In 1880, Wilford Woodruff
was president of the quorum of the Twelve Apostles. The church was under
immense pressure from federal government to end the practice of plural
marriage. Woodruff recorded that God spoke to him, promising plagues, wrath,
and judgment against the church’s accusers. God’s anger was kindled against
those in positions of government authority, such as:
The Preside[nt]ts of the United States, The Supreme Court, The Cabinet, The Senate & House of Conress of the United States The Governors of the States and Terrotor/ies\ The Judges & Officers sent unto you and all the men & persons who have taken any part in persecuting you or Bringing distress upon you or your families or have sought your lives or sought to hinder you from keeping my Command[men]ts or from Enjoying the rights which the Constitutional Laws of the Land guarantee unto you. (Woodruff, Journal, revelation copied following Dec. 31, 1880)
In an effort that
bears striking resemblance to the oath of vengeance, a list was compiled of
over 400 “Names of Persons, to be held in Remembrance before the Lord, For
their Evil Deeds, and who have raised their hands against the Lord’s anointed.”
The list included four U.S. presidents: Martin Van Buren, Ulysses S. Grant,
Rutherford B. Hayes, and James Buchanan (Buerger, Mysteries of Godliness,
unpaginated image and text). To secure God’s judgments against those on the list.
Woodruff was instructed to gather the Twelve and wash their feet as a testimony
against their enemies (Woodruff, Journal, revelation copied following Dec. 31,
1880 [originally given Jan. 26, 1880]. This revelation was given a second time
to Woodruff only days later, again emphasizing “the duty of the Apostles and
Elders to go into our Holy places & Temples and wash our feet and bear
testimony to God & the Heavenly hosts against the wickedness of this
Nation. My pillow was wet with the fountain of tears that flowed as I Beheld
the Judgments of God upon the wicked.” See Woodruff, Journal, Jan. 27, 1880).
The apostles were then to clothe themselves in temple robes and form a prayer
circle.
Woodruff describes
the eventual performance of this ordinance in solemn terms:
O Pratt was vary
feeble yet we all performed the ordinance of washing our feet against Our
Enemies And the Enemies of the Kingdom of God according to the Commandmet of
God unto us.
W. Woodruff opened By
Prayer And John Taylor was Mouth in the washing of feet. At the Prayer Circle
Lorenzo Snow was Mouth at the opening and Presidet JOHN TAYLOR was mouth at the
Altar, and Presented the Prayer written By W. Woodruff (By request of Presidet
Taylor) And the names were presented before the Lord according to the
Commandment.
It was truly a solomn
scene and I presume to say it was the first thing of the Kind since the Creation
of the world. …. We were 3 hours in the Meeting & ordinances. (Woodruff,
Journal, Jan. 19, 1881)
The actual prayer,
written by Woodruff and read by John Taylor, reads in part:
Now O Lord our God we
bear our testimony against these men, before Thee and the heavenly hosts and we
bear testimony unto thee Our heavenly Father that we according to thy
Commandments unto us we have gone alone by ourselves and Clensed our feet in
pure water and born testimony unto Thee and thy Son Jesus Christ and to the
heavenly hosts against these wicked men by name as far as the spirit has
manifested them unto us. We have borne our testimony against those who have shed
the blood of thy Prophets and Apostles and anointed Ones, or have given Consent
to their death and against those who have driven thy saints and imprisoned them
and those who are still ready to deprive us of Life, Liberty and the privilege
of keeping the Commandments of God.
And now O Lord our
God Thou has Commanded us that when we have done this we should gather ourselves
together in our holy Places and Clothed in the robes of the Holy Priesthood
should unite ourselves together in Prayer and supplication and that we should
bear our testimony against these men by name as far as wisdom should dictate.
. . . O Lord hear us from heaven thy Holy
dwelling place and answer our Petitions Sustain thine anointed ones and deliver
us from the Hands of Our Enemies. Overthrow the Evil designs of the wicked and
ungodly against thy Saints and break Evry weapon formed against us. (Woodruff,
Journal, revelation copied following Dec. 31, 1880)
This episode is notable
for a shift in the provocation to curse. In the past, curses had been performed
primarily against those who rejected a proselytizer’s message. Here the curse
was called down upon the church’s political enemies.
On one other known
occasion, a prayer circle was formed with intent to curse. In 1889, a prayer
circle was convened to curse R. N. Baskin, a non-Mormon lawyer who was actively
engaged in the anti-polygamy crusades of the time (“Mormons’ and Citizenship,” Deseret
Weekly, Nov. 23, 1889, 684-93). According to the journal of new apostle Abraham
H. Cannon, a group of nine church leaders convened on December 23, 1889. All
but two of them were dressed in their temple robes. Each member took a turn
acting as mouth for the prayer circle. Joseph F. Smith “was strongest in his
prayer and urged that Baskin should be made blind, deaf and dumb unless he
would repent of his wickedness” (Horne, Apostle’s Record, 119). Diary entries
from participants do not indicate that feet were dusted or washed in connection
with this prayer circle. The church was struggling to beat Baskin the
courtroom, and church leaders expressed their frustration by requesting that
God stop the trouble at its source. (Samuel R. Weber, “’Shake Off the Dust of
Thy Feet’ The Rise and Fall of Mormon Ritual Cursing,” in Bryan Buchanan, ed., Continuing
Revelation: Essays on Doctrine [Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2021], 199-226,
here, pp. 218-21)
Further Reading
Refuting the Tanners on Old Testament Practices and Mormonism: Cursing One's Enemies