Dedicatory Prayer

David O. McKay

Dedicatory Prayer – London England Temple

“It is fitting that we express appreciation of the signing of the Magna Carta in the County of Surrey, the same county in which we meet today wherein the promise is given that no freeman shall be taken or imprisoned or disseized or outlawed or exiled…without proper trial by his peers or by the law of the land. This protection of the individual is in keeping with Thy divine will; and any group of men who advocate an ideology that would deprive man of this individual right and heritage and make him a vassal of the state stamp themselves at once as enemies of Thy divine purposes. …O Father, help people everywhere more clearly to realize that government exists for the protection of the individual, not the individual for the government.”


President Gordon B. Hinckley

Dedicatory Prayer – London Temple

“…it was at Runnymede, in this county of Surrey, in the year 1215 that the Magna Charta was signed, establishing principles in behalf of the freedom and dignity of man. …They have spread from here and have been incorporated in the constitutions and charters of other nations across the earth who also have established governments that derive their powers from the consent of the governed. …We acknowledge thy divine hand in the establishment and preservation of that freedom in this the United Kingdom.”


President George Albert Smith

Dedicatory Prayer – Idaho Falls Temple

“As we look about in the world among the various countries we find philosophies and forms of government the effect of which is to deprive men of their free agency, but by reason of Thy timely warning to us, we know that they are not approved of Thee. Since the God of this choice land is Jesus Christ, we know that His philosophy of free agency should prevail here.”