“Our whole strength rests on the validity of that [First] vision. It either occurred or it did not occur. If it did not, then this work is a fraud. If it did, then it is the most important and wonderful work under the heavens.”
A few years after 1820 when Joseph Smith later claimed to have had The First Vision, he then said that he was visited by an angel who identified himself as Moroni and who told him of an ancient record enscribed on Golden Plates.