The Priests observed frequent fasts, and abstained at all times from certain animals and fruits, especially from the Granadilla, the fruit of the Passion-flower, because, say the lying Jesuits, of the mysteries which are signified in that marvellous blossom […]

A Cotter is, properly speaking, any boat which takes a full-lengthed oar.

Both ordines are related to an ordo in a pontifical in Reims, the Ordo of 1200 (Ordo XIX). The latter was to be consulted again and again, and its formulas were to have a marked effect upon the French ceremony; […]

I also could have done without the scene illustrating the difficulties that an ignorant savage—or anyone whose brain is in full, working order—might have with certain passages of the Bible. Sitting in the prayer tent while Wes Studhi is conducting business, the Indians look at their copies of the good word with the same look of uncomprehending bafflement that Sid Vicious used to sometimes look at his bass, and then fall out of their chairs laughing when one smarty-pants among them allows as how she’d love to have been a fly on the wall when Mary was explaining to Joseph about how she’d gotten pregnant.