What does Goodman Brown mean when he says, "Faith kept me back a while" in Hawthorne's story, Young Goodman Brown?

In order to
have attained full membership, the Puritan church insisted not only that its congregation lead
godly lives and display a comprehension of tenets of their Christian faith, but they also must
demonstrate that they had experienced true evidence of the workings of Gods grace in their
souls. This is whysets out one night.  When he tells the devil, "Faith kept me back a
while" it is a statement pregnant with meaning because by the time he arrives at the
meeting place, ironically, Faith is already there. But, the "Faith" that kept him back
is his illusionary faith.  Thus, the disillusionment in his Calvinistic beliefs begins shortly
after Goodman meets the devil as the devil turns Brown'sboast of being from a race of honest men
and good Chritians upon Goodman,

Well said, Goodman
Brown!  I have been as well acquainted with your family as with ever one among the
Puritans.

After Brown perceives that Goody Cloyse
consorts with the devilhe is disturbed. Thomas E. Connolly, author of "Hawthorne's 'Young
Goodman Brown':  An Attack on Puritanic Calvinism" states that the reader should be aware
of Hawthorne's criticism of Calvinism here as the narrator notes that Goodman's remark,
"That old woman taught me my catechism" is followed by "and there was a world of
meaning in this simple comment."

And, as the narrative progresses, Brown
begins to recognize that his original conception about his Faith is wrong. For, Deacon Gookin
and the "good old minister"who are also associated with the devil, effect Brown's
recognition that his Calvinistic faith is diabolic, not divine.  With allegorical symbolism,
Hawthorne writes of the effect that this awakening has on Brown,

Young Goodman Brown caught hold of a tree for support, being ready to sink down on the
ground, faint and overburdened with the heavy sickness of his heart....While he still gazed up
to the deep arch of the firmament, though no wind was stirring, a cloud hurried across the
zenith and hid the brightening stars." 

Further,
when he sees the pink ribbons of Faith wafting in the air,  these ribbons symbolize Brown's
initial illusion that his faith will lead him to heaven.  As Goodman cries, "My faith is
gone!" his faith no longer means what it once did. He hears the devil underscore the
implications of the Calvinisitic predestination and the depravity of man as he states,
"Evil is the nature of mankind.  Evil must be your only happiness...."

So, on his journey with the devil, Young Goodman Brown has not lost his faith; he has
simply learned its terrible significance despite Faith's holding him back for a while. Connolly
contends,

This story is Hawthorne's criticism of the
teachings of Puritanic-Calvinism....the doctrine of the elect and damned is not a faith which
carries man heavenward on its skirts, as Brown once believed, but, instead, condemns him to
hell--bad and good alike indiscriminately--and for all intents and puposes so few escape as to
make one man's chance of salvation almost disappear.

It
is this epiphany to the meaning of his Puritanic-Calvinistic faith which, then, causes Brown to
perceive his minister as a hypocrite when he teaches about the "saint-like lives and
triumphant death and future bliss."  For, he has learned from his forest experience that
there is little other than "misery unutterable.""Faith held me back,"
therefore, means that Brown's belief that faith will lead him to heaven has been
illusionary.