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Preaching to the converted…

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“I would not have preachers torment their hearers, and detain them with long and tedious preaching.“
– Martin Luther

The common image of Christian Preachers holding forth at length has precedents in the Bible. In the Book of Nehemiah viii, 1-8, Ezra, preached from the Book of the Law of Moses “from morning until midday”. In Acts xx, 7-9 we read of Paul preaching at length “..and continued his speech until midnight.” In Paul’s case this had consequences…

“And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep: and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead.”

Early medieval preaching was usually the province of bishops who were required to preach. From the 13th century came the rise of the mendicant orders, whose primary pastoral job was preaching sermons. They were not parish priests, but mostly Franciscan and Dominican friars. Medieval people loved sermons: they were often social events and entertainment as well as religious instruction and were not always associated with celebration of Mass. By the time of the Reformation there was a greater emphasis on having parish priests preach sermons.

Sermons were preached at a vast range of different occasions. Apart from regular sermons on Sundays and the major dates within the Christian calendar, sermons were also delivered at baptisms, weddings and funerals. There was also a ‘political’ calendar for sermons, as ministers were instructed to preach on national fast and thanksgiving days. Sermons were also an important means of petitioning and praising the monarch and were used during accessions to the throne and royal births and marriages. They were also delivered in response to wars, natural disasters, and plague epidemics. The diversity of occasions, audiences, and places meant that the clergy were able to comment on a large variety of topics, including current affairs and the state of society.

The custom of preaching long sermons began during the Reformation, when doctrinal disputes were argued or commented upon by the preachers. When differences of theological opinion became contentious, sermons gave way to the arguing and enforcing of the claims of rival beliefs.

Catholics and Protestants both introduced pulpit hour-glasses as a means of measuring the length of their sermons and not always with a view to keeping their sermons short. These hourglasses weren’t always merely timekeepers. John Donne would draw attention to its diminishing grains of sand to remind his auditors of the brevity of human life. There are also anecdotes of preachers who having watched the sands run out, would simply take a deep breath, turn the glass over and begin again.

Many of the hour-glasses have been lost to time and may have been simple hour-glass perched on the edge of the pulpit. Some churches, however, installed brackets of varying ornamentation to hold them. Some of these still survive, the Church of St John-on-the-Wall, in Bristol had such a holder although sadly this is now hidden away in the store of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery.

Up until the middle of the 17th Century, two-hour sermons regularly took place at St. Paul’s Cross, the most famous pulpit in early modern England. Paul’s Cross was an octagonal structure situated outside of Old St. Paul’s in London which is marked today with a small paved slab outside of the Cathedral. At this place, some of the most politically influential sermons of the time were delivered, such as John Fisher’s denunciation of Lutheranism in 1521, which was followed by the public burning of Luther’s books.

Pulpit Hourglass holders
St John-on-the-Wall, Bristol – Compton Bassett Church, Wilts.

During the Seventeenth Century the Scottish Presbyterians engaged in what were termed “Religious exercises”. The services were long and frequent and once a Preacher was in the pulpit the only limit to his preaching would be his strength. If he spoke for two hours he would be considered “a zealous pastor who had the good of his flock at heart”. He was also expected; “to display great vehemence and to evince his earnestness by toiling and sweating abundantly”. Dr John Menzies, Professor of Divinity at Marischal College, Aberdeen (1624-1684), was notable in this regard;

“Such was his uncommon fervour in the pulpit, that we are informed, he used to change his shirt always after preaching, and to wet two or three napkins with tears every sermon.”

John Rogers, lecturer at Dedham, who would take hold of the supporters of the canopy over the pulpit and imitate the torments of the damned, earning him the nickname of ‘Roaring Rogers’.

In 1653, John Lamont of Newton Parish in Fife wrote in his journal of great occasions where several clergymen would be present at one service so that when one was fatigued another would take his place; “the patience of the hearers being apparently inexhaustible”.

The Puritans were not renowned for humour in their preaching, although Samuel Moody (pastor of York, Maine, from 1698 to 1747) had a talent for pulpit put-downs. When Moody was invited to preach in a neighbouring parish, the pastor warned Moody that the congregation was in the habit of drifting out of church before the sermon was over. Moody solved that problem by announcing at the beginning of his sermon that he intended to speak first to the sinners in the congregation, and then to the saints.

When he had preached to “sinners” as long as he thought proper, he paused and added, “There, sinners, I have done with you now; you may take your hats and go out of the meeting house as soon as you please.” No one dared leave.

If fatigue was not an issue for the preacher, it often was for the congregation. To prevent people from sleeping during the long sermons a parish might appoint a special officer to assist with the problem, though they could be the existing parish clerk with a new title. Known as a “sluggard-waker”, they were also employed to evict dogs from the church in rural parishes.

There are records of bequests to the parish for the employment of these worthies. Richard Dovey, of Farmcote, in 1659 left property at Claverley, Shropshire, with the condition that eight shillings should be paid to, and a room provided for, a poor man, who should undertake to awaken sleepers, and to whip out dogs from the church of Claverley during divine service.

The clerk in one church used a long staff, at one end of which was a fox’s brush for gently awakening a sleeping female, while at the other end was a knob for a more forcible awakening of a male sleeper. The sluggard-waker at Dunchurch in Warwickshire used a stout wand with a fork at the end of it. During the sermon he stepped stealthily up and down the nave and aisles and into the gallery marking down his prey.

In Tottenham, the clerk had a split cane which made a distinctive noise when used vigorously on someone’s back, startling a sleepy congregation. It seems that no one objected, or thought anything about it, and the sermon would proceed as if nothing had happened.

Lengthy sermons were not universally popular even amongst preachers. In 1587 the Edinburgh Presbytery of the Church of Scotland ruled; “that preachers exceeding an hour in their sermons be fined 18 pence”. Elgin’s Kirk Session threatened long-winded preachers with a fine of six shillings and eight pence.

The English Baptist Pastor Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892), when giving an address to workmen in January 1872, commented that

“Long sermons… were a great evil. If a parson preached a long sermon, it was because he had nothing to say. It might appear odd, but it was nevertheless a fact, that, when people had nothing to say, they took a long time about it; but when they had got something worth telling, they out with it at once.
The minister who recommended the old lady to take snuff in order to keep from dozing was very properly rebuked by her reply,–that if he would put more snuff into the sermon she would be awake enough.”

There is also an account of a tedious preacher, who was “three quarters through his second-glass”; and the congregation were already tired when,

“…a good, charitable sexton took compassion of the auditory, and procured their deliverance by saying, ‘Pray, sir, be pleased, when you have done, to leave the key under the door,’ and so the sexton departed. And the preacher followed him soon after.”

“I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson,


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