Circle 6-6483

The world's sermonizing record is held by the Rev. James Jefferson Davis Hall, 79, a lively, white-goateed, Alabama-born Episcopalian.

Long retired from parish work, he sits all day in his cramped flat off Manhattan's Times Square. In the last 20 months, 140,000 people, simply by dialing his phone number (Circle 6-6483), have heard Mr. Hall preach a sermon.

Pastor Hall began his telephone ministry when someone dialed him by mistake. It has been spread by: 1) word-of-mouth recommendation; 2) practical jokers who leave messages for their friends to call his number. Even the latter sometimes get so interested that when the operator asks for another nickel, they put it in. For those others who get mad and tell him to go to the devil, Pastor Hall has a ready reply: "I can't go with you, I'm going the other way."

Gist of the Hall sermons: pray, drive the devil out, live right, read the Bible. Pastor Hall never asks for donations, but he gets enough for rent, food, rummage-sale clothes and stray dollars to give away "if the person seems worthy." When he tires, three elderly women spell him, but the Pastor is apt to preach from early morning to midnight. Says he: "My only worry is that I'm so happy I hate to go to bed at night."

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