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" So they sat, their faces giving no clues as to what truly lurked inside—envy, avarice, hatred, lust—but the greatest of the sinners in his own eyes was the blasphemer who stood behind the pulpit, preaching the words, reading the book, mouthing the hymns, making the great, arcane, sweeping gestures in the air while intoning, “May the Lord watch between me and thee,” and of it all believing nothing, nothing, nothing, and unable to even weep inwardly for his disbelief. He was a captain of a ship of faith on a sea whose waters were rising, pulling the vessel down. Believe and we will float! he called to his shipmates, who trusted him, did what he said. But he knew the ship would sink, even if it did float a moment longer, even if by some … miracle that he no longer believed in the waves closed a trifle more slowly, the waves would still come. He blessed them and smiled and sent them out onto the wet decks. "
― Chet Williamson , A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult
