Orifice

“ Oh, the orgy giving to the winds its heaving breasts, red with kisses; the orgy shaking out its perfumed hair upon its bare shoulders, dancing, singing, shouting, holding one hand out to this man and the other to that one; the orgy, hot courtezan, that yields readily to every fancy, that drinks punch and laughs, that stains the cloth and its gown, that dips its garland of flowers in a bath of Malmsey wine; the ribald orgy, showing its foot and its leg, letting its heavy head fall to right or left; the quarrelsome, blaspheming orgy, quick to snatch its stilleto from its garter ”

“ I ought to be like a corpse, which has neither will nor understanding, or like a small crucifix, which is turned about at the will of him who holds it, or like a staff in the hands of an old man, who uses it as may best assist or please him. ”

“ But since the discourse has reminded us of the subjects of a future judgment and of retribution, and of the punishments of sinners, according to the threatenings of holy Scripture and the contents of the Church’s teaching—viz., that when the time of judgment comes, everlasting fire, and outer darkness, and a prison, and a furnace, and other punishments of like nature, have been prepared for sinners—let us see what our opinions on these points ought to be. ”

“ When we were in the flesh, that is, in a carnal state, under the reigning power of sin and corruption—in the flesh as in our element—then the motions of sins which were by the law did work in our members, we were carried down the stream of sin, and the law was but as an imperfect dam, which made the stream to swell the higher, and rage the more. ”

“ But for the oarsman there is only the incessant pull, pull, pull, with the bees in his brain and the growing hole in his stomach, the aching legs and leaden arms, and before him, growing dimmer and dimmer, the bare back that will never stop rising and falling, and that he must follow, it seems, to death. ”

“ As a garment cloned with blood, and stained, will not be clean; neither shalt thou be clean, because thou hast destroyed my land and slain my people: thou shalt not remain for ever, most wicked seed. Prepare thy sons for death on account of the sins of thy father, lest they rise again and inherit the earth, and fill the earth with wars. ”

“ Thou, O second Iao, who shinest by night, [8] who art the ruler of the secret mysteries of son and father, first prince of death, and portion of the innocent, bearing now mine own beard as symbol, I am ready to pass through thy realm, having strengthened him who is born of thee by the living word. Grace be with me ”

“ Just as you, good sir, believe in eternal punishments, so also do the priests who interpret and initiate into the sacred mysteries. The same punishments with which you threaten others, they threaten you. Now it is worthy of examination, which of the two is more firmly established as true; for both parties contend with equal assurance that the truth is on their side. ”

“ But this is mild, indeed, compared to some later exorcisms, as when the ritual runs: "All the people shall rise, and the priest, turning toward the clouds, shall pronounce these words: 'I exorcise ye, accursed demons, who have dared to use, for the accomplishment of your iniquity, those powers of Nature by which God in divers ways worketh good to mortals; who stir up winds, gather vapors, form clouds, and condense them into hail. ”

“ Though [2] not as piety enjoins, yet from sheer necessity I have come to the fire-crowned altars of the gods, falling on my knees with instant supplication, for my cause is just, and 'tis in thy power, blest as thou art in thy children, to remove from me my woe; so in my sore distress I do beseech thee of my misery place in my hands my son's dead body, that I may throw my arms about his hapless limbs.
Semi. Behold a rivalry in sorrow! woe takes up the tale of woe; hark! thy servants beat their breasts. ”

“ I apply one for my miserable soul, the rest in suffrage for the souls in purgatory, particularly N. N. [Here mention the souls for whom you intend to apply them.] I begin this devotion under Thy sacred protection, and in imitation of Thy dolorous Mother. Let then this holy exercise obtain for me mercy in this life, and glory in the next. Amen. Jesus!
Station I.
Christ is sentenced to death by Pilate. ”

“ But in the case of bodies, it is not due to the action of men but to the spermatic principles, that one is short and little, another great, and another of middle height; but in the case of souls, it is our free-will, and actions of such a kind, and habits of such a kind, that furnish the reason why one is great, or little, or of middle height ”

“ I cried vehemently.
"It will be easier to go than stay here and listen to that fiendish orgy which will begin before many hours have passed!"
"You can hope to do no more than share the poor fellow's fate!" ”

“ Thy land could witness to brave deed of thine!
And at the bow, the crown of wise inventions,
Thou sneerest!—learn thou wisdom from my mouth:
The man-at-arms is bondman to his arms, 190
And through his fellows, if their hearts wax faint,
Even through his neighbours' cowardice, he dies.
And, if he break his spear, he hath nought to ward
Death from himself, who hath but one defence.
But whoso grasps in hand the unerring bow,— 195
This first, and best, — lets fly unnumbered shafts,
Yet still hath store wherewith to avert the death. ”

“ So little are the bees! so great, O Aristæus, the bliss or woe of Orpheus and Eurydice! Yet, because by guile thou hast won the power to gain from me the knowledge that thou dost seek, hearken to me now, Aristæus! Four bulls must thou find—four cows of equal beauty. Then must thou build in a leafy grove four altars, and to Orpheus and Eurydice pay such funeral honours as may allay their resentment. At the end of nine days, when thou hast fulfilled thy pious task, return and see what the gods have sent thee. ”

“ May the holy and eternal Virgin Mary, mother of God, curse him.—May St. Michael the advocate of holy souls, curse him.—May all the angels and archangels, principalities and powers, and all the heavenly armies, curse him." [Our armies swore terribly in Flanders, cried my uncle Toby,—but nothing to this.—For my own part, I could not have a heart to curse my dog so.] ”

“ But before I enter upon this subject, I must inform the Reader of two facts, which it is necessary he should know, at the same time that they are undeniable, and confirmed by [21] every day’s practice. The first is, that Penitents, as we have above-mentioned, both inflict those Disciplines on themselves with their own hands, and receive the same from other persons, either with scourges, or rods, or whip-cords. ”

“ In each one are stakes buried in the ground and fierce animals. The hands and feet of the guilty one are bound to a stake, his body is opened with small knives, and his heart and intestines quickly devoured. ”

“ And as the whole body conspires in producing the slightest motion of any limb—a foot, an arm, a hand or a finger—so all hell conspires in the perpetration of every wicked deed—in every evil purpose, word, or work. ”

“ Our great sin-offering is but one, yet that one perfects for ever those that are sanctified. 3. The king and the congregation (that is, the representatives of the congregation) laid their hands on the heads of the goats that were for the sin-offering (v. 23) , thereby owning themselves guilty before God and expressing their desire that the guilt of the sinner might be transferred to the sacrifice. By faith we lay our hands on the Lord Jesus, and so receive the atonement, Rom. v. 11. 4. Burnt-offerings were offered with the sin-offerings, seven bullocks, seven rams, and seven lambs. ”

“ THE BATTLE OF ORISKANY
[August 6, 1777]
As men who fight for home and child and wife,
As men oblivious of life
In holy martyrdom,
[199] The yeomen of the valley fought that day,
Throughout thy fierce and deadly fray,—
Blood-red Oriskany. ”

“ Love has joined you also. I beg by these places full of despair
by this huge Chaos and the silence of this desolate kingdom,
unweave the premature death of Eurydice!
Everything is owed to you and, having delayed
a little bit, sooner or later, we hasten to one seat (death) .
We all proceed here, this is the ultimate house and you
hold the most enduring dominion over the human race. ”

“ But none of them, unless it be the religious excitement, give more than a temporary respite. When the orgy is over comes the awakening still in the cage. But in the idea of revolution which does not forget the cage, but realises its impermanence, there is an enduring support for the spirit. ”

“ Tacitus writes: “To shout, to drink, to caper about, to feel their veins heated and swollen with wine, to hear and see around them the riot of the orgy, this was the first need of the barbarians. The heavy human brute gluts himself with sensations and with noise.” ”

“ Should we try to look deeper than the surface; [Pg 229] to strip the inner life of the convent of all its mysteries and coverings, and anatomising it inch by inch, search it through down to the very heart? Should we pry into the dread and secret processes by which, among these women, one human emotion after another may be suffering, first ossification, then death? ”

“ No shrine, in wicked lust have I profaned;
When I was poor and worn with want, I sinned
Not by intent, a pauper’s sin’s not banned
As of another! Unto thee I pray
Lift thou the load from off my tortured mind,
Forgive a light offense! When fortune smiles
I’ll not thy glory shun and leave behind
Thy worship! ”

“ I will that mine executors do ordain XX comely torches of wax to burn at the time of mine exequies, and to be holden about my corpse by poor men. And on that four comely tapers of wax to be holden by four poor men in likewise ... I will that in nowise mine executors keep any solemn month’s mind in such manner as oftentimes it is used, but that which shall be done for me, I will it be done at my burying, and that without any hault or sumptuous manner of charge to be done. ”

“ And next to this about the married, I am familiar also with another interpretation of the agreement between the two which is as follows. In the wicked, sin reigns over the soul, being settled as on its own throne in this mortal body, so that the soul obeys the lusts thereof ”

“ And feast upon each other in its grave.
A buried sin is like a covered sore
That spreads and festers 'neath a painted face;
And no man's art can heal it evermore,
But only His—the Surgeon's—promised grace. ”

“ And in the Epistle to the Colossians, briefly abridging the meaning of the whole legislation, he says: “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a festival, or of a new moon, or of Sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come.” [79] Moreover, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, discoursing of those who belong to the circumcision, he writes: “who serve for an ensample and shadow of heavenly things.” ”

“ Again, can one believe that sinners consented to wear iron chains round the body, to lie naked at the feet of the person offended, to go about with a rope round their necks, to abstain from water, hot or cold? ”

“ Beneath the new-grown bark: around the boughs,
As yet her limbs, his clasping arms he throws;
And burning kisses on the wood imprints.
The wood his lips repels. Then thus the god:—
“O laurel, though to be my bride deny'd,
“Yet shalt thou be my tree; my temples bind;
“My lyre and quiver shalt thou still adorn:
“The brows of Latian conquerors shalt thou grace,
“When the glad people sing triumphant hymns,
“And the long pomp the capitol ascends. ”

“ The Roman and the Goth; the opposite in sex, nation, and fate; the madman who dreamed of the sanguinary superstitions of Paganism before the temple altar, and the assassin who brooded over the chances of bloodshed beneath the temple portico, were now united in a mysterious identity of expectation, uncommunicated and unsuspected by either—the hour when the sun vanished from the heaven was the hour of the sacrifice for both! ”

“ Dead and gone are death’s dark fears.
After which came “the cursing,” a ceremony which is always used in the Roman Catholic Church in the consecration of a virgin, and is to the effect that—
“Should any one attempt to draw aside this present virgin, let him be cursed in his rising up and sitting down, in his standing or walking, in sleeping or waking, in eating or drinking, etc., etc., and may [73] his flesh rot from his bones, and may he be blotted out of the book of life. ”

“ If you go into a temple you will find the Three Ruling Gods all seated on one pedestal. They wear women's hats upon their heads, and hold scepters in their hands, like kings. But he who sits on the last place, to the right, has glaring eyes and wears a look of rage. ”

“ The gradual elaboration of the sacrificial ceremonial, as the all-sufficient expression of religious devotion, and a constantly growing tendency towards theosophic and mystic speculation on the significance of every detail of the ritual, could not fail to create a demand for explanatory treatises of this kind, which, to enhance their practical utility, would naturally deal with the special texts and rites assigned in the ceremonial to the several classes of officiating priests. ”

“ For the nature of our flesh having stirred up anger discord and dissension, and the law having bound us with the chains of condemnation, Christ Jesus subdued by mortification the wantonness and intemperance of the flesh, and made void Ib. 15. the law of commandment contained in ordinances, declaring thereby that the decrees of the spiritual Law are not to be interpreted according to the letter; putting an end to the slothful rest of the Sabbath and to the superfluous rite of outward circumcision, and opening to all Ib. 18. access by one Spirit unto the Father. ”

“ He stretches out His bleeding arms, and tenderly embraces the Cross. Reflect with confusion on that sensitive pride which is fired with impatience at the very shadow of contempt — on your discontented murmurs in your lightest afflictions — and your obstinate resistance to the will of Heaven in the crosses of life, which are calculated to conduct you not to a Calvary of Crucifixion, but to joys of eternal glory ”