The Celestial Room: From the room last described to the one now under consideration the passage leads through the Veil. This is a large and lofty apartment about sixty by forty-five feet in area and thirty-four feet in height, occupying the northeast section of the building on this floor. In finish and furnishings it is the grandest of all the large rooms within the walls. If the last room described could be considered typical of the terrestrial state, this is suggestive of conditions yet more exalted; and it may appropriately be called the Celestial Room. The west end is occupied wholly by the Veil. The east wall is in part taken up by two triple mirrors, thirteen feet high; the central section of each is three feet eight inches wide, and the side sections each three feet in width. Along the walls are twenty-two columns in pairs, with Corinthian caps; these support entablatures from which spring ten arches, four on either side and one at each end. Within the recesses formed by these arches and suspended from the wall-columns, are paintings and busts of past and living leaders of the Church, and canvases depicting scenes in Bible lands and incidents of interest in Church history. Prominent among these are paintings by Lambourne, showing the Hill Cumorah[[5]] and Adam-ondi-Ahman.[[6]] Choice canvases illustrative of scenes in the life of Christ and small statuary are disposed with excellent effect about the room. The ceiling is a combination of vault and panel construction elaborately finished. Massive cornices and beams separating the ceiling panels are richly embellished with clusters of fruit and flowers. The color scheme of the walls is soft brown relieved by the light blue of the fluted columns and by abundant trimmings in gold. Eight electroliers with shades of richly finished glass depend from the ceiling, and each of the twenty-two columns holds a bracket of lights in corresponding design. A newel-post at the east bears a flower-cluster of colored globes with an artistic support in bronze. The floor is covered by a heavy carpet and the movable furniture is all of rich yet appropriate design. Palms and other living plants are held in shapely jardinieres of finest ware. At the east is a short flight of stairs leading into an office reserved for the president of the Temple.
Each of the four arched-window recesses in the north is framed by draped curtains of silk, which in material and design match the Veil. On the south side are four pairs of double doors in position and size symmetrically corresponding with the windows on the north. The portal at the south-west, which is fitted with swinging doors, opens directly into the upper corridor at the head of the grand stairway already described; each of the three other portals is fitted with sliding doors, and opens into a separate apartment slightly raised above the floor of the large room, and reserved for special ceremonial work, more specifically described beyond.
Sealing Room for the Dead: The first of these three small rooms is about ten by thirteen feet in the square with a semi-circular recess five feet deep on the south side. This room is raised two steps above the main floor. In the wall of this recess is a bay art window of stained glass, representing with effective and impressing detail the resurrected prophet Moroni delivering the plates of the Book of Mormon to the youthful seer, Joseph Smith. It is a fitting symbol of the actuality of communication between the dead and the living; and it is to ordinances pertaining to this relationship the room is devoted; this is the Sealing Room for the Dead. The west wall is occupied by a large mirror. In the center stands a richly upholstered altar finished in old-rose velvet and gold. The altar is six by three feet six inches at its base and two feet six inches in height. Here kneel in humble service the living proxies representing deceased husbands and wives, parents and children. The only other furniture consists of chairs for the officiating elder, the witnesses, and persons awaiting the ordinances at the altar.
Sealing Room for the Living: The easterly room of the three is in size and shape a counterpart of the last described. Its finishing, however, is in brighter tone; the altar and chairs are upholstered in crimson velvet, and the walls are of light tint. A mirror extends from floor to ceiling on the east wall. This is the Sealing Room for the Living. Here is solemnized the sacred ordinance of marriage between parties who come to plight their vows of marital fidelity for time and eternity, and to receive the seal of the eternal Priesthood upon their union. Here also are performed the ordinances of sealing or adoption of living children by their parents who were not at first united in the order of celestial marriage.[[7]] On the south side of this room is a door with transom and side panels of jeweled glass in floral design, leading into a reception room which is provided for the accommodation of parties awaiting the sealing ordinance. This room connects on the west by a short passage with a smaller apartment,—another waiting room, and this in turn opens upon the upper corridor at the head of the grand stairway.
The Holy of Holies: The central of the three small apartments connected with the Celestial Room,—situated therefore between the Sealing Room for the Living and Sealing Room for the Dead,—is of all the smaller apartments within the Temple walls by far the most beautiful. Yet its excellence is that of splendid simplicity rather than of sumptuous splendor. It is raised above the other two rooms and is reached by an additional flight of six steps inside the sliding doors. The short staircase is bordered by hand-carved balustrades, which terminate in a pair of newel-posts bearing bronze figures symbolical of innocent childhood; these support flower clusters, each jeweled blossom enclosing an electric bulb. On the landing at the head of the steps is another archway, beneath which are sliding doors; these doors mark the threshold of the inner room or Holy of Holies of the Temple, and correspond to the inner curtain or veil that shielded from public view the most sacred precincts of Tabernacle and Temple in the earlier dispensations.
The floor is of native hard-wood blocks, each an inch in cross-section. The room is of circular outline, eighteen feet in diameter, with paneled walls, the panels separated by carved pillars supporting arches; it is decorated in blue and gold. The entrance doorway and the panels are framed in red velvet with an outer border finished in gold. Four wall niches, bordered in crimson and gold, have a deep blue background, and within these are tall vases holding flowers. The room is practically without natural light, but it is brilliantly illumined by a large electrolier and eight side clusters of lamps. The ceiling is a dome in which are set circular and semicircular windows of jeweled glass, and on the outer side of these, therefore above the ceiling, are electric globes whose light penetrates into the room in countless hues of subdued intensity.
On the south side of this room, opposite the entrance doorway, and corresponding in size therewith, is a window of colored glass depicting the appearance of the Eternal Father and His Son Jesus Christ to the boy Joseph Smith. The event here delineated marked the ushering-in of the dispensation of the fulness of times. The scene is laid in a grove; the celestial Personages are clothed in white, and appear in the attitude of instructing the boy prophet, who kneels with uplifted face and outstretched arms. Beneath is inscribed the scriptures through which Joseph was led to seek Divine instruction:
"If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him."
And Below:
"This is my beloved Son, hear Him."