Sometimes, as in the charming little book we wish now to introduce, unclerical human nature occupies the foreground almost exclusively; though
priestly faces will still be found gazing upon us from time to time.
Finally when the number of the sides becomes so numerous, and the sides themselves so small, that the figure cannot be distinguished from a circle, he is included in the Circular or
Priestly order; and this is the highest class of all.
Through all these means of purification for the
priestly career, he passed at last into the one sphere that was worthy of him: he entered the Church, under the protection of influential friends.
A lively quarrel ensued, Trefusis denouncing the folly of artists in fancying themselves a
priestly caste when they were obviously only the parasites and favored slaves of the moneyed classes, and his friend (temporarily his enemy) sneering bitterly at levellers who were for levelling down instead of levelling up.
But the figure which most attracted the public eye, and stirred up the deepest feeling, was the Episcopal clergyman of King's Chapel, riding haughtily among the magistrates in his
priestly vestments, the fitting representatives of prelacy and persecution, the union of church and state, and all those abominations which had driven the Puritans to the wilderness.
Had he followed my training, without thy accurst
priestly interference, he had made an ironbarred nest in Torn for many of the doves of thy damned English nobility.
Priestly garments, images of saints, rich stuffs and ornaments, altar-furniture and household goods, were cast into the flames, and shed a glare on the whole country round; but they danced and howled, and roared about these fires till they were tired, and were never for an instant checked.
He himself wanted a daily governess for his younger children; and though he had hesitated in the first instance to offer this position to Maggie, the resolution to protest with the utmost force of his personal and
priestly character against her being crushed and driven away by slander, was now decisive.
Declines to set up any pretensions to
priestly authority and
priestly power.
This latter step, however, there was no present prospect that Arthur Dimmesdale would be prevailed upon to take; he rejected all suggestions of the kind, as if
priestly celibacy were one of his articles of Church discipline.
``We have that of the
priestly character, that we have some knowledge to enlighten our valour.''
At length Abelard offered to marry Heloise --but on a shameful condition: that the marriage should be kept secret from the world, to the end that (while her good name remained a wreck, as before,) his
priestly reputation might be kept untarnished.