The Nauvoo Endowment Companies, 1845-1846

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from the jacket flap: As scribes dutifully noted the peace, harmony, and order prevailing in the Nauvoo temple during the closing months of 1845 and early months of 1846, the panic in their reports regarding the savage murders of Latter-day Saints in outlying areas and subsequent retaliation by church members was equally palpable. Guards were stationed at virtually every temple door, inside and out, to prevent attacks. Marshals periodically searched the temple interior for church leaders accused of counterfeiting. The odors of scented oil and fresh paint mixed with the sweat and smells of a frontier boomtown.Such were the contradictions of this stressful time for Latter-day Saints. As the faithful covenanted within the temple to obey the laws of the land, church authorities evaded arrest by using body-doubles and other ruses to circumvent local law enforcement. Initiates pledged fidelity to their lawfully wedded spouses, then-sometimes within minutes-were sealed for time and eternity to additional wives. While the temple ceremony encouraged reverence and decorum, Brigham Young complained that church members sometimes peeked through partitions to observe others being endowed, and when evening came, Young himself led in dancing to live music in the Celestial Room. Vowing to live Christian lives, temple endowees were nonetheless asked to swear vengeance against the murderers of Joseph and Hyrum Smith.Women were elevated to the status of queens and priestesses but were told to remember their place as subservient helpmeets to their husbands. In Sunday sermons, Brigham Young explained that the purpose of temple rites was to teach men the important lesson of the Garden of Eden, that "Adam, being full of integrity and not disposed to follow the woman nor listen to her, was permitted to receive the ... priesthood." Apostle George A. Smith agreed that "the woman ought to be in subjection to the man", and Elder Heber C. Kimball added that some priesthood holders had "apostatized, being led by their wives, and if any such cases occur again, no more women will be admitted"to the temple.In other words, it was a complex time as issues of women's equality and Christian forbearance-themes central to the temple experience-struggled against competing demands for loyalty and obedience. Yet from the furnace of crisis can emerge the highest ideals of commitment and faith.