Messages of the First Presidency, Volume II, compiled by Dr. James R. Clark of Brigham Young University contains official statements of the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during the administrations of Brigham Young, John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff. As this volume opens, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was beginning to function from new headquarters in the Great Basin. Volume II portrays, through official documents of the First Presidency, the expansion of the missionary system of the Church worldwide; the colonization of the Great Basin; the gathering of Israel from Europe; the establishment of a Mormon empire in the Rocky Mountains; and the response of the Church to increasing hostility of the "Gentile" world around it. As in Volume I, again in Volume II the reader should be able to see the image of a dynamic Church whose inspired leadership had the flexibility to meet changing conditions and alter its programs without surrendering basic doctrine or principles.