BACK when he was an Evening Press columnist, Peter Mullen was known for his opinionated right wing views and lack of tolerance for fools.

Now, as chaplain to the Stock Exchange and Rector of St Michael's in London's Cornhill, he has lost none of those qualities. They even come through in his sermons.

Not that he has time for long sermons at his weekday Mass at St Michael's. A minute is all he can manage - and even that was only at the special pleading of one of his congregation.

"I hadn't been preaching a sermon at all," he says. "There wasn't time. This was a short service for City workers who had stepped briefly out of their offices at lunchtime."

The woman persisted and suggested a short sermon. And so was born what Peter calls the "institution of the Minute Sermon at St Michael's.

A minute is not, he concedes, long enough for a full exposition of the Gospels. "What was needed was a brief and - if possible! - arresting comment that would draw attention to a particular aspect of the day's reading and leave the hearer with something to think about."

The sermons collected here certainly do that. Many are as opinionated and bad tempered as readers of Peter's old Evening Press column could wish.

As you'd expect of the Stock Exchange's chaplain, Peter has no time for woolly liberals who use the story of Jesus throwing the money-changers and "them that sold doves" out of the temple to denounce the market economy.

It wasn't an attack on money-makers, Peter says - instead Jesus was attacking hypocrites who wanted to seem pious by making easy sacrifices.

"If people are intending to make a sacrifice, then let it be a sacrifice," he writes. "Don't make it easy by putting the pigeon dealers next to the sacrificial altars."

At times, his sermonising flirts with the unpleasant. "Christianity is banned from the state schools where teachers are allowed only to teach about the faith - as they are required to teach about Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and all the rest in a sort of supermarket of all the world faiths," he says. "Jesus said this and Buddha said that. Confucius say what he likes and Satanists say the other."

He can, however, be insightful - such as when talking about the Good Samaritan. The Samaritan was good, Peter says, not because of a random act of mercy but because he helped was his enemy - a Jew.

"The parable is thus a definition of what love is and what it is not. Love is not an emotion or a feeling - because feelings cannot be commanded... Love is an act of will. To love is to will the good of the other person."

A cold definition of love, perhaps. But it makes you think.

Minute Sermons is available from the St Michael's Foundation, The Watch House, 10 Giltspur Street, London EC1A 9DE, priced £10, plus £2 postage.

Updated: 16:27 Friday, January 27, 2006