Marvelous beyond expression is the blindness of the people of this generation. Thousands reject the word of God as unworthy of belief, and with eager confidence receive the deceptions of Satan. Skeptics and scoffers with great clamor denounce the bigotry of those who contend for the faith of prophets and apostles, and they divert themselves by holding up to ridicule the solemn declarations of the Scriptures concerning Christ and the plan of salvation, and the retribution to be visited upon the rejecters of the truth. They affect great pity for minds so narrow, weak, and superstitious as to acknowledge the claims of God, and obey the requirements of His law. They manifest as much assurance as if, indeed they had made a covenant with death and an agreement with hell, - as if they had erected an impassable, impenetrable barrier between themselves and the vengeance of God.
Nothing can arouse their fears.
Long has Satan been preparing for his final effort to deceive the world. Little by little he has prepared the way for his masterpiece of deception in the development of Spiritualism. They are fast being lulled into a fatal security, to be awakened only by the outpouring of the wrath of God. And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand. When the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.