Chapter 38—Counsels to City Mission and
Institutional Leaders
Conduct of City Mission Leaders [
This counsel was given in
1893, when “city mission” was a name for a particular form of evan-
gelistic endeavor. It consisted of a team composed of ministers, col-
porteurs, nurses, and others. Today it is sometimes called a “field
school.”
]—Missions are essential as the foundation of missionary
effort in our cities; but unless those standing at the head of these mis-
sions make strenuous efforts to guard every post, so that Satan shall
not control, losses will be sustained....
There should be connected with the mission, married persons who
will conduct themselves with the strictest propriety. But the danger
is not alone from youth, but from married men and women; workers
must build up the walls of modesty and virtue about themselves so that
women will not allure men, and men will not allure women from strict
propriety. Abstain from even the very appearance of evil.
Love-sick sentimentalism prevails. Married men receive attention
from married or unmarried women; women also appear to be charmed,
and lose reason and spiritual discernment and good common sense;
they do the very things that the Word of God condemns.... Warnings
and reproofs are before them in clear lines, yet they go over the same
path that others have traveled before them. It is like an infatuating
game which they are playing. Satan leads them on to ruin themselves,
to imperil the cause of God, to crucify the Son of God afresh, and put
Him to an open shame.
There is no safety for any man, young or old, unless he feels the
necessity of seeking counsel of God at every step. Those only who
maintain a close communion with God will learn to place His estimate
upon men, to reverence the pure, the good, the humble, the meek. The
heart must be garrisoned as was that of Joseph. Then temptations to
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depart from integrity will be met with decision. “How can I do this
great wickedness and sin against God?” The strongest temptation is no
excuse for sin. No matter how severe the pressure brought to bear upon
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