arched transom. The doors proper are twelve feet high, and each single door is four feet wide. In each door the bottom panel is of oak, while the middle and upper panels are occupied by beveled plate glass protected by bronze grills of intricate pattern carrying a bee-hive medallion in the center. The hardware attachments are all of cast bronze, and are of special design. The doorknob bears in relief the bee-hive, above which, in a curved line, appear the words, "Holiness to the Lord." The escutcheon presents in relief the clasped hands within a wreath of olive twigs, an arch with keystone, and the dates "1853-1893"—the years in which the great building was commenced and completed.
On the side of each of the doorways flanking the center tower is a canopied niche in the granite, large enough to receive a statue of heroic proportions.[1] Such is the great Temple as seen from without. The massive pile impresses even the casual observer as a type of permanency, and the embodiment of the stable and the durable. It stands as an isolated mass of the everlasting hills. As nearly as any work of man may so do, it suggests duration.
- ↑ For a number of years the niches at the east end of the Temple were occupied by bronze figures of Joseph Smith the prophet and Hyrum Smith the patriarch. These figures have since been removed to the open grounds within the Temple Block enclosure.
