“The Best Winter's Work”: Brigham Young, the St. George Temple, and the Introduction of Proxy Endowments for the Dead

Abstract

In fall 1876, Brigham Young left Salt Lake City for his annual winter trip to St. George. But this year would be different. For the first time in more than three decades, the Saints would dedicate a temple. In the Nauvoo temple, Young and others had performed proxy baptisms for deceased relatives and friends and participated in the endowment ceremony and sealings for themselves. These practices had continued in the Salt Lake Endowment House along with proxy sealings for deceased individuals. But the temple in St. George would mark a fundamental change; under Young's leadership, the Saints would perform all ordinances that they saw as essential for salvation, including the endowment, for both the living and the dead. The temple ceremonies expressed the highest ideals of the Latter-day Saints: eternal covenants that bound families together and bound them to God.As he left for St. George, Young knew his health might not allow him to live for many more years. He had begun his time as presiding church leader by emphasizing the completion of the Nauvoo Temple even though it became increasingly apparent the Saints would have to abandon the temple shortly thereafter. And now, in the twilight of his life, Young would oversee the dedication of another temple. For Young, the visit to St. George promised to be a time of profound spiritual significance.Leaving on November 1 from Salt Lake City, Young went to St. George with a traveling party that included his wife Amelia Folsom, daughter Shemira, son Brigham Jr., apostles Wilford Woodruff and George Q. Cannon, and Truman Angell (Young's brother-in-law and temple architect).1 The traveling party was eager to see the temple as they crossed the red hills into St. George. The “pure white” temple, Cannon recorded, “stood out in bold relief and in marked contrast with the black and red hills which surround the little valley in which St. George stands.” “It excited peculiar emotions in all the party to witness once more a temple erected to the Most High God,” he wrote.2 As the party came into town, the temple workmen welcomed them, carrying two banners. The first proclaimed “Holliness to the Lord” and depicted Zion's workmen. The second announced, “Welcome to Brigham Young our chief Builder.” The workmen took off their hats and bowed to Young and his companions, who returned the salute.3The next day, Young and the other leaders inspected the temple. In the basement, they saw the cast iron baptismal font, which was being bronzed, sitting on twelve oxen, representing the tribes of Israel. They then ascended into the “grand hall” of the temple. Cannon gave a glimpse of the party's emotions: “The hall is beautifully proportioned and the workmanship is very superior. . . . I felt as though I trod on holy ground. A person who can enter that room without feeling peculiar sensations and being impressed that it was a holy place must be either very thoughtless or dead to all sensibility.”4 Young and his companions continued the tour up to the roof. “The power of God rested upon us,” Woodruff noted.5Ill health soon robbed Young of his opportunity to be involved in the temple's final preparations before a planned partial dedication on New Year's Day. When he arrived, one workman observed that he “looked well and seems in better health than he did last winter.” But Young's health took a turn for the worse, struck both by a heavy cold and a flaring of the rheumatism in his feet.6 Apostle Woodruff blessed him and “rebuked his fever.”7 A week later, Young fainted twice. After two more weeks, Young was still ailing with rheumatic fever. His feet were so painful that he could barely place them on the floor. Woodruff and others again blessed him.8 While the cold passed, the rheumatism remained and kept him homebound for three weeks in December. Finally, on Christmas, Young visited the temple.9During his sickness, Young had delegated key responsibilities to Woodruff, Brigham Young, Jr., and others.10 Young now found the temple bustling with activity, even on Christmas, as men and women hurried to prepare for a preliminary dedication. Charles Walker, one of the workmen, wrote, “The sisters are busy sewing the carpet and getting the screen ready. All are busy pushing the good work along.”11 Brigham Jr. saw divine intervention in his father's improvement, as the Saints had prayed that their prophet could attend the dedication.12 Young spent the evening before the dedication with Woodruff, apostle Erastus Snow, and Brigham Jr., who each would deliver a dedicatory prayer. Young told them that the written prayers were good but needed to be longer.13On New Year's Day, over 1200 Saints crowded into the temple for the preliminary dedication. The final portions of the temple would be finished so that a complete dedication could occur in April. Young's rheumatism left him so crippled that men carried him throughout the temple in a chair with rollers. Young had waited too long for a temple dedication to miss this occasion.At 1:00 in the afternoon, the services began in the basement with a choir singing, “The Spirit of God Like a Fire Is Burning,” a hymn sung at the first temple dedication Young had attended—at Kirtland forty years earlier. Woodruff knelt in prayer at the west end of the baptismal font to dedicate the basement, with Young sitting nearby. After Woodruff's prayer, the choir sang a “Temple Dedication Song” that spoke of the revered place of Young as the Saints’ prophet: We thank thee, God for Inspiration,Poured out upon our Living Head,Who holds the keys of Revelation,And ordinances for the dead.14With Young carried in his chair, the Saints then moved upstairs, where Erastus Snow offered a dedicatory prayer for that floor. Snow asked the congregation to remain behind, in silence, while a group of about thirty (including Young carried in his chair) went upstairs to a sealing room so that Brigham Jr. could pronounce a final prayer.15After the group returned from the sealing room, Young hobbled with his cane to the pulpit to reflect upon the Saints’ history of temple building and the significance of the present moment. He saw the occasion as a crucial moment in the history of the world. Solomon had built a temple but, according to Young's understanding, had performed “very few if any endowments,” and the scriptures did not record whether Enoch had also constructed temples in his efforts to build a “people so pure and holy that they were not permitted to remain with the wicked inhabitants of the earth, but were taken to another place.”Young spoke of the Saints’ early efforts to build temples. In Kirtland, they had performed neither baptisms for the dead nor the endowment ceremony. Joseph Smith had planned for temples in Jackson County and Far West, Missouri, but they had not been built. Looking into the audience, he saw individuals who had worked with him to build the Nauvoo Temple. “They got it nearly completed before it was burned,” Young said. The temple in St. George was different. The Saints would not be driven from this temple. They would enjoy it. And in the temple they would do work—endowments for the dead—that “we have no knowledge of any other people enjoying since the days of Adam.”But Young worried about the spiritual welfare of his people. “Those that can see the spiritual atmosphere,” he commented, “can see that many of the Saints are still glued to this Earth and lusting and longing after the things of this world, in which there is no profit.” “Where are the eyes and hearts of this people? Where is their interest for their own salvation and that of their forefathers?” Young asked. If the Saints awoke to their privilege of participating in the “salvation of the human family,” the temple “would be crowded, as we hope it will be, from Monday morning until Saturday night.”“What do you suppose the fathers would say if they could speak from the dead?” he queried. Would their ancestors say they had “lain here thousands of years, here in this prison house, waiting for this dispensation to come? Here we are, bound and fettered in the association of those who are filthy?” The relatively few Saints had a great responsibility, he taught. The world's dead depended on the Saints for their salvation: “All the angels in heaven are looking at this little handful of people. . . . So also are the devils in hell looking at this people too, and trying to overthrow us, and the people are still shaking hands with the servants of the devil, instead of sanctifying themselves.”He wanted to wake up his people. “Can the Fathers be saved without us? No. Can we be saved without them? No.” Until other temples were dedicated, the Saints would need to converge on St. George. Young had stopped baptisms for the dead in the Endowment House the previous fall. At the time, the Saints had pleaded with him. But now, he said, they could come to St. George and perform the proxy work for their deceased ancestors and free them from spirit prison.Looking at the congregation, Young lamented that some of those present were too involved in the world of Gentiles, particularly in mining. “Some of our brethren,” he grumbled, “are putting their wives and daughters into their society, and will go to the devil with them too, if they do not look out.” He contrasted his own attitude: “It has been the Kingdom of God with me. What I have, I have got in this kingdom.” Some men present were corrupt and would go to hell unless they repented. “You may think this is plain talk.” But, if they did not change, they would be faced with even plainer talk: “If you should ever go to the gates of heaven, Jesus will say he never knew you.”Gripping his hickory cane, Young peered at the congregation: “I do not know whether the people are satisfied with the services of the dedication of the Temple or not. But I do not mean to and never expect to be satisfied,” he continued, “until the devil is whipped and driven from off the face of the Earth.” As he spoke these last words, Young struck the pulpit with his cane so forcefully that he left three marks.16 “There,” Young said, “let those marks remain” as a testimony of his fervor in warning the Saints.17 The striking of the pulpit left a deep impression on his audience. “The marks are on the stand,” one congregant wrote, “and will remain there as a testimony of the truth and the great power by which he spake.”18The sermon was classic Young. He always spoke to the Saints directly, both to laud them and to call them to repentance. He had not mellowed with age. Perhaps he had even grown more cantankerous as his physical pain and his frustration with some Saints mounted as the years passed by. And the actions of the congregation that day must have reminded Young of the slowness of the Saints to reform their Word of Wisdom habits; so much tobacco chewing and spitting occurred that it would take days to clean the floor of the assembly room.19 But most of the faithful Saints in the temple seemed to appreciate Young's words. John Nuttall recorded that Young's sermon had given him greater “determination to press onward in the great work of the last days, in the redemption and salvation to myself, wives, children, and the human family.”20As he sometimes did, Young likely tempered his language before publication of the sermon, revising his sermons for the press in the following days.21 The published remarks have no swearing. But Nuttall recorded that Young had called Saints who engaged in mining as “damned fools” and John Smith wrote that he called them “spawn of hell.” Young did not apologize for his language, saying “he would not ask to be excused for swearing for he intended to swear worse yet at the April conference.”22With the temple dedicated, Young and others prepared the spaces for ordinance work. Young had called men and women who had deep experience in the ordinances in the Endowment House, several of whom he had asked to move to St. George, to assist. First on the list was Woodruff, who would supervise the ordinance work under Young's direction. Brigham Jr. and Young's wife Lucy Bigelow were called as well.23Young clearly wanted his family members to engage in the work of the temple. On January 9, Lucy's daughter Susie became the first individual baptized for the dead in the temple. Using his crutch and walking stick, Young hobbled up the steps to the font so he could witness as Susie was baptized for a deceased friend by Woodruff. Standing near the font, Charles Walker “could not refrain from shedding tears of joy on beholding the commencement of so great a work.”24 Young participated with Woodruff in performing the by the on of that the Young was not participating in a moment for his he was also the of the ordinance the day of baptisms and Young a few for the better in the temple also the first deceased to endowment by proxy was who had performed in Nauvoo and in Salt Lake City and who had been called by Young to in the St. George called it the and work I ever While and Woodruff were with the endowment, of the workmen were in the was not proxy that took Lucy's daughter own endowment on January a later, of also endowment, as did also the of the of the endowment ceremony as another essential When Joseph Smith had the in he had not it to Young and others In the the ceremony had not been But in those decades, the endowment had been performed in one place at a the House in Salt the Endowment the of Young and other Young was the church for a in which the endowment would be performed in at from each and a written would be was not in had been performed in the Endowment he saw the opportunity to long given him by Joseph after performing the first in had Young, this is not we have the we could under the in which we are I you to take this in and all these Young had taken that in to the ceremony in the Nauvoo Temple in the winter of but he would now supervise Woodruff the of all the ordinances of the including the temple Brigham Jr. and John Nuttall Young worked with them, revising and as they When they had Young told Woodruff, you have before you to on the in all the until the of the of also to perform the ceremony for of people. on that he spent the day and evening with Woodruff and others the of Young in of the Young and his had completed the of and revising the ceremony and the of the On Woodruff recorded that Young been all winter to up a of as as to performing for the dead for the first time, a final temple ordinance began in St. George as sealing deceased to deceased to a crucial of temple from on salvation of individuals and in the ceremonies of for the the endowment, and to the to family also spent much of his time following the New Year's dedication the Saints of the and in the temple. A few weeks after the he a to with for Saints who would to the temple. Young the of those the spiritual but the Saints should all over before the prepare the Saints and Young temple to visit both to about the temple and the wanted to they would whether they would come for their own ordinances or also be prepared to do ordinances for deceased friends and temple returned with many from the Saints that they to Young. When should their Young's “If of a and early of and as early as twelve but as a years is early When the temple to be to their should they be In Would who before the of need to be baptized for the dead or temple ordinances sealing to their No. need any No. deceased who had been out of be to their or to their “They should be to the one who has the and on who would be for temple their a faithful to a endowment and be to and What about a individual to their own they be baptized by until we see one that Young What about the are not Young came by from Saints in on Would a in in a need to the ceremony in the upon whether there has been a record kept of or not. If there has it will be Young taught. on individuals in family had two or three living their is the for to The as Young other Saints to attend the temple, he was not a He that would him to do proxy ordinance work for For Young wrote to the of Young's first wife who had more than a earlier. Young asked a living in to the and of so that the temple work could be performed on their ordinance work performed by Young his for the salvation of the first of some of his Young performed his first proxy endowment for first John who had after three of Young had as proxy for in sealing the for in the Nauvoo temple before he had been to for this The next day, he performed temple for first also prepared to do proxy ordinances for his but the end of his in St. George, he he was to go the He asked his Brigham Jr., and his to the proxy and sealing for John and Young. Brigham Jr. recorded that day, for the dead is a of and of the most and in of spiritual was in the St. George temple, on the that Saints should be to a faithful than their own who might the The first performed in the St. George temple, on were the of two of his and and the deceased of But it was not relatives of his wives who were to Young. On April John called as in St. George, was to Young by temple work was and for Young. For the first time in more than three decades, the Saints again had a temple. the in Young wrote, work is being to in the Temple The of the work for and in of the dead up before the Saints more than ever and they are increasingly the upon the of those who are called to be the upon in the last kept of many ordinances were performed each day in the temple. The of ordinances each day more than individual They were to Young and his that they were building the of God both here and in the spirit Young's work and church temple work needed by both women and Like other the women of the Young family found significance in temple For the two decades, Snow, Young's had temple work in the Endowment Lucy Bigelow Young, by took on the in the St. George Temple. On Lucy and Wilford Woodruff both in to perform the temple a for Lucy told the St. George was in the of being by them with as all would be by those who could not do the work for themselves. to live to of in Young, another of Young's wives, took place as both and in temple work. had also been involved in the for the St. George temple, than to to for the temple from where the were Young worked in the temples in St. George, and Salt presiding over the temple Young also continued to the work of the throughout the world from St. George, even while his and others took of many of the in Salt Lake passed and St. George and Salt Lake City, Young's and his on a of and also continued to hope for the Saints’ in another of his Word of to his wife Young, in his years, Young to upon the people the of both in and When he up a list of to the spiritual of Saints in the St. George the Word of Wisdom had the for Word of Wisdom on But now, members and the Word of Wisdom according to the Spirit and the first time since the great Young a place than Salt Lake City for perform a temple this time of the Young the Saints in that were in St. George, so most Saints in should not the to come to the dedication and But the leaders and many of Young's own family the to temple another of to prepare for the final dedication. by Young did physical and the pain in Young's feet continued to him as did his But Young in to he did not from pain as he had in the Saints’ ideals and their was ever present for Young. The Saints who had so to build the St. George temple to the of then as the of tobacco while the temple and But Young's final in St. George were The Saints had constructed a temple where they and their deceased ancestors and friends could the ordinances of was a moment of eternal significance to be Young had this Temple and the of the A great joy and had been in the spirit world on of the performed by the for the dedication of the St. George temple and the of and sealings of to for the deceased the Young's in that Saints to the St. George temple to perform proxy ordinances for their deceased family and began a by which temple became a crucial of for the Latter-day on the of the Young told temple “we had work since “I it to be the work that I have ever