[12] The existence of the oath was confirmed in an 1889 Salt Lake City meeting of the First Presidency in which they discussed "the propriety of ... more fully explaining the instructions to pray for the avenging the blood of the prophets in the Endowments.
[14] At least one member felt the oath to include a personal obligation that "if he had ever met any of those who had taken a hand in that massacre he would undoubtedly have attempted to avenge the blood of the martyrs.
A good deal is being made of a form of prayer based upon two verses in the sixth chapter of the Revelations of St. John, as contained in the New Testament.
This nation or government has never been charged by the "Mormon" people with the assassination of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, as it is well known the murder was the act of a local mob disguised.Beginning in 1919, LDS Church president Heber J.
[2]: 122 [21] Heber C. Kimball, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the LDS Church, described the oath of vengeance in his diary on December 21, 1845.
[22] Increase and Maria Van Duesen, a married couple, describe their participation in the oath of vengeance in the Nauvoo Temple on January 29, 1846.
[28] During the Reed Smoot hearings, December 1904, in sworn testimony in front of the United States Senate, several witnesses described the oath of vengeance.
[33] The oath of vengeance is related to blood atonement in that both require capital punishment for sins regarded as unusually heinous.