According to Mormon history the church had its very beginnings in religious dissension. It is recounted by the Mormons that Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of the church (he was the uncle of the present President), attended revival meetings in Manchester, Vermont, and was so confused by the differences of opinion and the ill-feeling between different sects that he prayed to the Lord to tell him which was the true religion. In regard to this, Smith wrote that after his prayer, "a mysterious power of darkness overcame me. I could not speak and I felt myself in the grasp of an unseen personage of darkness. My soul went up in an unuttered prayer for deliverance, and as I was about despairing, the gloom rolled away and I saw a pillar of light descending from heaven, approaching me." Smith then tells of a vision of a Glorious Being, who informed him that none of the warring religious sects had the right version. Then: "The light vanished, the personages withdrew and recovering myself, I found myself lying on my back gazing up into heaven." Apropos of this, and of other similar visions which Smith said he had, it is interesting to note that there is a theory, founded upon a considerable investigation, that Smith was an epileptic. After his first vision Smith had others, and according to the Mormon belief, he finally had revealed to him the Hill Cumorah (twenty-five miles southwest of Rochester, N. Y.) where he ultimately found, with the aid of the Angel Moroni, the gold plates containing the Book of Mormon, together with the Urim and Thummim, the stone spectacles through which he read the plates and translated them. After making his translation, Smith returned the plates to the angel, but before doing so, showed them to eight witnesses who certified to having seen them.