# Wife No. 19/Chapter 21
### CHAPTER XXI.
#### GOING THROUGH THE "ENDOWMENT-HOUSE." — I TAKE THE MYSTERIOUS BATHS.

* No Physic among the Saints.
* I am taken Sick.
* Heber C. Kimball recommends "Endowments."
* How Brigham Murdered his little Granddaughter.
* The Prophet wants a Doctor.
* Being "administered" To.
* I am Re-baptized.
* Receive my Endowments.
* How Saintly Sins are Washed Away.
* Undignified Conduct of Elders.
* The Order of Melchisedec.
* How I was "Confirmed."
* To become a Celestial Queen.
* I go down to the Endowment-House.
* The Mysterious Ceremonies Described.
* The Veil at last Lifted.
* The Secrets of the Endowment-House Exposed.
* I enter the Bath.
* Miss Snow Washes Me.
* She Anoints Me All Over.
* I dress in a Bed-gown.
* The "Peculiar Garment" of the Saints.
* What the Mormon Girls do about It
* "Going through" without a Husband.
* "A Great Shouting for Sarah!"
Taking my Endowments behind the Curtain.HEN I was about sixteen years old, I was very ill, and my mother, her fears for the life and welfare of her only daughter always on the alert, became very anxious, and, indeed, almost ill herself in her concern for me.
According to Mormon custom, I was "administered to" by the anointing and laying on of hands, but all to no avail. Bishop Taft, the one who had baptized me in my childhood, Isaac Groo, the Bishop's counsellor, and Elder Samuel Hardy labored earnestly and long, and "wrestled in ​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/366 ​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/367 ​dreaded, in my weakened state of health, that portion of the ceremony, and I grew quite nervous over it before the day arrived on which that rite was to be performed. I was reassured on one point, however: The pond experience was not to be repeated, but I was to be baptized in the Twelfth Ward font, which made it seem much less formidable, and divested it of half its terror.
On the day appointed I was taken to the Twelfth Ward meeting-house by my mother, where we met Isaac Groo, who was to baptize me. I was half frightened, and wholly awed, and very nervous; but my ardent desire for the reestablishment of my health gave me a sort of bravery and Mormon Baptism. endurance, so that I was quite calm, and behaved myself very well, considering the unnaturally excited state which I was in.
The ordinance of baptism, as administered by the Mormons, does not differ very materially from that of the Baptist churches. It is always by immersion. Nothing else is ever considered efficacious. It must be a literal "watery burial," and a resurrection therefrom. The officiating elder, with his candidate for the rite, repairs to some place which has been previously appointed, and where there is a sufficient quantity of water to immerse the entire person. Not ​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/369 ​and placing him in the most perfect state of progression which, if real, would be a state of the highest felicity and most assured salvation.
Two or three elders lay their hands upon the head of the person to be confirmed, one of whom acts as a mouthpiece for the rest, and pronounces the blessings and promises, generally exhausting his full list of mercies upon him whom they are receiving into full Sainthood. There are two essentials in this ordinance which are never omitted — "I confirm you a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Mormon Confirmation. Latter-Day Saints," and, "I also confer upon you the Gift of the Holy Ghost."
Oftentimes the elder becomes so thoroughly filled with inspiration that he cannot cease his blessing until he has sealed the young Saint up to eternal life, with a perfect assurance that he shall "inherit all the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with a fulness of the holy priesthood after the order of an endless life;" thus placing him beyond the possibility of falling from grace or missing the celestial gate: though he may wander from the fold and become bewildered in fogs and darkness, yet in the consummation of his mission to earth he will find his way back to ​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/371 ​to be specially prepared for this occasion], where, in the absence of a regular Temple, the rites were performed. I expected something solemn and awful; something elevating to the spirit, and ennobling to the mind. How I was disappointed, everyone who has entered the Endowment-House with feelings similar to my own will understand. In place of the awe which I expected to find the rites endowed with, they were ridiculous and farcical in the extreme.
I have heard persons speak of the solemnity of their feelings on the occasion of taking their Endowments, but, with all respect to their truthfulness, I am always incredulous in The Endowment-House. the extreme. I think either their imagination must have got the better of their common sense, or they could have had very little of the latter commodity to begin with, else they would have seen through the very thin tissue of absurdities which they are obliged to witness with unmoved features, for to laugh in the Endowment-House would be the most fearful sacrilege. For my own part, I was in a most uncomfortable frame of mind. I wanted to laugh; everything seemed so ridiculous; and yet all the while I was conscience-stricken at my own levity. I thought it must be my own wicked heart, and not the rites themselves, and I ​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/373 ​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/374 ​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/375 ​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/376 ​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/377