What about preaching in the centuries before we had sound systems. How did the congregation hear the preacher? Every preacher did not have a voice like George Whitefield, or like Ian Paisley of our day (You could certainly hear these two voices for a great distance). It is said that Benjamin Franklin once measured how far he could clearly hear Whitefield preaching to an outdoor crowd in Philadelphia. After pacing off the distance and calculating how many might be gathered in the area, he estimated that he could be easily heard by more than 25,000 people without amplification!. This account is in Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography which is available online http://www.earlyamerica.com/lives/franklin/
Other preachers of the past, preaching in churches, needed a little amplification such as provided by the sounding board above the pulpit in this church I visited in Prague in 1982. The sound would go out in all directions enabling a congregation to comfortably hear the minister throughout the building.
No comments:
Post a Comment