The Temple Endowment, as administered in modern temples, comprises instruction relating to the significance and sequence of past dispensations, and the importance of the present as the greatest and grandest era in human history. This course of instruction includes a recital of the most prominent events of the creative period, the condition of our first parents in the Garden of Eden, their disobedience and consequent expulsion from that blissful abode, their condition in the lone and dreary world when doomed to live by labor and sweat, the plan of redemption by which the great transgression may be atoned, the period of the great apostasy, the restoration of the Gospel with all its ancient powers and privileges, the absolute and indispensable condition of personal purity and devotion to the right in present life, and a strict compliance with Gospel requirements.
As will be shown, the temples erected by the Latter-day Saints provide for the giving of these instructions in separate rooms, each devoted to a particular part of the course; and by this provision it is possible to have several classes under instruction at one time.
The ordinances of the endowment embody certain obligations on the part of the individual, such as covenant and promise to observe the law of strict virtue and chastity, to be charitable, benevolent, tolerant and pure; to devote both talent and material means to the spread of truth and the uplifting of the race; to maintain devotion to the cause of truth; and to seek in every way to contribute to the great preparation that the earth may be made ready to receive her King,—the Lord Jesus Christ. With the taking of each covenant and the assuming of each obligation a promised blessing is pronounced, contingent upon the faithful observance of the conditions.
No jot, iota, or tittle of the temple rites is otherwise than uplifting and sanctifying. In every detail the endowment ceremony contributes to covenants of morality of life, consecration of person to high ideals, devotion to truth, patriotism to nation, and allegiance to God. The blessings of the House of the Lord are restricted to no privileged class; every member of the Church may have admission to the temple with the right to participate in the ordinances thereof, if he comes duly accredited as of worthy life and conduct.
SEALING IN MARRIAGE
The Latter-day Saints regard the marriage ceremony performed exclusively within temple precincts, as the one and only perfect contract of matrimony.[[21]] They recognize the full legal validity and moral obligation of any marriage entered into under the secular law; but civil marriages and indeed all marriages made without the binding authority of the Holy Priesthood they regard as contracts for this life only, and therefore lacking the higher and superior elements of a complete and perpetual union. They hold that the family relationships of earth may be made lasting and binding beyond the veil of death. They say that under the perfect law operative in the celestial worlds, the earthly relation of husband and wife, parent and child, will endure in full force and effect, provided such relationship has been sealed on earth by the power and authority of the Holy Priesthood. The ordinary rite of matrimony as established by secular law, and as prescribed by sectarian rule, unites the man and the woman for this world only; the higher law of marriage as divinely revealed joins the parties for time and eternity.
"Celestial Marriage" is a term in current use among the Latter-day Saints, though it does not occur in any revelation contained in the standard works of the Church. The Church adopts and validates the scriptures of earlier dispensations with respect to marriage. It holds that marriage is honorable[[22]] and ordained of God.[[23]] Under the teachings of the Church, marriage is the duty of all who are not debarred by physical or other effective disability from assuming the responsibilities of the wedded state. The Latter-day Saints declare that part of the birthright of every worthy man is to stand at the head of a family as husband and father; and equally strong is the right of every worthy woman to be an honored wife and mother.
The Church denounces as false and pernicious the teachings of misled and morbid men who say that the union of the sexes is but a carnal necessity inherited by man as an incident of his degraded nature; and it repudiates the thought that celibacy is a superior condition more pleasing to God. Concerning such false teachers the Lord has spoken in this day:
"Whoso forbiddeth to marry is not ordained of God, for marriage is ordained of God unto man * * * that the earth might answer the end of its creation, and that it might be filled with the measure of man, according to his creation before the world was made."[[24]]
The Latter-day Saints affirm that perfect marriage provides for the eternal relation of the sexes. With this people marriage is not merely a contract for time, effective only as long as the parties shall live on earth, but a solemn covenant of union which shall endure beyond the grave. In the complete ceremony of marriage as ordained by the Church and as administered only within the temple halls, the man and the woman are placed under covenant of mutual fidelity, not until death do them part, but for time and for all eternity.