Rocky Mountain Ministries
OPEN-AIR PREACHING
A SKETCH OF ITS HISTORY AND REMARKS THEREON
By Charles H. Spurgeon
I love this short
clip, done by Ray
Comfort. His
website offers
many teaching helps
for those wanting to
do more evangelistic
work. You can find a
link to his website
on my links page.
OPEN-AIR PREACHING A SKETCH OF ITS HISTORY AND REMARKS THEREON By Charles H. Spurgeon |
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THERE ARE some customs for which nothing can be pleaded, except that they are very old. In 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 openair 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 to "ether 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 openair 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 w ere 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 ketter f or 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 onehalf so much exhausted as I often am when
addressing a few hundreds 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's 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 halloa 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.
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 openair 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 to "ether 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 openair 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 w ere 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 ketter f or 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 onehalf so much exhausted as I often am when
addressing a few hundreds 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's 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 halloa 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.