i. The Backslider.
1. What is backsliding? It is a falling from grace. But let us look at it psychologically. The man has been " born again," and the new-born soul is feeling its way along a course absolutely new to itself. It faces a trackless area, and everything is strange. Under these conditions of inexperience, evil meets the new life in countless guises. It often comes suddenly with no time for deliberation. It comes, many times, at an inopportune moment, when the new life is not at its strongest. That life is surprised and taken off its guard. It does not take in the gravity of the situation. The seriousness of the consequences is not compre- hended, and the yielding is often almost imperceptible. Yet, notwithstanding all palliating conditions, the yielding is sin. Darkness again suffuses the soul ; condemnation spreads its gloom over consciousness, and sin, once getting a foothold, however slight and brief at first, in the regenerated heart, brings back the old tendencies which, prior to regeneration, have dominated the psychical being.
The consequence is that there takes place in consciousness an oscillation between victory and defeat. Now the new life is victorious; and now the old tendencies conquer. But such psychical fluctuations, from the very nature of the psychical structure, cannot be perpetual. Eesilience gradually and im- perceptibly grows less. The movement now swings positively in one of two ways. Weary of vacillation, disheartened by repeated failure, vanquished by continuous defeats, the heart may swing completely back into the old grooves of action. The rebound from sin then ceases; the recoil from condemnation
204 UNCONSCIOUS LOSS
ends. The life then remains under the domination of sin; in common terminology, it is " backslidden." ^
]f In the life of Coillard of the Zambesi we read that all the sons of Moshesh were converted but that subsequently all lapsed. The following is a conversation between M. Coillard and Molapo.
When reminded of his conversion: — "Yes," he said, "I was awakened, exercised beyond the power of words to express. I have experienced in my own heart, with unspeakable delight, the sweetness of Jesus. But to-day you see I have sunk into sin, and I am always sinking deeper and deeper."
" Poor man ; and can you do nothing to escape ? "
" Moruti, a man like you ought to know what the Apostle says: 'It is impossible to renew them again unto repentance.' So to-day, you see, if I listen to the Word of God, it is only with the ears of the head; my heart, no, that hears them no more. I like the preaching (thuto) ; I like you. I shall do my best to build a school-house and a church. I do not like a place where the name of God is never heard. But that is all. It is all over with me. Ah, Monare, if you knew the power of that anguish which once laid hold of me, if only that could be renewed, do you see, it would cost me nothing either to send my wives away or to come and talk to you about my soul."
" I tried to exhort him in God's name, but no mark of emotion or even of real seriousness betrayed itself in his own face. It is terrible to taste of the living, the true, and to return like the BOW to her wallowing in the mire," ^
But, ah ! not yet is peace complete, The foemen, fiercer for defeat. Strive to regain their ancient seat.
The world, forsaken, brings again
Its joys and cares: the Will would fain
Its realm recover and retain.
And though that Light still shineth clear Through those new shades, and though the ear Hears still that Voice it loves to hear
Speak, as of old, on Galilee,
"Peace": yet, withal, the heart must see,
And hate its own infirmity:
^ H. E. Warner, The Psychology of the Christian Life, 127. ' Coillard of the Zambesi, 70.
JUDGES XVI. 20 205
And cries, as one who cries for breath, Worn and oppressed, " I faint beneath The alien body of this death ! "
'Tis well, for, otherwise than so. The soul, disdaining to lie low, A deeper depth of ill might know.
A darker gloom, a gulf more wide, - Because a self-exalting pride \Would thrust her further from His side.^
2. Backsliding may be unconscious. Samson " wist not " that the Lord was departed from him. There are always people like Samson in the world. They imagine that grace once given stays, and that they must still be in the safe channel. They are not ■(.. conscious of any deliberate break with the Church and faith of their fathers, and so they take these for granted as still there. People can very easily bring themselves to beUeve that what they once were they still are, especially if there has been no swerve or outburst of misconduct to mark the change that has been going on. And yet a change has been, in many cases, passing over their life. Associations and practices which once they would have scrupulously avoided are now admitted upon the score of business, . - or of legitimate pleasure, or of a larger knowledge of the world. / The depreciation goes on unsuspected. '
^ The Scripture speaks of individuals who have left their first love, while many of the characteristics of a religious profession y' continue to be maintained — backsliders in heart, who hang on as useless encumbrances to a church from which their affections are estranged. In Ephesus, although they had left their first love — in Sardis, where the graces languished and were ready to die — in Laodicea, where a lethargic lukewarmness had dulled away the energy of devotion — there was the maintenance of outward decorousness and the continuance in the fellowship of saints. And in our churches now, it is to be feared, there are numbers who realize the terrible description of the prophet, that " grey hairs are upon them " — premonitions of mortality, signs of weak- ness and of age — " and they know it not." ^