THE KIND OF PEOPLE WE MEET
No two canvassers have the same experience, and some can make progress in circumstances where others would utterly fail to obtain a response. Nevertheless, there would be general agreement to some such classification of people we meet, as this:

(1) A big proportion who are spiritually no more than half-awake; who greet our approach with vague monosyllables, " Oh? " " Ah? " "I see " (which is generally untrue), and listen sometimes until the canvasser has exhausted his efforts to win a sign from them, and then make an ambiguous gesture of dismissal, or a half-promise to attend, of the form, " I'll try," or, "I will do my best to come ''-and do not arrive.

(2) Another large group who are not prepared to listen. They may close the door at once with a polite, or scarcely polite, word of dismissal. They make some such devastating remark as, " No, thank you, I am quite satisfied with my own church," or, " I am not interested. We are all Catholics here." With humbler people of this kind the writer feels only sorry that they will not heed; but the cutting assumption of refined superiority by better-to-do pillars of respectable religion at once cuts his stature by half, and it requires all the resolution of his mission to lead him on through this.

(3) Many ladies and some gentlemen (usually elderly) are very pleased to be called upon, but only in the same spirit in which they would welcome the milkman or the gas-inspector. They like to talk to some one, and will tell us their family histories and show their children's photographs. From our point of view, this consumes a very large proportion of the time, and it is not easy to divert attention to the real object of our visit. Much patience we must have, but sooner or later we must call the meeting to order, and make clear why we have come.

(4) Some (the numbers become much smaller now) have definite convictions of their own which they are prepared to discuss. They may include a few intelligent Catholics, who are not intimidated by customary taboos on discussion; not generally many members of this country's established Church; and a good many non-conformists, chiefly of the smaller communities. These last may include lay-preachers of high ideals, but very imperfectly formed convictions; " Jehovah's Witnesses," usually ready for a religious quarrel, and of late increasingly ' negative in their outlook, being principally concerned with the doings of the Devil and the diabolic activities of " religionists"; and many others.

(5) The " 20/- in the pound class." This is a biggish group of ordinary, good-living people, neither above nor below the average in their general behaviour, who deplore doctrine and believe that we are all heading for the same place. They are content to believe that everything will turn out all right for everyone in the long run, without the need for any special effort to secure it so. It will be necessary to use plain speaking to such good-natured sinners, to observe that "ordinarily good " is in the sight of God " ordinarily bad," and that repentance and faith are called for from the humanly best of us. Cornelius is the outstanding example, and though we may have used it often, it is highly probable that the stranger will not have met it before.

6) The man with the grouse (usually it is a man). He resents the existing social order, principally because of its evident injustice to himself, in the examination of whom he is not ordinarily very penetrating. Politely, it is to this examination, and then to the conclusions given under (5), that he should be directed. Christianity begins with the man who sees the faults, not with the others whom he would like to see reformed.

7) The dissatisfied churchman. This is by no means the same class as 6, and may well be fruitful. It consists of those who are earnest enough, and yet have failed to find in other places of worship the true teaching, or the proper devotion, which they desire. We have then an excellent opportunity of showing wherein the true Bible revelation of the purpose of God fills their need, and our own devotion to the work we undertake will here, particularly, be under fruitful scrutiny.

This is not at all an exhaustive list, and could not be. But it does cover the main classes of people whom we are likely to meet, and a few of the more significant of the minority groups. But it is impossible to group people as merchandise, and no label is sufficient to describe, still less to condemn, any of them. It is impossible, also, to give a fixed rule of approach for each of these cases, and we can only judge each one we meet on its merits. We should be slow in concluding that no good can be done. It is the natural desire of many of us to get away from the many people classified under I, for they seem utterly unfruitful, and are certainly discouraging. But a little more patience may awaken a response, and the discipline is good. With Class 2, the curtailment of the interview is out of our hands, and there is no more to be done than to retire with a good grace, and without appearance or feeling of rancour. In our discussions with those who hold definite views, the gain is usually ours alone, and we should not despise the chance of learning information which will stand us in good stead when similar circumstances arise again. It is rare to find such convictions yield to better, but not unknown.

It is rarely that we find our own strength assailed. Problems may arise with which we are not competent to deal, as when the stranger raises particular examples of the problem of evil, and asks how we can reconcile these with a God of Love. The general answer we can give, however, and we should always strive to return to the major issue with the perfectly proper point : that though there are certain questions to which we do not know the answer, these are not the ones to which the answers must at all costs be found. The more important matters, the issues of life and death to ourselves, are already solved for us, and it is to these that it is profitable to turn.

There may arise, too, scriptural questions to which we do not know the answer at the time, and perhaps cannot solve at all. The honourable course then is to admit the deficiency, to promise to remedy it. We must, however, retain a sense of proportion, and point out that one difficult point cannot be allowed to weigh against a vast mass of positive teaching in the other direction.