The Fruit of the Spirit and Other Sermons from a Greylock Pulpit (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Fruit of the Spirit and Other Sermons From a Greylock Pulpit

Most of these sermons were delivered between january and June of eighteen hundred and ninety-seven. They first appeared in a weekly publication called A Greylock Pulpit. It seems fitting to give a few reasons which led to their publication.

Surrounded with machinery for what is known as Institutional church work, I desired to make emphatic the inspiration which belongs to the living Word. Having already in use a sufficiently elaborate order of worship, multiplied organizations, a parish house with gymnasium and amusement rooms, a young men's literary society, all splendid channels for energy; the pulpit as a herald may speak to the indifferent life of the community and induce interest by means of the impersonal page. In the half-hour or more given to the sermon, there is much condensation, which is not in vain. If opportunity for review be given the people from week to week.

I saw a further reason in the good chance to revive old friendships. One who has changed his residence, the old homestead for the college, the college for the world, one church, town or country for another, what ever his gain, must keenly feel the loss of separation. Perhaps my ser mons may prove a long, rough pole, by which I shall still save drowning friendships.

Please note that the series was not christened The, but A Grey lock Pulpit. The title was given me by Greylock Mountain itself. The base begins beneath my study and the mountain rises to a height of four thousand feet of beauty and strength. On a clear day at least four states, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and perhaps Connecticut can be seen from this summit. Greylock is Berkshire's Mount Zion. If mountaineers are always freemen, mountain preach ers ought to be free preachers. This Taconic mountain has been the object of much contention among geologists. However, their polemic was of the last decade. Theological strife is happily passing, and the church of today has earnestly begun to study sociology. Greylock has lately been made a type by geologists. The churches of our valley are slowly conforming to a higher ideal. Again Greylock is a deposit, not the result of volcanic action like the lower and opposite Hoosac range. The Greylock message therefore is that our social changes ought to be educational and gradual rather than fierce and revolutionary.

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