SOME SHORT SERMONS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXI, Issue 8452, 21 August 1911, Page 6

SOME SHORT SERMONS.

The preachers of to-day are wiser in their generation. They remember Southey's saying—" Be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams —the more they are condensed the deeper they -burn." They have given over the "vain repetitions" that were once so common, and the church has in consequence rather lost its vogue as a place where,one can go comfortably to sleep when the preacher ft half through his '"firstly." and wake, up in time to hear the,"application." There are some remarkable recorded instances of short sermons. : Perhaps the shortest of all i was that, delivered', by a clergyman at Oceah Grove, New Jersey, who, after announcing his text, impressively surveyed his congregation and- then said, "Don't worry; it's wicked." He. then sat down. It would be difficult to exceed this in brevity and effectiveness; but a North of England vicar in the last- century closed approximated it. He gave out the text, 4 'God so loved the world," etc., to which he added this observation. "My friends, did 1 speak an hour, I couldn't make that message any plainer. I'll just leave it with you." Another example of a brief but extraordinarily effective serman was furnished by an aged and feeble clergyman in Ohio. He had been requested to deliver a charity address on behalf of orphan children, but his strength was unequal to the task. It was . therefore an inspiration, indeed, that moved him to stretch forth one feeble arm in the direction of the little unfortunates sitting near the pulpit, and to exclaim, with no little pathos, "Whence shall we find bread that these may eat ?" So impressed was the congregation that the collection was the largest ever taken in that vicinity. Another very effective dis^ course was delivered in rhyme, as follows, from the text, " Man that is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward" : "Man's entrance into tho world

Is naked and bare; His progress through the world Is trouble and care; His exit from the world Is nobody knows where ! But, if we do well here, We shall be well there; And I couldn't, tell you more If I preached to you a year !"