For the massacre at Mountain Meadows was the logical culmination of that "reformation" which Brigham had first permitted, then sanctioned and sustained. It was the legitimate result of the doctrine of blood atonement. It was no more than the translation into deeds of sermons which Brigham and his aids had preached for years. Brigham and Jedediah Grant and Heber Kimball and others had risen in the pulpit Sunday after Sunday, and raved and ranted about "unsheathing the bowie knife," "laying judgment to the line and righteousness to the plummet," "shedding blood," "hewing down the evil tree," and a thousand other such criminal follies. Was it to be expected that simple savages like Lee or covetous savages like Haigh or Klingensmith would hold their hands when thus told of the righteousness of murder? Were they to quibble and evade and tone down the words of the Lord's anointed prophet and revelator? If the sermons of the "reformation" meant anything, the Mountain Meadows massacre was justified. If they meant nothing, why were they uttered?