Even with religious freedom and the birth of a new nation, the Restoration of the gospel was still an uphill battle. Only with a divinely orchestrated plan and precise timing was a space carved out for the young Mormon church to grow.
That was the thesis of a phone conversation with John C. Thomas, who teaches LDS Church history and other subjects in the Department of Religious Education at BYU-Idaho. If conditions were altered here or an event was moved there, the circumstances would have changed, Thomas said.