PROVO, Utah — It isn't very hard to imagine what the subscribers of the Rochester (N.Y.) Gem thought about Mormons a month after The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized. You can almost picture them gathering around while someone read aloud the May 15, 1830, edition story titled "Imposition and Blasphemy!! — Money-diggers, &c."

"Some months ago a noise was made among the credulous of the earth," the article began, "respecting a wonderful production said to have been found as follows. An ignoramus near Palmyra, Wayne county, pretended he had found some 'Gold Plates,' as he is pleased to call them, upon which is said to be engraved characters of marvelous and misunderstandable import, which he, but no other mortal could divine."

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