person. It presented a view of the universe that seemed to accord with current scientific theories. It also seemed to answer effectively many of the Enlightenment criticisms of Christianity and the Bible that had trickled down to the villages of frontier America. Joseph Smith’s Mormonism, especially in the hands of capable promoters like the brother-apostles Orson and Parley Pratt, was in many ways an attempt to create a scientific Christianity impervious to the criticisms that seemed to be fatal