt whispered to her, and ingeniously persuaded her that the required recantation committed her to a falsehood.
Word Of The Day