On April 8, 1877, Brigham Young delivered a sermon on the occasion of his imminent departure from the St. George Temple. Many observers of Young’s multifaceted career forget how significant temple-building was for him and for his legacy. “We shall build Temples over north and South America,” Young declared in 1875 while planning the construction of a temple in Manti, Utah. Twenty years earlier, he had expressed his hope that men and women would one day work in “thousands of Temples” in order to redeem the world.
Young was not in the best of moods on this particular April day, which came after three months of ritual work and oversight in the temple, which the Latter-day Saints had completed in January. In late March, John D. Lee had been executed for his role in the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and Young remained fearful that he would be arrested in connection with the mass murder. When he spoke that April morning, Young asserted that the people had obstructed his efforts to establish the United Order, an attempt at economic consecration and cooperation. In the end, recorded doorkeeper Charles Lowell Walker, “Brother Brigham whipped and scolded the tradesmen and almost every body and every thing.” Once he had completed his harangue, however, Young he asked the choir to sing Eliza R. Snow’s hymn, “O my Father,” a poem and song he had long loved. Given his increasing frailty, the closing verse may have taken on an even greater meaning than usual for him: “Then, at length, when I’ve completed / All you sent me forth to do, With your mutual approbation, Let me come and dwell with you.”
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