Page:The City of the Saints.djvu/237

Rh thinking of his own comfort before the glory of God, is lodged, like Solomon of old, in what here appears a palace. Nor, reflecting that without a Temple the dead can not be baptized out of Purgatory, was I quite satisfied when reminded of the fate of Nauvoo (according to Gentiles the Mormons believe that they must build nine temples before they will be suffered to worship in peace), and informed that the purely provisional works, which had been interrupted by the arrival of the army in 1858, would shortly be improved.

The lines of Temple Block—which, as usual, is ten acres square=forty rods each way—run toward the cardinal points. It stands clear of all other buildings, and the locust-trees, especially those on the sunny south side, which have now been planted seven years, will greatly add to its beauties. It is surrounded with a foundation wall of handsomely dressed red sandstone, raised to the height of ten feet by adobe stuccoed over to resemble a richer material. Each facing has thirty flat pilastres, without pedestal or entablature, but protected, as the adobe always should be, by a sandstone coping. When finished, the whole will be surmounted by an ornamental iron fence. There are four gates, one to each side—of these, two, the northern and western, are temporarily blocked up with dry stone walls, while the others are left open—which in time will become carriage entrances, with two side ways for foot passengers. According to accounts, the wall and the foundations have already cost one million of dollars, or a larger sum than that spent upon the entire Nauvoo Temple.

Temple Block—the only place of public and general worship in the city—was consecrated and a Tabernacle was erected in September, 1847, immediately after the celebrated exodus from "Egypt on the banks of the Mississippi," on a spot revealed by the past to the present Prophet and his adherents. Two sides of the wall having been completed, ground was broken on the 14th of February, 1853, for the foundation of the building. One part of the ceremony consisted of planting a post at the central point, the main "stake for the curtains of Zion:" every successive step in advance was commemorated by imposing ceremonies, salvos of guns, bands playing, crowds attending, addresses by the governor, Mr. Brigham Young, prayers and pious exercises. The foundations of the Temple, which are sixteen feet deep, and composed of hard gray granite, in color like that of Aberdeen or Quincy, are now concealed from view; and the lumber huts erected for the workmen were, when the Mormons made their minor Hegira to Provo City, removed to the Sugar-house Ward, three miles southeast of the city.

The Temple Block is at present a mere waste. A central excavation, which resembles a large oblong grave, is said by Gentiles to be the beginning of a baptismal font twenty feet deep. The southwestern corner is occupied by the Tabernacle, an adobe build-