ALMOST the first decided taste in my life was the love of hymns. Committing them to memory was as natural to me as breathing. I followed my mother about with the hymn-book ("Watts' and Select"), reading or repeating them to her, while she was busy with her baking or ironing, and she was always a willing listener. She was fond of devotional reading, but had little time for it, and it pleased her to know that so small a child as I really cared for the hymns she loved.英文原著 · 《A New England Girlhood》
However Church Music may raise the devotional feelings, these bring a man not one iota nearer to Christ, neither is it acceptable in His sight.英文原著 · 《Cambridge Pieces》
The Hymns to "Pan" (xix), to "Dionysus" (xxvi), to "Hestia and Hermes" (xxix), seem to have been designed for use at definite religious festivals, apart from recitations. With the exception perhaps of the "Hymn to Ares" (viii), no item in the collection can be regarded as either devotional or liturgical.英文原著 · 《Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica》
92, 93; IB. 143; Preuss, ii. 84.] The Dates, much more the features and circumstances, all lie buried from us, and--till perhaps the Lamentation-Psalms are well edited--must continue lying. As a fact certain, but undeniably vague. Voltaire's procedure, one can gather, is polite, but two-faced; not sublime on this occasion. In fact, is intended to serve himself. To the high Princess he writes devotionally, ready to obey in all things; and then to his Eminency Cardinal Tencin, it rather seems as if the tone were: "Pooh! yes, your Eminency; such are the poor Lady's notions.英文原著 · 《History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 18》
"Naturally. The existing ritual is only a compromise. And as for the hymns which are sung, why is it necessary for them to be doggerel before they are devotional?"英文原著 · 《Phyllis of Philistia》
"'A Rock in the Wilderness' is an ode that any poet might be proud to own. It is much in the style of Campbell--chaste, devotional, 'beautiful exceedingly.' I know nothing of the kind more musically sweet than the serenade ''Tis now the promised hour'--the first line in especial--英文原著 · 《Poems》