"The sermon is the first and most enduring genre of American literature. The essential medium of the Puritan settlements, it continued in succeeding centuries to play a vital role - as public ritual, occasion for passion and reflection, and, not least, popular entertainment. The 58 sermons collected in this volume display the form's eloquence, intellectual rigor, and spiritual fervor. Ranging from the first New England settlements to mass-media evangelism and the civil rights movement in the 1960s, these texts reclaim a neglected aspect of American literature."--BOOK JACKET.