1.I 18. Length of Sermons

Length of Sermons.

One word as to the length of sermons. That never should be determined by the clock, but upon broader considerations short sermons for small subjects, and long sermons for large subjects. It does not require that sermons should be of any uniform length. Let one be short, and the next long, and the next intermediate. It is true that it is bad policy to fatigue men; but shortness is not the only remedy for that. The true way to shorten a sermon is to make it more interesting. The object of preaching is not to let men out of church at a given time. The length and quality of a sermon must be determined by the objects which it has in view.

Now you cannot discuss great themes in a short compass, nor can you by driblets by sermons of ten or twenty minutes train an audience to a broad consideration of high themes. There is a medium. A minister ought to be able to hold an audience for an hour in the discussion of great themes; and the. habit of ample time and ample discussion, even if occasionally it carries with it the incidental evil of weariness, will, in the long run, produce a nobler class of minds and a higher type of education than can possibly belong to the school of dwarfed sermonizers.