In a sermon dated July 26, 1857, Heber C. Kimball was recorded as saying the following:
Every man that is
alive can act for himself under the hands of a man having authority. How will
you manage for the dead? You will have to do it by proxy. For instance, I have
got a father who died before "Mormonism" came; I go to brother
Brigham when we have a place for it:
says I, "brother Brigham, I want to be baptized for my
father;" he takes me and baptizes me for my father, I acting as proxy, or
for and in behalf of my father, and it is done upon the same principle that we
do it for ourselves; and that is recorded.
Can I go and be baptized
for my mother? Yes, I can be, though that is not the strict order of the law of
the kingdom; but let a man act for a man, and a woman for a woman, that each
may bear their share. I will let my wife go and attend to that, she acting as
proxy for my mother, and I for my father. Well now, I have got to attend to all
the ordinances faithfully that I attend to for myself, and then, when the time
comes, I can take my father and mother, and act for my father, and my wife act
for my mother; and then they can be connected in marriage, and then their
father and their mother, and so keep going on until we get back where we came
from, and connect the Priesthood together, and have the chain perfect from
these days to the days of Jesus, and then back to Adam.
Perhaps my father may
not receive the Gospel. If he don't, my baptism will not do him any good. He is
in the spirit-world; he has to believe and embrace the Gospel in his heart and
affections, and then I receive knowledge from him through a proper authority, and
I am administered to for him. You might as well go and be baptized for a devil
as for a man who will not receive the Gospel in the spirit-world. (JOD 5:90)
I found this interesting as it (1) implicitly refutes the belief that one’s knowledge from pre-existence is immediately restored to them after death (cf. Melvin J. Ballard on the Knowledge of the Gospel by those in the Spirit World) and (2) refutes the belief that all the dead will accept the gospel in the hereafter (or at least, it will be relatively easy to do such; contrast with Alma 34:34).
