Note: Apostle George Albert Smith, who later
became the President of the Church, described how Satan leads people “carefully
down to hell” as follows: “Now, I want you to note that: ‘And thus the devil
cheateth their souls and leadeth them away carefully down to hell.’ And that is
the way he does it, that’s exactly the way he does it. He does not grab you
bodily and take you into his territory, but he whispers, ‘Do this little evil,’
and when he succeeds in that, another little evil and another, and, to use the
expression, ‘He cheateth their souls.’ That’s what he does. He makes you
believe you are gaining something when you are losing. So it is every time we
fail to observe a law of God or keep a commandment; we are being cheated,
because there is no gain in this world or in the world to come but by obedience
to the law of our heavenly Father. Then again that peculiar suggestion, ‘And he
leadeth them carefully away down to hell’ is significant, that is his method.
Men and women in the world today are subject to that influence, and they are
being drawn here and there, and that whispering is going on and they do not
understand what the Lord desires them to do, but they continue in the territory
of the evil one,subject to his power where the Spirit of the Lord will not go”
(in Conference Report, April 1918, p. 40).
