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Introduction The generation of American men and women who lived through the Second World War is rapidly disappearing, and with them a wealth of firsthand information regarding one ofthe most important events in twentieth century history. This lesson plan describes a classroom exercise in which students record the memories of people who lived through the World War II era, and in so doing, learn the impact of those times on the lives and identities of American citizens.

In light of (a) recent work by Stark and Bainbridge on new religions, (b) some socialpsychological theories, and (c) recent changes in the Mormon religion, this essay proposes a modification in the traditional sect-church model of unidirectional change in the natural history of new sects. The twentieth century history of the Mormon religion is then reviewed briefly to illustrate the need for this theoretical modification to fit cases like that of the Mormon retrenchment and retrogression on the sect-church continuum. Finally, the changing Mormon uses of the Protestant Bible are reviewed to demonstrate the kinds of markers or indicators available for tracing the changing positions of religious groups along that continuum.

that are in some sense repeatable and verifiable. History, on the other hand, deals with an unrepeatable past which is in no sense experimentally verifiable, although it may be inferred from its effects on the present. This unrepeatable past is treated differently by different historians. Philosophers who seek to unravel the "meaning" of history differ from each other in their interpretations. Varying conceptions of history and its meaning are set forth by the writers of Genesis, Judges, Daniel, Matthew, and Revelation; by St. Augustine, Vico, Hegel, Schlegel, Spengler, Toynbee, Mandelbaum, Niebuhr, and Cohen. It is not, and would not reasonably be, the purpose of a brief paper to take account of all the problems thus suggested, or to support or refute the. various writers. Rather, the aim is to concentrate on some of the contributions!that a personalistic philosophy may make to an understanding of history, with special reference to twentieth century history, its chaos and its despair. I. The Constituents of History