Word: pulpits
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...times past, various public-address systems have been tried. Last week, after firing his pistol, the engineer tested the latest contribution of science to the celebration of religion. He spoke into the pulpit microphone and his words were carried to the crypt, where they were recorded on a magnetic disk. After appropriate delays (1/10, 1/20 and 1/40 of a second), they were rebroadcast from strategically located loudspeakers. The timing was such that the recorded speech reinforced rather than interfered with the words that came straight from the pulpit. Echoes were all but drowned out.* The result was faintly hollow...
Although there are still troubles to be ironed out (e.g., too much amplification feeds sound from loudspeakers back to microphone, causing a loud, cacophonous howl), churchmen were favorably impressed. Now congregations should be able to listen to historic chants, sermons will sound as if they actually come from the pulpit, not from the older loudspeakers that were spotted under seats and in other improbable locations. The engineers, said Archdeacon Gibbs-Smith, have been clever enough to preserve "the sense of the numinous [consciousness of the Holy] which is so vital in divine worship...
...much as today's average idea of a Christian would surprise the dangerously living followers of St. Paul. The early Quakers were not quaint and softspoken; they were religious enthusiasts of passion and vociferous outrage who were not afraid to raise their voices against a minister in his pulpit or a slave dealer at his market...
There, parishioners found him a kindly, angular six-footer, who could play both Bach and boogie-woogie on the piano, and liked to give big coffee parties after church. He was also a man who could inspire faith whether in or out of the pulpit. Every Sunday before service, adults and children would flock to his classes at the church's school, and every Monday evening many would come back for more...
...Marlboro, Mass. at the age of 18 months; at 2½ he was memorizing Bible passages. At three he was preaching over the back of a chair to his parents on Sunday afternoons. He always had "a good loud voice," and he thinks his voice got him his first pulpit. In his first year at Newton Theological Institution, Baptist Potter astonished the congregation at Dover, N.H. by preaching right through the racket of a Boston & Maine train passing by just outside. Promptly they extended him a call-provided he would get ordained and married. He obliged, and took over...