THAT LAST HALF HOUR by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 15, 1878

THAT LAST HALF HOUR.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

Who likes long sermons? Who will vote for them? What minister will praise them in another speaker? Not one. Everybody dislikes a long sermon; every minister will confess that it is a bad thing and will argue against it. Then why not practice what we all agree to be good? Simply because it is so much easier to drift into the wrong, than it is to stick to the right.

One hour is the right length of time for a good, live, interesting sermon. An audience can sit very comfortably that long, and the speaker's strength will generally hold out without undue strain. If the meeting closes then, all feel satisfied. They go home in just the mood to come again. But if they are all tired out with a long, wearisome sermon, they will be much less inclined to come next time.

But the chief harm comes to the speaker himself. After he has spoken a full hour, he is tired enough to stop, even though he should not feel much wearied. Under the excitement of speaking, we do not generally realize how weary we are. It is after we are through, or on the next day, that we feel it the most. It is the last half hour which wears on the speaker. To add from twenty to thirty minutes after he has labored a full hour, is the heaviest tax he can impose on his strength. Sooner or later he will feel this, and regret it. The machinery will give out somewhere, and then he will either be entirely laid up, or crippled with some chronic weakness the remainder of his life.

The most effective sermon is the one that closes up the best, as it leaves the best impression on the minds of the audience. A sermon which grows dryer and weaker to the close is always a failure; hence a speaker should close while he has energy and strength to do it with fire and animation. But any one will find it hard to do this at the close of a long discourse, when both himself and audience are tired out. But when you have so many important things to say that you cannot crowd them into an hour, what will you do? You can say in one hour all any audience can remember, so stop short, and give them the rest next time. But I know by experience that it is all a mistake to think that you cannot condense your discourse into an hour. The longer you allow yourself to speak, the longer you may, till even two hours will be too short for you. If a man must talk till he has told all he can say on a given subject, then no limits will suffice. Lay out your subject and rigidly confine yourself to one hour. Lay your watch before you and stop when the time is up, whether you are through or not. You will find in a short time that one hour is all you want, and your congregations will rise up and bless you for the relief.

It is a very bad thing to keep promising to “close soon,” a long time before you really get through. Sometimes a preacher, when he has spoken about as long as he ought, says, “Well, I must close soon.” Then he speaks a quarter of an hour longer, and says again, “One more point, and I am done.” After a long time he again remarks, “One more text, and I will relieve your patience,” etc. Of all the expedients to bore and tire an audience, this is about the surest, but it is right down mean, if not dishonest. They feel a great deal worse than they would if you said nothing about closing. Do not make such a promise unless you are ready to do just what you say.

Brethren, let us live and learn. If I had carried out the above suggestions in years past, I should not now be losing a whole summer to get well. D. M. CANRIGHT.

Rollinsville, Colo., July 27.