The backsliding of the hermit Peter was blotted out of the memory of those who remembered only the fiery eloquence which had first called them to their now triumphant pilgrimage, and the zeal which had stirred the heart of Christendom to cut short the tyranny of the Unbeliever in the birthland of Christianity.

He had expiated his Cromwellian backslidings by the "Astraea Redux," and the "Annus Mirabilis."

"His wicked horn has been exalted over long, and it is borne in upon me that if I can cut him off and utterly destroy him, it will be a goodly deed, and one which may atone for many backslidings in the past.

Even in the old people themselves, there is occasionally some backsliding into the depravity of worldly appetite.

Notwithstanding these little natural backslidings on this subject, our mariners might be thought well off on the score of water, having it in great abundance, and with no reasonable fear of ever losing it altogether.

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.