Pulpit Oratory.

Bruce Herald, Volume IX, Issue 984, 3 April 1877, Page 3

Pulpit Oratory.

— ~: — * Rev. David Mitchell, of Toronto, in an article entitled " The length of a Sermon," published in the < British 4-3?e r iPsa ?rgsbyterian,' thus writes to Pulpit Orators; In crder to establish a rule as to the length of sermons, we must look to the great examples of pulpit oratory. "We cannot imagine that John Knox or any of f;he eminent reformers, or many of the Puritan (Jifin 68 * troubled their audiences with seven and ten minute sermons. It was a time too ? wfyen the preaching was all the book, and pewspaper, and review the people enjoyed, and when they could not judge of the relative merits of the pulpit and the press. But Whitfield'e glowing eloquence could not have been confined to so brief a time as that; which so many demand in ouv day. What length of time Chalmers usually occupied in de livery we cannot say. But it would tbke an hour or more to do justice to any ojxe of his a.Btrpqocjical ov conaajercial discourses. (Jaodlish's sermons, though not unduly long, we find to be elaborate to a degree that would ba^le the demands of tbe mqdern critjes. Norman ]$acleod, though, as a itile, never too long, scarcely ever rose to tru.e eloquence until casting manuspript and all thought of time to the winds, he poured forth his soul in noble and manly utterance. Dr. Guthrie speaks of a shipbuilder who paid him tbe greatest compliment by saying, " During the preaching of most ministers, be they short or long, I generally contrive ja m,y pwn mind to lay the keel and build, the ship from Stem to stern, but during your sermon I cannot lay a single plank " Be it observed that Dr Guthrie seldom occupied less than sixty minutes in his delivery. Spurgeon, of world wide renown publishes weekly ferbafim reports of bis sermons, and we think that it would take an average reader an hour to go over one of them. Tbe celebrated Canon Liddon, unlike Dean Stanley who preaches remarkably terse and eloquent sermons in a b,rfef space of time ? occupies an hovir pr more with his splendid discourses. Dr Cumming, of London, seldom closes b«tweeu tbe sixty minutes. Henry Ward Beechep is remarkable for the length of time during which he can hold captive the public ear. J)r Caird, of Glasgow, on the great occasions on which he was called out of his privacy, delivered himself of highly finished discourses that . occupied often au hour each in delivery. . fbe stars of Jfew York at this moment — our own Dr Ormietoa " and Pre Taylor and Hall,

speak for about fifty minutes in every discourse. With such preachers no one complains or feels the inertia of listlessness. Such ministers as these cannot be too long. They occupy the time intensely; while such ip their power of rapid description, such their burning earnest, nest, that every one who notes the time, can hardly be astonished that the whole audience seemed so wrapt and attentive during so long a period. We cannot close without warning the people not to be too exacting as to the subordinate matter of time, for it may happen that in too rigidly confining their minister to ao many minutes, they may lose the lofty eloquence which is begotten of a great theme and a splendid occasion, and thus deprive themselves of what we believe to bo the greatest treat on earth, vie. : listening to a man who is not conscious of the passing momenta and the surroundings, in the grand enterprise of presenting the truth, and of winning souls for Christ.