42
Manual for Canvassers
and death are set before every worker, and the strongest motives are
presented to induce them to choose life by obedience to God’s law.
I have seen that some young men undertake this work without
having a sense of its importance, and without connecting themselves
with Heaven. They place themselves in the way of temptation to show
their bravery. They laugh at the folly of others. They boast that they
know the right way; they know how to conduct themselves. How easily
they can resist temptation! how vain to think of their falling! But they
make not God their defense. Satan has an insidious snare prepared for
them, and they become the sport of fools.
One safeguard removed from the conscience, the indulgence of
one evil habit, a single neglect of the high claims of duty, may be
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the beginning of a course of deception that will pass you into the
ranks of those who are serving Satan, while you are all the time
professing to love God and to be sacrificing for His cause. A moment
of thoughtlessness, a single misstep, may turn the whole current of
your life in the wrong direction.
No one whose hands are defiled with sin, or whose heart is not
right with God, should have any part in the work of the canvasser or
the colporteur; for such persons will surely dishonor the cause of truth.
Those who are workers in the missionary field need God to guide
them. They should be careful to start right, and then press quietly and
firmly on in the path of rectitude. They should be decided; for Satan is
determined and persevering in his efforts for their overthrow.
* * * * *
In this work there will be many temptations that will test whatever
integrity and strength of religious principles and habits young men
have acquired.
The whole period of life is a brief season of trial. Those who
engage in a work so important as the canvassing work must constantly
guard self, lest Satan obtain the advantage. A multitude of petty
temptations will assail the one whom the Lord is testing, and if he
stands firm as a rock to principle it is because he makes the Lord God
his trust every moment. “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no
provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.”
Romans 13:14
. Let
the sincere cry of the soul be, “Speak, Lord; for Thy servant heareth.”
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