But, to return, it was upon a Thursday this ceremony began; and, as I said, there was never any thing beheld so fine as the church that day was, and all the Fathers that officiated at the high-altar; behind which a most magnificent scene of glory was opened, with clouds most rarely and artificially set off, behind which appeared new ones more bright and dazzling, till from one degree to another, their lustre was hardly able to be looked on; and in which sat an hundred little angels so rarely dressed, such shining robes, such charming faces, such flowing bright hair, crowned with roses of white and red, with such artificial wings, as one would have said they had borne the body up in the splendid sky; and these to soft music, turned their soft voices with such sweetness of harmony, that, for my part, I confess, I thought myself no longer on earth; and sure there is nothing gives an idea of real heaven, like a church all adorned with rare pictures, and the other ornaments of it, with whatever can charm the eyes; and music, and voices, to ravish the ear; both which inspire the soul with unresistible devotion; and I can swear for my own part, in those moments a thousand times I have wished to die; so absolutely had I forgot the world, and all its vanities, and fixed my thoughts on heaven.
— from Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister by Aphra Behn

Several who went out were killed, but the Raja remaining within, and all his people invoking the protection of the Governor and of the Company, as usual in such cases, the soldiers entered, and said, there is no Governor nor Company can now give you any assistance.
— from An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal And of the Territories Annexed to this Dominion by the House of Gorkha by Francis Hamilton

"The Lives of the Saints" demonstrate the doctrines of the Church, by laying before us the history of the most precious portion of her children: of her martyrs, her doctors, her bishops; of holy and devout persons of all ranks and conditions; of what they believed, and taught, and practised, in each and every age: so that if no Gospel had been written, or liturgy preserved, or decree recorded, we should find in "The Lives of the Saints" sufficient proofs of what has always, and in every place, and by all true believers, been held and practised to the Church of God.
— from The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints. January, February, March by Alban Butler

I know not when it journeyed to the new world, but long enough ago so that it now grows cheerfully and plentifully in all our states of temperate clime and indeed far south.
— from Old-Time Gardens, Newly Set Forth by Alice Morse Earle

“But don’t you see,” exclaimed Niels Lyhne, “that on the day when men are free to exult and say: ‘There is no God!’
— from Niels Lyhne by J. P. (Jens Peter) Jacobsen

I doubt whether he would have liked it, but respect to the pious memory of a founder may be exaggerated, and since there is no getting rid of examinations, the next best thing is to make the art of coaching as little harmful as may be to pupil and teacher.
— from Rustic Sounds, and Other Studies in Literature and Natural History by Darwin, Francis, Sir