For those of you unfamiliar with our beliefs, we thought it appropriate to share a bit of background on the temples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in order to give you a better understanding and appreciation of their importance to us.
A Temple-Building People
As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints we are a temple-building and temple-loving people. It has been so from the earliest days of the Church. Through the Prophet Joseph Smith, the Lord declared that my people are always commanded to build temples unto the Lord (Doctrine & Covenants 124:39-40). For us, the temple is the House of the Lord and the most sacred place on earth.
Temples are different from the thousands of Church meetinghouses located around the world. Meetinghouses are where Sunday worship services, youth gatherings, service projects, and other community events take place. All are welcome to join in these activities.
Temples have a more specific purpose. They are places specially set apart for sacred service and ceremonies. They are designated by the Lord and dedicated to His purposes. Temples are the only places where some priesthood ordinances are authorized to be performed. These sacred ceremonies lift and inspire participants as they make commitments to follow the teachings and example of Jesus Christ.
The Architect
On January 19, 1841, Joseph Smith received direction from the Lord to build a house unto the Lord in Nauvoo.
The original Nauvoo Temple was an inspired masterpiece of architecture and craftsmanship. The Prophet Joseph Smith, through divine direction, directed the design work while architect William Weeks translated those directions into drawings and workable plans.
Raised in a family of builders, William Weeks worked with his father and brother on building projects in the American northeast and south.
Joseph Smith received many instructions about the temple by revelation, and he was considered the chief architect for the temple. Weeks then drew up the detailed plans and supervised construction. However, the two did not always agree on the building details. For example, when Joseph instructed William that the office windows on the middle floors should be round, William objected, saying that the building was too short for that style of window. Joseph replied, “I wish you to carry out my designs. I have seen in vision the splendid appearance of that building illuminated, and will have it built according to the pattern shown me.” William complied, and the temple was, of course, built with round windows.
Unfortunately, the Saints were forced to leave Nauvoo before the temple was completed. Brigham Young called William and his family to go with the first groups in early 1846, and responsibility for finishing the temple was transferred to Truman Angell. Brigham wanted William and his family to be in the vanguard company of pioneers so that he could begin work on a new temple as soon as the Saints were settled in their new home. This plan, however, was never fulfilled.
Shortly after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, William and his family separated from the Church. The source of the conflict is uncertain. The family moved back to the Midwest for five years before returning to Utah and the Church for a few years. However, the family moved to California in 1857, and there is no evidence of their participation in Church activities there.
Through all of these changes, William maintained a love for Joseph Smith and the gospel. He kept his drawings of the Nauvoo Temple and passed them down to his daughter, Caroline Weeks Griffin. She in turn passed them on to her son, Leslie.
The drawings would have remained in obscurity if not for a “chance” meeting in 1948, when Elders Thacker and Griffon were serving in the small desert town of Boron, California, knocked on the door of Leslie and Zetta Griffin. The missionaries built a good relationship with the Griffins, and Leslie, who was not a member of the Church, told the elders that they had William’s original architectural drawings of the Nauvoo temple. The Griffins felt strongly that the drawings should be returned to the Church. They asked one of the elders, who was returning home to Utah in a few days, to give the drawings to the Church archives. Years later these same drawings were instrumental in rebuilding the Nauvoo Temple.
Elders Thacker and Griffon
House of the Lord
On May 16, 1845, Brigham Young decided to have a dedication plaque made for the temple. It was placed high above the west entryway of the temple. In gold gild lettering the inscription on the stone plaque read:
HOUSE OF THE LORD
Built by
THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST
OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS
Commenced April 6, 1841
HOLINESS TO THE LORD
Temple Ordinances
In the temple, sacred ordinances of the gospel of Jesus Christ are performed. Consequently, we view the temple as a spiritual haven where we can feel a special closeness to God.
God commanded Joseph Smith in 1841 to build a temple at Nauvoo, Illinois. “Let this house be built unto my name, that I may reveal mine ordinances therein unto my people,” (Doctrine & Covenants 124:40). For the next four years, the Saints worked mightily on the temple. “The Church is not fully organized, in its proper order, and cannot be,” Joseph taught the Saints of Nauvoo, “until the Temple is completed.”
The temple would serve as a house for religious assembly, instruction, and ordinances. Joseph taught the doctrine of baptism on behalf of the dead in April 1840. This ordinance, Joseph taught, should be performed only in the temple. The news that members could be baptized for their deceased relatives was received with jubilation. Why were they so excited? Because as Jesus Christ Himself taught as recorded in the New Testament,“Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God,” (John 3:5) and now the early Saints would have the opportunity to have those sacred ordinances performed for their kindred dead who had not had the opportunity to be baptized for themselves.
We simply cannot imagine the joy, the peace, the comfort and the hope that the early Saints, virtually all who lost one or more members of their family to cholera, malaria or accident, must have felt when Joseph first taught of the doctrine of baptisms for the dead.
Apostle Paul referred explicitly to the practice of vicarious baptisms for the dead in 1 Corinthians 15:29;
Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?
This doctrine certainly strengthened the Saints’ understanding that they were participating in a restoration of primitive Christianity.
The font rests on the back of twelve oxen, with three of them facing toward each direction of the compass as was done in the temple of Jerusalem as described in 1 Kings 7:23-26 in the Old Testament.
Joseph Smith explained that the Lord commanded that the baptismal font be placed below ground level in order for it to symbolized the death and resurrection of the recipient of the ordinance.
We continue to perform these sacred ordinances for our deceased ancestors that they may enjoy the blessings of the gospel throughout the eternities.
The most important of the restored ordinances was that of temple marriages known as the sealing power. This ordinance binds a couple and their children together throughout eternity.
A little side note for you ~ after the early Saints installed the twelve stone oxen and filled the stone font with water, the hooves of the oxen sank a bit into the floor. So as a tribute to the courage and faith of the early saints, when the temple was rebuilt it included recessing the hooves of the stone oxen into the floor. Kind'a cool, don't ya think?
Sacrifices of the Saints
Because the early Saints were so poor, men tithed their time by working on the temple one day in ten. Some were willing to work longer for food - or for no pay at all. Mercy Fielding Thompson and Mary Fielding Smith encouraged the sisters to pledge one penny a week to buy glass and nails for the temple, and the women organized to provide clothes for the workmen.
Before the temple was completed, the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were martyred at Carthage Jail. Mobs attacked and burned the Saints’ homes in Nauvoo - the Saints knew that they would have to leave their homes once again. Nevertheless, they did not stop working on the temple. They were determined to finish it and receive the temple ordinances before leaving Nauvoo. Consequently, portions of the temple were dedicated as they were completed. The lowest level, containing the baptismal font, had been dedicated in 1841 so that baptisms could be performed while construction continued.
The early Saints in Nauvoo made great sacrifices to built the original Nauvoo temple. They were willing to make such sacrifices so that they could receive all those blessings, for themselves and their kindred dead, that could be attained only in the House of the Lord.
For example, on July 7, 1845, Giuseppe Taranto, a native of Sardinia and the first known Italian convert to the Church, arrived in Nauvoo and gave $2,500 in twenty-dollar gold pieces to Brigham Young. He told brother Brigham that he simply wanted to give himself and all that he had for the upbuilding of the Church and the Kingdom of God.
In fall 1845, the Latter-day Saints faced harassment and intense pressure to leave Illinois, but they were determined to finish the temple so that worthy Saints could receive temple ordinances before leaving for the West. They raced to finish the temple and dedicated the attic in December 1845 for the purpose of administering marriage sealings and the endowment.
Though portions of the temple were unfinished, the entire temple was dedicated on May 1, 1846. Forced to abandon the temple, Church leaders decided to sell it to help finance the Church’s migration to the Great Basin but were unable to do so.
Temple Security
From the time of the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, security of the temple construction was a major concern to the Saints. In August 1844, less than two months after their murders, Brigham Young declared: “We want to build the Temple in this place, if we have to build it, as the Jews built the walls of the Temple in Jerusalem, with a sword in one hand and the trowel in the other,” (HC 7:256). He would later recount that, when the work on the temple began anew, the Saints did so “with fire arms at hand, and a strong band of police,” (Journal of Discourses, 2:32).
Destruction of the Temple
In 1848, a few years after the Saints were driven from Nauvoo, an arsonist set fire to the Nauvoo temple gutting most of the interior. In the spring of 1849 a community of nearly 300 French emigrants, called the Icarians, settled in Nauvoo attracted by the largely deserted city. They planned to refit the temple ruins into a school, study halls and dinning hall. Work began in early 1850; however, on May 27, 1850 a tornado swept through Nauvoo knocking down one of the temple walls and damaging the others.
Temple Rebuilt
Plans to rebuild the Nauvoo Temple were announced on April 4, 1999, by then Church President Gordon B. Hinckley and ground was broken on October 24, 1999.
The 54,000 square foot temple is situated on the original 3.3 acre temple block. Just as in the original temple, there are five floors and a basement level in the temple.
Thanks to the miraculous finding of William Weeks’ original drawings, the temple’s exterior is a near duplicate of the original temple exterior. The limestone, quarried in Alabama, is indistinguishable from the stone used on the original temple.
The height of the temple, to the top of the angel Moroni statute, is 162’ 5”.
Interior staircases are situated in each of the temple’s four corners. The circular staircase in the south west corner of the temple is a close replica as one in the original temple.
The window glass, made in France and Germany, is the same type of glass made in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Each circular window on the fourth floor contains a large star made of red, white and blue colored glass, as did the original windows.
The temple was dedicated on June 27, 2002, 158 years following the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum.
Symbols of the Temple
To early Church members, the sun breaking through clouds symbolized the dawning of the Restoration and the coming of gospel light to illuminate a dark earth. It is little wonder, then, that sunstones were featured prominently on the Nauvoo Temple. Above each sun are two hands holding trumpets, heralding the dawning of the gospel in this dispensation.
The walls of the temple featured 30 pilasters, each with a moonstone at the base and a sunstone at the top. A sunstone served as the capital, or head, of each pilaster. A star stone was placed above each sunstone. The order of the stones recalled the woman described in Revelation 12, “clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars” (Revelation 12:1).
Benjamin Mitchell and Charles Lambert carved the first sunstones. Lambert was a skilled stonecutter from Yorkshire, England. After he was baptized in England, he decided to go to Nauvoo. Lambert recorded in his autobiography about the day after he arrived in Nauvoo: “I went up to the Temple [and] saw there was work for me.” He went to those in charge and offered his skills. They told him, “If you can work we can do with your work, but we have nothing to give you.” He replied, “I have not come here to work for pay. I have come to help to build that house,” pointing to the Nauvoo Temple.
He records, “I worked and finished the first capital [sunstone] and part of eleven others. I [committed] with [Brother William] Player that I would stick to the temple pay or no pay until finished and did. I quarried and worked the last stone called the capstone.”
The first sunstone was installed on September 23, 1844. The sunstones were six feet high and six and a half feet wide at the top.
Only two complete original sunstones are known to exist. The first, owned by the state of Illinois, is displayed on the grounds of the Nauvoo Visitors’ Center. The second was purchased by the Smithsonian Institution from the Historical Society of Quincy and Adams County. It is currently on display in a prominent position in the Museum of American History and Technology.
Moonstones decorated the base of the pillars surround the Nauvoo Temple. These crescent moons, carved with faces that were turned towards the ground, were identified as “new moons.” They were very important in ancient Israel for indicating the proper time of certain temple festivals such as Rosh Hashanah or New Year.
Redemption of the Temple
The redemption of the temple began in 1937, when the Church acquired a large parcel of the original temple block. Eventually all of the original land was purchased.
At the April 1999 general conference, President Gordon B. Hinckley made the dramatic announcement that the Nauvoo Temple would be rebuilt. At the cornerstone ceremony, President Boyd K. Packer said, “The temple was destroyed and burned, and the stones of the temple were scattered like the bones had been cremated, and the temple, in effect, was dead. . . . So the temple died. But now, this day, it has come to a resurrection. The Temple stands here again.”
One of our fondest memories of serving in Nauvoo and Carthage is the Nauvoo Temple itself and the sacrifices the early Saints made in order to received the blessings that could only be obtained in the temple. Due to the kindness of the temple presidency and all of the many temple Ordinance Workers, we, along with all of our fellow missionaries, were able to attend the temple at least weekly where the spirit was always strong.
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