Note 126 — Chapter III · Concluding the Route to the Great Salt Lake City. (continued 2)

I have frequently heard this legend from Gentiles, never from Mormons; yet even the Saints own that as early as 1842 visions of the mountains and kanyons, the valley and the lake, were revealed to Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., who declared it privily to the disciples whom he loved. Thus Messrs. O. Pratt and E. Snow, apostles, were enabled to recognize the Promised Land, as, the first of the pioneers, they issued from the ravines of the Wasach. Of course the Gentiles declare that the exodists hit upon the valley by the purest chance. The spot is becoming classical: here Judge and Apostle Phelps preached his “Sermon on the Mount,” which, anti-Mormons say, was a curious contrast to the first discourse so named.