IN BLOXWORTH CHURCH, DORSET. 



By the Rev. 0. P. C.-LMBRIDGE, M.A. 



]HEN, after the Eeformation, preaching became 

 obligatory upon the clergy, it is said that Hour-glasses 

 were very generally placed in the parish churches to 

 regulate the length of the sermon. If this be so it is remark- 

 able how, almost completely, all traces of this Eegulator have 

 disappeared ! The length of the sermon was intended to be 

 limited to one hour ! but we are all, probably, familiar with the 

 old story of the Divine who used to treat his congregation to 

 " one turn more " of the glass. In fact two, three, and even 

 four hours are said to have been not an unusual length, entail- 

 ing "turn" upon "turn," on the principle we may suppose 

 that " one good turn deserves another." Under such an inflic- 

 tion it would not be unintelligible that congregations (like the 

 old lady's servants roused from sleep at an unseasonable hour 

 by the crowing of the cock) should, in some way, have connected 

 the infliction with the so easily turned Hour-glass, and thus 

 have almost universally compassed its destruction. 



I have heard of no more than four or five churches in which 

 the Stand alone remains Cuiiand Church, near Buckland St. 

 Mary, (in which I have myself seen it), and Holwell Church, 

 near Sherborne, are two but no information has reached me of 

 any church, excepting my own at Bloxworth, in which both 

 Stand and Hour-glass are still in existence. It is a rough draw- 

 ing of these that I now place before you. The Stand is of 



