[440] Compare verses 1, 5, and 6, Mal. iv.
=29.= In a glorious manifestation to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, given in the Kirtland Temple, April 3, 1836, there appeared unto them Elijah the prophet, who was taken to heaven without tasting death; he declared unto them: "Behold, the time has fully come which was spoken of by the mouth of Malachi, testifying that he (Elijah) should be sent before the great and dreadful day of the Lord come, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children to the fathers, lest the whole earth be smitten with a curse. Therefore the keys of this dispensation are committed into your hands, and by this ye may know that the great and dreadful day of the Lord is near, even at the doors."[441]
=30. The Fathers and the Children Mutually Dependent.=--One of the great principles underlying the doctrine of salvation for the dead is that of the mutual dependence of the fathers and the children. As the Prophet Joseph taught the Saints,[442] but for the establishment of a connecting link between the departed fathers and the living children, the earth would be smitten with a curse. The plan of God provides that neither the children nor the fathers can alone be made perfect; and the necessary union is effected through baptism and associated ordinances for the dead. The manner in which the hearts of the children and those of the fathers are turned toward one another is made plain through these scriptures. As the children learn that without the aid of their progenitors they cannot attain perfection, assuredly will their hearts be opened, their faith will be kindled, and good works will be attempted, for the redemption of their dead; and the departed, learning from the ministers of the gospel laboring among them, that they must depend upon their children as vicarious saviors, will seek to sustain their still mortal representatives with faith and prayer for the perfecting of those labors of love.
[442] Doc. and Cov. cxxviii, 18; see also this entire section and sec. cxxvii.
=31.= And love, which is a power in itself, is thus intensified. Aside from the emotions which are stirred within the soul by the presence of the Divine, there are few feelings stronger and purer than the love for kindred. Heaven would not be all we wish were family love unknown there.[443] Affection there will differ from its earthly type, in being deeper, stronger, purer. And thus in the mercy of God, His erring, mortal children, who have taken upon themselves the name of Christ on earth, may become, in a limited sphere, each a savior in the house of his fathers, and that too by vicarious labor and sacrifice, rendered in humility, and, as represented in the baptismal ordinance, typical of the death, burial, and resurrection of the Redeemer.