In the October conference of 1952, Elder Matthew Cowley spoke of the sacred triangle, which consists of God and a wife and husband. This sacred triangle is fully established in a covenantal setting when the wife and husband hold hands at the temple’s altar. Elder Cowley said, “We . . . who have knelt at the sacred altar and on that altar clasped the hand of a sainted companion and have entered an eternal triangle, not a companionship of two, but of three—the husband, the wife, and God—the most sacred triangle man and woman can become a part of. . . . I thank God for the symbol of the handclasp, with all of its eternal significance. God grant that I may always have the strength to clasp the hand of my companion wife and that she will always have the strength to hold my hand as if it were in a vise.”270