The new domed roof, arching 68 feet overhead, rested on 44 sandstone pillars, each secure in its assignment to help protect the Saints from the October weather as President Heber C. Kimball gazed out at the vast congregation before him. The year was 1867, and the Salt Lake Tabernacle was ready for its first general conference gathering.

The early Church leader, who gave the first conference speech from its pulpit, marveled that it was the largest crowd he had ever seen under one roof. Indeed, the 7,000 people assembled could take great pride in what they had created in the middle of a desert, 1,500 miles from railroad access.Those sandstone pillars, for example, were quarried in Red Butte Canyon near Salt Lake City and hauled by ox team to the site, where they were carefully mortared into place on their foundation. They provided a secure anchor for the wooden lattice trusses, bent into elliptical arches, that even today give the Tabernacle its distinctive place in architecture.

Without the pillars, there would be no Tabernacle. Without the foundation, the pillars would not stand. The pillars do not shift, nor does the foundation move. Similarly, the gospel message preached on that first day of the October 1867 conference has not changed over the succeeding 128 years, even though the environment has changed radically from the day when builders of the Tabernacle used wooden dowels and leather thongs because nails and bolts weighed too much to transport overland by ox team.

There are pillars in our lives, too, and foundations.

The four great pillars of our lives are our family, our religion, our work and our community. They often share common traits.

Among the pillars that hold up our family are fidelity, unreserved love, commitment and sacrifice of our own pleasures for those of our children and spouses. The pillars of our work include honesty with others, industry in our assignments, obedience to supervisors, and developing our talents and skills. Society's pillars also include cooperation, honesty, sacrificing our own effort for a common good, and willingness to either lead or be led.

Interesting how those pillars have so much in common. And what of their foundations? What is the foundation for honesty, sacrifice, cooperation, love and fidelity?

For members of the Church, the answer is not only obvious, but also proclaimed in its very name. The rock foundation upon which the Church exists is the Savior and His gospel message of love, obedience, service to others and sacrifice.

The Prophet Joseph Smith said that the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ is so basic that all things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it. (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 121.) On that foundation, the Church itself has pillars that support it, including revelation that continues to this day, the Book of Mormon, the priesthood and individual testimonies affirmed by the Holy Ghost.

The Lord's prophets often cite this relationship of values to foundations. Christ Himself used the analogy in His parable of the man who built his house upon a rock, "And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock." (Matt. 7:25).

President Joseph F. Smith wrote that, "The very foundation of the kingdom of God, of righteousness, of progress, of development, of eternal life and eternal increase in the kingdom of God, is laid in the divinely ordained home." (Gospel Doctrine, p. 304). President Spencer W. Kimball wrote: "The bridge builder, before starting construction, draws charts and plans, makes estimates of strains and stresses, costs and hazards; the architect, even before excavation, makes a blueprint of the building from foundation to pinnacle. Similarly, the smart person will plan carefully and blueprint his own life from his first mental awakening to the end of life." (The Miracle of Forgiveness, pp. 234-235.)

As general conference opens again this weekend within the great walls of the Tabernacle, it's worth recalling its remarkable dedicatory prayer. In 1875, Elder John Taylor, later to be president of the Church, dedicated not only the building, but also the mortar which bound the foundation together, and the components of the building itself, from nails and plaster through hinges and windows, because each represented work and sacrifice which had made them sacred.

In its article on the first conference in the building, the Deseret News reported on President Heber C. Kimball's address: "The work is spreading and will continue to grow; there is no fear of its failing or being retarded in its progress; and our duty is to watch and pray lest we should not be progressing with it." (Deseret News, Oct. 9, 1867.)

The message, and the foundation on which it rests, is still the same.