"Whenever I see a pretty woman I have to pray for grace." - a quote from the founder and first Prophet of the Mormon Church and predecessor of the Great Prophet Brigham Young. Brigham Young was a very much-disliked person in his time but was also a praised person in his religion. A practical man of enormous common sense, he marched his people to the Rockies, directed the establishment of more than 325 western towns, built railroads, constructed stores, erected factories, brought Utah tens of thousands of immigrants, and created the superbly organized and brilliantly administered missionary system that brings well over one hundred thousand new members into the Mormon church each year.
             Reasons Young was disliked were unlimited and vast but the most outstanding was the Mormon belief in polygamy. He had perhaps fifty-five wives and fifty-six children according to World Book Encyclopedia. Yes, Mormons are Christian and most Christian religions believe in monogamy. This caused a great upset in the present eastern states. Young was born in Whitingham, Vermont on June 1, 1801. At the age of 29, after reading Joseph Smith's The Book of Mormon , Young began a period of study and contemplation of two years and became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in 1832. A year later he led a band of converts to Kirtland, Ohio.
             Young rose rapidly and became the second in seniority on the newly formed Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1835. Young who was the senior member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1839 directed the Mormon migration to Nauvoo, Illinois. Under the direction of Smith and Young the Mormon people were safe from prosecution temporarily. That same year Young was assigned to do missionary work in England. After returning a year later, he became the leading fiscal officer of the Mormon Church. While on a stumping tour for Joseph Smith's presidential campaign in 1844, Young learned of Joseph Smit...