"But, behold, at the end of this appointment [i.e. the sufficient time] your baptisms for your dead shall not be acceptable unto me [i. e. outside of a temple] _and if ye do not these things_ [i. e. temple ordinances] _at the end of the appointment,_ ye shall be rejected as a Church, with your dead, saith the Lord your God. "For verily I say unto you, that after you have had sufficient time to build a house to me, _wherein the ordinances of baptizing for the dead belongeth,_ and for which the same was instituted from before the foundation of the world, your baptisms for your dead [i.e. in any other place than in a temple] cannot be acceptable unto me, for therein are the keys of the holy priesthood ordained that you may receive honor and glory. "And after this time [when a house is prepared] your baptism for the dead, by those who art scattered abroad, are not acceptable unto me, saith the Lord." [Bold face and brackets are mine. J.F.S.] _And if ye do not these things at the end of the appointment,_ obviously does not mean "if ye do not build a temple at the _end_ of the appointment," as our critics infer it does, but it refers to the _ordinances_ that were to be performed in the temple, and the failure on the part of the Saints to perform these ordinances for their dead was the thing that would cause their rejection with their dead, and not the failure to build the temple, which was merely the edifice in which the saving principles were to be performed. This is in harmony with the teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, who said that if we neglect the salvation of our dead "_we do it at the peril of our own salvation!_ Why? Because we without them cannot be made perfect." (Doc. & Cov. sec. 28:15.) The virtue of salvation for the dead is not in the structure of the temple, but in the _ordinances_ which are performed in the temple. The temple is to the ordinances just what the vessel is to the life-giving nourishment it contains. Those who would reject us on a technicality, because, as they say, "we did not finish the temple," neither build temples nor perform the ordinances for the dead, wherein they prove their rejection by the Lord, according to the revelations of Joseph Smith, the prophet.] The restoration of Elijah's priesthood accomplished more than the turning of the hearts of the members of the Church to their fathers, for the spirit of his mission spread forth and took hold of the hearts of the honorable men and women in the world who have been directed, they know not why, to spend their time and means in preparing genealogies, vital records and various other genealogical data, which they are publishing at great labor and expense.