The longest sermon on record was preached by the Rev. Isaac Barrow,
a Puritan preacher of the seventeenth century, who once delivered a
sermon in Westminster Abbey lasting three hours and a half; and the
shortest sermon ever preached was perhaps the sermon which Doctor
Whewell was fond of repeating from the text, “Man is born unto trouble
as the sparks fly upward.”
The sermon occupied barely a minute in delivery, the following being a
verbatim report:
I shall divide the discourse into three heads: (1) Man’s ingress
into the world; (2) His progress through the world; (3) His
egress out of the world.
Firstly, his ingress into the world is naked and bare.
Secondly, his progress through the world is trouble and care.
Thirdly, his egress out of the world is nobody knows where.
To conclude:
If we live well here, we shall live well there.
I can tell you no more if I preach a year. Then he gave the
benediction.
(2909)
=Sermon, Eccentric=--See GRACE SUFFICIENT.