That We May Be Redeemed

It was at the Saint George Temple that President Woodruff was visited by a congregation from the spirit world, many of whom had been prominent in the history of the United States of America. In a discourse given in the Salt Lake Tabernacle on September 16, 1877, he said:

In order that this work may be done, we must have Temples in which to do it; and what I wish to say to you, my brethren and sisters, is that the God of heaven requires us to rise up and build them, that the work of redemption may be hastened. Our reward will meet us when we go behind the veil.

Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them.

We have labored in the Saint George Temple since January, and we have done all we could there; and the Lord has stirred up our minds, and many things have been revealed to us concerning the dead. President Young has said to us, and it is verily so, if the dead could, they would speak in language loud as then thousand thunders, calling upon the servants of God to rise up and build Temples, magnify their calling and redeem their dead. This doubtless sounds strange to those present who believe not the faith and doctrine of the Latter-day Saints; but when we get to the spirit-world we will find out that all that God has revealed is true. We will find, too, that everything there is reality, and that God has a body, parts and passion, and the erroneous ideas that exist now with regard to him will have passed away. I feel to say little else to the Latter-day Saints wherever and whenever I have the opportunity of speaking to them, than to call upon them to build these Temples now under way, to hurry them up to completion. The dead will be after you, they will seek after you as they have after us in Saint George. They called upon us, knowing that we held the keys and power to redeem them.

I will here say, before closing, that two weeks before I left Saint George, the spirits of the dead gathered around me, wanted to know why we did not redeem them. Said they, "You have had the use of the Endowment House for a number of years, and yet nothing has ever been done for us. We laid the foundation of the government you now enjoy, and we never apostatized from it, but we remained true to it and were faithful to God." These were the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and they waited ono me for two days and two nights. I thought it very singular, that notwithstanding so much work had been done, and yet nothing had been done for them. The thought never entered my heart, from the fact, I suppose, that heretofore our minds were reaching after our more immediate friends and relatives. I straightway went into the baptismal font and called upon brother McCallister to baptize me for the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and fifty other eminent men, making one hundred in all, including John Wesley, Columbus, and others."

(As reported in the Deseret News)

The others included nearly every president of the United States. 

I should explain here that the Saints knew they were to perform baptisms for the dead. They knew that there was to be a linking of the generations. They knew that families were to be united through sealings or "adoptions." They were baptized for the dead, but kept only sparse records of this ordinance work. They were in some cases sealed or adopted to prophets of this dispensation.

During the several ears that the Saints were on the move to the West and preoccupied with the troubles of the period, these matters were not clarified. When the Saints were established and temples (for the first time in plural) were under construction, it was time to have these matters set in order. It was during the closing years of the ministry of President Wilford Woodruff that this instruction was given by revelation.

President Woodruff was a prophet uniquely qualified to accomplish this setting in order. In 1894, near the end of his ministry, having received instruction through revelation, he laid the foundation for genealogical work in the Church.