The Essential Brigham Young

After converting to Mormonism in 1832, Brigham Young quickly rose to prominence and was called to the Quorum of Twelve Apostles within three years. He personally directed the highly successful 1839 proselyting mission to Great Britain and was appointed president of the Twelve the following year. In 1846-47 he oversaw the epic colonization of the Intermountain West. Self-educated and preoccupied with the day-to-day business of his widespread empire, Young rarely found time to read. But he delivered hundreds of lively extemporaneous sermons which blended common sense with theology. Several of Young's more controversial teachings -- divine omniscience, the necessity of capital punishment, and the identification of Adam and Eve as God and one of his plural wives -- have sparked considerable debate since they were first uttered more than one hundred years ago. Other favorite topics were the "personality of God, " "election and reprobation, " and the resurrection. His sermons began in a chatty way: "I remarked last Sunday that I had not felt much like preaching, " or "When I contemplate the subject of salvation, and rise before a congregation to speak upon that all-important matter, it has been but a few times in my life that I could see a beginning point to it, or a stopping place." Readers will find themselves drawn into the rhythm of Young's rhetoric in the same way as his original hearers.