What A Puritan Does When He Forgets His Sermon Notes

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Wayne

Tempus faciendi, Domine.
Found elsewhere on the web today:

What A Puritan Does When He Forgets His Sermon Notes

“The great length of many of the psalms in that book was a fatal barrier to any successful effort to have good singing. Some of them were one hundred and thirty lines long, and occupied, when lined and sung, a full half-hour, during which the patient congregation stood. It is told of Dr. West, who preached in Dartmouth in 1726, that he forgot one Sabbath Day to bring his sermon to meeting. He gave out a psalm, walked a quarter of a mile to his house, got his sermon, and was back in his pulpit long before the psalm was finished.”

– from The Sabbath in Puritan New England by Alice Morse Earle
 
Which is why it is a good idea to copy and paste one's notes into email and send them to your phone. Just in case. Just don't be waving your Blackberry or iPhone around whole at the pulpit. ;)

AMR
 
Sorry about the joke, but I couldn’t resist. Now it is time for the bad joke.

Question: What does a Puritan do “when he forgets his sermon notes”?
Answer: He wigs it.

I know it is not that funny, but it made me laugh when I thought of it.
 
I seem to remember one time that notes were forgotten for one Sunday School, and we had a season of prayer while notes were recovered. Maybe Steve or Bob can help out on this?
 
Interestingly enough, I used to attend a Charismatic Church where 7 lines of a single praise chorus sung over and again lasted just about that long...
 
Interestingly enough, I used to attend a Charismatic Church where 7 lines of a single praise chorus sung over and again lasted just about that long...

If you don't ask the Lord to open the eyes of His heart at least a million times He won't do it.
 
It was a fairly familar joke during the 17th century:

Q. Why does the Puritan preacher preach so long?

A. He wants to be there when his congregation wakes up again.
 
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