“Let us sit down here together,” suggested David, and he led the way to a place where they could sit quietly.  “Are you in trouble?”

“Well, I hardly know,” replied the man.  “Anna and I are together, and perhaps we ought to be satisfied; but somehow we are not.  There is something lacking.”

“Yes?”

“You see, we left the earth-life, so suddenly—­we were so poorly prepared for this.”  His companion clasped his arm as if to be protected from some impending danger.  “We were boating on the lake, the boat overturned, and here we are....  We were to have been married the next day, but now—­now what is our condition?  We are not husband and wife; neither, I suppose, can we be, for we were taught back in that world from where we came, that there is no married condition here.  Yet you two are husband and wife, are you not?”

“Not yet,” replied David, “but we expect to be.”

“I don’t understand; you seem to know; teach us.  May we be married here?”

David explained the principle of celestial marriage as it had been revealed to them in earth-life, and contrasted that doctrine with what was usually taught.  “So you see,” said he, “even if you had been married on that day appointed in mortality, it would have been only until death did you part.  You have passed through death, and so, the contract between you would have come to an end, and you would not now be husband and wife.”

“But you said that you two were to be married.  How?”

“Had we been married in earth-life, it would have been for time and eternity, because it would have been performed by the authority of the Lord.  What God does, is forever.  Marriage must be solemnized on the earth.  As our earth-days are past, we cannot go back, so the ceremony must be done for us by someone else living on the earth.  Sister Rachel here, while in earth-life, did for thousands who had gone before what they could not do for themselves.  Now, someone, in the Lord’s own due time, will stand for her, and do for her what she did not do for herself.”

The two new acquaintances listened attentively while David and sometimes Rachel instructed them on the principles of the gospel, and their application to those who were in the spirit world.  They spoke to them of faith and repentance, principles which all men everywhere could receive and exercise.  They explained the ordinance of baptism for the remission of sins, an earthly rite, which could be believed in and accepted by those in the spirit world, but would have to be performed for them vicariously by someone on earth.  Marriage for eternity was also further explained.

“It is true,” concluded David, “that in the resurrection there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage.  All that must be attended to before the resurrection, which for all of us—­luckily—­is yet in the future.  We know for a surety that if we do our part the best we know, the Lord will take care of the rest.”