Relative to the Prophet's connection with masonry and its connection with temple ceremonies, and the endowment rites having been copied from masonry, etc., which are the subjects of your inquiry, I would respectfully submit the following: While there is no doubt of the Prophet's connection with masonry, at Nauvoo,--and that at about the same time of his first connection with masonry he also introduced the endowment ceremonies; namely, on the 4th of May, 1842,--the evidence, to my mind, is very clear that his knowledge of the endowment ceremonies proceeded his contact with masonry. I believe the beginnings of God's revelation to him of endowment ceremonies began with his getting possession of the Book of Abraham, in the form of the Egyptian papyrus manuscript. . . A careful examination of facsimile No. 2 from the Book of Abraham, and the Prophet's half cryptic translation, which accompanies it, clearly shows that the signs and figures thereon refer to matters concerning the grand key words of the Priesthood, with the assertion that some of the writing cannot be revealed unto the world, "but is to be had in the Holy Temple of God." Some nine of the figures in the facsimile are referred to, with the promise that they will be given in the due time of the Lord, all of which doubtless refers to the sacred mysteries of our Temple ordinances, and all this from five to seven years before the Prophet's contact with masonry. . .A careful study of the facts will, I think, establish beyond controversy that the Prophet was not at all dependent upon anything he learned in masonry for our endowment ceremonies, any more than what he learned from the defective creeds of Christianity made him indebted to those creeds for what he brought forth in the dispensation of the gospel that he, under God, gave to the world. The Saints may rest assured that what we have through the Prophet, in relation to the Priesthood and its sacred mysteries, resulted from the revelations of God to Joseph Smith, and not from the Prophet's incidental and brief connection with masonry.