An Englishwoman in Utah: The Story of a Life's Experience in Mormonism

by Mrs. T. B. H. Stenhouse

CHAPTER XXI.
MYSTERIES OF THE ENDOWMENT HOUSE—FEARFUL OATHS AND SECRET CEREMONIES.

Not many weeks after our arrival in Salt Lake City, my husband told me that we might now enjoy the privilege of going through the Endowment House.

This was intended as a great favour to us, on the part of the authorities, for most people have to wait a long while before receiving their Endowments; but my husband’s influence and position in the Church was, I presume, the reason why we were admitted so soon.

Now, I had heard so much of the Endowments and the Endowment House that I quite dreaded to pass through this ordeal. The idea of the whole ceremony was, that thereby we should receive the special grace of God; be united, man and woman, making one perfect creature; receive our inheritance as children of God; and, in fact, be made partakers of the plenitude of every blessing.

I knew well that no marriage was considered binding unless it had been celebrated in that place. I knew that the Saints, however long they might have been wedded, were under the necessity of being reunited there before they could be considered lawfully married and their children legitimate. According to the highest Mormon authority, no marriage is valid unless the ceremony is performed in the Temple. The Temple is not yet built, and as Joseph, the Prophet, said, “No fellow can be damned for doing the best he knows how,” the Saints, meanwhile, do “the next best thing,” and are married in the Endowment House. I knew that there and then the faithful were said to be “endowed” with their heavenly inheritance. I saw how absolutely needful it was that my husband and myself should become partakers of those mysteries; but I was influenced by the strange stories which I had heard of unhallowed and shameful doings in that same Endowment House, and consequently I feared to enter in.

My fears were not, however, altogether groundless or visionary. It has been whispered—falsely perhaps—that in that Endowment House scenes have been enacted so fearful that words would falter on the lips of those who told the tale concerning them. I have heard of such things from men of integrity and honour; but they were not eye-witnesses of what they related, and they could not, or would not, give me their authorities. One thing I am certain of; if such horrible deeds were ever perpetrated within those walls, there remains no living witness to testify of them. The lips of those who alone could tell the whole truth are sealed in a silence which the trump of doom alone shall break.

It was, of course, no fear of any personal violence or any painful disclosures in that respect, that made me reluctant to receive my Endowments, for at that time I was by profession apparently a good Mormon; if I had my doubts and misgivings, I had them in common with nine-tenths of the Mormon women, and had therefore nothing to fear. The true cause of my reluctance was of a more delicate and personal nature. I had been informed that, if I refused to go, my husband could not go alone; he would be compelled to take another wife, and go with her. This was not all. I found that it was quite common for the Elders to take a second wife when they took their first Endowments, and thus, as they coarsely expressed it, “kill two birds with one stone.” Moreover, I had heard of men who feared to introduce Polygamy into their households, presenting to their wives, while going through the House, a young girl as their intended bride, feeling sure that the wife would not dare to make a scene before the Assembly. How could I know that my husband also had not such an idea in his mind? True, I trusted him implicitly, and did not believe it possible that he could deceive me. But had not men who were universally known for their integrity and honour acted in the same way to their wives; and with so many evidences of the best and most honest natures being corrupted by the unrighteous teachings of their religion, could I be blamed for doubting him whom I loved best?

There was also another reason why I particularly objected to passing through the Endowment House. I had been told many strange and revolting stories about the ceremonies which were there performed, for it was said that in the Nauvoo Temple the most disgraceful things were done. About what was done at Nauvoo I can say nothing, as it was before my time, but still it is only fair to say, that people who in every other relation in life I should have deemed most reliable and trustworthy were my informants respecting those strange stories. Of the Endowments in Utah I can, of course, speak more positively, as I myself passed through them; and I wish to say most distinctly that, although the initiation of the Saints into “The Kingdom,” appears now to my mind as a piece of the most ridiculous absurdity, there was, nevertheless, nothing in it indecent or immoral—of which the reader himself shall presently be the judge.