The Latter-day Saints affirm that their vicarious work in behalf of the dead is required of them by the call of the Lord through direct revelation; and that it becomes the duty and privilege of every individual who accepts the Gospel and enters the Church to labor for the salvation of his dead. He is expected and required by the obligations and responsibility he has assumed as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ, so to live as to be a worthy representative of his departed ancestors, in holy ordinance, and to be of clean life, that he may not forfeit his right to enter the sacred confines of the Lord's House, where alone he may officiate in that privileged capacity. Let it not be assumed that this doctrine of vicarious {81} labor for the dead implies even remotely, that the administration of ordinances in behalf of departed spirits operates in any manner to interfere with the right of choice and the exercise of free agency on their part. They are at liberty to accept or reject the ministrations in their behalf; and so they will accept or reject, in accordance with their converted or unregenerate state, even as is the case with mortals to whom the Gospel message may come. Though baptism be duly administered to a living man in behalf of a dead ancestor, that spirit will derive no immediate advancement nor any benefit therefrom if he has not yet attained faith in the Lord Jesus Christ or if he be still unrepentant. Even as Christ offered salvation to all, though few there be who accept in the flesh, so temple ordinances may be administered for many in the realm of the departed who are not yet prepared to profit thereby. It is evident, therefore, that labor in behalf of the dead is two-fold; that performed on earth would remain incomplete and futile but for its supplement and counterpart beyond the veil. Missionary work is in progress there--work, compared with which the evangelistic labor of earth is but a small undertaking. There are preachers and teachers, ministers invested with the Holy Priesthood, all engaged in declaring the glad tidings of the Gospel to spirits who have not yet found the light. As has been shown, this great labor amongst the dead was inaugurated by Jesus the Christ, during the brief period of His disembodiment.[41] The saving ministry so begun was left to be continued by others duly authorized and commissioned; even as the work of preaching the Gospel {82} and administering therein amongst the living was committed to the apostles in the Church of old. AUTHORITY TO LABOR IN BEHALF OF THE DEAD In the closing chapter of the compilation of scriptures known to us as the Old Testament, the prophet Malachi thus describes a condition incident to the last days, immediately preceding the second coming of Christ: