cause it helps
them to get on in the world. They begin more and more to love Piety
not for its own sake, but for the sake of what it brings; not
because it pleases God, but because it pleases the world; not
because it enables them to help their fellow-men, but because it
enables them to help themselves.

So they get double-minded, unstable, inconsistent, as St. James
says, in all their ways; trying to serve God and Mammon at once.
Trying to do good--as long as doing good does not hurt them in the
world's eyes; but longing oftener and oftener to do wrong, if only
God would not be angry. Then comes on Balaam's frame of mind, 'If
Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go
beyond the commandment of the Lord.'

Oh no. They would not do a wrong thing for the world--only they
must be quite sure first that it is wrong. Has God really forbidden
it? Why should they not take care of their interest? Why should
they not get on in the world? So they begin, like Balaam, to tempt
God, to see how far they can go; to see if God has forbidden this
and that mean, or cowardly, or covetous, or ambitious deed. So they
soon settle for themselves what God has forbidden and what he has
not; and their rule of life becomes this--that whatsoever is safe
and whatsoever is profitable is pretty sure to be right; and after
that no wonder if, like Balaam, they indulge themselves in every
sort of sin, provided only it is respectable, and does not hurt them
in the world's eyes.

And all the while they keep up their religion. Ay, they are often
more attentive than ever to religion, because their consciences
pinch them at times, and have to be silenced and drugged by
continual church-goings and chapel-goings, and readings and
prayings, in order that they may be able to say to themselves with
Balaam, 'Thus saith Balaam, he who heard the word of God, and had
the knowledge of the Most High.'

So they say to themselves, 'I must be right. How religious I am;
how fond of sermons, and of church services, and church
restorations, and missionary meetings, and charitable institutions,
and everything that is good and pious. I MUST be right with God.'
Deceiving their ownselves, and saying to themselves, 'I am rich and
increased with goods, I have need of nothing,' and not knowing that
they are wretched, and miserable, and blind, and naked.

Would God that such people, of whom there are too many, would take
St. John's warning a