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Show 106 MADELYN CANNON STEWART SILVER in a series of assembly rooms-a preliminary lecture room, gar den room, world room, terrestrial room, and celestial room. In these rooms, designed to be places of exquisite beauty and serenity, there are recitals and enactments of the creation of the world, the advent of Adam and Eve, the Plan of Salvation estab lished by Deity and restored by Joseph Smith, Jr., the meaning of the gospel, and the means of redemption. With a full under standing of the gospel plan, one then makes covenants to observe the law of virtue and chastity, and pledges to be chari table, tolerant, and pure, and to devote both talent and materi al means to the spread of the gospel and the building of the Kingdom of God. There is a sacred aura surrounding the cere monies so that one feels the divine Presence and maintains a spirit of reverence and worshipfulness. One is receptive to the inspiration and instruction from the Holy Spirit. One is fully persuaded of the indispensability of personal purity and devo tion to the right. As one makes the covenants, assumes the obli gations, one is given holy blessings, contingent upon the faith ful observance of God's commandments.' The ritual was, of course, new to Madelyn and Harold, and difficult to absorb the full meaning of it on first encounter. "I hope someday," Madelyn wrote, "that I may have it a was clear understanding and appreciation for it all."? February 19, Madelyn had her bridal pictures taken and then she and Harold went to the office of Elder George F. Richards for a little talk about the temple and about their wedding, which took place the next day. She wore a lovely Brussels lace wedding veil that Ruth had worn on her wedding day, and now Madelyn could wear it when they were married-a treasured family heirloom Aunt Annie had brought back from a tour of Europe in the 1920s. As with the Endowment, the marriage or sealing ceremony is likewise conducted in a spirit of reverence and simplicity. Madelyn and Harold, Madelyn's parents, Aunt Annie, Louise and Steve Covey, Va una and Cliff Jacobsen, Irene and Stephen L. Richards, and many Cannon relatives of Madelyn, all Latter day Saints, met in a special sealing or altar room in the temple. Harold's mother was dead and his father, in New York, was |
