OUTDOOR LANGUAGE
" The whim of a few cranks ": this is not an offensive phrase, but there is a certain brutality in it which would not commend it to many of us indoors. And therein lies the difference in outdoor method. It is the Daily Express to The Times; the words you read in a bus compared with those you ponder in the library. There is a fittingness in forthright, restrainedly colloquial English out-of-doors which, does not apply at our normal lectures, a directness which goes straight to the heart of those who have no time nor inclination to stop and think. The methods of the lecture-room will not do.

Readers of this book can be trusted with that licence-It is not an invitation to vulgarity. Nothing which we can say must be permitted to lower the standard of the high office-US we discharge. But our approach must suit our circumstances, and the ordinary men and women who stop to listen to us will savour in the open air a diet whose seasoning might be too peppery for them within.

This is true also of our illustrations. If we can attract attention to our message by a striking, if rather elementary or highly coloured, appeal to something which the audience feels strongly about, or can see at the time, and many more times after we are gone, something has been done to fix a message in its mind. One campaign held its open-air meetings in a market place slightly off a main road. The site was joined to this road by a short street, which ran into a " round-about " at the spot. From this street, the main road ran right to the large town W, left to the smaller one X, and a smaller road went ahead to Y. The roundabout itself was decorated by evergreens in painted tubs. The lecturer proceeded thus: -

" There were once three motorists setting out from this market-place all wanting to go to W, and each with only sufficient petrol to get him there. The first came to the roundabout, read the directions, went round it till he came to the road to the right, and arrived at W just as his petrol gave out. The second came to the roundabout also, read the signs, and said to himself, ' It says I must go right for W. But the road head looks much nicer, and I expect they all go to the same place really. I'm going that way.' This he did, and the end of his fuel found him stranded without hope, far from his destination. The third came to the roundabout, and mused in this way, ' W to the right, I see. But I am so tired, and this is a charming roundabout, with some lovely potted shrubs. It would be much nicer to go round and round here!' Which he did, and as his engine died, he was still no nearer where he said he wanted to be.

" This is a parable. W is the Kingdom of God. Each of us is one or other of those three motorists. The petrol is the span of our lives . . ."

It was altogether ridiculous: just about as ridiculous as the world's attitude to God's directions to the Kingdom. It was unlikely to be forgotten. There was a touch of humour about it, but not aggressively so. The object of the allegory was within daily sight of those who heard it used; like the "" children playing in the market places "" of Jesus.