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Counsels on Health
be so weak. If our sisters would feel the necessity of purifying their
thoughts, and never suffer in themselves a carelessness of deportment
which leads to improper acts, they need not in the least stain their
purity. If they viewed the matter as God has presented it to me, they
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would have such an abhorrence of impure acts that they would not
be found among those who fall through the temptations of Satan, no
matter whom he might select as the medium.
A preacher may be dealing in sacred, holy things, and yet not be
holy in heart. He may give himself to Satan to work wickedness and
to corrupt the souls and bodies of his flock. Yet if the minds of women
and youth professing to love and fear God were fortified with His
Spirit, if they had trained their minds to purity of thought and educated
themselves to avoid all appearance of evil, they would be safe from
any improper advances and be secure from the corruption prevailing
around them. The apostle Paul wrote concerning himself, “But I keep
under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means,
when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.”
1
Corinthians 9:27
.
If a minister of the gospel does not control his baser passions, if
he fails to follow the example of the apostle, and so dishonors his
profession and faith as to even name the indulgence of sin, our sisters
who profess godliness should not for an instant flatter themselves that
sin or crime loses its sinfulness in the least because their minister
dares to engage in it. The fact that men who are in responsible places
show themselves to be familiar with sin should not lessen the guilt
and enormity of the sin in the minds of any. Sin should appear just as
sinful, just as abhorrent, as it had been heretofore regarded; and the
minds of the pure and elevated should abhor and shun the one who
indulges in sin, as they would flee from a serpent whose sting was
deadly.
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