venience, or pleasure.

21. There was a change in my companions. Those who had high and holy
thoughts of all things, and whose meat and drink it was to do good,
withdrew from me; and men and women came around me who cared only for
earth and self; whose talk was of gain, and fashion, and
self-indulgence; and whose desire it was to silence conscience, and to
stifle thoughts of duty.

22. I ceased to pray. I had already given up family prayer. I now gave
up private prayer. I gave up prayer altogether. I had impulses to
prayer, but I resisted them. Prayer was irrational, according to the new
philosophy, and must be discarded.

23. And praise and thanksgiving went next. What reason could there be
for telling an all-wise God what you thought of Him, or how you felt
towards Him? And besides, it now began to appear that God had not been
so very bountiful as to deserve either high commendation, or
enthusiastic thanksgiving.

24. I had fresh work. Politics first got into partnership with my
religion, and then turned religion out of the concern. And politics,
severed from religion, soon become selfish, and even devilish. So long
as Christian philanthropy occupied my thoughts and feelings, it helped
religiousness; but when it gave way to polities, my religiousness
declined, languished, and died.

25. I began to indulge in amusements. Chess, drafts, cards, concerts,
theatres, and feasting asked for a portion of my time and money, and I
gave it to them. I began to think of pleasure more than of usefulness;
to live for myself rather than for others; and the higher virtues and
religion went down together.

26. My position improved. I passed from poverty to comparative wealth.
This helped my degeneracy. I had more abundant means of self-indulgence,
and I began, though slowly, timidly, and with misgivings, and
self-reproaches, and occasional fits of remorse, to use them for
selfish, worldly purposes. God had given me more, so I gave Him less.
Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked. Jesus knew what He was saying when He
warned people against the danger, the deceitfulness, of riches.

27. I was often uneasy during the decline of religion in my soul, but
philosophy had its anodynes, its soothing syrups, its dreamy, delusive,
spiritual drugs. It could flatter, it could cheat, in the most approved
fashion. It could bewitch, intoxicate, and take captive the whole
soul,--judgment, conscience, fancy, everything.

Satan can put on the appearance