This square of ten acres was set apart for temple purposes at the founding of the city, and there the pioneers held their first worship. There was built the building known as the Endowment House, and there, thirty years ago, were laid the foundations of the temple, wherein (it is promised) Jesus Christ shall appear bodily to the faithful as soon as it is completed. Reared to a height of eighty feet above the ground, but not yet ready for the roof, its snowy walls gleam in the sun, hot and dazzling.
There is a little time before the services in the Tabernacle and we go over to the new building, picking our way among redoubts of the sparkling blocks of granite. A picture of the building as it will appear when the work is finished, hung under glass, at the closed door of the superintendent’s office, and enabled us to get a very good idea of how the great structure would look. The Madame joined the rest of us in admiration for the massive character of every part of the work.
MORMON TEMPLE, TABERNACLE AND ASSEMBLY HALL.
We found that above the enormous foundations the wall had a thickness of nine feet, which decreases to seven at the height of the roof. Nor was this wall hollow, or filled or backed with brick or anything else, but was made solid throughout of hewn granite. Even the pillars, the partitions, the stairways, the floors and ceilings in many apartments, were of solid matched stone. The beveled window openings through these thick walls are like embrasures of a fort; and the many small rooms in which it is to be divided, will cause the structure to seem more like a prison than a religious temple. In fact it is not designed as a house of worship,—the Tabernacle remains for that—but is intended as a sacred edifice within which various ordinances of the Church, closely allied to those of Masonry, now performed in the Endowment House, shall be celebrated.
The external ornamentation of the great building is original and symbolical in its plan. The wall is pierced with four tiers of large windows, the second and fourth tiers being circular. The keystone of each of the arches over these windows, as well as over the various doors, bears a star in high relief; and between the windows room is found for three tiers of circular bosses, eight on each side, upon which symbols will be carved in high relief. The lowermost of these rows will bear maps of various parts of the world; the second tier, eight phases of the moon; and the topmost tier eight blazing suns. The suns, moons and stars are already cut, but the maps of the earth remain to be carved.
The cost of the temple has been the subject of much public questioning and careless slander. A man assured us that it had cost sixteen millions of dollars. This is certainly an exaggeration. I have the word of President Taylor that the total cost up to the present time has been about two millions of dollars, derived from the church tithings. The same work could be duplicated now for a far less sum; but a large part of this was done before the railway was built, when the stone had to be hauled from the distant quarries by ox-teams. It is supposed that another million dollars and two years more time, will complete and furnish the building. That will be a great day for Salt Lake.
By the time we had finished our inspection of the temple, the Tabernacle had been pretty well filled by the crowds of people who poured into its many doors. One of these streams we followed.
The Tabernacle has been so often described and figured that I need spend little time over it. Imagine an elliptical dome, shingled, set upon a circle of stone piers about twenty feet in height, and you will have an image of this extraordinary building. Were it set upon an eminence it would be as grand in its place (perfectly fitting Utah scenery in its severely simple outlines) as the Acropolis at Athens.