ABSTRACT
In the face of successive violent persecutions and the murder of Joseph Smith, the new Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints might have been expected to falter. Its salvation appears to have been the product of the organizational skills of Smith and his associates and the daring leadership of Brigham Young who led the largest group of Mormons to the valley of the Great Salt Lake in Utah in 1846-7. The extract from the British traveller and writer, Sir Richard Burton (1821-1890), reveals the hierarchy of authority and complexity of organization both to control and expand the church and provide government for the settlement in Utah. The reader also gets a flavour of the contemporary rhetoric of anti-Mormonism.
