ON THE USE OF THE HOUR-GLASS IN PULPITS.
(Vol. vii., p. 489.)
Perhaps the following may be of service as a farther illustration of this subject.
Zacharie Boyd says, in The Last Battell of the Sovle in Death, 1629, reprinted Glasgow, 1831, at p. 469.:
"Now after his Battell ended hee hath surrendered the spirit, Clepsydra effluxit, his houre-glasse is now runne out, and his soule is come to its wished home, where it is free from the fetters of flesh."
This divine was minister of the barony parish of Glasgow, the church for which was then in the crypt of the cathedral. I have no doubt the hour-glass was there used from which he draws his simile. Your correspondent refers to sermons an hour long, but, to judge from the contents of "Mr. Zacharie's" MS. sermons still preserved in the library of the College of Glasgow, each, at the rate of ordinary speaking, must have occupied at least an hour and a half in delivery. When he had become infirm and near his end, and had found it necessary to shorten his sermons, his "kirk session" was offended, as—
"Feb. 13, 1651. Some are to speak to Mr. Z. Boyd about the soon skailing (dismissing) of the Baronie Kirk on Sunday afternoon."
Though sermons are now generally restricted from three quarters to an hour's delivery, the practice of long preaching in the olden times in the west of Scotland had much prevailed. Within my own recollection I have heard sermons of nearly two hours' duration; and early among a few classes of the first Dissenters, on "Sacramental Occasions" as they are yet called, the services lasted altogether (not unfrequently) continuously from ten o'clock on Sabbath forenoon, to three and
four o'clock the following morning. A traditional anecdote is current of an old Presbyterian clergyman, unusually full of matter, who, having preached out his hour-glass, was accustomed to pause, and addressing the precentor, "Another glass and then," recommenced his sermon.
A pictorial representation of the hour-glass in a country church is to be seen in front of the precentor's desk, or pulpit, in a very scarce humorsome print, entitled "Presbyterian Penance," by the famous David Allan. It also figures in the engraving of the painting by Wilkie, of John Knox preaching before Mary Queen of Scots. About twenty years ago it was either in the Cathedral of Stirling or the Armory of the Castle (the ancient chapel), that I saw the hour-glass (about twelve inches high) which had been connected with one or other of the pulpits, from both of which John Knox is said to have preached. It is likely the hour-glass is there "even unto this day" (unless abstracted by some relic hunter); and if it could be depended on as an original appendage to the pulpits, would prove that its use was coeval with the times of the Scottish Reformation. I think its high antiquity as certain as the oaken pulpits themselves.
At an early period the general poverty of the country, and the scarcity of clocks and watches, must have given rise to the adoption of the hour sand-glass, a simple instrument, but yet elegant and impressive, for the measurement of a brief portion of our fleeting span.
G. N.
Glasgow.
On the 31st May, 1640, the churchwardens of great Staughton, co. Huntingdonshire, "are, and stand charged with (among other church goods), a pulpit standinge in the church, having a cover over the same, and an houre-glasse adjoininge."
Copy of a cutting from a magazine, name and date unknown:
"Among Dr. Rawlinson's manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, No. 941 contains collection of Miscellaneous Discourses, by Mr. Lewis of Margate, in Kent, whence the following extract has been made:
"'It appears that these hour-glasses were coeval with our Reformation. In a fine frontispiece, prefixed to the Holy Bible of the bishops' translation, printed in 4to. by John Day, 1569, Archbishop Parker is represented in the pulpit with an hour-glass standing on his right hand; ours, here, stood on the left without any frame. It was proper that some time should be prescribed for the length of the sermon, and clocks and watches were not then so common as they are now. This time of an hour continued till the Revolution, as appears by Bishop Sanderson's, Tillotson's, Stillingfleet's, Dr. Barrow's, and others' sermons, printed during that time.'
"The writer of this article was informed in 1811 by the Rev. Mr. Burder, who had the curacy of St. Dunstan's, Fleet Street, that the large silver hour-glass formerly used in that church, was melted down into two staff heads for the parish beadles.
"An hour-glass frame of iron, fixed in the wall by the side of the pulpit, was remaining in 1797 in the church of North Moor, in Oxfordshire."
Joseph Rix.
St. Neots, Huntingdonshire.
In many of our old pulpits built during the seventeenth century, when hour sermons were the rule, and thirty minutes the exception, the shelf on which the glass used to stand may still be seen. If I recollect rightly, that of Miles Coverdale was thus furnished, as stated in the newspapers, at the time the church of Bartholomew was removed. Perhaps this emblem was adopted on gravestones as significant of the character of Death as a minister or preacher.
The late Basil Montague, when delivering a course of lectures on "Laughter" at the Islington Institution some few years since, kept time by the aid of this antique instrument. If I remember aright, he turned the glass and said, "Another glass and then," or some equivalent expression.
E. G. Ballard.
There is an example at the church of St. Alban, Wood Street, Cheapside. This church was rebuilt by Sir C. Wren, and finished 1685; showing that the hour-glass was in use subsequent to the times alluded to.
J. D. Allcroft.
I saw on 13th January last, an iron hour-glass stand affixed to a pillar in the north aisle of Belton Church, in the Isle of Axholme.
Edward Peacock.
Bottesford Moors, Kirton-in-Lindsey.