The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1904-09-21
OLD TIME SERMONS.
overgenerous Measure of oratory From
the Preachers.

heterogeneous measure OF Oratory From
the Preachers.
There is no doubt that a good many
sermons are dreadfully dull. But it is
an element in the difficulty of preach
ing that clergymen, in preparing and
delivering their sermons, are practical
~ debarred from adopting some accept
ed oratorical means. Thus the use of
humor in a sermon is almost unknown
within the Church Of England. Nom
conformist preachers like the late Mr..
Spurgeon have sometimes employed hui
NOR in their sermons with striking eff
feet. When he preached (if the story is
truel upon the Martyrs Memorial at
Oxford, and asked where it was posi-
BILE to find martyrs at the present day,
and suggested that if the bishops and
clergy Of the Church Of England were
the martyrs they would be sure to burn
well, they were so dry, he resorted to
device which might or might not be al
lowed and approved by his own congre-
cation, but would certainly CRATE upon
the critical taste of churchmen.
Time was when sermons, like speech
es, were subject to interruption, as
Chrysostom's were, for example, at
Constantinople; and the interruption, if
lit was disturbing. was enIivening.
There is, indeed, story that Chrysos-
tom once preached a sermon against the
practice of applauding preachers by
| clapping of hands and stamping Of feet
and that his congregation received even
that sermon with applause. But piety,
or perhaps decorum, has long since for
hidden the expression Of approval or
dissent in churches. 1t would be
thought a strange thing that any one
! listening to a sermon should cry Hear,
hear" or mo, no" Such CALCULATIONS
are wholly undesirable; they are fatal
to reverence. But the absence of them
enhances the difficulty of preaching.
For when an audience gives no visible
or audible sign of emotion how can a
preacher tell what the effect Of his
words is, or whether they have any eff
feet at all? The secular speaker knows
more or less Of he is in touch with his
hearers, but a preacher never knows
Thomas Boston, minister of the Cos
pei at Ettrick, in sermon on Fear
and Hope, objects of the Divine Conn
Iplacency," after an Introduction in four
sections, deluced six doctrines, each sub
divided into from three to eight heads;
but the last doctrine required another
sermon which containtd "a practical
improvement Of the whole arranged
Matthew XII, 49, was sub divided into
under eighty-six heads. a sermon on
seyenty-sixheads; on this text, indeed,
Mr.. Boston preached four such sermons.
A Scotch preacher, not in the present
degenerate age, has been known to
preach from five to six hours at
stretch, and sometimes, when one
preacher had finished his sermons an
other would begin, and there would be
a succession Of preachers delivering
sermon upon sermon, until the unhappy
congregations were kept listening to
the Word for as many as ten hours
without break.
There may be at the present time
certain interest attaching to contein-
porary account of one Of the fast days
connected with the framing of the
Westminster Confession Of Faith. AZ
ter DIR. Twisse had begun with a brief
prayer, Mr.. Marshall prayed two hours
most divinely. After, Mr.. Arrowsmith
preached an hour, then a psalm; there
after Mr.. Vines prayed near two
hours, and Mr.. Palmer preached an
hour, and Mr.. Seaman prayed near two
hours, then psalm
But it is not only in regard to the
length Of sermons that the public taste
has undergone a change. If I may
specify four celebrated preachers of the
Church of England Bishop Andrews,
Bishop Jeremy Taylor, Dr. South and
Bishop Butler-it is safe to say that
there is not one of them whose sermons
would be appreciated or perhaps tole-
rated at the present day.-Bishop Well
don in the Nineteenth Century.