This chapter is suggestive and exploratory only. It is a besetting danger of any body with any length of history behind it, to be satisfied with its accepted procedure, or with very small modifications of it, and to view with suspicion any radical change or addition. Such a mistrust, indeed, is healthy as a discipline for reforming enthusiasm, but it would be ruinous as a dead weight upon enterprise. Conflict sometimes arises between the caution of an older generation, and the impatience of a younger, when the former sees chiefly the dangers of an ill-conceived and hot-headed enterprise, and the latter only the heavy handed obstruction of established rule. No doubt the tension has always existed between maturity-with-fixity and inexperience-with-advance, and no doubt it always will in this dispensation.

It is salutary to both parties to recognize that the right may be on the one side or on the other: Rehoboam's consultation with the younger men was disastrous, 1 but Elihu's wisdom could oust the impossible philosophy of his elders.2 It is certain that with goodwill on the one hand, arid humility on the other, the tension can be eased and the path of advancement cleared. Arranging brethren may be, and often are, sympathetic to schemes for the furtherance of the Gospel; and young men and women may be, and often are, fit to be trusted with responsible tasks of their own conceiving. Many of the cautions offered by the elders will be better than adolescence may suppose; some of the ideas suggested by youth will be more practicable than experience may wish to credit.

It has to be remembered that improvement (that is, better adaptation to the times) rarely comes officially, nor is it to the discredit of established order that this is so. It is the primary business of bodies of elders to keep the existing machinery functioning smoothly, and while they discharge this heavy responsibility, with all the buffets and pricks which always come to officials doing anything, they can often show a progressiveness of method to which those outside their number would pay glowing tribute if it occurred to them. But there are others perhaps better fitted to devise the newer methods, simply because they are not so burdened. Anyone of a few years' experience of the Truth's affairs can instance helpful developments thought of by brethren in private, carried into effect with only tentative support, and then embraced by existing organization and absorbed into its methods. The National Efforts arose from the first exploratory talks of two brethren in a cafe; the first of what we now call " campaigns " was mooted between one of those and another during a quiet walk, and resolved in another conversation over a Sunday School party tea-table. The former was blessed by the hearty co-operation of nearly all ecclesias, and the latter by the willing aid of a branch of the A.L.S. itself; both have now become accepted media for the Truth's expression. Other developments have arisen in similar ways, and it is inconceivable that there are not more.

Some of the suggestions which follow are already in the accepted class. They are mentioned only to ensure that they will not be forgotten when we are thinking how we may serve. Some of the others have long been used by individuals and are given light here so that other individuals may seize their opportunities of using them. Some have perhaps hardly been tried among ourselves (or at all), and need enquiry and experiment. All are given with a minimum of practical detail, which, if it is available, must be sought elsewhere, or, if it is not, must be devised by the users. The methods are not equally useful, nor useful for the same circumstances. The list is obviously not complete: changing circumstances will suggest their own changing methods, and if prolonged preaching is permitted, this chapter will become outdated in its turn. The suggestions do not replace, do not rival, those which have been the backbone of our preaching: such large space would not have been devoted to chapters three, four and five if it was thought they did. They are supplementary only.

PREACHING ON HOLIDAY
Many brethren and sisters take holidays in remote districts where the Truth is practically never preached, and where the holding of lectures may be difficult. Much good work might be done if such parties were to provide themselves with a suitable leaflet and distribute this in the villages and hamlets where they toured. Walking, cycling and touring parties (and individuals) could take such distributions in their stride and add a testimony to the Gospel to the pleasures of their holidays. The leaflet should be direct, simple and positive. Men and women in such neighbourhoods are not accustomed to religious controversy, and their simplicity and often devoutness needs careful nurture. The message of the leaflet should include an invitation to send for other literature or for courses of Bible instruction.