The devil Screwtape in "The Screwtape Letters" (C.S. Lewis):
I have been writing hitherto on the assumption that the people in the
next pew afford no rational ground for disappointment. Of course, if
they do- if the patient knows that the woman with the absurd hat is a
fanatical bridgeplayer or the man with squeaky boots a miser and an
extortioner- then your task is so much the easier. All you then have to
do is to keep out of his mind the question "If I, being what I am, can
consider that I am in some sense a Christian, why should the different
vices of those people in the next pew prove that their religion is mere
hypocrisy and convention?" You may ask whether it is possible to keep
such an obvious thought from occurring even to a human mind. It is,
Wormwood, it is! Handle him properly and it simply won't come into his
head. He has not been anything like long enough with the Enemy to have
any real humility yet. What he says, even on his knees, about his own
sinfulness is all parrot talk. At bottom, he still believes he has run
up a very favourable credit balance in the Enemy's ledger by allowing
himself to be converted, and thinks that he is showing great humility
and condescension in going to church with these 'smug,' commonplace
neighbours at all. Keep him in that state of mind as long as you can."
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