The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-03-08 00:00:00

LONG SERMONS

To the EDITOR of the LIVERPOOL STANDARD.
SIR, I was very glad to see a letter on the above subject in
your last. It is very extraordinary that complaints of the kind
have not reached you before, seeing that they are everywhere
heard amongst the laity

Most of us enjoy the confessions, the prayers, the praises,
and the thanksgivings, in all their variety, of our sublime ser-
sex vices—in themselves not unreasonably nor wearisomely
long, but that there should be added a discourse varying from
three-quarters of an hour to an hour long, and occasionally
ever longer than this, is a cause of universal dissatisfaction.
The long confinement engenders in the minds of children a
hatred to church, from the restraint imposed upon them
—to their great discomfort (from which it is impossible
they can receive any benefit)—and drives many of mature age
away from church altogether. You will no doubt have seen
Mr. Caine's statistical statement of attendance at our several
places of worship, and lamented over the comparatively small
number, even of churchmen, who attend church. This state-
ment I do not believe to be correct, nor nearly so, but still
there is some truth in it. lam persuaded that the chief cause
of this scanty attendance is the long sermons which custom
obliges those who attend to worship to remain to hear.
Of my own knowledge, there are many young persons—not
influenced by religion—who will not go to church on account
of the extreme length of the sermons, and who might—if more
judgment had been displayed in this matter—have been made
zealous labourers in the vineyard. John Wesley recommended
his preachers to " let their discourses on ordinary occasions
not exceed 20 minutes, and in no instance the half hour." He
knew human nature. Added to what we may call the religious
part of the question, there is the physical part. It is impossi-
ble to conceive the vast amount of injury done by the atmos-
phere of the badly-ventilated churches of all large towns and
their suburbs. People sit there for hours inhaling poison— in-
haling, in fact, each other's exhalations. To have a window or
a ventilator open during the six months of the twelve never
enters their head ; yet the symptoms thnt they are receiving
injury is evident to any person at all acquainted with the phy-
sical phases of the human frame. A sense of lassitude—of weari-
ness, of oppression at the chest is apparent, which is followed (es-
pecially in ladies and young persons) by a relaxed state of the
system, laying them open to bronchitis and every febrile ailment
that may he endemic in the neighbourhood. Ido believe, Sir,
that thousands are carried off yearly by the injury received from
the poisonous atmosphere of our churches, which is injurious
in proportion to the length of the time of confinement in it.
I would, therefore, most earnestly commend these things to
the consideration of our clergy. We do not seek any shorten-
ing of our beautiful services, but we do ask to be relieved of the
necessity of having to sit nearly one hour after the enjoyment
of these services has well nigh exhausted the energies of our
frame, and especially in such an atmosphere as defective or no
ventilation leaves our churches filled with during the colder
months 41 the year.

I am, Sir, yours, &C.,
AN EARNEST CHURCHMAN.