"Backsliding" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Attorney-General ought to be set at these men;" "it can't," she exclaimed, "be constitutional." Never in her life, not even in the crisis over the Ladies of the Bedchamber, did she show herself a more furious partisan. But her displeasure was not reserved for the Radicals; the backsliding Conservatives equally felt its force. She was even discontented with Lord Beaconsfield himself. Failing entirely to appreciate the delicate complexity of his policy, she constantly assailed him with ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... generally so much occupied with the maintenance of their own existence, or so lukewarm in coping with the necessities of the poor people, as to be unequal to the task of caring for them. I soon found that the majority of those who joined the Churches either relapsed again into open backsliding, or became half-hearted professors. I was, therefore, driven to select men and women who I knew to be lovers of souls, and to be living holy lives, for the purpose of caring for these new Converts. These helpers I afterwards directed to hold Meetings in the streets and in cottages, and then ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... amid 600 burning torches[58] Gil Vicente must have thought of his own altered position. King Manuel had treated his sister's goldsmith generously[59] and had personally attended the acting of many of his plays. The diversion of elephant and rhinoceros had been only a momentary backsliding, and he had sat through the whole of the Barca da Gloria, in which a King and an Emperor fared so lamentably at the hands of the modern Silenus. But he does not appear to have done anything to secure the poet's well-being. King Manuel's sister, Vicente's faithful ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... Apostasy denotes a backsliding from God. This may happen in various ways according to the different kinds of union between man and God. For, in the first place, man is united to God by faith; secondly, by having his will duly submissive in obeying His commandments; thirdly, by certain special ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... finished the morning lessons of the caravan's children. His quarters were filled with a dozen or more of young Fullahs and Mandingoes squatted around a fire, while the prince sat apart in a corner with inkstand, writing reeds, and a pile of old manuscripts. Ali-Ninpha, our backsliding Mahometan, stood by, pretending devoted attention to Mami's precepts and the Prophet's versus. The sinner was a scrupulous follower in the presence of the faithful; but when their backs were turned, I know few who relished a porker more lusciously, or avoided water ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... there is now no boy living who would do this. My boy and his brother groaned under their good resolution, I do not know how long; but the day came when they could bear it no longer, though I cannot give just the time or the terms of their backsliding. That elder brother had been hard enough on my boy before the period of this awful reform: his uprightness, his unselfishness, his truthfulness were a daily reproach to him, and it did not need this season of absolute sincerity to complete his wretchedness. ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... This and the other commands from Dodona and Delphi concerning Dionysus refer to the introduction of the worship of the god; for in every one the statement is absolute; there is no reference to a previous worship and a backsliding on the part of the people, [Greek: knisan bmoise] of the first oracle can refer only to a sacrifice of animals. Stronger still is the statement in the fourth oracle (from Dodona) where the command is given to fulfil sacred rites ([Greek: ...
— The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various
... heart, the allurements of the world, or the temptations of Satan, he relaxes his vigilance, and draws less largely from the fountain of his strength, a sad falling away is the inevitable consequence. This warfare, this danger of backsliding, ends only with the life, when, and when only, he will be perfect, for he shall be ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... be, Sees glorious Adam there made Lord of all, Fancyes the Apple, dangle on the Tree, That turn'd his Sovereign to a naked thral, Who like a miscreant's driven from that place, To get his bread with pain and sweat of face A penalty impos'd on his backsliding Race. ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... there was also a large minority that suspected him of being secretly a communicant with the church of Laodicea. All that he did was sure to be virulently attacked as ultra by one side; all that he left undone, to be stigmatized as proof of lukewarmness and backsliding by the other. Meanwhile, he was to carry on a truly colossal war by means of both; he was to disengage the country from diplomatic entanglements of unprecedented peril undisturbed by the help or the hindrance of ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... condescend once more to don the livery of feminine servitude, and appear, as they do today, in delicate draperies which the eye searches in vain for any hint of sanguinary revolution. Luccia always looks shamefaced at the question. She still feels guilty, I can see, of a traitorous backsliding and occasionally threatens to make up for it by a return to masculine costume—looking the most exquisite piece of Dresden china as she says it. I have seen that masculine tyrant of hers smiling knowingly to himself ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... "Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come unto Thee; for Thou art the Lord ...
— The Ministry of Intercession - A Plea for More Prayer • Andrew Murray
... saith, "Great is repentance, because for the sake of one that truly repenteth the whole world is pardoned; as it is written (Hosea xiv. 4), 'I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely, for mine anger is turned away from him.'" It is not said, "from ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... by Gratian's obtaining his good-will for ever, for he sent him some choice hackles. Prateapace and Gadabout have returned to the church, whereupon the Rev. the cow-doctor has stirred up the wrath of the chapel by a very strong discourse upon backsliding. A poor woman spoke of it as very affecting, adding, "Some loves 'sons of consolation,' but I loves 'sons of thunder.'" Doubtless there was lightning too; and there is of that vivid kind which bewilders and leaves ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... admitted of no withdrawal, and her heart would have been leashed to his, whatever outlawry might threaten him. She thanked Heaven that it had not been thus. Her ideal was still unstained and unbroken; but it no longer found its type in the backsliding Reuben. It is doubtful, indeed, if her sentiment at this period, by mere force of rebound, and encouraged by her native charities and old proclivities, did not rally about young Elderkin, who had equipped himself with many accomplishments of the world, and who, if ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... Ghent to Aix," and "Saul." In this group of poems were also to be found the celebrated lines called "The Lost Leader." People at the time supposed that these indignant verses were aimed at the Tory backsliding of Wordsworth; and, indeed, though Mr. Browning in after-years denied their special applicability to the old Laureate, there can be no doubt that when he wrote them he had Wordsworth more or ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... it, was it? He was a West Pointer, was he? Well, then, the backsliding was natural, and oughtn't to count against him. A member of Benny Havens' church has a right to backslide anywhere, especially as the Colonel doesn't seem to be any worse than some of the rest of us, who haven't fallen from grace the least particle, but took our stand at the start just where we ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... be again obliged to hope. To speak honest truth, she could not forbear an itch to run some sharp and foreign substance into her grandson, to rouse him somehow, for she knew the reason of his state, and was temperamentally out of patience with such a cause for backsliding. Had it been any other of her grandchildren she would not have hesitated, but there was that in Miltoun which held even Lady Casterley in check, and only once during the four hours of travel did she ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... not in living, loving touch with Himself. Oh! the weeks and months and years of our Christian experience spent without the full enjoyment of His Love and Presence. But has this changed His Love? Has our unfaithfulness, our waywardness, our failure and backsliding affected His Love? No. He is the same loving Lord, the same loving Christ who has borne us and yearned over us, who has prayed for us and kept us. Whenever we turn to Him with broken hearts, confessing our sins, when in shame we hide our faces and tell Him all our ...
— The Lord of Glory - Meditations on the person, the work and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ • Arno Gaebelein
... Jacob, thou who hast profited by these lessons which thy master could give—although he could not follow up his precept by example—tell me, what did take place? Let me know the full extent of my backsliding." ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... or indirectly, by uttering with unheard-of poignancy the remorse supposed to be felt by mankind whose guilt occasioned that suffering. The central point in the two Passions is the same, namely, the backsliding of Peter; and in each the words, "He went out and wept bitterly," are given the greatest prominence; but one need only contrast the acute agony expressed in the song, "Ach mein Sinn," which follows the incident in the "John," with the sweetness of ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... she might win her friends to follow her LORD too. Perhaps she scarcely thought at all: glad that she was saved and free, she forgot that the current—the course of this world—was against her; and insensibly glided, drifted back to that position out of which she was called, unaware all the time of backsliding. It is not necessary, when the current is against us, to turn the boat's head down the stream in order to drift: or for a runner in a race to turn back in order to ...
— Union And Communion - or Thoughts on the Song of Solomon • J. Hudson Taylor
... present case and condition of this Kirk and Kingdome, what great things the Lord hath done for us, especially since the renewing of our Covenant, notwithstanding our former backsliding and desertion; and if we shall either become remisse in the dueties of Piety, or shall not constantly hold and keep our Religion, unto which we have bound ourselves so straitly and solemnly, what dishonour we doe unto the Name of God before men, who have their eyes upon us, and ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... and upward. If the flying machine stops, it comes crashing to the earth. If the Sunday School stops, you will also 'hear something drop.' And the same thing is true of us as Christians. Praying and psalm singing are not enough. Backsliding begins when Christians stop working—stop going forward. If we would grow, we ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... He orders things so that they shall work for the good, not merely of a few, but of as many as possible—not merely for His elect, but for those who know Him not. As He has been from the beginning, when He heaped blessings on the stiff-necked and backsliding Israelites—as He was when He endured the cross for a world lying not in obedience, but in wickedness; so is He now; the perfect likeness of His father, who is no respecter of persons, but causes "His sun to shine alike on the evil on the good, and His rain to ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... When the Christian Soldier is attacked by Joylessness, he has a far more desperate struggle than that with Infidelity, and comes out wounded though victorious. Joylessness when crushed by Holiness is restored by Pagan Philosophy. The backsliding Christian is warned in time by Prudence of the fearful consequences of sin, and hastens to turn his back on Pride and the other sins. The soul is led to dread Pride, not by Truth, but by its sufferings ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... proud Christians! wretched, weary ones! Who, in the vision of the mind infirm Confidence have in your backsliding steps, ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... to his mother's room, not from a sense of duty, but a desire to clinch the matter finally. Lady Rylton would be the last person to permit backsliding where her own interests were concerned, and perhaps—— He does not exactly say it to himself in so many words, but he feels a certain dread of the moment when he shall be alone—a prey to thought. ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... back into His flock, 'And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound ... be loosed from this bond?' Such are His merciful words (Luke xiii.); item, 'Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord, and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you, for I am merciful' (Jer. iii.). Return then, thou back-sliding soul, unto the Lord thy God! He who heard the prayer of the idolatrous Manasseh when 'he besought the ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold
... been fed by Him, have ceased to care for the pure nourishment and taste for the manna, and are turning again with gross appetite to the husks in the swine's trough. Negligent Christians! worldly Christians! you who care more for money and other dainties and delights which perish with the using— backsliding Christians, who once hungered and thirsted for more of Christ, and now have no longing for Him—awake to the danger in which you stand of letting all your spiritual wealth slip through your fingers; behold the treasures, yet unreached, within your grasp, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... such weighty points. But if, by means of charms and of spells, Satan had obtained dominion over the Knight, perchance because he cast his eyes too lightly upon a damsel's beauty, we are then rather to lament than chastise his backsliding; and, imposing on him only such penance as may purify him from his iniquity, we are to turn the full edge of our indignation upon the accursed instrument, which had so well-nigh occasioned his utter falling away.—Stand forth, therefore, and bear witness, ye who have witnessed these ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... sent a letter to Lone Sahib, couched in what he remembered of the terminology of the Creed. He wrote: 'I also, in the days of what you held to be my backsliding, have obtained Enlightenment, and with Enlightenment has come Power.' Then he grew so deeply mysterious that the recipient of the letter could make neither head nor tail of it, and was proportionately impressed; for he fancied that his friend had become a 'fifth-rounder.' When ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... by as smoothly and surely as though they had "elapsed" on a theater program. The Kid worked away at his pipes and solder with no symptoms of backsliding. The Stovepipe gang continued its piracy on the high avenues, cracked policemen's heads, held up late travelers, invented new methods of peaceful plundering, copied Fifth avenue's cut of clothes and neckwear fancies ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... behindhand in not having done the same. I ask, why is Tommy to be always the foil of Mr. Barlow to this extent? What Mr. Barlow had not the slightest notion of himself, a week ago, it surely cannot be any very heavy backsliding in me not to have at my fingers' ends to- day! And yet Mr. Barlow systematically carries it over me with a high hand, and will tauntingly ask me, in his articles, whether it is possible that I am not aware that every ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... days of the week, being strong, and willing therefore to give up his day of rest; but such liberty could not be allowed to him, and he also went. 'He couldn't stop,' he said, 'in justice to the greenhouses, when missus was so constant down upon him about his sprittual backsliding. And after all, where did he backslide? It was only a pipe of tobacco with the babby in his arms, instead ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... weapons—he is watched by the vigilant Ulysses— an angry altercation takes place between them. Ulysses, finding he cannot intimidate, prudently avoids personal encounter with the son of Achilles, and departs to apprize the host of the backsliding of his comrade.—A most beautiful scene, in which Neoptolemus restores the weapons to Philoctetes—a scene which must have commanded the most exquisite tears and the most rapturous applauses of the audience, ensues; and, finally, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the way in and through him; to go from strength to strength in him, drawing all our furniture from him, by faith, according to the covenant; and that the soul should guard against, 1. stepping aside out of this good and pleasant way; 2. backsliding; 3. sitting up, ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... sufficiently to review my situation, which no doubt to the villain himself who had just played me this abominable trick must have seemed desperate indeed? Ah! I could see it all, of course! He wanted to> see me sent to New Caledonia, whilst he enjoyed the fruits of his unpardonable backsliding. In order to retain the miserable hundred thousand francs which he had promised me he did not hesitate to plunge up to the ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Shall men fall, and not rise up again? shall one turn away, and not return? Why then is this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a perpetual backsliding? they hold fast deceit, they refuse to return. I hearkened and heard, but they spake not aright: no man repenteth him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? every one turneth to his course, as a horse that rusheth headlong in the battle. Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... in the front pew of the church. When a quartette of singers began to render a rather operatic arrangement of a sacred song he rose, erect and stately, to his full gaunt height, turned slowly around and glanced reproachfully over the frivolous, backsliding congregation, wrapped around his spare, lean figure his full cloak of quilted black silk, took his shovel hat and his cane, and stalked indignantly and sadly the whole length of the broad central aisle, out of the church, thus making a last but futile protest against modern innovations in church ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... the certainty of a smile or even a kiss from the black-browed Nanna to recompense my good-nature, and a possible secret hanging in the wind. Finally, the off chance that the Shining One is not so hopelessly out of fashion as we have been led to think. In this backsliding age he should appreciate the honor of my attendance in person, to say nothing of the venison and the wine." Kurt, the Knacker, laughed silently under his curtain of black beard, and then stumped over to a bench in the gateway, sheltered from ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... Stockdale, he clearly perceived that he possessed unlimited capacity for backsliding, and wished that tutelary saints were not denied to Dissenters. He set a watch upon his tongue and eyes for the space of one hour and a half, after which he found it was useless to struggle further, and gave himself up to the situation. 'The other minister will be here in a month,' ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... they have been good children; and when, as often happens, they have not, the nurse has duly recounted their shortcomings, with the laudable notion of putting them to shame, and of emphasising to them the wickedness of their backsliding—and this son of hers is no hypocrite, but speaks only, as all children speak, in faithful reproduction of all that he hears. Those grown-up persons who are in charge of the children must realise that ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... foreman and the jurors were interviewed, the judge was judged, and by those who were no judges. The Home Secretary (who had done nothing beyond accepting office under the Crown) was vituperated, and sundry provincial persons wrote confidentially to the Queen. Arthur Constant's backsliding cheered many by convincing them that others were as bad as themselves; and well-to-do tradesmen saw in Mortlake's wickedness the pernicious effects of socialism. A dozen new theories were afloat. Constant had committed suicide by Esoteric ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... the lusts of the flesh, and an abstaining from the pomp and vainglory of ambition, riches, power, and the faculties. In short, the one thing needful was humility—humility—humility. Once thoroughly humbled to a degree that put them above the danger of backsliding, they obtained glimpses of security, and were gradually elevated to the hopes and ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... should slow diverge, and listless stray Into some thought, feeling, or dream unright, O Watcher, my backsliding soul affray; Let me not perish of the ghastly blight. Be thou, O Life eternal, in me light; Then merest approach of selfish or impure Shall start ...
— A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul • George MacDonald
... the spigot, from which water, drop by drop, pounds with thundering impact upon his hot head, and the idlers in sylvan dells, view time differently. Your advice, though, shall be taken and followed with such will as I am able to command. Weakness, backsliding from my purpose to be as cheerful as you wish, you must forgive. If you would have me display an even interest in life, undisturbed by the moaning which creeps into these letters, you know the sure, swift course to take—the fastest express train ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... concern this evidence of backsliding, but his attention was suddenly diverted from his companion; then Despeaux nudged Blanchard and directed the latter's gaze by a ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... slowly, "has long been an avowed enemy of our Church. In England especially, where many of the Protestant clergy, repenting of their recusancy—for Protestantism is nothing more than a backsliding from the true faith—are desirous of gradually, through the gentler forms of Ritualism, returning to the Original source of Divine Inspiration, he has taken a great deal too much upon himself in the freedom of his speeches to the people. But we are bound to remember that ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... and paid him his due tribute of devotion. It followed that liberation from the yoke of the stranger coincided with return to the God of Israel, the "Eternal." At such times the national spirit leaped into flaming life. This sums up the achievements of the hero-Judges. But the traces of repeated backsliding were deep and long visible, for, together with the religious ideas of the strange peoples, the Israelites accepted their customs, as a rule corrupt and noxious customs, in sharp contrast with the lofty principles of the Mosaic Law, designed ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow
... having satisfied himself that all science is fiction he proclaims some fairy-tale to be the truth. The episodes of experience, not being due to any conceivable machinery beneath, might come of mere willing, or at the waving of a dialectical wand. Yet apart from this ulterior inconsistency and backsliding into credulity, transcendentalism would hear nothing of causes or grounds. All phenomena existed for it on one flat level. We were released from all dogma and reinstated in the primordial assurance that we were all there was, but without ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... countries means a continuing increase of wealth to the nations that take advantage of the opportunity, and a corresponding backsliding to those nations that fail. It means over all the ocean an increasing number of steamers. It means the continuing increase of manufacturing in manufacturing countries, and the increasing enjoyment in them of the good things of all the world. It means in the undeveloped countries an increasing use ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... growing discomfort of my attitude which produced this backsliding. My night's rest and the 'ascent from the bath' had, in fact, done little to prepare me for contact with sharp edges and hard surfaces. But Davies had suddenly come to himself, and with an 'I say, are you comfortable? Have something to sit on?' jerked the helm a little to windward, felt it like ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... heard upon the high places, weeping and supplications of the children of Israel: for they have perverted their way, and they have forgotten the Lord their God. Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come unto Thee; for Thou art the Lord our God.'—-JER. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... their backsliding; I will love them freely: for Mine anger is turned away."—Hosea ...
— The Way to God and How to Find It • Dwight Moody
... who has tasted it and who knows that it is futile—without reawakening, under such new conditions as we have here, any zest of adventure. The jewel of Pandora may be exhilarating to fallen immortality; it has no lustre whatever for a backsliding mortal. ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse
... immortality of the soul, and a future Heaven, you know—but as for Hell, my dear sir, that's rank superstition, no one believes in it now, and as for Sabbath-keeping and food-restrictions—what utter rubbish for enlightened people!" So the backsliding African deals with his country-fashion ideas: he eliminates from them the idea of immediate retribution, etc., and keeps the polygamy and the dances, and all the lazy, hazy-minded native ways. The education he has received ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... courage to go a little nearer—and then a little nearer still—for, says I to myself, I'm a sinful woman, I know, but I have repented, and do repent constantly of all the sins of my youth and the backslidings of my age—which have been numerous; and once I had a very heavy backsliding—but that's neither here nor there. So, as I was a-saying, having collected all my sinfulness of life, and humbleness before Heaven, into a goodish bit of courage, forward I steps—a little furder—and a leetle furder more—un-til I come'd just up to the beautiful shining ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... ye backsliding children, Rede of the Lord, for I am your Baal,(183) and I will take you, one from a city and two from a clan, and will bring you to Sion. 15. And I will give you Shepherds after My heart, and they shall ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... listened to with devout respect and seriousness by the refined and intellectual Mr Clayton. Another hymn succeeded immediately. It must have been written for the occasion, for the sentiment of it was in accordance with the prayer. It was a wail over the backsliding of a fallen saint. To the assembly thus prejudiced—an assembly made up of men of business and their wives, mechanics, dressmakers, servant-maids, and the like, an address suitable to their capacities was spoken. Mr Clayton ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... first speaks of a woman clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. A woman is the symbol of the church; a lewd woman representing a corrupt or apostate church, as in Eze. 23:2-4, &c., which refers to the Jewish church in a state of backsliding, and in Rev. 17:3-6, 15, 18, which refers to the apostate Romish church; and a virtuous woman representing the true church, as in the verse under consideration. At what period in her history could the church be ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith
... prowled, a tall, swathed form, from one room to the other. It seemed then that there never had been a thrill—nothing but this repulsion, this repudiation, nothing but a desire to be back where she belonged. She fought it, less for love of Mayer than for shame at her own backsliding. She saw herself a coward, lacking the courage to take her life boldly, renouncing the man who had her promise. That held her closer to her resolve than any other consideration; her troth was plighted. ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... allotted sphere, without forgetting the delicacy and proprieties demanded from their sex, they have been greatly instrumental in elevating the moral and religious standard of a community by their faithfulness in reproving the erring and reclaiming the backsliding, while by their kindly sympathy and effectual co-operation, they have aided, encouraged, and, by their prudent, judicious counsel, guided—the appointed leaders ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... is it now, Uncle Simon?" the master asked, heeding the servant's embarrassment, "I know you've come up to ask or tell me something. Have any of your converts been backsliding, or has ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... a most magisterial manner; he being, without doubt, elated with his high conquest. He went to the upper story, and related to his metaphysical associate his wonderful success; how he had driven the dame from the house in tears and deep confusion, and left the backsliding laird in such a quandary of shame and repentance that he could neither articulate a word nor lift up his countenance. The dame thanked him most cordially, lauding his friendly zeal and powerful eloquence; ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... to long faces. No, friends, you have got to be converted to short ones; you have to repent into childhood, to repent into delight, and delightsomeness. You can't go into a conventicle but you'll hear plenty of talk of backsliding. Backsliding, indeed! I can tell you, on the ways most of us go, the faster we slide back the better. Slide back into the cradle, if going on is into the grave—back, I tell you; back—out of your long faces, and into ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... that, instead of correcting him, your penitentiary system depraves. Instead of ameliorating, it makes worse; instead of curing slight moral affections, it renders them incurable. Your aggravation of punishment, applied without pity to the backslider, is, then, iniquitous, barbarous, since this backsliding is, thus to express it, a forced consequence of your penal institutions. The terrible punishment which awaits this double guilt would be just and excusable if your prisons improved the morals, purified the prisoners, and if, at the expiration of the sentence, ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... to incorrigible backsliders. There have been men who were most eminent in Christian grace, who lapsed into backsliding of the lowest type, and even denied the Lord that bought them. They showed no sign of being reclaimed in this life. Will they not be reclaimed in the next? There is nothing to hinder, but it may require a long and terribly severe discipline. But we believe ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... mind, the worse because she confided her difficulties to no one. When he would return, shamefaced and repentant, she would reproach him bitterly and this would bring about renewed attention, gifts, etc., for a week or so,—and then backsliding. Finally even the brief spasmodic reforms grew less common, her reproaches were answered hotly or listened to with indifference, and she became "practically a widow" except for the occasions when the sexual feeling mastered ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... taken up in the version of 1 Samuel vii. viii. x. 17 seq. xii., presents the greatest possible contrast to this way of thinking. There, the erection of the monarchy only forms a worse stage of backsliding from Jehovah. There can be no progress beyond the Mosaic ideal; the greater the departure from it the greater the declension. The capital sin of placing a human ruler on the throne of Jehovah makes even the period of the judges appear not quite black. Dark as the colours are with which ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... the pedlar, writing a very few years after Wodrow (whom he notices only to abuse for his inaccuracy and backsliding), and professing to have got his version from the wife, tells a different tale. "Claverhouse," he says, "ordered six soldiers to shoot him. The most part of the bullets came upon his head, which ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... be purified; enlarge my heart to run the ways of thy commandments. Now may I lay aside every weight, and that vanity of mind which doth so easily beset me, and hath been the secret spring of much backsliding both to myself and to my children. Lord, destroy it.. O let me now live to God, closely and consistently; down with my will, with self in every form. O purify my motives, and let my whole heart, soul, body, substance, and influence in the world be ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... fairs; And poached—and didn't respect grey hairs - Stole linen, money, plate, poultry, and corses; And broke in houses as well as horses; Unfolded folds to kill their own mutton, - And would their own mothers and wives for a button: But not to repeat the deeds they did, Backsliding in spite of all moral skid, If all were true that fell from the tongue, There was not a villager, old or young, But deserved to be whipped, imprisoned, or hung, Or sent on those travels which nobody hurries, To publish at ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... other inquiringly; men from every calling used to go to the mines, and no one would have been surprised if a backsliding priest, or even bishop, had stepped to the front. But none appeared, and the wounded man, after looking despairingly from one to another, gave ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... upper Colony, was bitterly opposed to Romish pretensions, and the first Scotch Highlanders who brought the mass into the Valley above Johnstown were openly denounced as idolaters. But it was certainly not caution which induced Mr. Stewart's backsliding. He was not the man to defer in that way to the prejudices of others. The truth was that he had no religious beliefs or faith whatever. But his scepticism was that of the French noble of the time, that of Voltaire and Mirabeau, rather than of the English ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... sins, than in the first pardon, and therefore you should still love more, and praise more. But what is this wonder to the wonder of his grace? It is swallowed up in that higher wonder, for his thoughts and ways are not like ours, his voice is, "Return, thou backsliding sinner, to thy first husband, though thou hast played the harlot." Therefore, I desire that whatsoever be presented in that kind, to aggravate your sins, let it humble you more indeed, and make you hate sin, but ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... was rapt in peace, for I had again found my treasured faith in womankind. I had hardly dared include Madge in my backsliding, but I had come perilously near doing it, and the thought of my narrow escape from such perfidy frightened me. I have never taken the risk since that day. I would not believe the testimony of my own eyes against the evidence of my faith ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... and coming to our house, and what he called 'wrestling for Dick's soul.' Sometimes he went away pleased, thinking he had gotten the upper hand. Then the little light man would come again, and there was Dick just as bad as ever. 'Backsliding' was what Israel called it, and a good name, I say, for then the job was all to do over again from the beginning. But it was the Adversary that carried off Dick Wilkes at the ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... deferred, will at whiles, excusably enough, turn back in their hearts to other days, when if the issues were not clearer, the means of trying them were simpler; when, so stirring were the times, one might even have atoned for many a blunder and backsliding by visibly dying for the cause. To have breasted the Spanish pikes at Leyden, to have drawn sword with Oliver: that may well seem to us at times amidst the tangles of to- day a happy fate: for a man to be able to say, I have lived like a fool, ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... arrived at such a conviction? How had I come, from praying and fasting and Psalm-singing, to extreme impiety? Alas! my backsliding had cost me no travail of spirit. Always weak in my faith, playing at sanctity as I played at soldiers, just as I was in the mood or not, I had neglected my books of devotion and given myself up to profane literature at the first opportunity, ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... that reminds one of the technicalities of Calvinistic theology. First of all, there are those who are near wisdom, but, however near they may be to the door of Heaven, they are still on the wrong side of it. According to some doctors, these were already safe from backsliding, differing from the sage only in not having yet realized that they had attained to knowledge; other authorities, however, refused to admit this, and regarded the first class as being exempt only from settled diseases of the soul, but not from passing attacks of passion. Thus ...
— A Little Book of Stoicism • St George Stock
... should have sprung from this! The thought was painful; still she could forgive Providence so much. But should it ever be known she had sprung from this! Alas! she felt she never could pardon such a dire betrayal. She had come in good spirits, but the mention of Evan's backsliding had troubled her extremely, and though she did not say to herself, What was the benefit resulting from her father's dying, if Evan would be so base-minded? she thought the thing indefinitely, and was forming the words on her mouth, One Harrington in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... pleasure the day had contained. Her life had always had the tension of a bent bow. It seemed to her once or twice during this fortnight as though something were suddenly relaxed in her, and she felt a swift Bunyan-like terror of backsliding, of falling away. But she never confessed herself fully; she was even blind to what her perspicacity would have seen so readily in another's case—the little arts and manoeuvres of those about her. It did not strike her that Mrs. Thornburgh was more flighty and more ebullient than ever; that the ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Restoration he met him again among the King's yeomen at Westminster, about the time of the beginning of the persecution. But Willy then begged Ritchie, with the tear in his eye, no to tell his father; nor was ever the old man's heart pierced with the anguish which the thought of such backsliding would have caused, though he often wondered to us at home, with the anxiety of a parent's wonder, what could have become of blithe light-hearted Willy. No doubt he died in the servitude of the faithless tyrant; but the storm ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... always the first one to go up to the penitent bench. They rake him in every time. He has religion real bad for a couple of weeks, and then he backslides. He doesn't seem able to stand either the converting or the backsliding. I suppose some time they will gather him in finally, and he will stick and become a class leader, but he hasn't ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... them of so many wild and bold spirits, could not be treated quite in the same way as the more peaceful habitants of Lower Canada. The duty of the priest was to look after the souls of his sovereign's subjects, to baptize, marry, and bury them, to confess and absolve them, and keep them from backsliding, to say mass, and to receive the salary due him for celebrating divine service; but, though his personal influence was of course very great, he had no temporal authority, and could not order his people either to fight or to work. Still less could ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... Worship, was progressing slowly, and, often, in crablike fashion. Chiefs, who announced themselves Christians and were welcomed into the body of the chapel, had a distressing habit of backsliding in order to partake of the flesh of some favorite enemy. Eat or be eaten had been the law of the land; and eat or be eaten promised to remain the law of the land for a long time to come. There were chiefs, such as Tanoa, Tuiveikoso, ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... else a leaning, slight though it be, toward despotism and free-trade. They will now all, or nearly all, wear evening dress with a black cravat, but even those of them who will consent to put on a white one do so with a certain shamefacedness and sense of backsliding, and of treachery to some good cause, though they ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... his peace no longer: "Your Majesty," quoth he, "yon fellow in blue is a certain outlawed thief of the mid-country, named Robin Hood; yon tall, strapping villain goeth by the name of Little John; the other fellow in green is a certain backsliding gentleman, known as Will Scarlet; the man in red is a rogue of a northern minstrel, ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... love and faithfulness, will not, and cannot, let us go on in backsliding, but He will visit us with stripes, to bring us ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... little likely to have been paid to an unknown man, but which would not unreasonably be bestowed upon the son of a famous chief. Having received a severe wound he was nursed back into life by his reputed father, and on his complete recovery expressed his contrition for his backsliding, and his horror of the bloodthirsty trade of war, and returned to the peaceful work of attempting to teach and convert his dusky Indian brethren. He deserted the Congregationalists with whom he had previously been connected, and joined the Protestant Episcopal Church, by which he was ordained, ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... reprobates. As to such charity opening a way for persons of immoral lives to creep into the churches or to put off willfully the partaking of communion, the author's experience of many years had proved the contrary, though he could not deny that the possibility of hypocrisy and backsliding might exist under ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... avoided them, he saw no inconsistency in bringing his wife's old friends to divert her: she might in time convert THEM. He had no more fear of her returning to their ways than he had of himself "backsliding." Narrow as was his creed, he had none of the harshness nor pessimism of the bigot. With the keenest self-scrutiny, his credulity regarding ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... a patriot," he replied, clapping his hand on his heart. "I am as good a Republican as you, as ardent a patriot as you, citoyen Gamelin. I do not suspect your zeal nor accuse you of any backsliding. But remember that my zeal and my devotion to the State are attested by numerous acts. Here you have my principles: I give my confidence to every individual competent to serve the Nation. Before the men whom the general voice elects to the perilous honour ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... of the evening had read his paper, the chairman announced that the debate would now be upon the subject of the previous meeting, "The American Press." It saddened the backsliding disciple to hear this announcement. It brought up too many reminiscences. He wished he had happened upon some other subject. But the debate began, and he sat still ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... generous basinful of water on his head—but now that I think of it in your enlightening presence I see that such a proceeding is quite out of the question. I fear we must let matters take the usual course, trusting to our later efforts to prevent the backsliding which may result." ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... powerless and lacking in pleasure or profit to the soul. Such indifference is conclusive proof that the soul has departed from God; has grieved the Holy Spirit and lost the vital power of godliness. If you, reader, are conscious of this indifference, see in it an infallible sign of your backsliding. It declares you have departed from the fountain of living waters and are a ...
— Food for the Lambs; or, Helps for Young Christians • Charles Ebert Orr
... and was in a rage with him when he laughed. I took to rising early, to filling every spare moment with some occupation, and altogether started afresh, like a reformed character, as I felt myself to be, and determined this time, at any rate, my progress should know no backsliding. How soon I again fell a victim to dawdling ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... young man about returning to college, it was highly important to conceal this backsliding within; so I launched out the more upon the monster character of this victory of brawny ignorance and stupid rebellion over the spirit of laws—but it wouldn't do. "But you don't look altogether so angry about it as you speak, father," said he, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... the hair-shirted old dominie's backsliding disciples. For, of all nature's animated kingdoms, fish are the most unchristian, inhospitable, heartless, and cold-blooded of creatures. At least, so seem they to strangers; though at bottom, somehow, they must be all right. ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... will soon cavil at other symbols. I was prepared for infidelity in London, but I confess, my dear Ferrars, you alarm me. I was in hopes that your early education would have saved you from this backsliding." ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... bishop once forbade a clergyman of his church to officiate again, because this clergyman had invited a Methodist minister to assist him in the administration of the sacrament. This is backsliding a good way from the position of Him who said, "Forbid him not: he that is not against us is with us." And again: "Whosoever wishes to do the will of God, the same is my mother, my sister, and my brother." Dear Master! ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... struggle. Zephaniah had, like most of his class, a keen eye to the main chance, and could ill spare the services of Jabez and his thrifty and hard-working wife; and henceforth, except by pointed references, in the lengthy morning and evening prayers, to the backsliding in his household, ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... Israel in a time of great backsliding, Amos said to them: "Though ye offer unto me burnt offerings and meat offerings, I will not accept them, neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat ...
— The Testimony of the Bible Concerning the Assumptions of Destructive Criticism • S. E. Wishard
... law of the conservation of energy; alongside Kirchoff and Bunsen; alongside steam, gas, electricity, the blindest and most antiquated superstitions still survive, powerful as ever? I am not so certain that backsliding into the most horrible times of the Malleus maleficarum ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... standeth take heed lest he fall," which could not have failed to attract Miss Leonora's attention, and draw forth the whole story of her sister's suspicions, had not that quick-witted iron-grey woman been, as we have already mentioned, too deeply engaged. Perhaps her nephew's imaginary backsliding might have excited even Miss Leonora to an interest deeper than that which was awakened by the new gin-palace; but as it happened, it was the humbler intelligence alone which occupied itself with the supposed ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... thought for its race, or for perfection in any shape or form. It wants two things—food and shelter. How it gets them is of no moment. Each member lives exclusively on its own account, an isolated, indolent, selfish, and backsliding life. ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... to their parents are broken. All the reciprocity of rights and duties which have bound together the parent and child from infancy is considered to end with the consummation of her marriage; nor does the stain of any subsequent female backsliding ever affect the family of her parents; it can affect that only of her husband, who is held alone responsible for her conduct. If a widow inherits the property of her husband, on her death the property would go to her husband's brother, supposing neither had any children by their ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... gallows, as the next best thing. But he is, above all, desirous to be taken while the penitent fit is on him: and urgently sets forth those past misdeeds, which constitute his and his wife's claim to a speedy despatch, such as will place them beyond the danger of backsliding. Already, he declares, Satan is whispering to him of the pleasures he is leaving behind; and the seductions of to-morrow's brawl and bear-baiting are threatening to turn the scale. Another moment, and instead of going up to heaven, ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... therefore, they are found conflicting with actual experience, they not only are despised but involve the truth in their fall: he, for instance, who deprecates Pleasure, if once seen to aim at it, gets the credit of backsliding to it as being universally such as he said it was, the mass of men being ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... half-tipsy captain had no relish to go a-pirating under the command of his backsliding mate, so out of the ship he bundled, and away he rowed with four or five of the crew, who, like him, refused to ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... letting them go, to be among their first stepping aside; for which, he feared that the Lord would not honour them to do much more for him; and says, that he was neither for taking favours from, nor giving favours to the Lord's enemies." Burly was not a likely man to fall into this sort of backsliding. He disarmed one of the duke of Hamilton's servants, who had been in the action, and desired him to tell his master, he would keep, till meeting, the pistols he had taken from him. The man described Burly to the duke as a little stout man, ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... the need of regeneration, and repentance and faith, and as he pressed home these great truths upon the souls of his hearers, there was seldom a service at which conversions did not take place. Like many other faithful ministers, he was often compelled to mourn on account of the backsliding of the people. These were seasons of depression, when he became subject to severe temptation, and mourned the leanness of his own soul. The beginning of every year however, was a time of refreshing, as he regularly and solemnly made the renewal of ...
— William Black - The Apostle of Methodism in the Maritime Provinces of Canada • John Maclean
... faithfully observed when we little know it, and the importance, therefore, of always maintaining it. It proves the goodness of God in reproving and checking his children when they neglect duty and go astray. And it shows the insidious way in which backsliding begins and grievous sin on the part of God's people. May the engagements of business never tempt any parent that reads this article to repeat the tradesman's dangerous experiment! But if there be any that have ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... an army, and would become the worst and most dangerous of mobs. Nor would it be safe in our time to tolerate in any regiment religious meetings, at which a corporal versed in Scripture should lead the devotions of his less gifted colonel, and admonish a backsliding major. But such was the intelligence, the gravity, and the self-command of the warriors whom Cromwell had trained that in their camp a political organization and a religious organization could exist without destroying military organization. The same men, who, off ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... that in the second week I did some backsliding. The swing of the tour carried me into the South. It was the South in the splendor of the young springtime when the cardinal bird sang his mating song. With brocading dandelions each pasture gloriously became even as the Field of ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... resilience reflection, reflexion [Brit.] (recoil) 277; flip-flop, volte-face [Fr.]. counter motion, retrograde motion, backward movement, motion in reverse, counter movement, counter march; veering, tergiversation, recidivation^, backsliding, fall; deterioration &c 659; recidivism, recidivity^. reversal, relapse, turning point &c (reversion) 145. V. recede, regrade, return, revert, retreat, retire; retrograde, retrocede; back out; back down; balk; crawfish [U.S.], crawl ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... at that time a true believer, when I tell hint that so base was I, so altogether like a beast before my God, and unmindful of His mercies to me in Christ, that only a few weeks after I fell into a wretched backsliding state, in which I continued for many days, during which time prayer was almost entirely given up. It was on one of these days that I rang my bell, and ordered the servant to fetch me wine. And now I began to drink. But how good was the Lord! Though I desired to drink, that I might ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, First Part • George Mueller
... announcement of your father's death. He was a good and kind friend to me in the days long ago, and I mourn his loss. In these backsliding days he set a great example of steadfastness and loyalty to the faith of his youth ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... backs. They believe no such thing; they know perfectly well it is not so, and they take care to tell other people so; and yet there is not one in a thousand of them ever went privately to his brother, and took lovingly hold of his hand, and reproved him for his sinful and backsliding conduct. ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth
... must earn it and keep on earning it. The other girls might do with perfect safety what you could not dream of doing, because in them it would be looked on merely as a single slip; with you it would be backsliding. ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... one against the other. The Bible is full of the accounts of those who have met this inward conflict. Some of the most eminent people in the world whose names have been mentioned in the Bible and out of it have told the story of their backsliding, their falling, their repentance, and their lamentation because of their weakness. You have all read the seventh chapter of Romans. Whether this is the story of Paul's experience or not, it is the story of yours. Galatians the fifth chapter sixteenth and seventeenth verses gives us the same ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... old gardener. To him they were living, breathing beings to be adored and jealously protected. His forefathers had ever been keepers of this place. He inherited all their garden skill and his equal could not be found in the Empire. For that reason, I forgave his backsliding seventy times one hundred and seventy, and ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... My jewels, hangings, and costumes, my wife will like, of course. But as she is opposed to smoking, there are six narghilehs and four chibouques which I will never use again. As I am about to unite with the Presbyterian church this coming Sunday, it might cause my wife some disquietude and fear of backsliding, were I to retain possession of my eight copies of the Koran. She may be wise there," said the emir with a sigh. "If perchance you should embrace the true faith and thereby make compensation for the loss of a member occasioned ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... of backsliders. Some have never been converted: they have gone through the form of joining a Christian community and claim to be backsliders; but they never have, if I may use the expression, "slid forward." They may talk of backsliding; but they have never really been born again. They need to be treated differently from real back-sliders—those who have been born of the incorruptible seed, but who have turned aside. We want to bring the latter back the same road by which they left ...
— The Way to God and How to Find It • Dwight Moody
... He linger among us. Though the night cometh, the beams of mercy are still tardily lingering, as if loth to leave the backsliding to their wanderings, or the impenitent to their ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... commonplaces as to the right of "making those who could pay, pay for those who could not;" that "it was very hard to get a living, and the Lord knew her temptations," and "that God saw no sin in His elect," and "Christ's merits were infinite," and "Christians always had been a backsliding generation;" and all the other commonplaces by which such people drug their consciences to a degree which is utterly incredible, except to those who have seen it with their own eyes, and heard it with ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... might discover your backsliding, and might summon you before him, and there is no saying what pains and penalties he ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... another of the brethren spoke a little in the way of exhortation, and we read also such writings of godly men as were calculated for edification. I was often greatly stirred up and refreshed in these meetings; and twice, being in a backsliding state, and therefore cold and miserable, I opened my heart to the brethren, and was brought out of that state through the means of their ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... and the teacher must conspire to put good reading, interesting reading, elevating reading in his way. The well-read person is an educated person. The taste for good reading once acquired is permanent. There is little danger of backsliding. It grows with indulgence. One writer says: No man having once tasted good food or good wine, or even good tobacco, ever voluntarily turns to an inferior article. So with our reading habits; a taste for good reading once ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana
... discernment to the view, and only time will reveal the ascent of man during the five great years of war. There will be much backsliding to measure and record, and the intense agitation of war brought out the worst in the bad as well as the best in the good. Much that came to the top was scum, while often the salt of the earth went under. Treason blotted the pages illumined by ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... of the city of Bristol, and after examination concerning the sacrament of the altar, was persuaded to recant; and on the 29th, he was enjoined to make his recantation in the parish church. But, scarcely had he publicly avowed his backsliding, before he felt in his conscience such a tormenting fiend, that he was unable to work at his occupation; hence, shortly after, one Sunday, he came into the parish church, called Temple, and after high mass, stood up in the choir door, and said with ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... of the state. The office was that of representative in the state legislature, and the candidates were a hatter and a saddler; the former was also a militia major, and a Methodist preacher, of the Percival and Gordon school, who eschewed the devil and all the backsliding abominations of the flesh, as in duty bound. Sundry "stump orations" were delivered on the occasion, for the enlightenment of the electors; and towards the close of the proceedings, by way of an appropriate finale, the ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... come before Thee this morning, Humble worms of the dust, imploring thy blessing. We beseech Thee to forgive our transgressions, Heal our backsliding, and love ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... spectacle of herself as an intruder between these. To be sure she could not have foreseen such a conjuncture; but that did not lessen her grief. The woman who had been both her husband's bliss and his backsliding had reappeared free when he was no longer so, and she evidently was dying to claim her own in the person of Dorothy, who had meanwhile grown to be, to Lady Mottisfont, almost the only source of each day's happiness, supplying her with something to watch over, ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy |
