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Corruption of morals; dissipation; dissoluteness. [Obs. or R.] Atterbury.

To force or put out of the true posture or direction; to twist aside mentally or morally. Wrath and malice, envy and revenge, do darken and distort the understandings of men. Tillotson.

rritory; a defined portion of a state, town, or city, etc., made for administrative, electoral, or other purposes; as, a congressional district, judicial district, land district, school district, etc. To exercise exclusive legislation . . . over such district not exceeding ten miles square. The Constitution of the Unit…

rivileges; to divest one's self of prejudices, passions, etc. Wretches divested of every moral feeling. Goldsmith. The tendency of the language to divest itself of its gutturals. Earle.

The science of divine things; the science which treats of God, his laws and moral government, and the way of salvation; theology. Divinity is essentially the first of the professions. Coleridge. , casuistry.

It is commonly designed to be spoken and represented by actors on the stage. A divine pastoral drama in the Song of Solomon. Milton.

o infer from evidence or reasons; to deduce from premises; to derive. We do not draw the moral lessons we might from history. Burke.

nd lingering utterance, from laziness, lack of spirit, affectation, etc. Theologians and moralists . . . talk mostly in a drawling and dreaming way about it. Landor.

u, shall be upon every beast of the earth. Gen. ix. 2. His scepter shows the force of temporal power, The attribute to awe and majesty, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings. Shak.

A monotonous bass, as in a pastoral composition.

r for another; that which belongs or may be claimed as a right; whatever custom, law, or morality requires to be done; a fee; a toll. He will give the devil his due. Shak. Yearly little dues of wheat, and wine, and oil. Tennyson.

That which a person is bound by moral obligation to do, or refrain from doing; that which one ought to do; service morally obligatory. Forgetting his duty toward God, his sovereign lord, and his country. Hallam.

wing to the natural size; to make or keep small; to stunt. Addison. Even the most common moral ideas and affections . . . would be stunted and dwarfed, if cut off from a spiritual background. J. C. Shairp.

The moving moral, as well as physical, forces of any kind, or the laws which relate to them.

go out on the ebb. Thou shoreless flood which in thy ebb and flow Claspest the limits of morality! Shelley.

-- Ecclesiastical States, the territory formerly subject to the Pope of Rome as its temporal ruler; -- called also States of the Church.

A pastoral poem, in which shepherds are introduced conversing with each other; a bucolic; an idyl; as, the Ecloques of Virgil, from which the modern usage of the word has been established.

The act of edifying, or the state of being edified; a building up, especially in a moral or spiritual sense; moral, intellectual, or spiritual improvement; instruction. The assured edification of his church. Bp. Hall. Out of these magazines I shall supply the town with what may tend to their edification. Addison.…

One who edifies, builds up, or strengthens another by moral or religious instruction.

To instruct and improve, especially in moral and religious knowledge; to teach. It does not appear probable that our dispute [about miracles] would either edify or enlighten the public. Gibbon.