Faith & Spirit Quote by George A. Smith

Temptation, in George A. Smith's telling, isn’t a slow moral negotiation; it’s a hijacking. The sentence is built to unsettle a religious listener by borrowing the most sacred kind of intensity - the Spirit of God - and admitting its emotional twin can arrive wearing the wrong uniform. That’s the rhetorical punch: he refuses to flatter believers with the idea that virtue always feels holier, brighter, more compelling. Sometimes sin comes with the same heat.

Smith’s intent is pastoral, but not soothing. By calling temptation a "mystery", he grants it psychological complexity while dodging the cheap answer that vice wins only because people are weak. The verbs do the heavy lifting: "suggested" is quiet, almost mundane; "swept" is kinetic, loss-of-agency language. Temptation begins as a nudge and becomes a current. "Sudden enthusiasm" names the experience many people recognize but rarely admit in church: the rush. He’s warning that the danger isn’t merely desire; it’s desire that feels like revelation.

The subtext also protects his audience from despair. If sinful impulses can mimic spiritual fervor, then feeling strongly isn’t evidence of righteousness. That’s a check against emotionalism as a moral compass - a subtle critique of religious cultures that equate intensity with truth.

Context matters: as a 19th-century clergyman, Smith is speaking to communities trained to read the inner life as a battleground. His line arms them with a diagnostic tool: distrust ecstasy, test it. Virtue, he implies, may require a colder courage than anyone wants to romanticize.