“Pulpits have much to answer for in having made men awkward. What horrible inventions they are…the old-fashioned pulpit has been a greater curse to the churches than is at first sight evident!”
What could have been their design and intent it would be hard to conjecture. A deep wooden pulpit of the old sort might well remind a minister of his mortality, for it is nothing but a coffin set on end: but on what rational ground do we bury our pastors alive? Many of these erections resemble barrels, others are of the fashion of egg cups and wine glasses; a third class were evidently modeled after corn bins upon four legs; and yet a fourth variety can only be likened to swallows’ nests stuck upon the walls. Some of them are so high as to turn the heads of the occupants when they dare to peer into the awful depths below them, and they give those who look up to the elevated preacher for any length of time a crick in the neck. I have felt like a man at the mast-head while perched aloft in these “towers of the flock.” These abominations are in themselves evils, and create evils.
Source: The Spurgeon Archive