One of the first acts of Motawakkil was the release of all those who had been imprisoned for refusing to admit the dogma of the created Koran, and the strict order to abstain from any litigation about the Book of God.
In England it had not been possible to bring the old British and the young Anglo-Saxon churches into friendly union; but in spite of this the Celts did not abstain from working at the common tasks of Christendom, and the continent has much to thank them for.
Lord John Russell, indeed, was too earnest in his desire for reform to abstain from one serious effort to accomplish it.
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According to the Century Dictionary, the secretary of a New York temperance society introduced a total abstinence pledge among its members, who were thus divided into those who had taken the old pledge, the O.P.'s, to abstain from spirituous liquors, and the T.'s, who had taken the new or total pledge.
The powers having engaged to abstain from intervention in italian affairs, Victor Emmanuel addressed a letter to Pius IX.
During this fast they abstain from the gratification of every appetite and passion whatever.
Some have added fish to their dietary; but, speaking generally, all who are called vegetarians will be found to abstain from the use of flesh and fowl and almost invariably also from fish as food.
Victor Emmanuel himself wrote to Garibaldi urging him to abstain from an attack on Naples, but Garibaldi refused to obey, and on the 19th of August he crossed with 4500 men and took Reggio by storm.
All the sufferers, however, were wise enough to abstain from talking about their beatings, except Osborne, the most rapacious and brutal of booksellers, who proclaimed everywhere that he had been knocked down by the huge fellow whom he had hired to puff the Harleian Library.
This time Venizelos, as a protest against the King's unconstitutional proceedings, called upon his party to abstain from the polls; and as a result, only 230,000 votes were cast, as against 720,000 in the previous election.