gathering-place of the Latter-day Saints, and at a period
antedating the acquisition of Utah as a part of our national
domain.

The term "origin" is here used in its commonest application--that
of the first stages apparent to ordinary observation--the visible
birth of the system. But a long, long period of preparation had
led to this physical coming forth of the "Mormon" religion, a
period marked by a multitude of historical events, some of them
preceding by centuries the earthly beginning of this modern
system of prophetic trust. The "Mormon" people regard the
establishment of their Church as the culmination of a great
series of notable events. To them it is the result of causes
unnumbered that have operated through ages of human history, and
they see in it the cause of many developments yet to appear.
This to them establishes an intimate relationship between the
events of their own history and the prophecies of ancient times.

In reading the earliest pages of "Mormon" history, we are
introduced to a man whose name will ever be prominent in the
story of the Church--the founder of the organization by common
usage of the term, the head of the system as an earthly
establishment--one who is accepted by the Church as an ambassador
specially commissioned of God to be the first revelator of the
latter-day dispensation. This man is Joseph Smith, commonly
known as the "Mormon" prophet. Rarely indeed does history
present an organization, religious, social, or political, in
which an individual holds as conspicuous and in all ways as
important a place as does this man in the development of
"Mormonism." The earnest investigator, the sincere truth-seeker,