If sermons are measured today, it is normally by time. However H. B. Kendall (the eminent historian of Primitive Methodist church history) suggests that there were other surprising ways too.
In his 1898 ‘Handbook of Primitive Methodist Church Principles , History and Polity’ he refers to early variations on such measurements by Hugh Bourne. In 1808 Kendall records that Bourne tried walking prayer-meetings, and also a walking preaching service. He wrote ‘he was no believer in long preaching measured by time, but measured by distance he had no objection to it; for on occasion he preached a sermon a mile and a half long’.
Kendall concludes that such means and methods were only of value as they furthered the end of the gospel. Some contemporary understandings of church are not dissimilar.
(Thank you to the staff of Englesea Brook for suggesting this quirky feature).
David Leese