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In the seminary for boys, the converts of the previous revival were, for two or three days after this began, the subjects of intense heart-searchings, and of piercing compunctions for their backslidings. This was not less true of the more devoted Christians, than of others. The irreligious members of the seminary were also deeply moved; and there was a similar experience in the girls' seminary.
The backslidings and falls in the way; the careless straggling behind; the lazy resting-places; the slow progress; the careless devotions; the misspent days of the Lord; the opportunities lost of doing good to others, or of receiving good ourselves, through procrastination, sloth, and indifference; the manifestation of our unloving and selfish spirit towards our brother, in envy, bad temper, backbiting, jealousy, or unguarded speech; the little done or given for God's work on earth, in charity to the poor, or to "our own flesh" who required assistance; the everything, in short, which deters memory from looking steadily at what it would if it could blot out for ever from its records!
Framley is in the eastern division of the county of Barsetshire, which, as all the world knows, is, politically speaking, as true blue a county as any in England. There have been backslidings even here, it is true; but then, in what county have there not been such backslidings? Where, in these pinchbeck days, can we hope to find the old agricultural virtue in all its purity?
The instantaneousness of God's answer is very beautiful. It is like the action of the father in the parable of the prodigal son, who saw his repentant boy afar off and ran and kissed him. There seems to be, in both the invitation to return and in the promise to hear the backslidings, a quotation from Hosea xiv.
For he had already been driven by egotistic governments from several of his commanding positions, and people were gibingly asking whether the new political gospel was being preached only as a foil for backslidings. Thus he abandoned the freedom of the seas ... on which he had taken a determined stand before the world.
"I don't understand it so, Judith, though I'm no missionary, and am but poorly taught. Each spirit answers for its own backslidings, though a hearty repentance will satisfy God's laws." "Then must my poor poor mother be in heaven! Bitterly, bitterly has she repented of her sins, and surely her sufferings in this life ought to count as something against her sufferings in the next!"
It not only proclaimed to the whole congregation that he was a sinner, but that he felt for sinners rejoiced in their repentance, which he often did in a nondescript scream, between a groan and a cackle of holy joy, that alarmed the congregation; but also wept for their hardness of heart, when he imagined that it was likely to terminate in final reprobation, with such a pathetic fervency, that on many such occasions some of those who sat beside him were obliged to whisper "Brother M'Slime, you are too much overcome too piously excited do not allow yourself to exhibit such an excess of Christian sympathy, or there will be many instances among the weaker vessels of relapses and backslidings, from not understanding that it is more for others thou art feeling than for thyself."
But suppose God deals not either of these ways with the backslider, but shines upon him again, and seals up to him the remission of his sins a second time, saying, "I will heal their backslidings, and love them freely," what will the soul do now? Surely it will walk humbly now, and holily all its days. It will never backslide again, will it?
Alas! it meant that our Christian Hero was to reveal himself to me in a new character, and to become associated in my mind with one of the most awful backslidings of modern times. To return, however, to the history of the passing day. On finding myself alone in my room, I naturally turned my attention to the parcel which appeared to have so strangely intimidated the fresh-coloured young footman.
And as this abstinence had of course been admired, Dick had fallen into a way of confessing his past backslidings to a pretty, sympathetic friendly woman, who was willing to believe all that he said, and to make much of him. 'But I suppose Then she hesitated; and Dick understood the hesitation. 'I was never so bad, said he, 'but what I knew very well what was going on.
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