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Show PREPARATION FOR TEMPLE MARRIAGE By W. M. Everton . Following is a letter addressed to a young man who made application ap-plication to his bishop to get a recommend to the temple to be married, and whose, bishop refused to issue the recommend. My Dear Brother: 'I am informed that you were offended and that you feel quite badly because your bishop refused to give you a recommend to go to the temple and be married. Assuming that my informant was not mistaken, I am taking the liberty of writing this personal letter to you in which I shall try to explain some things which you do not now understand. In the first place let me say that it is the desire of every bishop that all the marriages in his ward shall be performed in the temple. If the number of marriages performed outside the temple is too large he may be called on the carpet to explain why or he may even be released from his office. Let me further explain that there is no thought of the temple being dessecrated by admitting such young people as you and your wife. Neither were you refused a recommend as a punishment for not paying tithing or attending meetings. I fancy I hear you say, "If the Bishop wanted us to go to the temple and there was nothing to stop him, why didn't he let us go" Let me explain: Those who go through the temple to receive their endowments en-dowments are required to make very solmn and sacred covenants, the performance of which will mark them as faithful Latter-day Saints, willing to give their time, their talents and their goods to build up the church. It takes faith to be that kind of a Latter-day Saint. Those who have lived their lives without church service and without praying regularly find it difficult to take on the whole program. As you well know, many of those who have gone to the temple in the past have failed to live up to the promises they have made. They are not only committing the sins of omission and commission which were theirs before they went to the temple, but they iare now covenant coven-ant breakers as well. The ordinances of the temple pertain to the Holy Priesthood and men who go through the temple must first be ordained Elders. Those who are ordained Elders should have had experience in the Aaronic Priesthood to educate them and prepare them to function in the higher priesthood. Our church records indicate that you have not been active in the Aaronic Priesthood. You have paid no tithing or donations. You have seldom attended Sunday school. In olher words it has not been a part of your life to render service to your church and your wife has likewise been inactive in the church. It was the judgment of the bishop that you had not shown sufficient interest in the church in the past to warant his believing that you could go to the temple and then be faithful church members afterward. He thought it best that you should marry outside the temple and then prove by your lives that you were worthy to take on the added responsibility of going to the temple. You were refused a recommend recom-mend to the temple because the bishop believed it would be best for your own good, to wait until you are belter prepared to lake on this added responsibility. |