"Imagine two men walking through the vilest streets of a great city.

One is filled only with selfishness and the love of self-indulgence.

The other burns with compassion,

perhaps searching for a lost child,

or longing to rescue some man or woman

whose blazing sin has made those streets a very hell.

Why is it that one man absorbs the evil through which he walks, steeping himself in its corruption,

while the other comes out with garments all the whiter for having passed through the fire?

Is it not what Jesus meant when He said,

'These signs shall follow those who believe...

if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not harm them'?"

Phillips Brooks.

This reminds me when my son worked with an organization to rescue pre-teen girls captured in the child trafficking trade

where he was required to go into the most vile and depraved parts of Thailand in search of girls.

They were only to be found in brothels, strip clubs and houses of prostitution where danger and sin ran its course without restraint.

The deadly potion and the venomous snake loomed at every door,

and but for the mission of charity and the protection of Christ,

one dare not go there and hope to come away unscathed.