'Sermons' holds gems of oratory

The Library of America has given the nation a gift. It has brought together the finest America literature in one set of books. And a real gem in that collection is a small volume called "American Sermons, The Pilgrims to Martin Luther King, Jr."

It's the kind of book you have to nibble at. Reading it cover to cover would be like drinking a jug of salsa.

It's pretty strong stuff.

All the greats are included — Fulton J. Sheen, Billy Sunday, Henry Ward Beecher. The more recent sermons tend to be large and generous and offer eternal perspectives. The early sermons — mostly from the Puritans — are enough to scare the devil out of Daniel Webster.

Of local interest, an LDS sermon is included — Joseph Smith's "King Follett Discourse" delivered in 1844. The sermon contains dozens of lines now embedded in LDS culture — "No man knows my history," "God himself was once as we are now," "Here, then, is eternal life — to know the only wise and true God."

The editors believe that sermon led directly to the prophet's death.

As for the other 57 sermons in the book, I'm pleased so many modern ministers show warmth and compassion. It shows a positive evolution in religious thinking. But I must say, I find myself drawn to the spit and vinegar of those old "fire and brimstone" preachers — preachers like Jonathan Edwards, who gave us "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."

I read that sermon in high school. It's one reason I'm bald-headed today. All that business about sinners dangling over the flames of hell like spiders above a roaring fire. When I finished reading that sermon my teeth were chattering like a wind-up set of dentures.

I felt that way again a few years later when I went on an LDS mission. The missionaries met in the old "mission home" then to be taught by the apostles. And Elder Bruce R. McConkie put the fear of God into me. I remember his big voice booming, "Of tenets thou shalt not teach!" Sweat poured off my face like the guy who lands the airliner in the movie "Airplane."

That was long ago. In fact, the last time I had the bejeebers scared out of me by a sermon was when I was 23. I went to an Anthony Perkins film called "The Fool Killer." Perkins, of course, played a poor, twisted soul who attends a camp meeting to find religion. The preacher at that camp meeting delivered a sermon so frightening I thought my lungs would collapse.