Long Sermons | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 3, 1871

Long Sermons.

A WRITER in the London Quarterly Review, in an article entitled “Home Heathenism,” makes the following comment on “the immoderate length of sermons,” which we shall extract for the benefit of the clergy and others:

The length of the modern sermon is a great disadvantage and a growing evil; but it is not the main cause of listlessness in the hearers—for it is not the last portion which tires us; we are tired before we get that relief; and there are long sermons which never appear long. The fault is both in the matter and the style. The topics are too generally stale, and extremely limited in their range; the public mind wants variety and freshness. The mass of the truths uttered from the pulpit need no proof; it is an idle waste of patience and skill to offer it. If all repetitions of thought were excluded, and the best of the remainder were alone retained, sermons would not be so unreasonably long. And generally the style is too verbose; it is not close, compact, nervous. The rule might be, to see how much space the gold can be made to cover; the practice is, not to be perspicuous, convincing, brief. The word painter fails to exhibit his own thought, probably because it is not clearly conceived by himself; for he who thinks clearly and vigorously will express himself with sufficient perspicuity; thought shapes the style. The one radical error not universal, but general, is excessive verbiage—“the seven grains are hid under a bushel of chaff.” We are of the opinion that it is the sin of the age; and indiscreet persons freely bestow their praises upon young ministers—especially if they have plenty of bold “figures.”—Sel.