The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints proclaims the present as the dispensation of the fulness of times, in which shall be gathered and re-established all the saving principles and essential ordinances of earlier dispensations, and during which the great plan of universal redemption shall be fully revealed. The Church, therefore, provides for the actual work of baptism for the dead, and in the temples of today this sacred labor is in uninterrupted progress. As will be seen, each of the temples is provided with a baptismal font, with every necessary provision for the administration of this ordinance.[[9]]

The rite of water-baptism in behalf of the dead is followed by that of the laying-on of hands for the bestowal of the Holy Ghost; and in this as in the preceding, the dead person is represented by the living proxy. The imposition of hands for the conferring of the gift of the Holy Ghost constitutes the higher baptism of the Spirit required alike of all, and includes the rite of confirmation by which the person becomes a member of the Church of Christ. In all essentials the ordinances of baptism and confirmation are identical, whether administered to the living for themselves or as proxy for the dead. As these ordinances are administered in existing temples it is required that, beside the recorder and the officiating elder, two witnesses be present, and that they attest the ceremony as duly performed.

ORDINATION AND ENDOWMENT

Water-baptism, and the higher baptism of the Spirit by the authorized imposition of hands for the conferring of the Holy Ghost, constitute the two fundamental ordinances of the Gospel. The repentant soul who has thus entered the Church of Christ may afterward attain to position and authority in the Holy Priesthood—not as an earthly honor, not as a title of personal aggrandizement, not as a symbol of power to rule and possibly to oppress,—but as an endowment bespeaking authority and the express responsibility to use that authority in the service of his fellows and to the glory of God. In the temple service, the man who appears as proxy for his dead relative must be ordained to the Priesthood before he can pass beyond the baptismal font.

It is a precept of the Church that women of the Church share the authority of the Priesthood with their husbands, actual or prospective; and therefore women, whether taking the endowment for themselves or for the dead, are not ordained to specific rank in the Priesthood. Nevertheless there is no grade, rank, or phase of the temple endowment to which women are not eligible on an equality with men. True, there are certain of the higher ordinances to which an unmarried woman cannot be admitted, but the rule is equally in force as to a bachelor. The married state is regarded as sacred, sanctified, and holy in all temple procedure; and within the House of the Lord the woman is the equal and the help-meet of the man. In the privileges and blessings of that holy place, the utterance of Paul is regarded as a scriptural decree in full force and effect: "Neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord."[[10]]

Faith and sincere repentance, followed first by water-baptism and then by the laying-on of hands for the bestowal of the Holy Ghost, are the prescribed means of admission into the Church of Christ and prospective salvation in the Kingdom of God. But there is a distinction between salvation and exaltation. At this point it may be well to consider this distinction, and to set forth the doctrines of the restored Church as to the graded degrees of exaltation beyond the grave.[[11]]

Salvation and Exaltation:—Some degree of salvation will come to all who have not forfeited their right to it; exaltation is given to those only who by active labors have won a claim to God's merciful liberality by which it is bestowed. Of the saved, not all will be exalted to the higher glories; rewards will not be bestowed in violation of justice; punishments will not be meted out to the ignoring of mercy's claims. No one can be admitted to any order of glory, in short, no soul can be saved, until justice has been satisfied for violated law. In the Kingdom of God there are numerous degrees of exaltation provided for those who are worthy of them. The old idea, that in the hereafter there will be but two places for the souls of mankind,—a heaven and a hell, with the same glory in all parts of the one, and the same terrors throughout the other,—is wholly untenable in the light of Divine revelation.

Degrees of Glory:—That the privileges and glories of heaven are graded to suit the various capacities of the blessed, is indicated in Christ's teachings. To His apostles He said: "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also."[[12]] This declaration is supplemented by that of Paul, who speaks of the graded glories of the resurrection as follows:

"There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.

"There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.

"So also is the resurrection of the dead."[[13]]

A fuller knowledge of this subject has been imparted in the present dispensation. From a revelation given in 1832[[14]] we learn the following: Three great kingdoms or degrees of glory are established for the future habitation of the human race; these are known as the Celestial, the Terrestrial, and the Telestial. Far below the last and least of these, is the state of eternal punishment prepared for the sons of perdition.