"Backsliding" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Aaron. Who went up with Barak to Kadesh to fight against Jabin, King of Canaan, into whose hand Israel had been sold because of their iniquities? It was a woman! Deborah the wife of Lapidoth, the judge, as well as the prophetess of that backsliding people; Judges iv, 9. Into whose hands was Sisera, the captain of Jabin's host delivered? Into the hand of a woman. Jael the wife of Heber! Judges vi, 21. Who dared to speak the truth concerning those ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... he said, as he put the cup down and felt the subtle glow run like lightning through his veins. "Hallo, who's that? Confound it, I hope it isn't Ernshaw. I don't want to begin the day with a lecture on backsliding." ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... noted, 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 two jurisdictions, ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... 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 miss ...
— Union And Communion - or Thoughts on the Song of Solomon • J. Hudson Taylor
... matter, as I understand, there is little difference of opinion among us, although a report hath of late reached my ears, that certain men in high position, even elders, having become addicted to the use thereof, are beating about for reasons to excuse their backsliding." ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... 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 ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... 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
... shortsightedness, so overwhelmed was she with misery at the 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, inspiring her with the sense of maternity, ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... he, 'tell the old man to put on full steam ahead, for I'm backsliding and need encouragement. I'm afraid I've got 'em again. Look there!' Bill looks down the aisle and ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... 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 ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... there was an end of it; so, innumerable proverbs coming to their aid 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 ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... 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 ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... was 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
... 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 hands with the ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... of my acquaintance, especially if it is to their credit,—discredit, I mean,—until I have searched to the bottom of it. It is true, there is infinite pleasure in this charitable pursuit. Oh! how delicious to go and condole with the friends of some backsliding sister, or to retire with some old dowager or maiden aunt of the family, who love scandal so well that they cannot forbear gratifying their appetite at the expence of the reputation of their nearest ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler
... 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 ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... but concerning it we know enough to be able at least to determine what its outline must have been. The silent and obscure years of compulsory inactivity had their fruit, no doubt. There is only one road, with well-marked stages, by which a backsliding or apostate Christian can return to his Master. And that road has three halting-places upon it, through which the heart must pass if it have wandered from its early faith, and falsified its first professions. The first of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... 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." ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... 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, and Tuikilakila, who had literally ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... to Susan that politicians in the East as well as in Kansas were shying away from woman suffrage. Mrs. Stanton reported that even Wendell Phillips was backsliding, not wishing to campaign for Negro suffrage and woman suffrage at the same time. "While I could continue as heretofore, arguing for woman's rights, just as I do for temperance every day," he had written, "still I would not mix the movements.... I think such mixture would lose ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... for 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 ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... infrequently in the acquisition of skill in the playing of tennis or the piano, or in the solution of mathematical problems, a decided gain in skill and speed comes after what seems to be not only lack of progress but decided backsliding.[1] It is this which led William James to quote with approval the aphorism that one learns to skate in ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... and agitated frame of 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
... he said, the admiration and delight of every body: he lamented, with great solemnity, her backsliding; another of his phrases. Mrs. Smith said, he was a fine scholar; for he spoke several things she understood not; and either in Latin or Greek, she could not tell which; but was so good as to give her the English of them without asking. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... 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 me up alive, ...
— A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul • George MacDonald
... 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
... results of false belief. He had profited by that lesson. But he could not hope suddenly to empty his mentality of its content of human thought; nor did wisdom advise the attempt. He had at first tried to rise too rapidly. His frequent backsliding frightened and ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... 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 seem ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... proposition slunk away. Meanwhile, the Methodists who, it seemed, could tolerate decentralization, or anything short of round dances, opened a chapel with a cheerful sociable, and popularized the practice of backsliding among those for whom the position was theologically impossible. Good Presbyterians in East Elgin began to turn into makeshift Methodists. The Doctor missed certain occupants of the gallery seats and ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... being 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 speak, father," said he, though what he could see to betray any inward ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... 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 her. Her soul was sunk within, ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... considering the 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 how great judgements ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... moments speechless with angry tribulation. Recovering herself, with scornful bitterness she requested to know to what tempter he had been giving ear—for tempted he must have been ere son of hers would have been guilty of backsliding from the cause; of taking his hand from the plough and looking behind him. The youth returned such answers as, while they satisfied his father he was right, served only to convince his mother, where yet conviction was hardly needed, that she had to thank the dominie for his defection, ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... of the father of our family historian. He "took the sheaf from the mare," however, as the MS. expresses it, and agreed to accept of the terms of pardon offered by Government, and sign the bond in evidence he would give no further ground of offence. My grandsire glosses over his father's backsliding as smoothly as he can, and comforts himself with ascribing his want of resolution to his unwillingness to wreck the ancient name and family, and to permit his lands and lineage to fall under a ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... 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, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... est pura oratio, 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 and frigid manifestoes some felicity of ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... 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 ...
— William Black - The Apostle of Methodism in the Maritime Provinces of Canada • John Maclean
... [Return 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 shepherd you with knowledge and with skill. 16. And ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... was the 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 ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... wretched weary ones, Who in the vision of the mind infirm, Confidence have in your backsliding steps, Do ye not comprehend that we are worms Born to bring forth the angelic butterfly That flieth unto judgment without screen? Who floats aloft your spirit high in air? Like are ye unto insects undeveloped Even as the worm in whom formation fails! As to sustain a ceiling or a roof In place ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... tree cutter—a compliment 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 ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... and 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. ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... the Italian woman, and that the archdeacon's credit would suffer fearfully if something were not done to rescue the brand from the burning. Besides, to give the archdeacon his due, he was really attached to Mr Arabin, and grieved greatly at his backsliding. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... 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 Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... the insinuation by indignant silence; but Lady Mabel, who had her own object in exasperating Moodie's sectarian zeal, now asked him: "What is the last symptom of backsliding you have ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... Return therefore, and repent! This day thy Saviour calleth thee, 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 back-sliding soul, unto the Lord thy God! He who heard the prayer of the idolatrous Manasseh when 'he ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold
... been made 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
... 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 ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... awakened I 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 ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... Israel sang a hymn of praise, the song of Deborah, and God, to reward them for their pious sentiments, pardoned the transgression of the people. (92) But they soon slipped back into the old ways, and the old troubles harassed them. Their backsliding was due to the witchcraft of a Midianite priest named Aud. He made the sun shine at midnight, and so convinced the Israelites that the idols of Midian were mightier than God, and God chastised them by delivering them into the hands of the Midianties. (93) ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... 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
... as with the dearest of friends. What favour does God bestow on worms! And yet we love to murmur and complain. He may well say, 'What should I have done more, that I have not done? or wherein have I proved unfaithful or unkind to my faithless, backsliding children?' ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... are here given brought grave charges against a backsliding member of the Society of ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... same feeling in many other 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 ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... from what he anticipated: "When I thought I had done no good, then I did the most; and when I 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
... 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 of ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... had made his appearance in the Netherlands; the other go-between between the incensed Queen and the backsliding favourite. It has already been made sufficiently obvious, by the sketch given of his instructions, that his mission was a delicate one. In obedience to those instructions, Heneage accordingly made his appearance before ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... opened to the world the way into the holiest of all. Had Israel as a nation preserved her allegiance to Heaven, Jerusalem would have stood forever, the elect of God.(9) But the history of that favored people was a record of backsliding and rebellion. They had resisted Heaven's grace, abused their privileges, and ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... I don't mean to encourage backsliding and worldly amusements in Christian leaders. They ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... suddenly realised that Germany had left her behind in the race for international commerce. Indifference lay at the root of this backsliding. It was easier and cheaper to buy the German-made product and reship it than to produce the same article at home. Sloth hung like a chain on English energy. What did it matter? No forest of bayonets hemmed her in; she was ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... 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 aforesaid triune-citizen and another gentleman, had a ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... 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 ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow
... 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 ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... each 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, ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... low nor high save them from a spirit of pauperism or of 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: ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... the crimson Book itself. I had looked for it with the first ships. As it came not, I had made up my mind to that hap also. It was quite fair: I had disentitled myself. He, the true friend, had every right to punish me for my sluggish contumacy,— backsliding, too, after penitence. So I read with resignation our blue American reprint, and I enclose to you a leaf from my journal at the time, which leaf I read afterwards in one of my lectures at the Music Hall ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... 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 understanding what we were, and without any means ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... wife—shyly enough at first—until he caught the dark eyes of Margery Freethy one Sunday morning in Polkimbra Church, whither he had gone of late for freedom, to the no small tribulation of the meeting-house. Now, whether this tribulation arose from the backsliding of a promising member, or the loss of the owner of Lantrig (who was at the same time unmarried), I need not pause here to discuss. Nor is it necessary to tell how regularly Margery and Ezekiel found themselves in church, nor how often they caught ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... past, when the candle of the Lord did shine?" "Only believe." Take this thy mournful soliloquy, and convert it into a prayer. "Only believe" the word of Him whose ways are not as man's ways—"Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backsliding."—Art thou beaten down with some heavy trial? have thy fondest schemes been blown upon—thy fairest blossoms been withered in the bud? has wave after wave been rolling in upon thee? hath the Lord forgotten ...
— The Words of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... 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 ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... to purchase a property for the use of the mission. He was 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
... "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, ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... 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. ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... 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 in previous ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... 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
... Emma was 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
... David and his Psalms, which form a most interesting part of his 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. ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... serenity which arises, not from the absence of fuliginous elements in the character, but from a potent smoke-consuming faculty, and an inflexible will to use it. Nine years later he thus admonishes his backsliding parent: ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... 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
... the Lord of Hosts," made the appeal, "Ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? Yea, there is no God, (literally, rock.) I know not any."[76] This approval has been explicitly declared in this exercise. To invite to the performance of this act, there were used the words, "Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings." And in Covenanting individually, not less than socially, accepting the invitation, these said, "Behold, we come unto thee, for thou art the Lord our God. Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills, and from the multitude of mountains; ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham
... these covenants and departures from God, are no less evident discoveries, undeniable signs and pregnant convictions of the Lord's most just displeasure and indignation with the bypast and present courses of revolting and backsliding from him; which courses of declension and grievous apostatizing from God and his covenant, all the three kingdoms and in special this nation, and every individual therein capable of such a work, are, without all controversy, called ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery
... to 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 thought of the ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... 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 and run crying ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... have met with a response that could have 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... 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 a shop is equal ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... actions theories are less convincing than facts: whenever, 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 ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... 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! is thy ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... of the 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 ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... 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 must ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... is well; thy will be done. O help me to profit by every pang. Let sin be mortified and my soul 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 devoted to thee. Empty me of every thing ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... home, after supper with the Kennicotts and Guy Pollock, she had a sudden and rather pleasant backsliding from devotion. She bustled into her room, she slammed her hat on the bed, and chattered, "I don't CARE! I'm a lot like her—except a few years older. I'm light and quick, too, and I can talk just as well as she can, and I'm sure——Men are ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... world full of temptations, and backsliding, and much suffering thereby, the sporting thing for the strong woman is to stand to her guns. If Hal dallied with Sir Edwin now, she felt she would be deserting her post. At the judgment-bar of her own heart, which, after all, ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... might discover your backsliding, and might summon you before him, and there is no saying what pains and penalties he might inflict ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... and so it ended 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 all darker than before. The Curate has found bouquets in the vestry and the desk, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... 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 so soon again, after she had once been restored to his arms. It was, therefore, ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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 ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... of ten, listening with rapt interest, his grandfather's backsliding had sounded only a few degrees more heinous than gormandising at Christmas; and since Ailie had proved obdurate when pressed, and even bribed for further information, the spark of curiosity had died out for lack of fuel. But to the man of five-and-thirty, racked with reawakened passion, and with ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... was introduced into the city. 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: iere telein]) to Dionysus, and to sacrifice ...
— The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various
... 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 ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... 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
... his entire dress. It was like the old man's though without the jewelry and ruffles. "Were you ever in an explosion?" she asked. The words came of themselves. She was backsliding ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... rule.[369] Completely carried away with the novelty, uniqueness and grandeur of the Pauline Gospel of the grace of God in Christ, Marcion felt that all other conceptions of the Gospel, and especially its union with the Old Testament religion, was opposed to, and a backsliding from the truth.[370] He accordingly supposed that it was necessary to make the sharp antitheses of Paul, law and gospel, wrath and grace, works and faith, flesh and spirit, sin and righteousness, death and life, that ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... good may be doing by family 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 any that have ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... I 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, in Vitebsk; and I never took ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... afterwards at night as she knelt by her window to think how much sheer 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 ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... 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 to the vitals; how the ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... Canaanites stimulated. No wonder that, when the first generation of the conquerors had passed away, their successors lapsed into the universal polytheism, with its attendant idolatry and immorality. Instead of thinking of the Israelites as monsters of ingratitude and backsliding, we come nearer the truth, and make a better use of the history, when we see in it a mirror which shows us our own image. The strong earthward pull is ever acting on us, and, unless God hold us up, we too shall slide downwards. 'Hath a nation changed ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... 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, ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... unwound his long legs from the chair rungs in the Cant-Pass-It, carefully smoothed his red hair, and made his way to a front pew in the Immanuel Church. At intervals, calculated to a nicety, he fell from grace, and was reclaimed, passing from periods of grave backsliding into periods of great religious fervor. Meanwhile he followed the Scriptures literally and took no thought of the morrow. His reliance in Providence and the Ladies' Aid ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... her that she could never dare to mention Carry's name to her husband. He had cursed his child, and had sworn that she should never more have part in him or his. She had brought sorrow and shame upon him, and he had cut her off with a steady resolve that there should be no weak backsliding on his part. Those who knew him best declared that the miller would certainly keep his word, and hitherto no one had dared to speak of the lost one in her father's hearing. All this Mr. Fenwick knew, and he knew also that the man ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... From a backsliding saint that pretend t' acquiesce; From crossing of proverbs (let 'um hang that confess); From a sniveling cause, in a pontificall dress, And two lawyers, with the devil and his dam in a mess; ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... congregation, and 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. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... his 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, the god so useful to the ancient poets brings all things, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 spread, until at length they reached the lower classes of the upper ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... two kinds 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
... essayist 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 ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... bound and 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 train to New York, and ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... had but little skating during the past winter, Massachusetts just now displays a good deal of backsliding. Her legislators have "gone back on" their liquor-bill, which they have modified to suit their habits, and, should it become law, the druggists of the Bay State will be at liberty to sell Bay and every other kind of rum in quantities to suit purchasers. Sic semper Massachusetts! the English of ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... what I thought of the state of affairs, and, after telling him my opinion of the condition and prospects of the Church, I asked him what he thought of them. He said he agreed with me as to the status, but his notion was 'that it all proceeded from a departure from God,' that ours was a backsliding Church, and that God had forsaken it, and that we had only to put our trust in Him, and rely entirely on Him, and He would work out the salvation of His own. We parted in the midst of the discussion, and before I had any time to get from him any explanation of the course he would recommend to those ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... compromise was not accepted by all the Priestless People. On the contrary, many of them regarded it as a woeful backsliding—a new device of the Evil One; and among these irreconcilables was a certain peasant called Theodosi, a man of little education, but of remarkable intellectual power and unusual strength of character. He raised anew the old fanaticism by his preaching ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... so prompt 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
... being freed of the body; but he was not suddenly wiser; and so, as 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
... kingdom, as in the spiritual, all degrees of backsliding sinners may be found, each branded with a mark of infamy according to its deserts. We have seen how the dodder vine lost both leaf and roots after it consented to live wholly by theft of its hardworking host's juices through suckers that penetrate to the vitals; how ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... avoid speaking of illness before children, as it will certainly create in them bad autosuggestions. Teach them, on the contrary, that health is the normal state of man, and that sickness is an anomaly, a sort of backsliding which may be avoided by living in ...
— Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion • Emile Coue
... and Ireland remained uncertain; and the royalists, both Presbyterians and Cavaliers, were exerting themselves to improve the general confusion to the advantage of the exiled king. As a last resource, the officers, by an instrument in which they regretted their past errors and backsliding, invited[a] the members of the long parliament to resume the ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... 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 his right, one of the ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... scrutiny of institutions and domestic life than any we had known; there was sincere protesting against existing evils, and there were changes of employment dictated by conscience. No doubt there was plentiful vaporing, and cases of backsliding might occur. But in each of these movements emerged a good result, a tendency to the adoption of simpler methods, and an assertion of the sufficiency of the private man. Thus it was directly in the spirit and genius of the age, what happened in one instance ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... message to 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 beasts." ...
— The Testimony of the Bible Concerning the Assumptions of Destructive Criticism • S. E. Wishard
... crushing 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
... parasite has no 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
... 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 his brains upon the ground." Of any refusal, or even disinclination, on the part ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... 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 comported itself according to its lawless bylaws. But ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... bear even for a moment to seem to fall into the opposite principle. I was certainly very busy on the day I had the honor and privilege of writing to your lordship, and much distressed both in mind and heart, by the woeful backsliding of a member of our congregation. On looking over the copy of the letter, however, I perceive one thing that is gratifying to me. My Lord, I made no mistake. It is not, perhaps, known to your Lordship that there are two descriptions of ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... undertaking, is 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, ...
— 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
... other examples of backsliding in the Navy's racial practices. Use of Negroes in general service had created a shortage of messmen, and in August 1944 the Bureau of Naval Personnel authorized commanders to recruit among black seamen for men to transfer to the Steward's Branch. The bureau suggested as a talking ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... cod; headed by Harald and Hardiknut, they might roll surges to whelm a Dominant Jew clean gone to the fleshpots and effeminacy. Aldermen of our ancient conception, they may teach him that he has been backsliding once more, and must repent in ashes, as those who are for jewels, titles, essences, banquets, for wallowing in slimy spawn of lucre, have ever to do. They dispossess ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... land of his banishment had not been over roses. The upward 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
... 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 on such occasions, and it has not been difficult to guess why and when ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... really 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 sincerity ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... wretched by conversion,—to be 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 ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... at large, ignorant of these inner quarrels, the backsliding of Uriel was made clear by the swine-flesh which the Christian butcher now openly delivered at the house. Horrified zealots remonstrated with him in the streets, and once or twice it came to a public affray. The outraged ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... 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 ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... weakling except, perhaps, when whisky and he came to hand-grips. He had made up his mind that Mason must be told of his backsliding, and protected from the risk of leaving a drunkard in charge of his ranch. And when he saw that the opportunity for opening the subject easily did not show any sign of presenting itself, he grimly interrupted Mason in the middle of a funny story ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... for me now to 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 this villany ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... suffering and afflicted soul, Appointed to remove each blemish, array the repentant in unsoiled garments, And pour precious oil on the head of sorrowing sinners. Thus we all, both old and young, appear before Thee. Wash off our every taint, our souls refine from every sin. Backsliding children, we come to Thee as suppliants, Seeking Thee day by day with humble, urgent prayers. Account them unto us as blood and fat of offerings, Like sacrificial steers and rams accept our contrite words. O that our sins might be sunk in abysmal ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... 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
... His mercy, He would spare Josiah the sight of the 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 ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... delivered them from the Babylonish captivity, should still be uppermost; and the patron of the Grecians, to whom the will of God might be more particularly revealed, contending on the other side for the rise of Alexander and his successors, who were appointed to punish the backsliding Jews, and thereby to put them in mind of their offences, that they might repent and become more virtuous and more observant of the law revealed. But how far these controversies and appearing enmities of those glorious ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... 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
... backwater, regurgitation, ebb, 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 ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... (indeed, of the impossibility of escaping it) which is the foundation of the Protestant Reformation, and which was the doctrine accepted by the vast majority of the Anglicans of my youth, before that backsliding towards the "beggarly rudiments" of an effete and idolatrous sacerdotalism which has, even now, provided us with the saddest spectacle which has been offered to the eyes of Englishmen in this generation. A high ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... it stigmatized as worldly for its members, e.g. card-playing, dancing, the theatre, &c. Thus it became negatively dependent upon works; for since its followers remained in reciprocal action with the world, so that the temptation to backsliding was a permanent one, it must watch over them, exercise an indispensable moral-police control over them, and thus, by the suspicion of each other which was involved, take up into itself the Jesuitical practice, although in a very mild and affectionate way. Instead ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz |
