Outdoor Meetings

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 22, 1909

Dr. Grenfell, whose books and lectures have made known the stirring story of missionary effort in Labrador, writes to the Outlook regarding the perils of poorly ventilated meeting places in the United States. His remarks regarding the spiritual side of open-air meetings will be read with interest at this camp-meeting season:—

In the legal cases we are called upon to settle, especially in the dispute question, where men's tempers are apt to run away with them, and men are tempted to be careless whether they speak the truth and nothing but the truth before God or man, we invariably have the trial in the open air when possible, preferably on the deck of the vessel. For we believe that there will be more likelihood of getting at a right result quickly than in the stuffy confines of the dismal, half-dark, and therefore germ-laden precincts of restricted buildings. We find it literally “keeps their heads cool,” and renders the soft answer easier to return. And as for our gatherings for the worship of God, we invariably select the open air whenever possible. The rocks or cliffs of our coast offer acoustic arrangements that can not be excelled. There is a sense of one's own unimportance in the open air which insensibly affects every man, and this perhaps may not unreasonably be regarded as at least one testimonial to the excellently active condition of one's brain cells on those occasions. We find also that the everlasting rocks beneath us suggest our brevity of life, and the resistless sea at our feet our physical impotence.

He adds the following:—

The sudden change from an open-air life at sea to a long, continuous series of lectures has keenly emphasized in my mind the great need for better ventilation. The physical exhaustion after only five months' lecturing, the most severe I have ever experienced, was, in my opinion, almost entirely due to the immersion, night after night, in a sea of foul air, laden with poison, organic and inorganic. Immersions in salt water and a life that compels even ordinary conversation to be carried on under circumstances exacting to both brain and larynx are negligible dangers compared with those of many modern lecture halls in their demands on nerve energy and nerve stability.