PREPARATION AND PLAN OF THE ADDRESS
Both preparation and plan are more difficult to provide for than for indoor lectures. Circumstances are often such that the immediate preparation must be hurried, and the plan improvised. Developments while the meeting is in progress may suggest to those who are sufficiently adaptable modifications of their plan to take advantage of them. If the subject has been arranged and advertised, our course is clearer, and if we are one of a series of speakers on the same occasion, we know what part of the subject we are expected to cover, but otherwise we may have to decide for ourselves what topics we shall discuss. It will be well for those who expect to be called upon for work of this kind to provide themselves with simple themes, which they can develop clearly and convincingly, equipped with a suitable range of Scripture passages.

Thus The Return of Jesus wants a group of passages in which the questions:
(i) Will he come?
(ii) How will he come;
(iii) When will he come?
(iv) Why will he come? and
(v) What will be our position when he comes? are answered sufficiently and convincingly.21 These may be dealt with together or subdivided among speakers, in which cases we shall want more or fewer of the passages we have chosen.

The Kingdom of God needs evidence similarly to answer:
(i) What was the Kingdom?
(ii) What is the Kingdom?
(iii) What will be the Kingdom?
(iv) Who will be its King?
(v) Whom else will it include?
(vi) What will it be like?

The Nature of Man should deal with:
(i) What happens when we die?
(ii) Why does it happen?
(iii) Can it be avoided or escaped?
(iv) What is the alternative? -and so on. We can list these for our needs.
Again there must come the warning against complacency. Any such list as this can certainly be improved as we go on. As in Canvassing (chapter Seven) so here, we must be continually on the watch for improvements, both in our material and in our method.

The address itself must be adapted to the nature of the audience. A consequent discourse which cannot be under stood by those who come in, or who leave, when it is half-waythrough, will not do. Development there ought to be, but it must be development of such a kind that any part of it can be grasped, even if its proof cannot be seen, by the casual hearer who stops only at that moment and leaves immediately afterwards. The difference between this method and that appropriate indoors is that between a child's first efforts in prose writing, and the mature composition of an accomplished essayist. " The cat came through the door. The cat sat on the mat. The mat was by the fire. The fire was too hot for the cat. The cat got up from the hot mat. The cat went out again." This is the one style. " Coming through the door, the cat approached the mat which was before the fire and lay down upon it; but the heat was too great, compelling the animal to relinquish its comfortable couch and return by the way it came." This is the other. Expand each of these to the dimensions of an address, and the essential difference between
them is apparent. Short, self-contained statements distinguish the one; involved and interdependent phrasing the other.

A refrain is invaluable. It relates each point to its purpose for those who are listening all the time amid the distractions of the open air, and gives a purpose to the single point heard in isolation by the passer-by. An example follows, using the words; " God hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness."18 But remember, in reading them, that an outdoor address is not meant to be read. The abruptness and disjointedness which disfigure it here, become virtues in its proper setting.

God hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness ': Those are the words spoken before a crowd of Greeks by the Apostle Paul. Paul was travelling in Athens, and had seen the many altars they had set up to their home-made gods, to whose deaf ears they turned their praises and their prayers. So careful were they not to offend any gods they might have missed, that they had built a special altar ' To the Unknown God.' But their gods were powerless: Paul's was powerful. Theirs did not care what lives the people lived: Paul's proclaimed a commandment to them all. Theirs had no purpose: Paul's was working his out- " ' God hath appointed a day.' ' A time of judgment is coming,' Paul said. What is this judgment, and who is the judge? Paul answers that question, too: ' He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof He hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead.' Obviously he refers to Jesus: Jesus, who long ago died, rose from the grave, and went to God in heaven.22 This Jesus is to judge the world.

" ' God hath appointed a day '-when Jesus will come back again. I know that many men-perhaps many of you23 -laugh at the idea of Jesus coming back to earth. That is why your many places of worship, decorated as they are with crosses and other marks of reverence, yet remind me of the altar which Paul saw in Athens,' To the unknown god.' How foolish is the reverence which pays divine honours to Jesus in heaven, but denies his own promise that he will come to the earth! How vain is the hope that, while he remains away, those who deny his words can hope to put right our topsy-turvy world! So long as Jesus stays away, just so long will all our hopes for lasting peace and just government be defeated.

" ' God hath appointed a day ': that is the proper emphasis. We can appoint days of celebration for victories, which too often need to be won again24, and days of mourning for losses of which our follies are the cause. We can appoint commissions to make better worlds, and public charters of universal freedom and prosperity.25 But our efforts have not succeeded yet, and not all the loud talk that the horrors we see now must never happen again, can drown the whispers which speak to each of us-that we do not believe our loud noises. We have lost hope. 1914-18 was a war to end wars, though it did not. 1939-? is not: hardly any one pretends that it is.26 Between the two wars, Christadelphians told those who would listen to them that what we see would happen: now, when perhaps you are readier to hear, we tell you from the Bible again. ' It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.'27 We cannot put the world right. ' God hath appointed a day.'

" ' God hath appointed a day to judge the world.' So Paul said to Athens 2,000 years ago, and so we say now in Bruddersfax. But Paul said something else to Athens which we must say again to you who stand in this market-place.28 ' God commandeth all men everywhere to repent, because as he hath appointed a day ': God is going to judge the world, and so we must repent. God is going to put the world in order through His Son Jesus, but that is our concern only if we ourselves take steps. We cannot make the world perfect, but we can make a start to share in a perfect world. ' God commands us to repent.' We can imagine your impatience at that. ' What have we to repent of? ' you might say, ' It ; is the other side who need to be sorry. They made this mess, not us. We have nothing to repent of.' And if you did you \ would be wrong. You did share in this mess-and I-and , share in it now.

" ' God commandeth us to repent.' We are sinners, children of a sinful race, and we shall make no progress in God's sight until we know it and admit it. When we do admit it, a great light is thrown for us on God's purpose and our duty. Then we shall know why Jesus came in the first place. Words we hear so often, ' God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish '29 will have a greater meaning for us. We shall ask then, as men asked when they heard him and his apostles before, ' What must I do to be saved? 30 This is repentance, and in the days of Jesus those who repented showed it by being baptized. He told them to. He tells us still. This is another matter in which we have let our leaders in religion turn the word of God upside down, for how many hear of baptism now without thinking of a ceremony in which children are sprinkled, which has nothing to do with Bible baptism? Bible baptism needs repentance first: it needs people like you and me to come to God and say,' I know I am sinful. I know I cannot by myself be righteous. I know that you have offered me life if I believe in Jesus and trust his words. I look to the time when he will come and complete the work he has begun. I am glad to be baptized and become his servant.'

" ' God hath appointed a day.' To those who obey His will it is a day of joy. The world will be judged, but they will be accepted at judgment, and live in God's service in the world He puts right. The words which so many people utter without thought, 'Thy kingdom come', are for such true believers a real prayer for the coming of Jesus to judge the world.

" ' God commandeth us to repent.' That is our call now. The message is too important to be thrown aside as you drop your daily paper after you have read its headlines.

We beseech you in Christ's name, think on them earnestly. Read your Bible to see for yourself-we will give you all the help we can with that Book, the source of all our preaching, and you can obtain a Bible Companion31 to help you read it, freely from the book-table; Come to the indoor meetings at . . . and hear more of its message in greater comfort and quietness than is possible here . . ."

This is rather a pot-pourri, with more topics than we need introduce at once into a single address, designed rather to show a method of approach than to set a standard for treating of the return of Jesus. Note the efforts from time to time to make it plain to those who are listening that we are speaking to them-and not to the rest of men far away.