Beliefs
William Booth, the founder of
the Salvation Army preaching
the Gospel in the "open-air."
the Salvation Army preaching
the Gospel in the "open-air."
"You cannot improve the
future without disturbing
the present."
William Booth
future without disturbing
the present."
William Booth
John Wesley preaching in the "open-air." (below)
George Whitefield's main ministry was preaching the Gospel in the open-air.
The Apostle Paul preaching at Athens. (below)
If we are going to have an
impact in America we need to
get back to the basics.
impact in America we need to
get back to the basics.
We need to focus more on how
they lived and ministered, and
less on studying there sermons.
they lived and ministered, and
less on studying there sermons.
These guys rocked the
Nations for Christ !
Nations for Christ !
These weren't mean spirited
street preacher's. They were
moved by the Holy Spirit and
preached with a tear in there eye.
street preacher's. They were
moved by the Holy Spirit and
preached with a tear in there eye.
Yes sometimes they were beat
up and thrown in jail. It will
cost you something...
up and thrown in jail. It will
cost you something...
Biblical Christianity in action not just
theology mixed with unbelievers can
change our Nation !
theology mixed with unbelievers can
change our Nation !
The "Prince of preacher's" C.H. Spurgeon taught that
street preaching was just as important as teaching
Sunday school, or being a deacon in the church.
Spurgeon himself preached in the streets regularly. In
his outstanding work "Lectures To my Students" is a
collection of lectures that Spurgeon taught to his
students at "The Pastors College."
Below you can read from Vol. 2 lecture's 4 and 5 called
"Open Air Preaching - A Sketch Of It's History & Open
Air Preaching - Remarks Thereon."
street preaching was just as important as teaching
Sunday school, or being a deacon in the church.
Spurgeon himself preached in the streets regularly. In
his outstanding work "Lectures To my Students" is a
collection of lectures that Spurgeon taught to his
students at "The Pastors College."
Below you can read from Vol. 2 lecture's 4 and 5 called
"Open Air Preaching - A Sketch Of It's History & Open
Air Preaching - Remarks Thereon."
D. L. Moody
They called Dwight "Crazy Moody"
in his younger Christian days as a
layman evangelist in the streets of
Chicago. Moody was known for
handing out Gospel tracts in the
bars and preached regularly on
street corners. This fearless
evangelist also ministered on the
front lines in the Civil War. In time
Moody had the largest church in
Chicago, and preached around the
world.
in his younger Christian days as a
layman evangelist in the streets of
Chicago. Moody was known for
handing out Gospel tracts in the
bars and preached regularly on
street corners. This fearless
evangelist also ministered on the
front lines in the Civil War. In time
Moody had the largest church in
Chicago, and preached around the
world.
Frank Bartleman is one of the
fathers of the Spirit-filled churchs
of today. He was one of the leaders
of the Azusa St. Revival.
At one time he was a Captain in the
Salvation Army back when the
Army was radically preaching the
Gospel through the mean streets
of east London in bar's and on
street corners. The Salvationist's
were beet up, thrown in jail and
they had there share of martyrs to.
In America Frank wrote his own
Gospel tracts, preached in the
open- air regularly. He also handed
out tracts in bar's and brothels.
fathers of the Spirit-filled churchs
of today. He was one of the leaders
of the Azusa St. Revival.
At one time he was a Captain in the
Salvation Army back when the
Army was radically preaching the
Gospel through the mean streets
of east London in bar's and on
street corners. The Salvationist's
were beet up, thrown in jail and
they had there share of martyrs to.
In America Frank wrote his own
Gospel tracts, preached in the
open- air regularly. He also handed
out tracts in bar's and brothels.
OPEN-AIR PREACHING
A SKETCH OF ITS HISTORY AND REMARKS THEREON
THERE ARE some customs for which nothing can be pleaded, except that they are very old. In such cases antiquity is of no more
value than the rust upon a counterfeit coin. It is, however, a happy circumstance when the usage of ages can be pleaded for a really
good and Scriptural practice, for it invests it with a halo of reverence. Now, it can be argued, with small fear of refutation, that open-
air preaching is as old as preaching itself. We are at full liberty to believe that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, when he prophesied,
asked for no better pulpit than the hillside, and that Noah, as a preacher of righteousness, was willing to reason with his
contemporaries in the shipyard wherein his marvelous ark was builded.
Certainly, Moses and Joshua found their most convenient place for addressing vast assemblies beneath the unpillared arch of
heaven. Samuel closed a sermon in the field of Gilgal amid thunder and rain, by which the Lord rebuked the people and drove them
to their knees. Elijah stood on Carmel, and challenged the vacillating nation with "How long halt ye between two opinions?"
Jonah, whose spirit was somewhat similar, lifted up his cry of warning in the streets of Nineveh, and in all her places of concourse
gave forth the warning utterance, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" To hear Ezra and Nehemiah "all the people
gathered themselves together as one man into the street that was before the water gate." Indeed, we find examples of open-air
preaching everywhere around us in the records of the Old Testament.
It may suffice us, however, to go back as far as the origin of our own holy faith, and there we hear the forerunner of the Saviour
crying in the wilderness and lifting up his voice from the river’s bank. Our Lord Himself, who is yet more our pattern, delivered the
larger portion of His sermons on the mountain’s side, or by the seashore, or in the streets. Our Lord was to all intents and purposes
an open-air preacher. He did not remain silent in the synagogue, but He was equally at home in the field. We have no discourse of
His on record delivered in the chapel royal, but we have the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon in the Plain; so that the very
earliest and most divine kind of preaching was practiced out-of-doors by Him who spake as never man spake.
There were gatherings of His disciples after His decease, within walls, especially that in the upper room; but the preaching was
even then most frequently in the court of the Temple, or in such other open spaces as were available. The notion of holy places and
consecrated meetinghouses had not occurred to them as Christians; they preached in the Temple, or in such other open spaces as
were available. but with equal earnestness "in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ."
It would be very easy to prove that revivals of religion have usually been accompanied, if not caused, by a considerable amount of
preaching out-of-doors, or in unusual places. The first avowed preaching of Protestant doctrine was almost necessarily in the open
air, or in buildings which were not dedicated to worship, for these were in the hands of the papacy. True, Wycliffe for a while
preached the Gospel in the church at Lutterworth; Huss and Jerome and Savonarola for a time delivered semi-Gospel addresses in
connection with the ecclesiastical arrangements around them; but when they began more fully to know and proclaim the Gospel,
they were driven to find other platforms.
The Reformation when yet a babe was like the new-born Christ, and had not where to lay its head, but a company of men
comparable to the heavenly host proclaimed it under the open heavens, where shepherds and common people heard them gladly.
Throughout England we have several trees remaining called "gospel oaks." There is one spot on the other side of the Thames
known by the name of "Gospel Oak," and I have myself preached at Addlestone, in Surrey, under the far-spreading boughs of an
ancient oak, beneath which John Knox is said to have proclaimed the Gospel during his sojourn in England. Full many a wild moor
and lone hillside and secret spot in the forest have been consecrated in the same fashion, and traditions still linger over caves and
dells and hilltops where of old time the bands of the faithful met to hear the Word of the Lord.
It would be an interesting task to prepare a volume of notable facts connected with open-air preaching, or, better still, a
consecutive history of it. I have no time for even a complete outline, but would simply ask you, where would the Reformation have
been if its great preachers had confined themselves to churches and cathedrals ? How would the common people have become
indoctrinated with the Gospel had it not been for those far-wandering evangelists, the colporteurs, and those daring innovators who
found a pulpit on every heap of stones, and an audience chamber in every open space near the abodes of men?
All through the Puritan times there were gatherings in all sorts of out-of-the-way places, for fear of persecutors. "We took," says
Archbishop Laud, in a letter dated Fulham, June, 1632, "another conventicle of separatists in Newington Woods, in the very brake
where the king’s stag was to be lodged, for his hunting next morning." A hollow or gravelpit on Hounslow Heath sometimes served
as a conventicle, and there is a dell near Hitchin where John Bunyan was wont to preach in perilous times. All over Scotland the
straths and dells and vales and hillsides are full of covenanting memories to this day. You will not fail to meet with rock pulpits
whence the stern fathers of the Presbyterian church thundered forth their denunciations of Erastianism, and pleaded the claims of
the King of kings. Cargill and Cameron and their fellows found congenial scenes for their brave ministries amid the mountains’ lone
rents and ravines.
What the world would have been if there had not been preaching outside of walls, and beneath a more glorious roof than these
rafters of fir, I am sure I cannot guess. It was a brave day for England when Whitefield began field-preaching. When Wesley stood
and preached a sermon on his father’s grave, at Epworth, because the parish priest would not allow him admission within the (so-
called) sacred edifice, Mr. Wesley writes: "I am well assured that I did far more good to my Lincolnshire parishioners by preaching
three days on my father’s tomb than I did by preaching three years in his pulpit."
Wesley writes in his journal, "Saturday, 31 March, 1731. In the evening I reached Bristol, and met Mr. Whitefield there. I could
scarce reconcile myself at first to this strange way of preaching in the fields, of which he set me an example on Sunday; having
been all my life (till very lately) so tenacious of every point relating to decency and order, that I should have thought the saving of
souls almost a sin, if it had not been done in a church." Such were the feelings of a man who in after life became one of the
greatest open-air preachers that ever lived!
Once recommenced, the fruitful agency of field-preaching was not allowed to cease. Amid jeering crowds and showers of rotten
eggs and filth, the immediate followers of the two great Methodists continued to storm village after village and town after town.
Very varied were their adventures, but their success was generally great. One smiles often when reading incidents in their labors.
A string of pack horses is so driven as to break up a congregation, and a fire engine is brought out and played over the throng to
achieve the same purpose. Hand-bells, old kettles, marrowbones and cleavers, trumpets, drums, and entire bands of music were
engaged to drown the preachers’ voices.
In one case the parish bull was let loose, and in others dogs were set to fight. The preachers needed to have faces set like flints,
and so indeed they had. John Furz says: "As soon as I began to preach, a man came straight forward, and presented a gun at my
face; swearing that he would blow my brains out, if I spake another word. However, I continued speaking, and he continued
swearing, sometimes putting the muzzle of the gun to my mouth, sometimes against my ear. While we were singing the last hymn,
he got behind me, fired the gun, and burned off part of my hair.
After this, my brethren, we ought never to speak of petty interruptions or annoyances. The proximity of a blunderbuss in the hands
of a son of Belial is not very conducive to collected thought and clear utterance, but the experience of Furz was probably no worse
than that of John Nelson, who coolly says, "But when I was in the middle of my discourse, one at the ouside of the congregation
threw a stone, which cut me on the head: however that made the people give greater attention, especially when they saw the blood
run down my face; so that all was quiet till I had done, and was singing a hymn."
I have no time further to illustrate my subject by descriptions of the work of Christmas Evans and others in Wales, or of the
Haldanes in Scotland, or even of Rowland Hill and his brethren in England. If you wish to pursue the subject these names may serve
as hints for discovering abundant material; and I may add to the list The Life of Dr. Guthrie, in which he records notable open-air
assemblies at the time of the Disruption, when as yet the Free Church had no places of worship built with human hands.
I must linger a moment over Robert Flockhart of Edinburgh, who, though a lesser light, was a constant one, and a fit example to the
bulk of Christ’s street witnesses. Every evening, in all weathers and amid many persecutions, did this brave man continue to speak
in the street for forty-three years. Think of that, and never be discouraged. When he was tottering to the grave the old soldier was
still at his post. "Compassion to the souls of men drove me," said he, "to the streets and lanes of my native city, to plead with
sinners and persuade them to come to Jesus. The love of Christ constrained me."
Neither the hostility of the police, nor the insults of papists, Unitarians, and the like could move him; he rebuked error in the plainest
terms, and preached salvation by grace with all his might. So lately has he passed away that Edinburgh remembers him still. There
is room for such in all our cities and towns, and need for hundreds of his noble order in this huge nation of London—can I call it
less?
No sort of defense is needed for preaching out-of-doors; but it would need very potent arguments to prove that a man had done his
duty who has never preached beyond the walls of his meetinghouse. A defense is required rather for services within buildings than
for worship outside of them. Apologies are certainly wanted for architects who pile up brick and stone into the skies when there is
so much need for preaching rooms among poor sinners down below. Defense is greatly needed for forests of stone pillars, which
prevent the preacher from being seen and his voice from being heard; for high-pitched Gothic roofs in which all sound is lost, and
men are killed by being compelled to shout till they burst their blood-vessels; and also for the willful creation of echoes by exposing
hard, sound-refracting surfaces to satisfy the demands of art, to the total overlooking of the comfort of both audience and speaker.
Surely also some decent excuse is badly wanted for those childish people who must needs waste money in placing hobgoblins and
monsters on the outside of their preaching houses, and must have other ridiculous pieces of popery stuck up both inside and
outside, to deface rather than to adorn their churches and chapels: but no defense whatever is wanted for using the Heavenly
Father’s vast audience chamber, which is in every way so well fitted for the proclamation of a Gospel so free, so full, so expansive,
so sublime.
The great benefit of open-air preaching is that we get so many newcomers to hear the Gospel who otherwise would never hear it.
The Gospel command is, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature," but it is so little obeyed that one would
imagine that it ran thus, "Go into your own place of worship and preach the Gospel to the few creatures who will come inside." "Go
out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in"— albeit it constitutes part of a parable, is worthy to be taken very
literally, and in so doing its meaning will be best carried out.
We ought actually to go into the streets and lanes and highways, for there are lurkers in the hedges, tramps on the highways,
street-walkers and lane-haunters, whom we shall never reach unless we pursue them into their own domains. Sportsmen must
not stop at home and wait for the birds to come and be shot at, neither must fishermen throw their nets inside their boats and hope
to take many fish. Traders go to the markets; they follow their customers and go out after business if it will not come to them; and
so must we. Some of our brethren are prosing on and on to empty pews and musty hassocks, while they might be conferring
lasting benefit upon hundreds by quitting the old walls for a while, and seeking living stones for Jesus.
I am quite sure, too, that if we could persuade our friends in the country to come out a good many times in the year and hold a
service in a meadow, or in a shady grove, or on the hillside, or in a garden, or on a common, it would be all the better for the usual
hearers. The mere novelty of the place would freshen their interest, and wake them up. The slight change of scene would have a
wonderful effect upon the more somnolent. See how mechanically they move into their usual place of worship, and how
mechanically they go out again. They fall into their seats as if at last they had found a resting place; they rise to sing with an
amazing effort, and they drop down before you have time for the doxology at the close of the hymn because they did not notice it
was coming.
What logs some regular hearers are! Many of them are asleep with their eyes open. After sitting a certain number of years in the
same old spot, where the pews, pulpit, galleries, and all things else are always the same, except that they get a little dirtier and
dingier every week, where everybody occupies the same position forever and forevermore, and the minister’s face, voice, tone are
much the same from January to December -you get to feel the holy quiet of the scene and listen to what is going on as though it
were addressed to "the dull cold ear of Death."
As a miller hears his wheels as though he did not hear them, or a stoker scarcely notices the clatter of his engine after enduring it
for a little time, or as a dweller in London never notices the ceaseless grind of the traffic; so do many members of our
congregations become insensible to the most earnest addresses, and accept them as a matter of course. The preaching and the
rest of it get to be so usual that they might as well not be at all. Hence a change of place might be useful; it might prevent monotony,
shake up indifference, suggest thought, and in a thousand ways promote attention and give new hope of doing good. A great fire
which should burn some of our chapels to the ground might not be the greatest calamity which has ever occurred, if it only aroused
some of those rivals of the seven sleepers of Ephesus who will never be moved so long as the old house and the old pews hold
together.
Besides, the fresh air and plenty of it is a grand thing for every mortal man, woman and child. I preached in Scotland twice on a
Sabbath day at Blairmore, on a little height by the side of the sea, and after discoursing with all my might to large congregations, to
be counted by thousands, I did not feel one-half so much exhausted as I often am when addressing a few hundred in some horrible
black hole of Calcutta, called a chapel. I trace my freshness and freedom from lassitude at Blairmore to the fact that the windows
could not be shut down by persons afraid of drafts, and that the roof was as high as the heavens are above the earth. My conviction
is that a man could preach three or four times on a Sabbath out-of-doors with less fatigue than would be occasioned by one
discourse delivered in an impure atmosphere, heated and poisoned by human breath, and carefully preserved from every
refreshing infusion of natural air.
I once preached a sermon in the open air in haying time during a violent storm of rain. The text was, "He shall come down like rain
upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth," and surely we had the blessing as well as the inconvenience. I was
sufficiently wet, and my congregation must have been drenched, but they stood it out, and I never heard that anybody was the
worse in health, though, I thank God, I have heard of souls brought to Jesus under that discourse. Once in a while, and under strong
excitement, such things do no one any harm, but we are not to expect miracles, nor wantonly venture upon a course of procedure
which might kill the sickly and lay the foundations of disease in the strong.
Do not try to preach against the wind, for it is an idle attempt. You may hurl your voice a short distance by an amazing effort, but you
cannot be well heard even by the few. I do not often advise you to consider which way the wind blows, but on this occasion I urge
you to do it, or you will labor in vain. Preach so that the wind carries your voice toward the people, and does not blow it down your
throat, or you will have to eat your own words.
There is no telling how far a man may be heard with the wind. In certain atmospheres and climates, as for instance in that of
Palestine, persons might be heard for several miles; and single sentences of wellknown speech may in England be recognized a
long way off, but I should gravely doubt a man if he asserted that he understood a new sentence beyond the distance of a mile.
Whitefield is reported to have been heard a mile, and I have been myself assured that I was heard for that distance, but I am
somewhat skeptical. Half a mile is surely enough, even with the wind, but you must make sure of that to be heard at all.
Heroes of the Cross -here is a field for you more glorious than the Cid ever beheld when with his brave right arm he smote the
paynim hosts. "Who will bring me into the strong city? who will lead me into Edom?" Who will enable us to win these slums and
dens for Jesus? Who can do it but the Lord? Soldiers of Christ who venture into these regions must expect a revival of the
practices of the good old times, so far as brickbats are concerned, and I have known a flowerpot to fall accidentally from an upper
window in a remarkably slanting direction. Still, if we are born to be drowned we shall not be killed by flowerpots.
Under such treatment it may be refreshing to read what Christopher Hopper wrote under similar conditions more than a hundred
years ago. "I did not much regard a little dirt, a few rotten eggs, the sound of a cow’s horn, the noise of bells, or a few snowballs in
their season; but sometimes I was saluted with blows, stones, brickbats, and bludgeons. These I did not well like: they were not
pleasing to flesh and blood. I sometimes lost a little skin, and once a little blood, which was drawn from my forehead with a sharp
stone. I wore a patch for a few days, and was not ashamed; I gloried in the cross. And when my small sufferings abounded for the
sake of Christ, my comfort abounded much more. I never was more happy in my own soul, or blessed in my labors."
I am somewhat pleased when I occasionally hear of a brother being locked up by the police, for it does him good, and it does the
people good, also. It is a fine sight to see the minister of the Gospel marched off by the servant of the law! It excites sympathy for
him, and the next step is sympathy for his message. Many who felt no interest in him before are eager to hear him when he is
ordered to 1eave off, and still more so when he is taken to the station. The vilest of mankind respect a man who gets into trouble in
order to do them good, and if they see unfair opposition excited they grow quite zealous in the man’s defense.
As to style in preaching out-of-doors, it should certainly be very different from much of that which prevails within, and perhaps if a
speaker were to acquire a style fully adapted to a street audience, he would be wise to bring it indoors with him. A great deal of
sermonizing may be defined as saying nothing at extreme length; but out-of-doors verbosity is not admired; you must say
something and have done with it and go on to say something more, or your hearers will let you know.
"Now then," cries a street critic, "let us have it, old fellow." Or else the observation is made, "Now then, pitch it out! You’d better go
home and learn your lesson." "Cut It short, old boy," is a very common admonition, and I wish the presenters of this advice gratis
could let it be heard inside Ebenezer and Zoar and some other places sacred to long-winded orations. Where these outspoken
criticisms are not employed, the hearers rebuke prosiness by quietly walking away. Very unpleasant this, to find your congregation
dispersing, but a very plain intimation that your ideas are also much dispersed.
In the street, a man must keep himself alive, and use many illustrations and anecdotes, and sprinkle a quaint remark here and
there. To dwell long on a point will never do. Reasoning must be brief, clear, and soon done with. The discourse must not be labored
or involved, neither must the second head depend upon the first, for the audience is a changing one, and each point must be
complete in itself. The chain of thought must be taken to pieces’ and each link melted down and turned into bullets: you will need
not so much Saladin’s saber to cut through a muslin handkerchief as Coeur de Lion’s battle-axe to break a bar of iron. Come to the
point at once, and come there with all your might.
Short sentences of words and short passages of thought are needed for out-of-doors. Long paragraphs and long arguments had
better be reserved for other occasions. In quiet country crowds there is much force in an eloquent silence, now and then
interjected; it gives people time to breathe, and also to reflect. Do not, however, attempt this in a London street; you must go ahead,
or someone else may run off with your congregation. In a regular field sermon pauses are very effective, and are useful in several
ways, both to speaker and listeners, but to a passing company who are not inclined for anything like worship, quick, short, sharp
address is most adapted.
In the streets a man must from beginning to end be intense, and for that very reason he must be condensed and concentrated in
his thought and utterance. It would never do to begin by saying, "My text, dear friends, is a passage from the inspired Word,
containing doctrines of the utmost importance, and bringing before us in the clearest manner the most valuable practical
instruction. I invite your careful attention and the exercise of your most candid judgment while we consider it under various
aspects and place it in different lights, in order that we may be able to perceive its position in the analogy of the faith. In its exegesis
we shall find an arena for the cultured intellect, and the refined sensibilities. As the purling brook meanders among the meads and
fertilizes the pastures, so a stream of sacred truth flows through the remarkable words which now lie before us. It will be well for
us to divert the crystal current to the reservoir of our meditation, that we may quaff the cup of wisdom with the lips of satisfaction."
There, gentlemen, is not that rather above the average of word-spinning, and is not the art very generally in vogue in these days? If
you go out to the obelisk in Blackfriars Road, and talk in that fashion, you will be saluted with "Go on, old buffer," or "Ain’t he fine?
My eye!" A very vulgar youth will cry, "What a mouth for a tater!" and another will shout in a tone of mock solemnity, "Amen!" If you
give them chaff they will cheerfully return it into your own bosom. Good measure, pressed down and running over will they mete out
to you. Shams and shows will have no mercy from a street gathering.
But have something to say, look them in the face, say what you mean, put it plainly, boldly, earnestly, courteously, and they will hear
you. Never speak against time or for the sake of hearing your own voice, or you will obtain some information about your personal
appearance or manner of oratory which will probably be more true than pleasing. "Crikey," says one, "wouldn’t he do for an
undertaker! He’d make ‘em weep." This was a compliment paid to a melancholy brother whose tone is peculiarly funereal. "There,
old fellow," said a critic on another occasion, "you go and wet your whistle. You must feel awfully dry after jawing away at that rate
about nothing at all." This also was specially appropriate to a very heavy brother of whom we had aforetime remarked that he
would make a good martyr, for there was no doubt of his burning well, he was so dry.
It will be very desirable to speak so as to be heard, but there is no use in incessant bawling. The best street preaching is not that
which is done at the top of your voice, for it must be impossible to lay the proper emphasis upon telling passages when all along
you are shouting with all your might. When there are no hearers near you, and yet people stand upon the other side of the road and
listen, would it not be well to cross over and so save a little of the strength which is now wasted?
A quiet, penetrating, conversational style would seem to be the most telling. Men do not bawl and holler when they are pleading in
deepest earnestness; they have generally at such times less wind and a little more rain: less rant and a few more tears. On, on, on
with one monotonous shout and you will weary everybody and wear out yourself. Be wise now, therefore, O ye who would succeed
in declaring your Master’s message among the multitude, and use your voices as common sense would dictate.
In a tract published by that excellent society "The Open-Air Mission," I notice the following:
QUALIFICATIONS FOR OPEN-AIR PREACHERS
1. A good voice.
2. Naturalness of manner.
3. Self-possession.
4. A good knowledge of Scripture and of common things.
5. Ability to adapt himself to any congregation.
6. Good illustrative powers.
7. Zeal, prudence, and common sense.
8. A large, loving heart.
9. Sincere belief in all he says.
10. Entire dependence on the Holy Spirit for success.
11. A close walk with God by prayer.
12. A consistent walk before men by a holy life.
If any man has all these qualifications, the Queen had better make a bishop of him at once, yet there is no one of these qualities
which could well be dispensed with.
A SKETCH OF ITS HISTORY AND REMARKS THEREON
THERE ARE some customs for which nothing can be pleaded, except that they are very old. In such cases antiquity is of no more
value than the rust upon a counterfeit coin. It is, however, a happy circumstance when the usage of ages can be pleaded for a really
good and Scriptural practice, for it invests it with a halo of reverence. Now, it can be argued, with small fear of refutation, that open-
air preaching is as old as preaching itself. We are at full liberty to believe that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, when he prophesied,
asked for no better pulpit than the hillside, and that Noah, as a preacher of righteousness, was willing to reason with his
contemporaries in the shipyard wherein his marvelous ark was builded.
Certainly, Moses and Joshua found their most convenient place for addressing vast assemblies beneath the unpillared arch of
heaven. Samuel closed a sermon in the field of Gilgal amid thunder and rain, by which the Lord rebuked the people and drove them
to their knees. Elijah stood on Carmel, and challenged the vacillating nation with "How long halt ye between two opinions?"
Jonah, whose spirit was somewhat similar, lifted up his cry of warning in the streets of Nineveh, and in all her places of concourse
gave forth the warning utterance, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" To hear Ezra and Nehemiah "all the people
gathered themselves together as one man into the street that was before the water gate." Indeed, we find examples of open-air
preaching everywhere around us in the records of the Old Testament.
It may suffice us, however, to go back as far as the origin of our own holy faith, and there we hear the forerunner of the Saviour
crying in the wilderness and lifting up his voice from the river’s bank. Our Lord Himself, who is yet more our pattern, delivered the
larger portion of His sermons on the mountain’s side, or by the seashore, or in the streets. Our Lord was to all intents and purposes
an open-air preacher. He did not remain silent in the synagogue, but He was equally at home in the field. We have no discourse of
His on record delivered in the chapel royal, but we have the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon in the Plain; so that the very
earliest and most divine kind of preaching was practiced out-of-doors by Him who spake as never man spake.
There were gatherings of His disciples after His decease, within walls, especially that in the upper room; but the preaching was
even then most frequently in the court of the Temple, or in such other open spaces as were available. The notion of holy places and
consecrated meetinghouses had not occurred to them as Christians; they preached in the Temple, or in such other open spaces as
were available. but with equal earnestness "in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ."
It would be very easy to prove that revivals of religion have usually been accompanied, if not caused, by a considerable amount of
preaching out-of-doors, or in unusual places. The first avowed preaching of Protestant doctrine was almost necessarily in the open
air, or in buildings which were not dedicated to worship, for these were in the hands of the papacy. True, Wycliffe for a while
preached the Gospel in the church at Lutterworth; Huss and Jerome and Savonarola for a time delivered semi-Gospel addresses in
connection with the ecclesiastical arrangements around them; but when they began more fully to know and proclaim the Gospel,
they were driven to find other platforms.
The Reformation when yet a babe was like the new-born Christ, and had not where to lay its head, but a company of men
comparable to the heavenly host proclaimed it under the open heavens, where shepherds and common people heard them gladly.
Throughout England we have several trees remaining called "gospel oaks." There is one spot on the other side of the Thames
known by the name of "Gospel Oak," and I have myself preached at Addlestone, in Surrey, under the far-spreading boughs of an
ancient oak, beneath which John Knox is said to have proclaimed the Gospel during his sojourn in England. Full many a wild moor
and lone hillside and secret spot in the forest have been consecrated in the same fashion, and traditions still linger over caves and
dells and hilltops where of old time the bands of the faithful met to hear the Word of the Lord.
It would be an interesting task to prepare a volume of notable facts connected with open-air preaching, or, better still, a
consecutive history of it. I have no time for even a complete outline, but would simply ask you, where would the Reformation have
been if its great preachers had confined themselves to churches and cathedrals ? How would the common people have become
indoctrinated with the Gospel had it not been for those far-wandering evangelists, the colporteurs, and those daring innovators who
found a pulpit on every heap of stones, and an audience chamber in every open space near the abodes of men?
All through the Puritan times there were gatherings in all sorts of out-of-the-way places, for fear of persecutors. "We took," says
Archbishop Laud, in a letter dated Fulham, June, 1632, "another conventicle of separatists in Newington Woods, in the very brake
where the king’s stag was to be lodged, for his hunting next morning." A hollow or gravelpit on Hounslow Heath sometimes served
as a conventicle, and there is a dell near Hitchin where John Bunyan was wont to preach in perilous times. All over Scotland the
straths and dells and vales and hillsides are full of covenanting memories to this day. You will not fail to meet with rock pulpits
whence the stern fathers of the Presbyterian church thundered forth their denunciations of Erastianism, and pleaded the claims of
the King of kings. Cargill and Cameron and their fellows found congenial scenes for their brave ministries amid the mountains’ lone
rents and ravines.
What the world would have been if there had not been preaching outside of walls, and beneath a more glorious roof than these
rafters of fir, I am sure I cannot guess. It was a brave day for England when Whitefield began field-preaching. When Wesley stood
and preached a sermon on his father’s grave, at Epworth, because the parish priest would not allow him admission within the (so-
called) sacred edifice, Mr. Wesley writes: "I am well assured that I did far more good to my Lincolnshire parishioners by preaching
three days on my father’s tomb than I did by preaching three years in his pulpit."
Wesley writes in his journal, "Saturday, 31 March, 1731. In the evening I reached Bristol, and met Mr. Whitefield there. I could
scarce reconcile myself at first to this strange way of preaching in the fields, of which he set me an example on Sunday; having
been all my life (till very lately) so tenacious of every point relating to decency and order, that I should have thought the saving of
souls almost a sin, if it had not been done in a church." Such were the feelings of a man who in after life became one of the
greatest open-air preachers that ever lived!
Once recommenced, the fruitful agency of field-preaching was not allowed to cease. Amid jeering crowds and showers of rotten
eggs and filth, the immediate followers of the two great Methodists continued to storm village after village and town after town.
Very varied were their adventures, but their success was generally great. One smiles often when reading incidents in their labors.
A string of pack horses is so driven as to break up a congregation, and a fire engine is brought out and played over the throng to
achieve the same purpose. Hand-bells, old kettles, marrowbones and cleavers, trumpets, drums, and entire bands of music were
engaged to drown the preachers’ voices.
In one case the parish bull was let loose, and in others dogs were set to fight. The preachers needed to have faces set like flints,
and so indeed they had. John Furz says: "As soon as I began to preach, a man came straight forward, and presented a gun at my
face; swearing that he would blow my brains out, if I spake another word. However, I continued speaking, and he continued
swearing, sometimes putting the muzzle of the gun to my mouth, sometimes against my ear. While we were singing the last hymn,
he got behind me, fired the gun, and burned off part of my hair.
After this, my brethren, we ought never to speak of petty interruptions or annoyances. The proximity of a blunderbuss in the hands
of a son of Belial is not very conducive to collected thought and clear utterance, but the experience of Furz was probably no worse
than that of John Nelson, who coolly says, "But when I was in the middle of my discourse, one at the ouside of the congregation
threw a stone, which cut me on the head: however that made the people give greater attention, especially when they saw the blood
run down my face; so that all was quiet till I had done, and was singing a hymn."
I have no time further to illustrate my subject by descriptions of the work of Christmas Evans and others in Wales, or of the
Haldanes in Scotland, or even of Rowland Hill and his brethren in England. If you wish to pursue the subject these names may serve
as hints for discovering abundant material; and I may add to the list The Life of Dr. Guthrie, in which he records notable open-air
assemblies at the time of the Disruption, when as yet the Free Church had no places of worship built with human hands.
I must linger a moment over Robert Flockhart of Edinburgh, who, though a lesser light, was a constant one, and a fit example to the
bulk of Christ’s street witnesses. Every evening, in all weathers and amid many persecutions, did this brave man continue to speak
in the street for forty-three years. Think of that, and never be discouraged. When he was tottering to the grave the old soldier was
still at his post. "Compassion to the souls of men drove me," said he, "to the streets and lanes of my native city, to plead with
sinners and persuade them to come to Jesus. The love of Christ constrained me."
Neither the hostility of the police, nor the insults of papists, Unitarians, and the like could move him; he rebuked error in the plainest
terms, and preached salvation by grace with all his might. So lately has he passed away that Edinburgh remembers him still. There
is room for such in all our cities and towns, and need for hundreds of his noble order in this huge nation of London—can I call it
less?
No sort of defense is needed for preaching out-of-doors; but it would need very potent arguments to prove that a man had done his
duty who has never preached beyond the walls of his meetinghouse. A defense is required rather for services within buildings than
for worship outside of them. Apologies are certainly wanted for architects who pile up brick and stone into the skies when there is
so much need for preaching rooms among poor sinners down below. Defense is greatly needed for forests of stone pillars, which
prevent the preacher from being seen and his voice from being heard; for high-pitched Gothic roofs in which all sound is lost, and
men are killed by being compelled to shout till they burst their blood-vessels; and also for the willful creation of echoes by exposing
hard, sound-refracting surfaces to satisfy the demands of art, to the total overlooking of the comfort of both audience and speaker.
Surely also some decent excuse is badly wanted for those childish people who must needs waste money in placing hobgoblins and
monsters on the outside of their preaching houses, and must have other ridiculous pieces of popery stuck up both inside and
outside, to deface rather than to adorn their churches and chapels: but no defense whatever is wanted for using the Heavenly
Father’s vast audience chamber, which is in every way so well fitted for the proclamation of a Gospel so free, so full, so expansive,
so sublime.
The great benefit of open-air preaching is that we get so many newcomers to hear the Gospel who otherwise would never hear it.
The Gospel command is, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature," but it is so little obeyed that one would
imagine that it ran thus, "Go into your own place of worship and preach the Gospel to the few creatures who will come inside." "Go
out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in"— albeit it constitutes part of a parable, is worthy to be taken very
literally, and in so doing its meaning will be best carried out.
We ought actually to go into the streets and lanes and highways, for there are lurkers in the hedges, tramps on the highways,
street-walkers and lane-haunters, whom we shall never reach unless we pursue them into their own domains. Sportsmen must
not stop at home and wait for the birds to come and be shot at, neither must fishermen throw their nets inside their boats and hope
to take many fish. Traders go to the markets; they follow their customers and go out after business if it will not come to them; and
so must we. Some of our brethren are prosing on and on to empty pews and musty hassocks, while they might be conferring
lasting benefit upon hundreds by quitting the old walls for a while, and seeking living stones for Jesus.
I am quite sure, too, that if we could persuade our friends in the country to come out a good many times in the year and hold a
service in a meadow, or in a shady grove, or on the hillside, or in a garden, or on a common, it would be all the better for the usual
hearers. The mere novelty of the place would freshen their interest, and wake them up. The slight change of scene would have a
wonderful effect upon the more somnolent. See how mechanically they move into their usual place of worship, and how
mechanically they go out again. They fall into their seats as if at last they had found a resting place; they rise to sing with an
amazing effort, and they drop down before you have time for the doxology at the close of the hymn because they did not notice it
was coming.
What logs some regular hearers are! Many of them are asleep with their eyes open. After sitting a certain number of years in the
same old spot, where the pews, pulpit, galleries, and all things else are always the same, except that they get a little dirtier and
dingier every week, where everybody occupies the same position forever and forevermore, and the minister’s face, voice, tone are
much the same from January to December -you get to feel the holy quiet of the scene and listen to what is going on as though it
were addressed to "the dull cold ear of Death."
As a miller hears his wheels as though he did not hear them, or a stoker scarcely notices the clatter of his engine after enduring it
for a little time, or as a dweller in London never notices the ceaseless grind of the traffic; so do many members of our
congregations become insensible to the most earnest addresses, and accept them as a matter of course. The preaching and the
rest of it get to be so usual that they might as well not be at all. Hence a change of place might be useful; it might prevent monotony,
shake up indifference, suggest thought, and in a thousand ways promote attention and give new hope of doing good. A great fire
which should burn some of our chapels to the ground might not be the greatest calamity which has ever occurred, if it only aroused
some of those rivals of the seven sleepers of Ephesus who will never be moved so long as the old house and the old pews hold
together.
Besides, the fresh air and plenty of it is a grand thing for every mortal man, woman and child. I preached in Scotland twice on a
Sabbath day at Blairmore, on a little height by the side of the sea, and after discoursing with all my might to large congregations, to
be counted by thousands, I did not feel one-half so much exhausted as I often am when addressing a few hundred in some horrible
black hole of Calcutta, called a chapel. I trace my freshness and freedom from lassitude at Blairmore to the fact that the windows
could not be shut down by persons afraid of drafts, and that the roof was as high as the heavens are above the earth. My conviction
is that a man could preach three or four times on a Sabbath out-of-doors with less fatigue than would be occasioned by one
discourse delivered in an impure atmosphere, heated and poisoned by human breath, and carefully preserved from every
refreshing infusion of natural air.
I once preached a sermon in the open air in haying time during a violent storm of rain. The text was, "He shall come down like rain
upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth," and surely we had the blessing as well as the inconvenience. I was
sufficiently wet, and my congregation must have been drenched, but they stood it out, and I never heard that anybody was the
worse in health, though, I thank God, I have heard of souls brought to Jesus under that discourse. Once in a while, and under strong
excitement, such things do no one any harm, but we are not to expect miracles, nor wantonly venture upon a course of procedure
which might kill the sickly and lay the foundations of disease in the strong.
Do not try to preach against the wind, for it is an idle attempt. You may hurl your voice a short distance by an amazing effort, but you
cannot be well heard even by the few. I do not often advise you to consider which way the wind blows, but on this occasion I urge
you to do it, or you will labor in vain. Preach so that the wind carries your voice toward the people, and does not blow it down your
throat, or you will have to eat your own words.
There is no telling how far a man may be heard with the wind. In certain atmospheres and climates, as for instance in that of
Palestine, persons might be heard for several miles; and single sentences of wellknown speech may in England be recognized a
long way off, but I should gravely doubt a man if he asserted that he understood a new sentence beyond the distance of a mile.
Whitefield is reported to have been heard a mile, and I have been myself assured that I was heard for that distance, but I am
somewhat skeptical. Half a mile is surely enough, even with the wind, but you must make sure of that to be heard at all.
Heroes of the Cross -here is a field for you more glorious than the Cid ever beheld when with his brave right arm he smote the
paynim hosts. "Who will bring me into the strong city? who will lead me into Edom?" Who will enable us to win these slums and
dens for Jesus? Who can do it but the Lord? Soldiers of Christ who venture into these regions must expect a revival of the
practices of the good old times, so far as brickbats are concerned, and I have known a flowerpot to fall accidentally from an upper
window in a remarkably slanting direction. Still, if we are born to be drowned we shall not be killed by flowerpots.
Under such treatment it may be refreshing to read what Christopher Hopper wrote under similar conditions more than a hundred
years ago. "I did not much regard a little dirt, a few rotten eggs, the sound of a cow’s horn, the noise of bells, or a few snowballs in
their season; but sometimes I was saluted with blows, stones, brickbats, and bludgeons. These I did not well like: they were not
pleasing to flesh and blood. I sometimes lost a little skin, and once a little blood, which was drawn from my forehead with a sharp
stone. I wore a patch for a few days, and was not ashamed; I gloried in the cross. And when my small sufferings abounded for the
sake of Christ, my comfort abounded much more. I never was more happy in my own soul, or blessed in my labors."
I am somewhat pleased when I occasionally hear of a brother being locked up by the police, for it does him good, and it does the
people good, also. It is a fine sight to see the minister of the Gospel marched off by the servant of the law! It excites sympathy for
him, and the next step is sympathy for his message. Many who felt no interest in him before are eager to hear him when he is
ordered to 1eave off, and still more so when he is taken to the station. The vilest of mankind respect a man who gets into trouble in
order to do them good, and if they see unfair opposition excited they grow quite zealous in the man’s defense.
As to style in preaching out-of-doors, it should certainly be very different from much of that which prevails within, and perhaps if a
speaker were to acquire a style fully adapted to a street audience, he would be wise to bring it indoors with him. A great deal of
sermonizing may be defined as saying nothing at extreme length; but out-of-doors verbosity is not admired; you must say
something and have done with it and go on to say something more, or your hearers will let you know.
"Now then," cries a street critic, "let us have it, old fellow." Or else the observation is made, "Now then, pitch it out! You’d better go
home and learn your lesson." "Cut It short, old boy," is a very common admonition, and I wish the presenters of this advice gratis
could let it be heard inside Ebenezer and Zoar and some other places sacred to long-winded orations. Where these outspoken
criticisms are not employed, the hearers rebuke prosiness by quietly walking away. Very unpleasant this, to find your congregation
dispersing, but a very plain intimation that your ideas are also much dispersed.
In the street, a man must keep himself alive, and use many illustrations and anecdotes, and sprinkle a quaint remark here and
there. To dwell long on a point will never do. Reasoning must be brief, clear, and soon done with. The discourse must not be labored
or involved, neither must the second head depend upon the first, for the audience is a changing one, and each point must be
complete in itself. The chain of thought must be taken to pieces’ and each link melted down and turned into bullets: you will need
not so much Saladin’s saber to cut through a muslin handkerchief as Coeur de Lion’s battle-axe to break a bar of iron. Come to the
point at once, and come there with all your might.
Short sentences of words and short passages of thought are needed for out-of-doors. Long paragraphs and long arguments had
better be reserved for other occasions. In quiet country crowds there is much force in an eloquent silence, now and then
interjected; it gives people time to breathe, and also to reflect. Do not, however, attempt this in a London street; you must go ahead,
or someone else may run off with your congregation. In a regular field sermon pauses are very effective, and are useful in several
ways, both to speaker and listeners, but to a passing company who are not inclined for anything like worship, quick, short, sharp
address is most adapted.
In the streets a man must from beginning to end be intense, and for that very reason he must be condensed and concentrated in
his thought and utterance. It would never do to begin by saying, "My text, dear friends, is a passage from the inspired Word,
containing doctrines of the utmost importance, and bringing before us in the clearest manner the most valuable practical
instruction. I invite your careful attention and the exercise of your most candid judgment while we consider it under various
aspects and place it in different lights, in order that we may be able to perceive its position in the analogy of the faith. In its exegesis
we shall find an arena for the cultured intellect, and the refined sensibilities. As the purling brook meanders among the meads and
fertilizes the pastures, so a stream of sacred truth flows through the remarkable words which now lie before us. It will be well for
us to divert the crystal current to the reservoir of our meditation, that we may quaff the cup of wisdom with the lips of satisfaction."
There, gentlemen, is not that rather above the average of word-spinning, and is not the art very generally in vogue in these days? If
you go out to the obelisk in Blackfriars Road, and talk in that fashion, you will be saluted with "Go on, old buffer," or "Ain’t he fine?
My eye!" A very vulgar youth will cry, "What a mouth for a tater!" and another will shout in a tone of mock solemnity, "Amen!" If you
give them chaff they will cheerfully return it into your own bosom. Good measure, pressed down and running over will they mete out
to you. Shams and shows will have no mercy from a street gathering.
But have something to say, look them in the face, say what you mean, put it plainly, boldly, earnestly, courteously, and they will hear
you. Never speak against time or for the sake of hearing your own voice, or you will obtain some information about your personal
appearance or manner of oratory which will probably be more true than pleasing. "Crikey," says one, "wouldn’t he do for an
undertaker! He’d make ‘em weep." This was a compliment paid to a melancholy brother whose tone is peculiarly funereal. "There,
old fellow," said a critic on another occasion, "you go and wet your whistle. You must feel awfully dry after jawing away at that rate
about nothing at all." This also was specially appropriate to a very heavy brother of whom we had aforetime remarked that he
would make a good martyr, for there was no doubt of his burning well, he was so dry.
It will be very desirable to speak so as to be heard, but there is no use in incessant bawling. The best street preaching is not that
which is done at the top of your voice, for it must be impossible to lay the proper emphasis upon telling passages when all along
you are shouting with all your might. When there are no hearers near you, and yet people stand upon the other side of the road and
listen, would it not be well to cross over and so save a little of the strength which is now wasted?
A quiet, penetrating, conversational style would seem to be the most telling. Men do not bawl and holler when they are pleading in
deepest earnestness; they have generally at such times less wind and a little more rain: less rant and a few more tears. On, on, on
with one monotonous shout and you will weary everybody and wear out yourself. Be wise now, therefore, O ye who would succeed
in declaring your Master’s message among the multitude, and use your voices as common sense would dictate.
In a tract published by that excellent society "The Open-Air Mission," I notice the following:
QUALIFICATIONS FOR OPEN-AIR PREACHERS
1. A good voice.
2. Naturalness of manner.
3. Self-possession.
4. A good knowledge of Scripture and of common things.
5. Ability to adapt himself to any congregation.
6. Good illustrative powers.
7. Zeal, prudence, and common sense.
8. A large, loving heart.
9. Sincere belief in all he says.
10. Entire dependence on the Holy Spirit for success.
11. A close walk with God by prayer.
12. A consistent walk before men by a holy life.
If any man has all these qualifications, the Queen had better make a bishop of him at once, yet there is no one of these qualities
which could well be dispensed with.
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I picked these particular
hero's of the Faith for two
reasons. First they all agreed
on the fundamental truths
and teachings of Biblical
Christianity . Yet they would
have disagreed on
secondary teachings in the
body of Christ that mature
Christians should over
come. The Lord's prayer in
John 17 is that His church
would be one as He was
with the Father.
Second, if you look at church
history you will see that the
present denominations of
our time were started by
Jesus freaks; free of trying to
protect there reputations.
They were not radical just for
the sake of being radical.
There mentality was to
advance the Kingdom at all
costs! Many of the tactics that
they used would be
considered radical today.
Some denominations of
today would not even alow
there founders in there
church's. It's true!
hero's of the Faith for two
reasons. First they all agreed
on the fundamental truths
and teachings of Biblical
Christianity . Yet they would
have disagreed on
secondary teachings in the
body of Christ that mature
Christians should over
come. The Lord's prayer in
John 17 is that His church
would be one as He was
with the Father.
Second, if you look at church
history you will see that the
present denominations of
our time were started by
Jesus freaks; free of trying to
protect there reputations.
They were not radical just for
the sake of being radical.
There mentality was to
advance the Kingdom at all
costs! Many of the tactics that
they used would be
considered radical today.
Some denominations of
today would not even alow
there founders in there
church's. It's true!
The prophet in his day is fully accepted of God and totally rejected by men…
By Leonard Ravenhill
Years back, Dr. Gregory Mantle was right when he said, No man can be fully accepted until he is totally
rejected.
The prophet of the Lord is aware of both these experiences.
They are his brand name.
The group, challenged by the prophet because they are smug and comfortably insulated from a perishing
world in their warm but untested theology, is not likely to vote him Man of the Year when he refers to them
as habituates of the synagogue of Satan!
The prophet comes to set up that which is upset.
His work is to call into line those who are out of line!
He is unpopular because he opposes the popular in morality and spirituality.
In a day of faceless politicians and voiceless preachers, there is not a more urgent national need than that
we cry to God for a prophet! The function of the prophet, as Austin Sparks once said, has almost always
been that of recovery.
The prophet is Gods detective seeking for a lost treasure.
The degree of his effectiveness is determined by his measure of unpopularity.
He does not know compromise.
He has no price tags.
He is totally otherworldly.
He is unquestionably controversial and unpardonably hostile.
He marches to another drummer!
He breathes the rarefied air of inspiration.
He is a seer who comes to lead the blind.
He lives in the heights of God and comes into the valley with a thus saith the Lord.
He shares some of the foreknowledge of God and so is aware of impending judgment.
He lives in splendid isolation.
He is forthright and outright, but claims not birthright.
His message is repent, be reconciled to God or else . . . !
His prophecies are parried.
His truth brings torment, but his voice is never void.
He is the villain of today and the hero of tomorrow.
He is excommunicated while alive and exalted when dead!
He is dishonored with epithets when breathing and honored with epitaphs when dead.
He is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, but few make the grade in his class.
He is friendless while living and famous when dead.
He is against the establishment in ministry, then he is established as a saint by posterity.
He eats daily the bread of affliction while he ministers, but he feeds the Bread of Life to those who listen.
He walks before men for days but has walked before God for years.
He is a scourge to the nation before he is scourged by the nation.
He announces, pronounces, and denounces!
He has a heart like a volcano and his words are as fire.
He talks to men about God.
He carries the lamp of truth amongst heretics while he is lampooned by men.
He faces God before he faces men, but he is self-effacing.
He hides with God in the secret place, but he has nothing to hide in the marketplace.
He is naturally sensitive but supernaturally spiritual.
He has passion, purpose and pugnacity.
He is ordained of God but disdained by men.
Our national need at this hour is not that the dollar recovers its strength,.. or that we find the answer to
environmental problems.
We need a God-sent prophet!
I am bombarded with talk or letters about the coming shortages in our national life: bread, fuel, and
energy. I read between the lines from people not practiced in scaring folk. They feel that the seven years
of plenty are over for us. The seven years of famine are ahead.
But the greatest famine of all in this nation at this given moment is a famine of the hearing of the Word of
God (Amos 8:11).
Millions have been spent on evangelism in the last twenty-five years.
Hundreds of gospel messages streak through the air over the nation every day.
Crusades have been held; healing meetings have made a vital contribution.
Come-outers have come out and settled, too, without a nation-shaking revival.
Organizers we have. Skilled preachers abound. Multi-million dollar Christian organizations straddle the
nation. BUT where, oh where, is the prophet?
Where are the incandescent men fresh from the holy place?
Where is the Moses to plead in fasting before the holiness of the Lord for our moldy morality, our political
perfidy, and sour and sick spirituality?
Gods men are in hiding until the day of their showing forth.They will come.
The prophet is violated during his ministry, but he is vindicated by history.
There is a terrible vacuum in evangelical Christianity today.
The missing person in our ranks is the prophet, the man with a terrible earnestness, the man totally
otherworldly.
He is the man rejected by other men, even other good men, because they consider him too austere, too
severely committed, too negative and unsociable.
Let him be as plain as John the Baptist.
Let him for a season be a voice crying in the wilderness of modern theology and stagnant churchianity.
Let him be as selfless as Paul the apostle.
Let him, too, say and live, This ONE thing I do.
Let him reject ecclesiastical favors.
Let him be self-abasing, nonself-seeking, nonself-projecting, nonself-righteous, nonself-glorying, nonself-
promoting.
Let him say nothing that will draw men to himself but only that which will move men to God.
Let him come daily from the throne room of a holy God, the place where he has received the order of the
day.
Let him, under God, unstop the ears of the millions who are deaf through the clatter of shekels milked
from the hour of material mesmerism.
Let him cry with a voice this century has not heard because he has seen a vision no man in this century
has seen.
God send us this Moses to lead us from the wilderness of crass materialism, where the rattlesnakes of
lust bite us and
where the enlightened men, totally blind spiritually, lead us to an ever-nearing Armageddon.
God have mercy! Send us prophets!
(C) 1994 by Leonard Ravenhill.
Leonard Ravenhill (1907-1994) was an English Christian evangelist and author who focused on the
subjects of prayer and revival. He is best known for challenging the modern church (through his
books and sermons) to compare itself to the early Christian Church as chronicled in the Book of
Acts. His most notable book is Why Revival Tarries which has sold over a million copies worldwide.
By Leonard Ravenhill
Years back, Dr. Gregory Mantle was right when he said, No man can be fully accepted until he is totally
rejected.
The prophet of the Lord is aware of both these experiences.
They are his brand name.
The group, challenged by the prophet because they are smug and comfortably insulated from a perishing
world in their warm but untested theology, is not likely to vote him Man of the Year when he refers to them
as habituates of the synagogue of Satan!
The prophet comes to set up that which is upset.
His work is to call into line those who are out of line!
He is unpopular because he opposes the popular in morality and spirituality.
In a day of faceless politicians and voiceless preachers, there is not a more urgent national need than that
we cry to God for a prophet! The function of the prophet, as Austin Sparks once said, has almost always
been that of recovery.
The prophet is Gods detective seeking for a lost treasure.
The degree of his effectiveness is determined by his measure of unpopularity.
He does not know compromise.
He has no price tags.
He is totally otherworldly.
He is unquestionably controversial and unpardonably hostile.
He marches to another drummer!
He breathes the rarefied air of inspiration.
He is a seer who comes to lead the blind.
He lives in the heights of God and comes into the valley with a thus saith the Lord.
He shares some of the foreknowledge of God and so is aware of impending judgment.
He lives in splendid isolation.
He is forthright and outright, but claims not birthright.
His message is repent, be reconciled to God or else . . . !
His prophecies are parried.
His truth brings torment, but his voice is never void.
He is the villain of today and the hero of tomorrow.
He is excommunicated while alive and exalted when dead!
He is dishonored with epithets when breathing and honored with epitaphs when dead.
He is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, but few make the grade in his class.
He is friendless while living and famous when dead.
He is against the establishment in ministry, then he is established as a saint by posterity.
He eats daily the bread of affliction while he ministers, but he feeds the Bread of Life to those who listen.
He walks before men for days but has walked before God for years.
He is a scourge to the nation before he is scourged by the nation.
He announces, pronounces, and denounces!
He has a heart like a volcano and his words are as fire.
He talks to men about God.
He carries the lamp of truth amongst heretics while he is lampooned by men.
He faces God before he faces men, but he is self-effacing.
He hides with God in the secret place, but he has nothing to hide in the marketplace.
He is naturally sensitive but supernaturally spiritual.
He has passion, purpose and pugnacity.
He is ordained of God but disdained by men.
Our national need at this hour is not that the dollar recovers its strength,.. or that we find the answer to
environmental problems.
We need a God-sent prophet!
I am bombarded with talk or letters about the coming shortages in our national life: bread, fuel, and
energy. I read between the lines from people not practiced in scaring folk. They feel that the seven years
of plenty are over for us. The seven years of famine are ahead.
But the greatest famine of all in this nation at this given moment is a famine of the hearing of the Word of
God (Amos 8:11).
Millions have been spent on evangelism in the last twenty-five years.
Hundreds of gospel messages streak through the air over the nation every day.
Crusades have been held; healing meetings have made a vital contribution.
Come-outers have come out and settled, too, without a nation-shaking revival.
Organizers we have. Skilled preachers abound. Multi-million dollar Christian organizations straddle the
nation. BUT where, oh where, is the prophet?
Where are the incandescent men fresh from the holy place?
Where is the Moses to plead in fasting before the holiness of the Lord for our moldy morality, our political
perfidy, and sour and sick spirituality?
Gods men are in hiding until the day of their showing forth.They will come.
The prophet is violated during his ministry, but he is vindicated by history.
There is a terrible vacuum in evangelical Christianity today.
The missing person in our ranks is the prophet, the man with a terrible earnestness, the man totally
otherworldly.
He is the man rejected by other men, even other good men, because they consider him too austere, too
severely committed, too negative and unsociable.
Let him be as plain as John the Baptist.
Let him for a season be a voice crying in the wilderness of modern theology and stagnant churchianity.
Let him be as selfless as Paul the apostle.
Let him, too, say and live, This ONE thing I do.
Let him reject ecclesiastical favors.
Let him be self-abasing, nonself-seeking, nonself-projecting, nonself-righteous, nonself-glorying, nonself-
promoting.
Let him say nothing that will draw men to himself but only that which will move men to God.
Let him come daily from the throne room of a holy God, the place where he has received the order of the
day.
Let him, under God, unstop the ears of the millions who are deaf through the clatter of shekels milked
from the hour of material mesmerism.
Let him cry with a voice this century has not heard because he has seen a vision no man in this century
has seen.
God send us this Moses to lead us from the wilderness of crass materialism, where the rattlesnakes of
lust bite us and
where the enlightened men, totally blind spiritually, lead us to an ever-nearing Armageddon.
God have mercy! Send us prophets!
(C) 1994 by Leonard Ravenhill.
Leonard Ravenhill (1907-1994) was an English Christian evangelist and author who focused on the
subjects of prayer and revival. He is best known for challenging the modern church (through his
books and sermons) to compare itself to the early Christian Church as chronicled in the Book of
Acts. His most notable book is Why Revival Tarries which has sold over a million copies worldwide.
The Use Of Gospel Tracts
By R. A. Torrey
Comparatively few Christians realize the importance of tract work. I had been a Christian a good many
years, and a minister of the Gospel several years, before it ever entered my head that tracts were of much
value in Christian work. I had somehow grown up with the notion that tracts were all rubbish, and therefore
I did not take the trouble to read them, and far less did I take the trouble to circulate them, but I found out
that I was entirely wrong. Tract work has some great advantages over other forms of Christian work.
1. Any person can do it. We cannot all preach; we cannot all conduct meetings; but we can all select useful
tracts and then hand them out to others. Of course some of us can do it better than others. Even a blind
man or a dumb man can do tract work. It is a line of work in which every man, woman and child can engage.
2. A tract always sticks to the point. I wish every worker did that, but how often we get to talking to some
one and he is smart enough to get us off on to a side track.
3. A tract never loses its temper. Perhaps you sometimes do. I have known Christian workers, even
workers of experience, who would sometimes get all stirred up, but you cannot stir up a tract It always
remains as calm as a June morning.
4. Oftentimes people who are too proud to be talked with, will read a tract when no one is looking. There is
many a man who would repulse you if you tried to speak to him about his soul, who will read a tract if you
leave it on his table, or in some other place where he comes upon it accidentally, and that tract may be
used for his salvation.
5. A tract stays by one. You talk to a man and then he goes away, but the tract stays with him. Some years
ago a man came into a mission in New York. One of the workers tried to talk with him, but he would not
listen. As he was leaving, a card tract was placed in his hands which read, "If I should die to-night I would
go to ______ Please fill out and sign." He put it in his pocket, went to his steamer, for he was a sailor, and
slipped it into the edge of his bunk. The steamer started for Liverpool. On his voyage he met with an
accident, and was laid aside in his bunk. That card stared him in the face, day and night. Finally he said, "If I
should die tonight I would go to hell, but I will not go there, I will go to heaven, I will take Christ right here
and now." He went to Liverpool, returned to New York, went to the mission, told his story, and had the card,
which was still in his pocket, filled out and signed with his name. The conversation he had had in the
mission left him, but the card stayed by him.
6. Tracts lead many to accept Christ. The author of one tract ("What is it to believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ?") received before his death upwards of sixteen hundred letters from people who had been led to
Christ by reading it.
II. Purposes for which to use a tract.
1. For the conversion of the unsaved. A tract will often succeed in winning a man to Christ where a sermon
or a personal conversation has failed. There are a great many people who, if you try to talk with them, will
put you off; but if you put a tract in their hands and ask God to bless it, after they go away and are alone
they will read the tract and God will carry it home to their hearts by the power of the Holy Ghost. One of our
students wrote me in great joy of how he had at last succeeded in winning a whole family for Christ. He had
been working for that family for a long time but could not touch them. One day he left a tract with them, and
God used that tract for the conversion of four or five members of the family. Another student held a
cottage meeting at a home, and by mistake left his Bible there. There was a tract in the Bible. When he had
gone, the woman of the house saw the Bible, picked it up, opened it, saw the tract and read it. The Spirit of
God carried it home to her heart, and when he went back after the Bible she told him she wanted to find the
Lord Jesus Christ. The tract had done what he could not do in personal work. I once received a letter from
a man saying, "There is a man in this place whom I tried for a long time to reach but could not. One day I
handed him a tract, and I think it was to the salvation of his whole family.
2. To lead Christians into a deeper and more earnest Christian life. It is a great mistake to limit the use of
tracts to winning the unsaved to Christ. A little tract on the Second Coming of Christ, once sent me in a
letter, made a change in my whole life. I do not think the tract was altogether correct doctrinally, but it had
in it an important truth, and it did for me just the work that needed to be done.
There is a special class of people with whom this form of ministry is particularly helpful, those who live
where they do not enjoy spiritual advantages. You may know some one who is leading a very unsatisfactory
life, and you long to have that person know what the Christian life really means. His pastor may not be a
spiritual man, he may not know the deep things of God. It is the simplest thing in the world to slip into a
letter a tract that will lead him into an entirely new Christian life.
3. To correct error. This is a very necessary form of work in the day in which we live. The air is full of error.
In our personal work we have not always time to lead a man out of his error, but oftentimes we can give him
a tract that can do the work better than we can. If you tried to lead him out of his error by personal work,
you might get into a discussion, but the tract cannot. The one in error cannot talk back to the tract. For
example, take people that are in error on the question of seventh day observance. It might take some time
to lead such a one out of the darkness into the light, but a tract on that subject can be secured that has
been used of God to lead many out of the bondage of legalism into the glorious liberty of the Gospel of
Christ.
4. To set Christians to work. Our churches are full of members who are doing nothing. A well-chosen tract
may set such to work. I know of a young man who was working in a factory in Massachusetts. He was a plain,
uneducated sort of fellow, but a little tract on personal work was placed in his hands. He read it and re-read
it, and said, "I am not doing what I should for Christ." He went to work among his companions in the factory,
inviting them to the church, and to hear his pastor preach. Not satisfied with this, he went to doing
personal work. This was not sufficient, so he went to work holding meetings himself. Finally he brought a
convention to his city. Just that one plain factory man was the means of getting a great convention and
blessing to that place, and all from reading that little tract. He was also instrumental in organizing a society
which was greatly blessed of God. It would be possible to fill this country with literature on Christian work
that would stir up the dead and sleeping professors of religion throughout the land, and send them out to
work for the Lord Jesus Christ
III. Who should use tracts.
1. Ministers of the Gospel should use them. Many ministers do make constant use of them in their pastoral
work, leaving well chosen tracts where they make their pastoral calls, handing out tracts along the line of
the sermons that they preach. It is said of Rev. Edward Judson of New York, that he seldom makes a call
without having in his pocket a selection of tracts adapted to almost every member of the family, and
especially to the children. "At the close of the Sunday evening preaching service, he has often put some
good brother in the chair, and while the meeting proceeds he goes down into the audience and gives to
each person a choice leaflet, at the same time taking the opportunity to say a timely word. In this way he
comes into personal touch with the whole audience, gives each stranger a cordial welcome, and leaves in
his hand some message from God. At least once a year he selects some one tract that has in it the very
core of the Gospel. On this he prints the notices of the services, and selecting his church as a center, he
has this tract put in the hands of every person living within half a mile in each direction, regardless of
creed or condition. He sometimes uses 10,000 tracts at one distribution, and finds it very fruitful in results."
2. Sunday School teachers. Every Sunday School teacher should be on the lookout for tracts to give to his
scholars. In this way he can do much to supplement his hour's work on the Lord's Day.
3. Traveling men. Traveling men have a rare opportunity for doing tract work. They are constantly coming in
contact with different men, and finding out their needs. A Christian "drummer" with a well-assorted
selection of tracts can accomplish immeasurable good.
4. Business men. Business men can use tracts to good advantage with the very men with whom they have
business engagements. They can also do excellent work with their own employees. Many a business man
slips well chosen tracts into many of the letters which he writes, and thus accomplishes an effective
ministry for his Master.
5. School teachers. It is very difficult for school teachers in some cities and towns to talk very much with
their pupils in school. Oftentimes the rules of the school board prevent it entirely, but a wise teacher can
learn all about her scholars and their home surroundings, and can give them tracts just adapted to their
needs.
6. Housekeepers. Every Christian housekeeper should have a collection of well assorted tracts. She can
hand these out to the servant girls, the grocery men, the market men, the butcher, to the tramps that come
to the door. They can be left upon the table in the parlor and in bedrooms. Only eternity will disclose the
good that is accomplished in these ways.
IV. How to use tracts.
1. To begin a conversation. One of the difficulties in Christian work is to begin. You see a person with
whom you wish to talk about the Lord Jesus Christ. The great difficulty is in starting. It is easy enough to
talk after you have started, but how are you going to start a conversation naturally and easily? One of the
simplest and easiest ways is by slipping a tract into the person's hand. After the tract has been read, a
conversation naturally follows. I was once riding in a crowded car. I asked God for an opportunity to lead
some one to Christ. I was watching for the opportunity for which I had asked, when two young ladies
entered. I thought I knew one of them as the daughter of a minister. She went through the car looking for a
seat, and then came back. As she came back and sat down in the seat in front of me, she bowed, and of
course I knew I was right as to who she was. I took out a little bundle of tracts, and selecting one that
seemed best adapted to her case, I handed it to her, having first asked God to bless it. She at once began
to read and I began to pray. When she had read the tract, I asked her what she thought about it. She almost
burst into tears right there in the car, and in a very few moments that minister's daughter was rejoicing in
the Lord Jesus Christ as her personal Saviour. As she afterwards passed out of the car, she said, "I want to
thank you for what you have done for me in leading me to Christ."
2. Use a tract to close a conversation. As a rule when you have finished talking with some one, you should
not leave him without something definite to take home to read. If the person has accepted Christ, put some
tract in his hands that will show him how to succeed in the Christian life. If the person has not accepted
Christ, some other tract that is especially adapted to his need should be left with him.
3. Use tracts where a conversation is impossible. For example, one night at the close of a tent meeting in
Chicago, as I went down one of the aisles a man beckoned to me, and intimated that his wife was
interested. She was in tears, and I tried to talk with her, but she stammered out in a broken way, "We don't
talk English." She had not understood a word of the sermon, I suppose, but God had carried something
home to her heart. They were Norwegians, and I could not find a Norwegian in the whole tent to act as
interpreter, but I could put a Norwegian tract in her hand, and that could do the work. Time and time again I
have met with men deeply interested about their soul's salvation, but with whom I could not deal because I
did not talk the language that they understood.
One day as I came from dinner, I found a Swede waiting for me, and he said he had a man outside with
whom he wished me to talk. I went outside and found an uncouth looking specimen, a Norwegian. The
Swede had found him drunk in an alley and dragged him down to the Institute to talk with me. He was still
full of whisky, and spit tobacco juice over me as I tried to talk with him. I found he could not talk English,
and I talked English to the Swede, and the Swede talked Swedish to the Norwegian, and the Norwegian got
a little bit of it. I made it as clear as I could to our Swede interpreter, and he in his turn made it as clear as
he could to the Norwegian. Then I put a Norwegian tract in his hands, and that could talk to him so that he
understood perfectly.
Oftentimes a conversation is impossible because of the place where you meet people. For example, you
may be on the street cars and wish to speak to a man, but in many instances it would not be wise if it were
possible, but you can take the man's measure and then give him a tract that will fit him. You may be able to
say just a few words to him and then put the tract in his hands and ask God to bless it.
4. Use tracts to send to people at a distance. It does not cost a tract much to travel. You can send them to
the ends of the earth for a few cents. Especially use them to send to people who live in out of the way
places where there is no preaching. There are thousands of people living in different sections of this
country where they do not hear preaching from one year's end to another. It would be impossible to send
an evangelical preacher to them, but you can send a tract and it will do the preaching for you.
V. Suggestions as to the use of tracts.
1. Always read the tracts yourself before giving them to others. This is very necessary. Bad tracts abound
to-day, tracts that contain absolutely pernicious doctrine. They are being circulated free by the million, and
one needs to be on his guard, lest he be doing harm rather than good in distributing tracts. Of course we
cannot read all the tracts in foreign languages, but we can have them interpreted to us, and it is wise to do
so. Besides positively bad tracts, there are many tracts that are worthless.
2. Suit your tract to the person to whom you give it. What is good for one person may not be good for
another.
3. Carry a selection of tracts with you. I do not say a collection, but a selection. Tracts are countless in
number, and a large share of them are worthless. Select the best, and arrange them for the different
classes of people with whom you come in contact.
4. Seek the guidance of God. This is of the very highest importance. If there is any place where we need
wisdom from above, it is in the selection of tracts, and in their distribution after their selection.
5. Seek God's blessing upon the tract after you have given it out. Do not merely give out the tract and there
let the matter rest, but whenever you give out a tract ask God to bless it.
6. Oftentimes give a man a tract with words and sentences underscored. Men are curious, and they will
take particular notice of the underscoring. It is oftentimes a good thing to have a tract put up in your office.
Men who come in will read it. I know a man who had a few words put upon his paper weight. A great many
who came into his office saw it, and it made a deep impression upon them.
7. Never be ashamed of distributing tracts. Many people hand out tracts to others as if they were ashamed
of what they were doing. People are not likely to read tracts if you hand them to them as if you were
ashamed to do it; but if you act as though you were conferring a favor upon them, and giving them
something worth reading, they will read your tract. It is often well to say to a person, "Here is a little leaflet
out of which I have gotten a good deal of good. I would like to have you read it."
R. A. Torrey (1856-1928) was a Congregational evangelist, teacher, author, born in Hoboken, New Jersey. He
was educated in Yale University and Divinity School. After a period of skepticism he trusted in Jesus Christ
as Saviour. Soon after he pastored in Ohio and then in Minnesota. In 1889 Dwight L. Moody called Torrey to
Chicago to become the superintendent of the school which became known as the Moody Bible Institute. He
also served as pastor of the Chicago Avenue Church, now the Moody Memorial Church, for twelve years.
Between 1902-1906 Torrey and Charles Alexander conducted a very fruitful evangelistic outreach in
Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, India, China, Japan, Britain, Germany, Canada, and the USA. From
1912-1924 Torrey was dean of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles during which he pastored the Church of the
Open Door. His remaining years involved holding Bible conferences, teaching at the Moody Bible Institute,
and other endevours. (Adapted from "The Wycliffe Biographical Dictionary of the Church, Elgin S. Moyer,
Moody Press, 1982)
The following is from Torrey's larger work, "Methods of Christian Work " (Chapter 5, pages 213-221):
By R. A. Torrey
Comparatively few Christians realize the importance of tract work. I had been a Christian a good many
years, and a minister of the Gospel several years, before it ever entered my head that tracts were of much
value in Christian work. I had somehow grown up with the notion that tracts were all rubbish, and therefore
I did not take the trouble to read them, and far less did I take the trouble to circulate them, but I found out
that I was entirely wrong. Tract work has some great advantages over other forms of Christian work.
1. Any person can do it. We cannot all preach; we cannot all conduct meetings; but we can all select useful
tracts and then hand them out to others. Of course some of us can do it better than others. Even a blind
man or a dumb man can do tract work. It is a line of work in which every man, woman and child can engage.
2. A tract always sticks to the point. I wish every worker did that, but how often we get to talking to some
one and he is smart enough to get us off on to a side track.
3. A tract never loses its temper. Perhaps you sometimes do. I have known Christian workers, even
workers of experience, who would sometimes get all stirred up, but you cannot stir up a tract It always
remains as calm as a June morning.
4. Oftentimes people who are too proud to be talked with, will read a tract when no one is looking. There is
many a man who would repulse you if you tried to speak to him about his soul, who will read a tract if you
leave it on his table, or in some other place where he comes upon it accidentally, and that tract may be
used for his salvation.
5. A tract stays by one. You talk to a man and then he goes away, but the tract stays with him. Some years
ago a man came into a mission in New York. One of the workers tried to talk with him, but he would not
listen. As he was leaving, a card tract was placed in his hands which read, "If I should die to-night I would
go to ______ Please fill out and sign." He put it in his pocket, went to his steamer, for he was a sailor, and
slipped it into the edge of his bunk. The steamer started for Liverpool. On his voyage he met with an
accident, and was laid aside in his bunk. That card stared him in the face, day and night. Finally he said, "If I
should die tonight I would go to hell, but I will not go there, I will go to heaven, I will take Christ right here
and now." He went to Liverpool, returned to New York, went to the mission, told his story, and had the card,
which was still in his pocket, filled out and signed with his name. The conversation he had had in the
mission left him, but the card stayed by him.
6. Tracts lead many to accept Christ. The author of one tract ("What is it to believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ?") received before his death upwards of sixteen hundred letters from people who had been led to
Christ by reading it.
II. Purposes for which to use a tract.
1. For the conversion of the unsaved. A tract will often succeed in winning a man to Christ where a sermon
or a personal conversation has failed. There are a great many people who, if you try to talk with them, will
put you off; but if you put a tract in their hands and ask God to bless it, after they go away and are alone
they will read the tract and God will carry it home to their hearts by the power of the Holy Ghost. One of our
students wrote me in great joy of how he had at last succeeded in winning a whole family for Christ. He had
been working for that family for a long time but could not touch them. One day he left a tract with them, and
God used that tract for the conversion of four or five members of the family. Another student held a
cottage meeting at a home, and by mistake left his Bible there. There was a tract in the Bible. When he had
gone, the woman of the house saw the Bible, picked it up, opened it, saw the tract and read it. The Spirit of
God carried it home to her heart, and when he went back after the Bible she told him she wanted to find the
Lord Jesus Christ. The tract had done what he could not do in personal work. I once received a letter from
a man saying, "There is a man in this place whom I tried for a long time to reach but could not. One day I
handed him a tract, and I think it was to the salvation of his whole family.
2. To lead Christians into a deeper and more earnest Christian life. It is a great mistake to limit the use of
tracts to winning the unsaved to Christ. A little tract on the Second Coming of Christ, once sent me in a
letter, made a change in my whole life. I do not think the tract was altogether correct doctrinally, but it had
in it an important truth, and it did for me just the work that needed to be done.
There is a special class of people with whom this form of ministry is particularly helpful, those who live
where they do not enjoy spiritual advantages. You may know some one who is leading a very unsatisfactory
life, and you long to have that person know what the Christian life really means. His pastor may not be a
spiritual man, he may not know the deep things of God. It is the simplest thing in the world to slip into a
letter a tract that will lead him into an entirely new Christian life.
3. To correct error. This is a very necessary form of work in the day in which we live. The air is full of error.
In our personal work we have not always time to lead a man out of his error, but oftentimes we can give him
a tract that can do the work better than we can. If you tried to lead him out of his error by personal work,
you might get into a discussion, but the tract cannot. The one in error cannot talk back to the tract. For
example, take people that are in error on the question of seventh day observance. It might take some time
to lead such a one out of the darkness into the light, but a tract on that subject can be secured that has
been used of God to lead many out of the bondage of legalism into the glorious liberty of the Gospel of
Christ.
4. To set Christians to work. Our churches are full of members who are doing nothing. A well-chosen tract
may set such to work. I know of a young man who was working in a factory in Massachusetts. He was a plain,
uneducated sort of fellow, but a little tract on personal work was placed in his hands. He read it and re-read
it, and said, "I am not doing what I should for Christ." He went to work among his companions in the factory,
inviting them to the church, and to hear his pastor preach. Not satisfied with this, he went to doing
personal work. This was not sufficient, so he went to work holding meetings himself. Finally he brought a
convention to his city. Just that one plain factory man was the means of getting a great convention and
blessing to that place, and all from reading that little tract. He was also instrumental in organizing a society
which was greatly blessed of God. It would be possible to fill this country with literature on Christian work
that would stir up the dead and sleeping professors of religion throughout the land, and send them out to
work for the Lord Jesus Christ
III. Who should use tracts.
1. Ministers of the Gospel should use them. Many ministers do make constant use of them in their pastoral
work, leaving well chosen tracts where they make their pastoral calls, handing out tracts along the line of
the sermons that they preach. It is said of Rev. Edward Judson of New York, that he seldom makes a call
without having in his pocket a selection of tracts adapted to almost every member of the family, and
especially to the children. "At the close of the Sunday evening preaching service, he has often put some
good brother in the chair, and while the meeting proceeds he goes down into the audience and gives to
each person a choice leaflet, at the same time taking the opportunity to say a timely word. In this way he
comes into personal touch with the whole audience, gives each stranger a cordial welcome, and leaves in
his hand some message from God. At least once a year he selects some one tract that has in it the very
core of the Gospel. On this he prints the notices of the services, and selecting his church as a center, he
has this tract put in the hands of every person living within half a mile in each direction, regardless of
creed or condition. He sometimes uses 10,000 tracts at one distribution, and finds it very fruitful in results."
2. Sunday School teachers. Every Sunday School teacher should be on the lookout for tracts to give to his
scholars. In this way he can do much to supplement his hour's work on the Lord's Day.
3. Traveling men. Traveling men have a rare opportunity for doing tract work. They are constantly coming in
contact with different men, and finding out their needs. A Christian "drummer" with a well-assorted
selection of tracts can accomplish immeasurable good.
4. Business men. Business men can use tracts to good advantage with the very men with whom they have
business engagements. They can also do excellent work with their own employees. Many a business man
slips well chosen tracts into many of the letters which he writes, and thus accomplishes an effective
ministry for his Master.
5. School teachers. It is very difficult for school teachers in some cities and towns to talk very much with
their pupils in school. Oftentimes the rules of the school board prevent it entirely, but a wise teacher can
learn all about her scholars and their home surroundings, and can give them tracts just adapted to their
needs.
6. Housekeepers. Every Christian housekeeper should have a collection of well assorted tracts. She can
hand these out to the servant girls, the grocery men, the market men, the butcher, to the tramps that come
to the door. They can be left upon the table in the parlor and in bedrooms. Only eternity will disclose the
good that is accomplished in these ways.
IV. How to use tracts.
1. To begin a conversation. One of the difficulties in Christian work is to begin. You see a person with
whom you wish to talk about the Lord Jesus Christ. The great difficulty is in starting. It is easy enough to
talk after you have started, but how are you going to start a conversation naturally and easily? One of the
simplest and easiest ways is by slipping a tract into the person's hand. After the tract has been read, a
conversation naturally follows. I was once riding in a crowded car. I asked God for an opportunity to lead
some one to Christ. I was watching for the opportunity for which I had asked, when two young ladies
entered. I thought I knew one of them as the daughter of a minister. She went through the car looking for a
seat, and then came back. As she came back and sat down in the seat in front of me, she bowed, and of
course I knew I was right as to who she was. I took out a little bundle of tracts, and selecting one that
seemed best adapted to her case, I handed it to her, having first asked God to bless it. She at once began
to read and I began to pray. When she had read the tract, I asked her what she thought about it. She almost
burst into tears right there in the car, and in a very few moments that minister's daughter was rejoicing in
the Lord Jesus Christ as her personal Saviour. As she afterwards passed out of the car, she said, "I want to
thank you for what you have done for me in leading me to Christ."
2. Use a tract to close a conversation. As a rule when you have finished talking with some one, you should
not leave him without something definite to take home to read. If the person has accepted Christ, put some
tract in his hands that will show him how to succeed in the Christian life. If the person has not accepted
Christ, some other tract that is especially adapted to his need should be left with him.
3. Use tracts where a conversation is impossible. For example, one night at the close of a tent meeting in
Chicago, as I went down one of the aisles a man beckoned to me, and intimated that his wife was
interested. She was in tears, and I tried to talk with her, but she stammered out in a broken way, "We don't
talk English." She had not understood a word of the sermon, I suppose, but God had carried something
home to her heart. They were Norwegians, and I could not find a Norwegian in the whole tent to act as
interpreter, but I could put a Norwegian tract in her hand, and that could do the work. Time and time again I
have met with men deeply interested about their soul's salvation, but with whom I could not deal because I
did not talk the language that they understood.
One day as I came from dinner, I found a Swede waiting for me, and he said he had a man outside with
whom he wished me to talk. I went outside and found an uncouth looking specimen, a Norwegian. The
Swede had found him drunk in an alley and dragged him down to the Institute to talk with me. He was still
full of whisky, and spit tobacco juice over me as I tried to talk with him. I found he could not talk English,
and I talked English to the Swede, and the Swede talked Swedish to the Norwegian, and the Norwegian got
a little bit of it. I made it as clear as I could to our Swede interpreter, and he in his turn made it as clear as
he could to the Norwegian. Then I put a Norwegian tract in his hands, and that could talk to him so that he
understood perfectly.
Oftentimes a conversation is impossible because of the place where you meet people. For example, you
may be on the street cars and wish to speak to a man, but in many instances it would not be wise if it were
possible, but you can take the man's measure and then give him a tract that will fit him. You may be able to
say just a few words to him and then put the tract in his hands and ask God to bless it.
4. Use tracts to send to people at a distance. It does not cost a tract much to travel. You can send them to
the ends of the earth for a few cents. Especially use them to send to people who live in out of the way
places where there is no preaching. There are thousands of people living in different sections of this
country where they do not hear preaching from one year's end to another. It would be impossible to send
an evangelical preacher to them, but you can send a tract and it will do the preaching for you.
V. Suggestions as to the use of tracts.
1. Always read the tracts yourself before giving them to others. This is very necessary. Bad tracts abound
to-day, tracts that contain absolutely pernicious doctrine. They are being circulated free by the million, and
one needs to be on his guard, lest he be doing harm rather than good in distributing tracts. Of course we
cannot read all the tracts in foreign languages, but we can have them interpreted to us, and it is wise to do
so. Besides positively bad tracts, there are many tracts that are worthless.
2. Suit your tract to the person to whom you give it. What is good for one person may not be good for
another.
3. Carry a selection of tracts with you. I do not say a collection, but a selection. Tracts are countless in
number, and a large share of them are worthless. Select the best, and arrange them for the different
classes of people with whom you come in contact.
4. Seek the guidance of God. This is of the very highest importance. If there is any place where we need
wisdom from above, it is in the selection of tracts, and in their distribution after their selection.
5. Seek God's blessing upon the tract after you have given it out. Do not merely give out the tract and there
let the matter rest, but whenever you give out a tract ask God to bless it.
6. Oftentimes give a man a tract with words and sentences underscored. Men are curious, and they will
take particular notice of the underscoring. It is oftentimes a good thing to have a tract put up in your office.
Men who come in will read it. I know a man who had a few words put upon his paper weight. A great many
who came into his office saw it, and it made a deep impression upon them.
7. Never be ashamed of distributing tracts. Many people hand out tracts to others as if they were ashamed
of what they were doing. People are not likely to read tracts if you hand them to them as if you were
ashamed to do it; but if you act as though you were conferring a favor upon them, and giving them
something worth reading, they will read your tract. It is often well to say to a person, "Here is a little leaflet
out of which I have gotten a good deal of good. I would like to have you read it."
R. A. Torrey (1856-1928) was a Congregational evangelist, teacher, author, born in Hoboken, New Jersey. He
was educated in Yale University and Divinity School. After a period of skepticism he trusted in Jesus Christ
as Saviour. Soon after he pastored in Ohio and then in Minnesota. In 1889 Dwight L. Moody called Torrey to
Chicago to become the superintendent of the school which became known as the Moody Bible Institute. He
also served as pastor of the Chicago Avenue Church, now the Moody Memorial Church, for twelve years.
Between 1902-1906 Torrey and Charles Alexander conducted a very fruitful evangelistic outreach in
Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, India, China, Japan, Britain, Germany, Canada, and the USA. From
1912-1924 Torrey was dean of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles during which he pastored the Church of the
Open Door. His remaining years involved holding Bible conferences, teaching at the Moody Bible Institute,
and other endevours. (Adapted from "The Wycliffe Biographical Dictionary of the Church, Elgin S. Moyer,
Moody Press, 1982)
The following is from Torrey's larger work, "Methods of Christian Work " (Chapter 5, pages 213-221):
