p. 134 | MEETING-HOUSES AND PULPITS

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 27, 1876

MEETING-HOUSES AND PULPITS.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

Having spoken in some forty different meeting-houses this winter, I have been painfully impressed with the importance of having our meeting-houses and pulpits properly constructed. To say the least, one-half of our meeting-houses are so built that it is exceedingly hard to speak in them. In some of them it is almost impossible to make an audience hear distinctly. Then, when a few of our brethren come together in one corner of the house for a prayer-meeting, it is like talking in an empty barrel. They cannot hear each other ten feet apart. It makes it very disagreeable and annoying.

In some houses the pulpit platform is so high, and the ceiling so low that it will almost bake a speaker's head during a two days' meeting. And then some of the pulpits are literally horrible, at least to any sensible speaker. There is enough lumber in some of them to build a small house! Why men should build such great prisons for the preacher I cannot conceive.

In order for a speaker to come into close sympathy with his audience, to impress their minds and move their feelings, he must be as near to them as possible. No one can explain how it is, yet every speaker knows that there is a certain electrical connection between the speaker and audience. The closer this is the more influence he has over them. Hence a speaker should be as close to his audience as possible. This being so, and no one will deny it, how absurd it is to build a great, high, massive, pulpit which will put the speaker's feet higher than the heads of his audience, and himself fifteen or twenty feet from the nearest of them. Add to this a pulpit so long and so high that it hides all but his head and shoulders, and who could expect to affect the feelings of his audience in such a coop? A very few efforts long ago convinced me that I was not equal to such a task; hence I have occupied but a very few pulpits in our meeting-houses.

For myself, I prefer simply a low platform, not over a foot high, with simply a table upon it; or, at the most, a very, very small pulpit. But this may not be according to the idea and taste of others. As our people are now building meeting-houses everywhere, I wish some rule could be given, stating the proper proportions, height, width, and length, of a house in order to avoid the unpleasant ringing which is experienced in speaking in many of our houses. D. M. CANRIGHT.

P. S. It strikes me that it would be an excellent plan to finish off a small room over the entry way for prayer-meetings, instead of having a gallery there which is never used. A small room like that would be invaluable for small meeting and class meetings. D. M. C.