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Source: Church History Vol. 3 Chapter 34 Page: 668 (~1872)

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668 the specifications. If the statements of various persons are to be relied on, there can be but little doubt that in one respect there was a completion; and that respect is the desecration and defilement of the Temple, by the holding of such revels and orgies therein as were not even thought of by the 'money changers,' who made the House of God at Jerusalem a 'den of thieves,' and against whom the righteous indignation of Jesus was so signally directed.

"That there was cause for the abandonment of even this magnificent structure who can doubt. It was abandoned; and in little over four years after the death of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, malice, envy, and hatred set fire to it, and it was burned. We think that the inscription stated that it was begun in 1841. If so, it was but a little over the supposed allotted seven years given for its completion that it fell, being burned about October 8, 1848. The corner stone was laid April 6, 1841, and the burning occurred October 8, 1848. The saints, however, left Nauvoo in 1846, no work probably being done upon the Temple after the spring or summer of that year.

"The only object we have in writing so explicitly in regard to the Temple at Nauvoo, is, that those who have been made to believe that it was completed may be undeceived; and that those who have so industriously circulated the statement that it was completed may be shamed.

"A temple, or its equivalent or representative, has had an existence in the general economy of nearly every important faction of the church since the abandonment of Nauvoo. The saints under the lead of James J. Strang had a 'Tower of Strength;' Baneemy had 'The Secret Chamber;' Gladden Bishop a 'Rock of Refuge;' Alpheus Cutler raised 'An Ensign of Peace' and built a 'Council House;' and there is a 'Tabernacle' at Salt Lake City, and a temple in course of erection. It is then a measure considered as a feature necessary to the cause.

"The establishment of schools we are most decidedly in favor of. What may have been the character of the school at Kirtland, so far as its personal conduct was concerned, we are not aware; but suppose it to have been for the purpose

(page 668)

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