America exits the War of 1812 battered but determined under the leadership of the last men tutored by the Founding Fathers. As she is welcomed onto the world stage, new leaders prepare to thrust an aggressive platform on the nation, threatening America's unity and her brief period of prosperity and peace. The country's trials have prepared a choice generation, but as adversity afflicts the Pearson home, Hannah enters a crisis of faith, questioning man's interpretation of God's word. The struggles plaguing the Pearsons affect Frannie and the six families with whom the Pearsons have become entangled during the war. As a new religious reformation dawns in America, the Pearsons and Snowdens become involved with a young man from Hannah's past-Joseph Smith-whose accounts of visions and dealings with angels strain tender relationships and test the Constitution's guarantees of religious liberty.