Death is a crucial test of a religious tradition. In the words of one sociologist, “the power of religion depends, in the last resort, upon the credibility of the banners it puts in the hands of men as they stand before death, or more accurately, as they walk, inevitably, toward it.” Mormonism has a long and rich relationship with death and its conquest, one that begins in many respects with the founding family of Mormonism.

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