A great emergency often calls forth an able leader. With a base of operations in Eastern Nebraska, Brigham Young quickly laid plans looking to the removal of his people to Northern Mexico, which then embraced the present territory of Utah and had been brought to his notice by Fremont's explorations. He would there establish his new empire in that far-away wilderness, in a foreign country, and be at peace. In the spring of 1847, he personally led his first party of 132 Saints across the plains and over the mountains, and on July 21st, from the foot of Emigration Canyon they beheld for the first time the sparkling waters of Great Salt Lake, which in the following February, as the result of the war with Mexico, was ceded to the United States, with the territory south as far as the Rio Grande. Less than two decades later our own little party also descended into that valley. The stirring events of their past history and experiences were then fresh and I may say burning in the memory of that generation of Saints. We were also more or less familiar with the history of the Mormons, as gathered from various authorities, and while inspired with admiration for the heroism of their pioneers, we doubtless shared in the prevailing prejudice against what was believed to be a misguided people. The purpose of this brief review of events that led to the settlement of Utah, is to enable the reader to share our preconceived ideas, while we spent the remainder of the summer and autumn with the Saints. Our business, on the arrival of our big train, would bring us into relations with many men of affairs and with the heads of the church. These relations were doubtless more unrestrained and cordial than they would have been, if in return for their courtesy we had been expected to publish a literary broadside of caricature such as they had become familiar with. As a fact, a few journalists had reached the city and after two or three days spent in sight-seeing, some of those writers had seemed able to arrive at conclusions concerning men and affairs in Utah quite satisfactory to themselves and with abundant material for humor and ridicule. It has been my privilege to attend religious services in many temples in the Orient and elsewhere, where millions of presumably devout worshippers bend the knee in submission to divine authority, and offer their prayers more fervently and humbly than I am wont to do, and strange as I may have thought it that the faith of those people was not the same as mine, I would not now discuss Mormonism as a religious belief because my judgment may be biased by the strong convictions inherited from my Puritan ancestry. Theologians trained in religious thought and utterance have already passed judgment with the usual result.