Driven from their native villages, the Donatist peasants assembled in formidable gangs on the edge of the Getulian desert; and readily exchanged the habits of labor for a life of idleness and rapine, which was consecrated by the name of religion, and faintly condemned by the doctors of the sect.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

The life of a commercial missionary, who bought a farm when land was cheap and had it cultivated by his congregation, [Pg 101] is a pleasant one: he makes a large profit, spends easy days, and returns early to his native Germany.
— from The African Colony: Studies in the Reconstruction by John Buchan

The muleteer gave up in despair, and refused even to help us carry our loads to the top of an adjoining hill, whither the zaptiehs had proceeded to wait for us.
— from Across Asia on a Bicycle The Journey of Two American Students from Constantinople to Peking by Thomas Gaskell Allen

And yet, should they patrol the woods in vain and at last disperse and return each to his own home, she had no placidity in prospect,—she was troubled and sad and her sorry heart was heavy.
— from The Frontiersmen by Mary Noailles Murfree

Well, well,” he continued in an altered tone, after a pause, “maybe I've been a bad father to you, Standish, maybe I've neglected my duty; maybe——” here The Macnamara felt for his pocket-handkerchief, and having found it, he waved it spasmodically, and was about to throw himself into his chair when he recollected its defects and refrained, even though he was well aware that he was thereby sacrificing much of the dramatic effect up to which he had been working.
— from Daireen. Complete by Frank Frankfort Moore

But if that is United States District Attorney Roger Elverson, tell him that it is A. V. R. Jones who wants to know, and remind him of the missing letter opium advertisement.”
— from Average Jones by Samuel Hopkins Adams

But when one sees the depressing and repellent effect that has evidently been produced upon the popular mind by the ordinary methods of presenting astronomy, one can not resist the temptation to utter a vigorous protest, and to declare that this glorious science is not the grinning mathematical skeleton that it has been represented to be.
— from Astronomy with an Opera-glass A Popular Introduction to the Study of the Starry Heavens with the Simplest of Optical Instruments by Garrett Putman Serviss

Aware of my danger I made a bolt through the opened door, and ran with all my might, till trembling from head to foot I met Satyrus, when we both made our way in the dark and retreated each to his own room.
— from The Greek Romances of Heliodorus, Longus and Achilles Tatius Comprising the Ethiopics; or, Adventures of Theagenes and Chariclea; The pastoral amours of Daphnis and Chloe; and the loves of Clitopho and Leucippe by of Emesa Heliodorus