Johns sat down and wrote out a sermon of his own, “Transfigured Moments,” which in 1926 became the first work by a Negro published in Best Sermons. This analysis of the symbolism of mountains in the lives of Moses, Elijah, and Jesus Christ would be studied by Negro theology students for the next generation. “It is good to be the possessor of some mountain-top experience,” wrote Johns, in a long passage on the need to tie the inspiration of leaders to the experience of the common people.
