"Backsliding" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the undeveloped 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 ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... mother's milk,—and that I, the wretched Tommy, am most abjectly 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 school-boy knows ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... malignant envy; but having wages bigger than their bodily wants, and having spiritual wants numerous and elastic enough to use up the surplus—spiritual wants, that know both how to suffer need and how to abound, and to do either without backsliding toward savagery. Whoever would help this state of things on, let him seek at the same time to increase the home's wage-earning power and its spiritual powers to put to fine use the wages earned: to augment the love of beauty in nature and in ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... thought I should catch them, I fished for nothing." "A word cast in by-the-bye sometimes did more execution than all the Sermon besides." The tie between him and his spiritual children was very close. The backsliding of any of his converts caused him the most extreme grief; "it was more to me than if one of my own children were going to the grave. Nothing hath gone so near me as that, unless it was the fear of the loss of the salvation of my ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... quarters. Thus, when the disciples of Montanus, the Phrygian, who pretended to be the Paraclete, had converted to their doctrines and austerities the Bishop of Rome and Tertullian the Carthaginian, on the former backsliding from that faith, the latter denounced him as a Patripassian heretic. Yet, for the most part, a good understanding obtained not only between Rome and Carthage, but also among the Gallic and Spanish churches, who looked upon Rome as conspicuous and illustrious, though as no more ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... to the introduction of Tammuz worship into Jerusalem. Ishtar, as Queen of Heaven, was also adored by the backsliding Israelites as a deity of battle and harvest. When Jeremiah censured the people for burning incense and serving gods "whom they knew not", he said, "neither they, ye, nor your fathers", they made answer: "Since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... and failings—granted clearly, We're frail backsliding mortals merely, Eve's bonny squad, priests wyte them sheerly For our grand fa'; But stilt, but still, I like them dearly— ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... 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 ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... backsliding for you any more, Blink. After that Gregory raid business you slid back as far in my mind as ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... question now," said Mowbray; "but what I wonder at is the wretched chance that has attended us miserable Lairds of St. Ronan's for more than a hundred years, that we have always been getting worse in the world, and never better. Never has there been such a backsliding generation, as the parson would say—half the country once belonged to my ancestors, and now the last furrows of it ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... affliction by repentance; and also to be a pattern to them, how to deal with God, and plead with him from such grounds of mercy and covenant-interest: so it may be to us a warning, especially when sin is come to the maturity, and our secure backsliding condition is with child of sad judgments, when the harvest seemeth ripe to put the sickle ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... converted 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 your long clothes. It is among children ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... effort. In such an undertaking he needs every moral support and influence that can possibly be brought to his aid and thrown around him. And not only so, but every moral prop should be taken from whatever argument might rise in his mind to lure him to his backsliding. When he casts his eyes around him, he should be able to see all that he respects, all that he admires, all that he loves, kindly and anxiously pointing him onward, and none beckoning him back to his former miserable "wallowing ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... bear the face to pray to this Christ for mercy, against whom I had thus most vilely sinned; it was hard work, I say, to offer to look him in the face against whom I had so vilely sinned; and, indeed, I have found it as difficult to come to God by prayer, after backsliding from him, as to do any other thing. Oh, the shame that did now attend me! especially when I thought I am now a-going to pray to him for mercy that I had so lightly esteemed but a while before! I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... 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 ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... ruin, and that he should be gathered into his grave in peace; and at the same time Zephaniah likewise spoke of judgment, and Jeremiah, the priest of Anathoth, was foretelling that treacherous Judah should soon suffer like backsliding Israel. Yet even this hopeless future did not daunt Josiah's loving heart from doing his best. He collected his people, and renewed the Covenant, he rooted out every trace of idolatry, even more thoroughly than Hezekiah had done, overthrowing ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... because some that are not young, but of an ancient standing, may not only be assaulted with violent temptations concerning gospel-principles, but a second time may become a child, a babe, a shallow man, in the things of God: especially, either when by backsliding he hath provoked God to leave him, or when some new, unexpected, and (as to present strength) over weighty objection doth fall upon the spirit, by means of which great shakings of mind do commonly attend such a soul in the most weighty matters of the concerns of faith, ...
— Miscellaneous Pieces • John Bunyan
... verdicts on an offending (it may be a deeply offending) brother? Shall we pronounce "crimson" and "scarlet" sins and sinners beyond the pale of mercy, when Jesus does not? Nay, rather, when wretchedness, and depravity, and backsliding cross our path, let it not be with the bitter taunt or the ironical retort that we bid them away. Let us bear, endure, remonstrate, deal tenderly. Jesus did so, Jesus does so! Ah! If we had within us His unconquerable love of souls; His yearning desire for the everlasting ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... 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 ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... cry, darling Mardie! I won't talk any more, not for days and days! Let me wipe your poor eyes. Don't let Elder Gray see you crying, or he'll think I've been naughty. He's just going in downstairs to see Eldress Abby. Was it wrong what I said about backsliding, or what, Mardie? We'll help each udder climb, an' then we'll go home an' help poor lonesome ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... held beneath 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 ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... 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. What if he should regret the move he had taken, to the extent of wanting it undone? His ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... was not desirable, 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 the ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... began, in a gentle tone, "a glorious work has been done of late in Florence under the preaching of our blessed Superior. Could you believe it, daughter, in these times of backsliding and rebuke there have been found painters base enough to paint the pictures of vile, abandoned women in the character of our Blessed Lady; yea, and princes have been found wicked enough to buy them and put them up in churches, so that the people have had the Mother of all Purity presented to them ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... hysterical and passing type—with sensational disturbances, falling exercises, shouts, weeping, and the like. A revival is something far different. A revival is an awakening of the community heart and mind. It is a quickening of dead, backsliding, ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... 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 demands for vigorous action, interpreted each finesse as a sign of weakness, ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... 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." ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... wrath of the Almighty. A Massachusetts act of November, 1675, ascribed the war to the judgment of God upon the colony for its sins, among which were included an excess of apparel, the wearing of long hair, and the rudeness of worship, all marks of an apostasy from the Lord "with a great backsliding." The Puritan fear of divine displeasure adds a relieving note to the general despondency and must have stiffened the determination of the orthodox leaders to resist to the utmost all attempts to liberalize the life of ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... could control and restrain his children, his power waxed weak over his backsliding and pleasure-seeking grandchildren, and they annoyed him sorely. Sam Hirst, the son of poor timid Betty, lived with his grandfather for a time, and on April 1st, 1719, ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... residents of the valley, many of them Methodists, claim this estimate works a hardship upon members of their faith for a good Methodist could wear the knees out at prayer and the seat out in "backsliding." ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... 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 ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... however, that there was later some backsliding. Madison's record is characteristically erratic. His statement in The Federalist No. 39 written probably early in 1788, is very positive: The tribunal which is to ultimately decide, in controversies relating to the boundary between ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... 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 ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... greater stress upon it, either directly, by actual description, 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 "Have mercy upon me," which follows it ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... walk; and when, through the deceits of his 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 ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... 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 ...
— Union And Communion - or Thoughts on the Song of Solomon • J. Hudson Taylor
... I 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
... viewed with 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 ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... struggle of men, who have fallen from a high place once gained, that second mounting of the ladder of life, seldom is an easy path. He, and with him Gertrude and his children, had been called on to pay the full price of his backsliding. His history had gone with him to the Antipodes; and, though the knowledge of what he had done was not there so absolute a clog upon his efforts, so overpowering a burden, as it would have been in London, still it was a burden and a ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... and Discussion. (1) Make a list of all the exhortations to penitence and reformation and study them. (2) Point out the different utterances of judgment upon the people. (3) Make a list of all the different sins condemned. (4) Make a list of the expressions of tender love for the wayward and backsliding one. (5) Make a list of all passages indicating grief and suffering because of the sin and danger of the one loved. (6) Political and religious apostacy. (7) Sin as infidelity to love-as spiritual adultery. (8) The invitations of ...
— The Bible Book by Book - A Manual for the Outline Study of the Bible by Books • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... worship 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 ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... Clelie and Daddy January. And presently Clelie distributes them to a waiting colored countryside, which wallpapers its houses with them. I have had to counsel the erring and bolster the faith of the backsliding under the goggle eyes of inhuman creations whose unholy capers have made futile many a prayer. And yet the Butterfly Man likes them! Is it ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... 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 whipp'd, imprison'd, or hung, Or sent on those travels which nobody hurries To publish at Colburn's, or Longman's, or Murray's. ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... will think it of little consequence. But his attacks will grow stronger; your words will grow more hasty; there will be frettings and worryings; and you will be so stupid that you will not be aware of your backsliding. Do not cease your watching and praying even if you have no temptations. Alas, how many have gone down under this cunning device of Satan! This is a scheme he ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr
... poor stray lamb, 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 backsliding soul, unto the Lord thy God! He who heard the prayer of the idolatrous Manasseh when 'he ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... are talking about him, let us a little inquire into the reason of the sudden backsliding ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... 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 ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... Backsliding Christians trembling came To that blest place—neglected long, And there rekindled worship's flame, And freely owned they had been wrong. Then, feeling sense of pardon strong, Afresh they family altars raise— ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... celebrated its short-lived triumph and gloom settled again upon his country and most of his co-fighters withdrew from the battle in despair, some returning to the old-time Russian mood of hopelessness, passivity and apathy, and some even backsliding into wild orgies of literary debauchery, Gorky never wavered, never lost his faith and hope, never for a moment was untrue to his principles. Now, with the revolution victorious, he has come into ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... wondering eye was upon her; nor even to sympathising aunt Pennant could she breathe a word without betraying Cecilia; she was silent, and there was all that day, and many succeeding days, a hopelessness of languor in her whole appearance. There was, as Miss Clarendon termed it, a "backsliding in her recovery," which grieved aunt Pennant, and Helen had to bear imputation of caprice, and of indolence from Miss Clarendon; but even that eye immediately upon her, that eye more severe than ever, had not power to rouse ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... known to sleep one night in a cellar coal-bin. In stealing and general lying she became worse until with a change of residence to an uncle's home she improved for a time. It was after a little backsliding that we saw her. ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... Cuddie, they are but in the court of the Gentiles, and will ne'er win farther ben, I doubt; they are but little better than the prelatists themsells. They wait on the ministry of that blinded man, Peter Poundtext, ance a precious teacher of the Word, but now a backsliding pastor, that has, for the sake of stipend and family maintenance, forsaken the strict path, and gane astray after the black Indulgence. O, my son, had ye but profited by the gospel doctrines ye hae heard in the Glen of Bengonnar, frae the dear Richard Rumbleberry, that sweet youth, ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... "but I don't mean to encourage backsliding and worldly amusements in Christian leaders. They have ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... understand the people. They have their local prejudices and feelings. They have been in the same straits. They speak the same tongue. It is their duty to give counsel and comfort, and material help if it is needed; to watch over young converts; to seek those that are backsliding; to use their influence in every way for such of the flock as are under their charge. John Dawson has twenty-two men and Jacob Hargraves nineteen men under their care. Hannah Sarum has a very large ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... crown. When in some moment of unguardedness I grieve the good Spirit, and become unwatchful, and in remorseful penitence I could almost weep my life away, the offering of my contrition is accepted, and there is One who heals my backsliding and soothes my fretting sorrow. My prayers offered in secret, pleading for purity and blessing, my praises, when the full heart, attuned, gives its note of blessing to swell the choral harmony, wherewith all ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... a 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... 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, squint-eyed, and of a most ferocious aspect; ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... gloried in the expulsion of such men as Jeames Gentle and Blue Peter, and were soon rejoiced by the return of Bow o' meal—after a season of backsliding to the fleshpots of Egypt, as they called the services of the parish church—to the bosom of the Barn, where he soon was again one of the chief amongst them. Meantime the circles of their emanating influence continued to ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... afternoon, having chewed the bitter cud of reflection and reviewed his situation from every possible angle, Mike Murphy came to the conclusion that, for all Terence Reardon's religious backsliding, he might be fairly honest in money matters and possessed of a sense of loyalty where his owners' interests were concerned. Also, having found Herr von Staden bluffing in one instance it occurred to the captain he might be discovered bluffing ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... 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 join ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... amounted to a passion with the 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
... her own chamber, where, covering her face with both hands, she wept bitterly. This outburst of tears relieved her; though she still suffered from the recent excitement. Her former resolutions were strengthened by the terrible example she had just witnessed; and the backsliding impenitent she looked upon as a watchlight to warn her from the rocks ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... all, that thou begin by rending out from thy heart the root of wickedness and leave thy debauchery and tyranny and addiction to women; for, an thou return to the root of transgression, the second backsliding will be worse than the first." The King asked, "And what is the root of sinfulness that it behoveth me to root out from my heart?"; and was answered by the Wazir, little of years but great of wit, "O King the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... much anxiety. The servants at the Hall had hoped that he was really discharged, at last. But no, he came back, smiling sardonically, and, as he entered the front door—not the servants' entrance—his eye roved everywhere in search of backsliding. Mrs. Ripon met him in the hall with a forced smile and a greeting, but she dared not offer to shake ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... lonely hill-top groves and towers and images, where dwelt some subtle and evil mystery. I saw the fierce prophets, scourging the votaries with rods, and a nation Penitent before the Lord; but always the backsliding again, and the hankering after forbidden joys. Ashtaroth was the old goddess of the East. Was it not possible that in all Semitic blood there remained transmitted through the dim generations, some craving for her spell? I ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... 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 by ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... wise, and can tell how to imbitter backsliding to them he loveth. He can break their bones and save them; he can lay them in the lowest pit, in darkness and the deep, and save them; he can slay them as to this life, and save them. And herein appears wonderful grace, that Israel ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... early announced an intention not to return to the islands. As for the ex-governor, he might be said to be rich; but his heart was still in the colony, over the weaknesses of which his spirit yearned, as the indulgent parent feels for the failings of a backsliding child. Nevertheless, Bridget was persuaded to remain with her father a twelvemonth longer than her husband, for the health of the old gentleman had become infirm, and he could not bear to part with his only child ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... Mrs. Halliday to their friend and countryman. It had been noised abroad, through the agency of Mrs. Woolper, that Mr. Sheldon had been a suitor for the lady's hand, and had been jilted by her. The Fitzgeorgians had been, therefore, especially on the alert to detect any sign of backsliding in the dentist. There would have been much pleasant discussion in kitchens and back-parlours if Mr. Sheldon had been particularly attentive to his fair guest; but it speedily became known, always ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... 9th day of March, 1556, before Mr. Dalby, chancellor 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 ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... 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, but now I will cast away ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... 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, ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... 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 ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... religion is demonstrably ancient, as Mr. Le Page Renouf says; yet we are not shut up to the conclusion that Egyptian religion as a whole is nothing but a backsliding and a failure. If we were obliged to regard that monotheism which Egypt had at first but failed to maintain, as a gift conferred from above, which human powers proved unequal to conserve, then the opening of the history of this religion would be indeed most melancholy. ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... but, O let a sense of thy danger induce thee to lift up thine eyes to view the weeping penitent standing in the presence of Jesus Christ, of whom she is accepted, and open thine ears to hear the voice of kind invitation: "Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep anger forever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God, and hast scattered ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... no object but his absence. I suppose 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 ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... dome of the angels! If she did not know the change in her, it was the worse, for she could not help! Clare, like most of my readers, had not yet learned to trust God for everything. But he was true to Maly. Miserable over her backsliding, he said to himself that evil counsellors were more to ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... Valley, and for that matter the whole 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 ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... cease to form 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 Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... about "curing and enduring" and "must be's," and the place where "marriages are made," &c., the several aunts and cousins were persuaded at length to wink at the iniquity, and to correspond both with Mrs. James and her backsliding lieutenant. Of the offspring of that marriage, and her orphaned state, and of Mrs. Mackie's care, and the indefinite detention in central Hindostan, they had heard often-times; for, as there is no corner of the world where a Scot ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... equally to testify their adherence unto, and approbation of the doctrine, worship, discipline and government of the house of God; and to signify their opposition to, and dissatisfaction with, all the apostatizing, backsliding courses in principle and practice, from that reformation purity, both in church and state (which, as the attainment of the nations of Britain and Ireland, was by them accounted their chief ornament and glory), that have taken place, especially in this kingdom, since our woful decline commenced: ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery
... and which had been, moreover, attended with much division and contention amongst themselves. They had turned aside, it seems, from "that path of simplicity they had been blessed in, to walk in a politic path," and were, accordingly, afflicted, "as the wages of their backsliding hearts," with tumults, and jealousies, and divisions. But the godly officers, says the pious record of Adjutant Allen, met at Windsor Castle! "and there we spent one day together in prayer; inquiring into the causes of that sad dispensation. And, on the morrow, we met again ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... courtier throwing up his pension,— A lawyer working without a fee,— A parson giving charity,— A truly pious methodist preacher,— Are not, egad, so out of nature. Had nature made thee half a fool, But given thee wit to keep a school, I had not stared at thy backsliding: But when thy wit I can confide in, When well I know thy just pretence To solid and exalted sense; When well I know that on thy head Philosophy her lights hath shed, I stand aghast! thy virtues sum to, I wonder what this world will come to! ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... itself shows: the Israelites continued faithful during the lives of Joshua and the elders, and afterwards during the time of Samuel, David, and Solomon. (16) Therefore the words of Moses are merely a moral injunction, in which he predicts rhetorically the future backsliding of the people so as to impress it vividly on their imagination. (17) I say that Moses spoke of himself in order to lend likelihood to his prediction, and not as a prophet by revelation, because in verse 21 of the same chapter ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part III] • Benedict de Spinoza
... memory of his passion went for nothing—all the past was one long fraud, one stupendous, hideous lie; and this man, who throughout his whole life had made a practice of dissimulation and duplicity, was now incensed at the deception of another, was as indignant at it as at some unpardonable backsliding, some inexcusable and inexplicable perfidy. He was quite unable to understand how Elena could have committed such a crime; he denied her all possibility of justification, and rejected the hypothesis of some secret and dire necessity having driven her to sudden flight. He could see nothing but ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... backsliding to burn Boney, I can backslide to anything when my blood is up, or rise to anything, thank God for't! Why, I shouldn't mind fighting Boney single-handed, if so be I had the choice o' weapons, and fresh Rainbarrow flints in my flint-box, and could ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... return; 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 [Slang]; withdraw; rebound &c 277; go back, come ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... as Mathilde in making the announcement of their engagement. He and his mother breakfasted together rather hastily, for she was going to court that morning to testify in favor of one of her backsliding inebriates, and Wayne had not found the moment to ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... 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
... he moved towards this boundless flame, he expected every moment to see Satan charge out to meet him: and having no hope for the future he turned to the past and fondled the memory of that one spring day. His was a backsliding, unrepentant spirit. ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... 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, ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... 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
... where his tent had been at the beginning,' to the altar which he had made at the first. Yes! that is the only place for a man who has faltered and gone aside from the course of obedience. He must begin over again. The backsliding Christian has to resort anew to the place of the penitent, and to come to Christ, as he did at first for pardon. It is a solemn thought that years of obedience and heroisms of self-surrender, may be so annihilated by some act of self-seeking distrust that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... 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 ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... heavenly sunshine of God's peace and gratitude and gladness into many a benighted heart; thus inspiring, encouraging, and arousing within the soul blessed remembrances of a covenant-keeping God, even toward His poor, wayward, backsliding children. ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... matters further, he might discover your backsliding, and might summon you before him, and there is no saying what pains and penalties he might ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... watch against heart backsliding. When soldiers drop off from knee-drill; when they are not found in the ranks in bad weather; when they no longer remain to the prayer meetings; when they come only now and then to the week-night services; and when they cease to testify as frequently, heartily, and definitely ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... been disturbances in the streets, and that some of the more violent fanatics had betaken themselves to their meeting-houses, upon sudden summons, to inquire, as their preachers phrased it, into the causes of Heaven's wrath, and into the backsliding of the Court, lawyers, and jury, by whom the false and bloody favourers of the Popish Plot were screened and cloaked ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... mourning and weeping, the angel Victor, so often before mentioned, appeared to him in his wonted form, saying, Arise, let thine heart be comforted; for the Lord hath put away thine offence, and henceforward avoid backsliding. Then St. Patrick, rising from the earth, utterly renounced and abjured the eating of flesh-meat, even through the rest of his life; and he humbly besought the Lord that He would manifest unto him His pardon by some evident sign. Then the angel bade Patrick to bring forth the hidden ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... would have perceived my folly, and warned me from intoxication. Mirabile dictu! Tell me, 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
... reported, there and elsewhere, not a little, against Capital Punishment: nevertheless he now says, Death; a word which may cost him dear. Manuel did surely rank with the Decided in August last; but he has been sinking and backsliding ever since September, and the scenes of September. In this Convention, above all, no word he could speak would find favour; he says now, Banishment; and in mute wrath quits the place for ever,—much hustled in the corridors. Philippe Egalite votes in ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... to 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
... history, occupies as large a portion of the Old Testament as all the others. The type is two-fold-now of the Messiah, now of the Church, and of the Church in all its relations, persecuted, victorious, backsliding, penitent. N.B. I do not find David charged with any vices, though with heavy crimes. So it is with the Church. Vices destroy ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... that there should be no error and no backsliding, no hesitation in this case, he applied his boot to the unfortunate individual, and drove him from his position. "Now, you, and you, and you! About your business! Get to ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... "I will heal their backsliding. I will love them freely; for mine anger is turned away from him. I will be as the dew unto Israel; he shall blossom as the lily, and cast forth his ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... Republican and 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 ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... accessible as the bad, the librarian 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 acquired becomes ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana
... made life more livable than it had been during the five hundred years of the Dark Ages. It was not an easy task to civilise the rough frontiersmen who had spent most of their time fighting Mohammedans and Huns and Norsemen. Often they were guilty of backsliding, and having vowed all sorts of oaths about mercy and charity in the morning, they would murder all their prisoners before evening. But progress is ever the result of slow and ceaseless labour, and finally the most ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... a phrase of the prologue to The Self-Tormentor, is the implied burden of them all. He is a sort of Literary Robespierre; one seems to catch the premonitory echo of well-known phrases, "degenerate condition of literary spirit, backsliding on this hand and on that, I, Terence, alone left incorruptible." Three times there is a reference to Plautus, and always with a tone of chilly superiority which is too proud to break into an open sneer. Yet among these haughty ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... 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 either, and to win from the crowning dangers of his administration, ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... her eye kindled at his allusion to her backsliding, but she did not speak, while Agnes, who was deeply pained at his unkind speech, immediately replied: "You are wrong, Guy, Ruth is a church member, the same as I. And while neither of us can endorse what is done by every member of the church, we know there ...
— 'Our guy' - or, The elder brother • Mrs. E. E. Boyd
... 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 ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... 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 ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, First Part • George Mueller
... disease may be permitted to attack the body, or other afflictions may come to awaken to greater watchfulness. To become more hasty of speech, to become less grave, to become less humble and meek, less patient, is to be correspondingly losing the power of God, and is called backsliding. There are those to-day who have been claiming to be sanctified for some years, and they are no more patient nor sober-minded nor sound in speech, no more humble, nor have more faith than they had ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... Sabbath. How unfortunate and trying it must be to you, who, after being so highly extalled by your hearers in New Bedford, Fairhaven, &c., for your clear and plain Holy Ghost living and preaching, to have to flee to such mean subterfuges to establish a position to justify your backsliding from the plain and positive texts which stand right in ...
— A Vindication of the Seventh-Day Sabbath • Joseph Bates
... it to matchwood, and after spitting in fury at the blazing hoop, sprang at the unhappy Quast as if he had been the contriver of the indignities to which he was being subjected. These tales of feline backsliding I used to hear from Lola, and when I asked her why she devoted her energies to the unproductive education of the uninspiring animals, she would shrug her shoulders and regard ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... narratives are here given brought grave charges against a backsliding member of the ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... phonetic rules should be used against proper names with the same severity as against ordinary nouns and verbs.' Benfey and Welcker protested, so does Professor Victor Henry. 'It is not fair to demand from mythography the rigorous observation of phonetics' (i. 387). 'This may be called backsliding,' our author confesses, and it does seem rather a 'go-as- you-please' ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... of Jesus. It may seem a paradox in terms, but it is not in truth; it is on the Apostolic principle, "When I'm weak, then am I strong." So poor Abe laid himself down in order that he might not fall, and this is a plan which others might try in times of spiritual peril, and so escape the danger of backsliding. ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... him, and to make progress in 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)
... given the purchase-money of 400 taels, but, when he arrived in Mungtze, and the eye of the mission was no longer upon him, he invested the money, not in premises for the mission, but in a coolie-hong for himself. His backsliding had availed him little. And he was now defending his conduct as best he could before ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... the vara house. I think, Maisther Lanigan, it wad be just a precious bit o' service to religion and our laws to gang and tell the next magistrate. Gude guide us! what an example he is settin' to his loyal neighbors, and his hail connections! That ever we should see the like o' this waefu' backsliding at his years! Lord ha'e a care o' us, I say ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... love and faithfulness, will not, and cannot, let us go on in backsliding, but He will visit us with stripes, to bring ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... not keep still, and 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. Could she now—the wedding ring almost on her finger—turn ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... come about in this way. For some time I had been playing a game of hide and seek with a certain backsliding member of my congregation. The hiding was all on his side, the seeking on mine. Try as I would I could not seem to obtain an interview with him. He was never at home when I called; so I decided that my only ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... 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
... (whose pardon I have sought on my knees, and whose blessing I have already obtained,) [hereupon her father nodded assent] provided he would desert, and retire with me, at least for a time, beyond the reach of ye all—ye messengers of evil, sent to scourge a guilty and backsliding race; 'twas I that visited him night after night in that old tower, which you inhumanly set on fire, and in which—O my God!"——Hereupon she laid hold of the desk before her, and would have dropped to the earth, had not an officer in attendance supported ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... 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 Buck been ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... results. It appears that in some cases this course of treatment was attended by a certain sort of success, to which an unlimited good will on the part of the patient, it is needless to say, largely contributed. The treatment was, however, usually interrupted by continual backsliding to homosexual practices, and sometimes, naturally, the cure involved a venereal disorder. The patient was enabled to marry and to beget children.[248] It is a method of treatment which seems to have found few imitators. This we need not regret. The histories I have recorded ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... 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 scattered ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... in the spiritual, all degree of backsliding sinners may be found, each branded with a mark of infamy according to its deserts. We see how the dodder vine lost both leaf and roots after it consented to live wholly by theft of its hard-working host's juices through suckers that penetrate ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... 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 whitest fingers in the world closed my mouth, and Margaret, thinking that I was on the verge of backsliding, whispered in my ear, "The readiest-witted gentleman ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... went 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 and ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry |
