Article: The Mormon Odyssey; A young man's vision gave rise to the Mormon Church. Joseph Smith founded a booming faith that's confronting its past as it looks to the future.(Cover Story)(Biography)

Byline: Elise Soukup

Joseph Smith Jr. was struggling. It was a spring day in 1820, in upstate New York--an era of fiery Protestant revivals and a region so seared by evangelical fervor that it was known as the "burned-over district." Smith was 14, from a family of small means but grandiose expectations. His grandfather prophesied that a family member would revolutionize the world of religion; his father had a series of prophetic dreams about his family's salvation; his aunt became a local celebrity by claiming that she had been healed by Jesus himself. And so it was natural that Smith would wonder about his own faith. His mother had just joined the Presbyterians; ...

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