" This canny Parson Whiteinch very craftily and
somewhat maliciously prolonged his morning sermons until they each occupied
three hours; thus he shortened the time between the two services to about
half an hour, and victoriously crowded out the Sunday-school innovators,
who had barely time to eat their cold lunch and care for their waiting
horses, ere it was time for the afternoon service to begin. But one man
cannot stop the tide, though he may keep it for a short time from one
guarded and sheltered spot; and the rebellious Vermont congregation, after
two or three years of tedious three-hour sermons, arose in a body and
crowded out the purposely prolix preacher, and established the wished-for
Sunday-school. The vanquished parson thereafter sullenly spent the noonings
in the horse-shed, to which he ostentatiously carried the big church-Bible
in order that it might not be at the service of the profaning teachers.
An irreverent caricature of the colonial days represents a phenomenally
long-preaching clergyman as turning the hour-glass by the side of his
pulpit and addressing his congregation thus, "Come! you are all good
fellows, we'll take another glass together!" It is recorded of Rev. Urian
Oakes that often the hour-glass was turned four times during one of his
sermons. The warning legend, "Be Short," which Cotton Mather inscribed over
his study door was not written over his pulpit; for he wrote in his diary
that at his own ordination he prayed for an hour and a quarter, and
preached for an hour and three quarters.
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