Word: ordeal
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...Joseph was chosen from the widowers of Israel by divine token, to be her guardian. Later, the annunciation took place; when Mary's pregnancy was discovered, she and Joseph were brought before the High Priest protesting their innocence of earthly wrong. They were tried with "the water of the ordeal of the Lord," were acquitted. In Catholic dogma, Mary remained a virgin before, after and during the conception and birth of Christ.* Again, her perpetual virginity, maintained by the Roman Catholic Church, was not the general belief of early Christian writers, who held that Mary and Joseph were the parents...
...young friends with an injure! air, and a vehement protest against such a false accusation. Brother would then test their truth by dropping his handkerchief and requesting them to pick it up; if they wore a 'board' stooping would be impossible, or, at all events, very difficult. The ordeal would cover them with confusion, when the philosopher of 13 years would resume his moral lectures upon the laws of hygiene and the follies of fashion...
...York, the modern Babylon, at this time of year holds out a welcoming hand to such students as have survived the midyear examinations, which by a general consensus of opinion have been harder than ever before. Minds which have been wound up like a spring for the semi-annual ordeal feel that they are entitled to the lubrication of a week-end trip. Timetables of trains and steamers and criticisms of New York plays are much in demand...
...getting dinner. But my hardest job lasts not two minutes but the better part of half an hour. My spoon weighs 25 pounds, my porridge is pasty iron and the heat of my kitchen is so great that if my body was not hardened to it the ordeal would drop me in my tracks. ... I am like some frantic baker in the inferno kneading a batch of iron bread for the devil's breakfast...
Whimsically, he suggested an investigation by Congress. Whereupon, Secretary of Agriculture Jardine, hitherto unknown as a humorist, replied: "So far as I know the horses and the cows as well as the mules are surviving the ordeal, some of them even kicking up their heels and showing a great deal of spirit. As for the goats-I still have mine...