once mighty people, the missionaries of "Mormonism" early turned
their eyes, and with their eyes went their hearts and their
hopes.

Within three months from the beginning, the Church had
missionaries among the Lamanites. It is notable that the Indian
tribes have generally regarded the religion of the Latter-day
Saints with favor, seeing in the Book of Mormon striking
agreement with their own traditions.

The first well-established seat of the Church was in the pretty
little town of Kirtland, Ohio, almost within sight of Lake Erie;
and here soon rose the first temple of modern times. Among their
many other peculiarities, the Latter-day Saints are characterized
as a temple-building people, as history proves the Israel of
ancient times to have been. In the days of their infancy as a
Church, while in the thrall of poverty, and amidst the
persecution and direful threats of lawless hordes, they laid the
cornerstone, and in less than three years thereafter they
celebrated the dedication of the Kirtland Temple, a structure at
once beautiful and imposing. Even before this time, however,
populous settlements of Latter-day Saints had been made in
Jackson County, Missouri; and in the town of Independence a site
for a great temple had been selected and purchased; but though
the ground has been dedicated with solemn ceremony, the people
have not as yet built thereon.

Within two years of its dedication, the temple in Kirtland was
abandoned by the people, who were compelled to flee for their
lives before the onslaughts of mobocrats; but a second temple,