In honor of the late BYU Professor Eugene England (1933-2001), friends and colleagues have contributed their best original stories, poems, reminiscences, scholarly articles, and essays for this impressive volume.

In Line Upon Line, sixteen thoughtful, compelling essays offer reflective historical discussions of the development of Mormon doctrine from the statements of church leaders to the writings of LDS theologians to canonized scripture, rather than on the authors' personal speculations.

JOHN A. WIDTSOE DALE C. LeCHEMINANT, FOREWORD Signature Mormon Classics Series No. 2 Paperback. 216 Pages. / 1-56085-099-X / $14.95 The decades framing the turn of the twentieth century constituted a period of progressive optimism, of increasing faith in science and technology, and of character-building education—vividly illustrated in the founding of Christian Science, for example,

For members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the authority to speak for God rests with the President of the Church and his counselors. Comprising the First Presidency, these men offer guidance to bishops and other leaders in official circular letters, to the general membership in articles and announcements published in the Ensign magazine and elsewhere, and to the broader public in statements read from the...

Twenty-nine-year-old geologist and college president James E. Talmage noted in his journal in 1891: "Today I had an interview with the First Presidency of the Church ... another appointment for an interview was set for Monday next." From these two meetings came a commission to write twenty-four lectures, twenty-two of which were ultimately delivered to college audiences, treating the basic tenets of LDS beliefs. The lectures were then published...

On one occasion Roberts defended the traditional Mormon view of the godhead—perfected men who "eat, drink ... and procreate" as exalted mortals; another time he seemed less comfortable imposing limitations on a God who cannot be fixed to a single location, for whom Jesus was a mortal incarnation, and for whom the term "trinity" seemed more eloquent than the "presidency of heaven."

Self-educated and preoccupied with the day-to-day business of his widespread empire, Young rarely found time to read. But he delivered hundreds of lively, extemporaneous sermons which blended common sense with theological speculation.

As a geology professor, he was consulted about underground ventilation options for the Salt Lake Tabernacle and about the scientific evidence for organic evolution, which he cautiously promoted. At the church president's request, Talmage also delivered a series of lectures on church theology which would form the basis for his later influential books.

As illuminating as commentaries are, nothing conveys Joseph Smith's character like his own unadulterated words. In his distinctive language—a mix of biblical and frontier idioms—and in his famously spontaneous humor, one can imagine him speaking and feeling the force of his charisma. Like Old Testament prophets, he was alternately contemplative and poetic, animated and surprisingly earthy.

The author of several dozen seminal treatises on Mormon doctrine, Orson Pratt (1811-81) produced a library of spirited and thoughtful expositions and defenses of the LDS church that charted the course for all subsequent church theologians.