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nfliction of loss, pain, or death for adherence to a particular creed or mode of worship. Persecution produces no sincere conviction. Paley.

or being before light; -- a word applied to assemblies of Christians, in ancient times of persecution, held before light in the morning. "Antelucan worship." De Quincey.

or visible; to begin to act a part; to present itself; as, the waves of the sea arose; a persecution arose; the wrath of the king shall arise. There arose up a new king . . . which knew not Joseph. Ex. i. 8. The doubts that in his heart arose. Milton.

Garth. Skeptics, with a taste for carrion, who batten on the hideous facts in history, -- persecutions, inquisitions. Emerson.

n of the Beguines. They arose in the thirteenth century, were afterward subjected to much persecution, and were suppressed by Innocent X. in

y of tenets, held by the advocates of any class of views; doctrine; creed. In the heat of persecution to which Christian belief was subject upon its first promulgation. Hooker. Ultimate belief, a first principle incapable of proof; an intuitive truth; an intuition. Sir W. Hamilton.

sk of suffering; specifically, one who confesses himself a follower of Christ and endures persecution for his faith. He who dies for religion is a martyr; he who suffers for it is a confessor. Latham. Our religion which hath been sealed with the blood of so many martyrs and confessors. Bacon.

The act or state of suffering persecution for religious faith. Our duty to contend even to confessorship. J. H. Newman.

An assembly for religious worship; esp., such an assembly held privately, as in times of persecution, by Nonconformists or Dissenters in England, or by Covenanters in Scotland; -- often used opprobriously, as if those assembled were heretics or schismatics. The first Christians could never have had recourse to nocturna…

The severe persecution of French Protestants under Louis XIV., by an armed force, usually of dragoons; hence, a rapid and devastating incursion; dragoonade. He learnt it as he watched the dragonnades, the tortures, the massacres of the Netherlands. C. Kingsley.

eenness; intenseness of desire. The full edge of our indignation. Sir W. Scott. Death and persecution lose all the ill that they can have, if we do not set an edge upon them by our fears and by our vices. Jer. Taylor.

ration to Protestants. Its revocation by Louis XIV. (A. D. 1685) was followed by terrible persecutions and the expatriation of thousands of French Protestants.

Piously; devoutly; righteously. All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. 2. Tim. iii. 12.

er of Wyclif, the first English religious reformer; hence, a Puritan. [Obs.] Latimer. The persecution was carried on against the gospelers with much fierceness by those of the Roman persuasion. Strype.

h on a criminal. What heart could wish, what hand inflict, this dire disgrace Drygen. The persecution and the pain That man inflicts on infero-ior kinds. Cowper.

The act of pursuing; pursuit; harassment; persecution. [Obs.] Sir T. More.

the truth of Christ; but the witnessing of the truth was then so generally attended with persecution, that martyrdom now signifies not only to witness, but to witness by death South.

In Russia, severe oppressive laws against Jews, which have given occasion for great persecution; -- so called because they received the assent of the czar in May, 1882, and because likened to the Prussian May laws (see Kulturkampf).

strict of Austria, about the middle of the 15th century. After being nearly extirpated by persecution, the society, under the name of The Renewed Church of the United Brethren, was reëstablished in 1722-35 on the estates of Count Zinzendorf in Saxony. Called also Herrnhuter.

Especially, one who, in times of persecution or political commotion, flees to a foreign power or country for safety; as, the French refugees who left France after the revocation of the edict of Nantes.