The most powerful charm of Satan
(Brooks, "The Golden Key to Open Hidden Treasures")
Honors, riches, and pleasures are the three
deities,
which all people adore, and to whom they continually
sacrifice their best thoughts and energies. These, for
their unparalleled vanity, may well be called "the
vanity of vanities!"
Honors, riches, and pleasures are
but . . .
a mere shadow,
a vapor,
a feather in the cap,
a breath,
a froth,
a dream,
a nothing.
They are without true substance. Like in a dream,
you imagine they have substance—you grasp at
them and awake—and they are nothing!
And yet, they are the most powerful
charm
of Satan, whereby he lulls men to sleep in the
paradise of fools; to cast them, after they die,
into the bottomless pit of eternal woe!