While on an airplane back in 1996, I read a few journal entries of some early Saints which inspired this song…
“My Amelia, born 1878, died [in] 1890, at the age of twelve. It had not occurred to me that there were further blessings for her. I had not known of any endowments…being given to young children and [I felt] satisfied it would not be allowed. One night, [Amelia] appeared to Lizzie [her younger sister] in a dream. She asked Lizzie to make her a white dress that she might go with companions somewhere. Lizzie thought she told [Amelia] that she should ask her mother to give her the dress. [Amelia] told Lizzie that she could not reach her mother. [When Lizzie recounted the dream to me] I knew it was my own fault. The child could not reach me. I would not bend my notions and make inquiry about her case. I learned that she was eligible for the endowment and therefore for the sealing also. On May 31, 1894, I went through the temple for her endowment.”
“In the Third Ward Relief Society Minutes, I recorded in 1880 as Secretary that Sister Jeffries, Third Ward Relief Society president and temple worker, was sitting one night sewing on some altar covers for the temple….She concluded that as soon as she finished the work for some names she had promised to do she would have her mother’s sealings and work done for her. And the thought of being able to do it was a complete joy for her. As she thought of it, the room of her house began to glow with a light brighter than day. Two persons in white robes appeared and between them her mother weeping and sorrowing. She said, ‘Daughter, you don’t know what it has cost me to come to you but you must make me a dress so that I might go with these (pointing to the white-robed messengers with her).’ Sister Jeffries thought she answered that as soon as she had completed on more day’s work—one she had already arranged for—she then would make the dress her mother asked for. Her mother said, ‘No, give me my dress before you do anything else! I want to take my place with these.’ With these words the light and the personages vanished.
“The next day, she had her mother sealed and endowed. It was the last day of her temple work. She came home sick and in a few weeks passed away to a lovely and glorious reward” (Taken from the Biographical Record of Martha Cragun Cox, an unpublished manuscript, pp. 214-272).
“…they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy. He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels” (Revelation 3: 4-5).
“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse”(Malachi 4: 5-6).
“Now, the nature of [the ordinances of the House of God] consists in the power of the priesthood, by the revelation of Jesus Christ, wherein it is granted that whatsoever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever you [do not bind] on earth shall [not be bound] in heaven. Let us, therefore, as a church and a people, and as Latter-day Saints, offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness; and let us present in his holy temple…a book containing the records of our dead, which shall be worthy of all acceptation” (Doctrine & Covenants 128: 8, 24).
