**SOLD**TALMAGE, James E. THE HOUSE OF THE LORD. A Study of Holy Sanctuaries Ancient and Modern, Including Forty-Six Plates Illustrative of Modern Temples. By James E. Talmage, One of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Published by the Church. Salt Lake City: The Deseret News, 1912.
19½ cm. (= 7¾ inches tall).vi, 336 pp; 46 plates included in the pagination. Orig. decorated blue-green cloth gilt-lettered on spine and front board; top edge gilt. Binding worn, including an entire corner gone from the front board (see illustration). Generally very good internally (pages 193-208 lightly damstained & a bit warped).
$75**SOLD**
FIRST EDITION. Flake 8637. The first publication of interior photographic views of the Salt Lake Temple, including the Holy of Holies. I believe the latter image was removed from later editions . . .
The Holy of Holies: The central of the three small apartments connected with the Celestial Room . . . It is raised above the other two rooms and is reached by an additional flight of six steps inside the sliding doors. The short staircase is bordered by hand-carved balustrades, which terminate in a pair of newel-posts bearing bronze figures symbolical of innocent childhood; these support flower clusters, each jeweled blossom enclosing an electric bulb. On the landing at the head of the steps is another archway, beneath which are sliding doors; these doors mark the threshold of the inner room or Holy of Holies of the Temple, and correspond to the inner curtain or veil that shielded from public view the most sacred precincts of Tabernacle and Temple in the earlier dispensations.
. . . . The room is practically without natural light, but it is brilliantly illumined by a large electrolier and eight side clusters of lamps. The ceiling is a dome in which are set circular and semi-circular windows of jeweled glass, and on the outer side of these, therefore above the ceiling, are electric globes whose light penetrates into the room in countless hues of subdued intensity.
. . . . .
This room is reserved for the higher ordinances in the Priesthood relating to the exaltation of both living and dead. [pp. 192-4]
