THREE-HOUR SERMONS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 774, 21 September 1929, Page 32

THREE-HOUR SERMONS

WHEN PREACHERS USED HOUR GLASSES CASUAL CONGREGATIONS In these days of bright and interesting 20-minutes sermons, it seems hard to believe that parsons used to preach with an hour-glass at their side, and frequently to turn It upsidedown two or three times before they considered that enough of the sands of time had flowed to warrant the bringing of the address to a close. Yet such was the case, and In several of our older churches the glass, or its ornamental stand, Is still to be seen. Unless they have been removed since last I saw them, you will find these quaint glasses in churches at Hurst, in Berkshire, and South Burlingham in Norfolk, writes an antiquarian in the London “Star.” Dr. Izaac Barrow, of the days of Charles 11., used to consider no sermon worthy of the name unless he turned the glass twice after the sands had run out. Those were less formal times, and it must not be supposed that the congregation necessarily let its Sunday dinner spoil in the oven, and sat out the harangue until well into the afternoon. Some people used to walk out for the duration of the sermon. Frosbroke tells, for example, of a squire Qf Bilbury, in Gloucestershire, who made a point of going out and smoking his pipe in the churchyard during the two-hour sermons preached by the vicar of his day; but he knocked out his pipe and came back for the end of the service. Dr. Barrow, the three-hour preacher, kept up his harangue for three and a-half hours on one occasion, in a sermon before the Lord Mayor and Corporation of London. The congregation (including the Lord Mayor and corporation) dwindled away until no one but an apprentice boy was left. These parsons, however, were positively tactiturn when compared with the Rev. John Howe, of Cromwell’s day, who is recorded to have preached and prayed from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m., pausing only for a quarter of an hour. A minister at Kilellan laid himself out to preach one day what our American trends would call “a real man’s size sermon” —began it at 11 a.m. and kept it going until 6 p.m. Bishop Burnet, of Salisbury, had a tactful way of timing his sermons. After an hour, he held up the empty hour glass and awaited comment. If the congregation happened to have had enough it sat in stolid silence. If it was a good sermon, or what they considered a good sermon, there were a number of calls of “Go on! Go on!” And, with a gratified smile, we may be sure, the Bishop turned over the hour-glass and proceeded to prolong his address for another 60 minutes. Sir Roger L’Estrange tells of a sexton whose somewhat blunt tact gallantly rescued a congregation in a cold church, when a sermon had every appearance of going on for ever. Leaving his pew, he started up the aisle for the door, calling to the vicar, “Pray, sir, be pleased, when you have done, to leave the key under the door.” Then he walked out. How different, these diffuse divines, from the witty and pithy Dean Swift, who, on being asked to preach for a Dublin charity and to keep his sermon short, ascended the pulpit, gave out the text, “He who giveth unto the poor lendeth unto the Lord,” and said: “Brethren, you have heard the terms of the loan. If you are satisfied with the security, down with the dust!” And that was all that sermon.

It must not be supposed that those long sermons, measured by successive topsy-turvey turning of the hourglass, were universal, despite their frequency. Many parishes equipped their pupils with a half-hour glass. (Queen Victoria, in 1867, gave an 18minute glass to the Savoy Chapel, as a gentle hint of her preference.)