Category: Miscellany

Our day began with a drive back across the border into the United States. Unlike the Canadian crossing, where we were required to provide our vaccination cards and Covid test results, there were no questions regarding either. We could have all been infected with the Bubonic Plague; Uncle Sam apparently didn’t care. What he does care about is alcohol, tobacco, and firearms, of which we had none.

On the drive across New York back to Massachusetts, we debated important issues like who played Captain Kirk in the pilot for the original Star Trek series. I said, Jeffrey Hunter. Ann and The Wife said, “He played Captain Pike; Kirk was not in the pilot.” A search on the internet supported their position. I then insisted on a lifeline call to my brother, a zealous Trekkie (he has the “enthusiasm”), but he also supported the gals’ position. In the end, I suggested we agree to disagree.

I tried to get everyone focused on our Great Awakening theme, but they were clamoring for wine from the region. So, I followed the signs to a vineyard, where wine tasting took place, while I waited in the car, plotting our course to the place in Connecticut where Jonathan Edwards preached his famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.

We spent the night in Albany, New York, but we spent our time after our stop in Pittsfield at Melville’s Arrowhead driving through the Berkshires to Albany. This was the same area (between Stockbridge and Albany) where the legendary missionary, David Brainerd, first preached to the Indians.

The territory is mountainous and covered with thick forests. This made me appreciate even more Brainerd’s efforts to reach the Indians with the gospel during the Great Awakening.

Brainerd was born in 1718 and born again in 1739. Thereafter, Brainerd entered Yale but was expelled after making a remark indicating he did not think one of the teachers at Yale was converted. This was no minor issue at the time. There was even a debate about whether the unconverted should be permitted to be ministers, if you can imagine that.

Yale, in an effort to dampen the zeal and religious “enthusiasm” of students who were being born again during the Great Awakening, had instituted a rule that mandated discipline and expulsion for students who questioned whether Yale professors were converted. About this time, Yale invited Jonathan Edwards to speak to the student body, and to Yale’s disappointment, but no doubt the Lord’s approval, Edwards supported the students in their religious zeal. It apparently wasn’t enough to save Brainerd, though, nor were the efforts of Brainerd and others after that.