Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 January 1902 — The Length of Sermons. [ARTICLE]

The Length of Sermons.

In the preface to a recent collection of university sermons the editor gives some curious statistics as to the lengths of sermons. He tells us that it had been found early necessary in some universities to pass statutes de quantitate sermonum, and a time limit was fixed at Ingoldstadt of an hour and a quarter, at Vienna the allowance was an hour and a half, or at most two hours. Even this was exceeded by the two and a half hours which Dr. Tatham of Lincoln, spent in 1802, in defending the genuineness of the disputed verse on John' 1,7, while Dr. Pusey was also very long. The extreme limit in regard to brevity was probably reached in Hearne’s record of March 20, 1722, in which he speaks of a sermon at St Peter’s in the East by William Peeke; which was not above five minutes long, or very little more.