"The Gentle Slope And Soft Underfoot"

**Note: To understand the following, you need to know that this is taken from a book describing a fictional written correspondence. These letters are written from an experienced demon to a novice one in the art of damning souls. "We know that we have introduced a change of direction in his course which is already carrying him out of his orbit around the Enemy (God); but he must be made to imagine that all the choices are trivial and revocable. He must not be allowed to suspect that he is now, however slowly, heading right away from the sun on a line which will carry him into the cold and dark of utmost space. For this reason I am almost glad to hear that he is still a churchgoer and a communicant. I know there are dangers in this; but anything is better than that he should realize the break he has made with the first months of his Christian life. As long as he retains externally the habits of a Christian he can still be made to think of himself as one who has adopted a few new friends and amusements but whose spiritual state is much the same as it was six weeks ago. And while he think that, we do not have to contend with the explicit repentance of a definite, fully recognized, sin, but only with his vague, though uneasy, feeling that he hasn't been doing very well lately...your patient will not omit, but he will increasingly dislike , his religious duties. He will think about them as little as he feels he decently can beforehand, and forget them as soon as possible when they are over. A few weeks ago you had to tempt him to unreality and inattention in his prayers: but now you will find him opening arms to you and almost begging you to distract his purpose and benumb his heart...It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestone, without signposts." C.S. Lewis The Screwtape Lessons pp.48-51