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| Source Our mission in life, as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, must be a mission of saving. |
My beloved brethren and sisters, how blessed we are to
meet together in peace in these comfortable and happy circumstances. As I have
thought of this October general conference and of the inspired talks we have
heard and will hear, my mind has gone back to the events of this same first
Sunday of October 135 years ago when a similar meeting was convened here on
Temple Square.
We did not have this great Tabernacle at that time. Our
people then met in the Old Tabernacle, which stood just to the south of us. It
was Sunday, October 5, 1856. On Saturday, the day before, a small group of
missionaries returning from England arrived in the valley. They had been able
to make relatively good time because their teams were strong and their wagons
light. Franklin D. Richards was their leader. They immediately sought out
President Brigham Young. They told him that hundreds of men, women, and
children were scattered along the trail that led from the Missouri River to the
Salt Lake Valley. Most of them were pulling handcarts, two companies of these,
with two smaller companies following behind with ox teams and wagons. The first
group was probably at this time in the area of Scotts Bluff, more than four
hundred miles from their destination, with the others behind them. It was
October, and they would be trapped in the snows of winter and perish unless
help was sent.
Brigham Young had known nothing of this. There was, of
course, at that time no rapid means of communication—no radio, no telegraph, no
fast mail. He was then fifty-five years of age. The next morning, the Sabbath,
he stood before the people in the Tabernacle and said:
“I will now give this people the subject and the text for
the Elders who may speak. … It is this. On the 5th day of October, 1856, many
of our brethren and sisters are on the plains with handcarts, and probably many
are now seven hundred miles from this place, and they must be brought here, we
must send assistance to them. The text will be, ‘to get them here.’ …
“That is my religion; that is the dictation of the Holy
Ghost that I possess. It is to save the people. …
“I shall call upon the Bishops this day. I shall not wait
until tomorrow, nor until the next day, for 60 good mule teams and 12 or 15
wagons. I do not want to send oxen. I want good horses and mules. They are in
this Territory, and we must have them. Also 12 tons of flour and 40 good
teamsters, besides those that drive the teams. …
“I will tell you all that your faith, religion, and
profession of religion, will never save one soul of you in the Celestial
Kingdom of our God, unless you carry out just such principles as I am now
teaching you. Go and bring in those people now on the plains.” (In Handcarts to
Zion, Glendale, Calif.: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1960, pp. 120–21.)
The next morning anvils were ringing in the blacksmith
shops as horses were shod and wagons were repaired and loaded.
The following morning, Tuesday, October 7th, “sixteen
good four-mule teams and twenty-seven hardy young men headed eastward with the
first installment of provisions. The gathering of more to follow, was pushed
vigorously.” (Hafen, p. 124.)
“By the end of October, two hundred and fifty teams were
on the road to give relief.” (Ibid., p. 125.)
There have been many eloquent sermons preached from the
pulpits on Temple Square, but none more eloquent than those spoken in that
October conference of 135 years ago.
Now let me leave that for a moment and pick up the story
from another position.
A few weeks ago, it was my privilege to dedicate a
monument to the memory of Ellen Pucell Unthank. It stands on the campus of
Southern Utah University in Cedar City, Utah. It is a bronze figure, beautiful
and engaging. It is of a little nine-year-old girl, standing with one foot
tiptoe, her hair blowing back in the wind, a smile on her face, eagerly looking
forward.
Ellen Pucell, as she was named, was born in a beautiful
area of England where the hills are soft and rolling and the grass is forever
green. Her parents, Margaret and William Pucell, were converts to The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. From the time of their baptism in 1837 until
the spring of 1856, they had scrimped and saved to go to the Zion of their
people in the valleys of the Rocky Mountains of America. Now that was possible,
if they were willing to pull a handcart one thousand miles across a wilderness.
They accepted that challenge, as did hundreds of their fellow converts.
Margaret and William took with them their two daughters,
Maggie, fourteen, and Ellen, nine. They said good-bye to loved ones they would
never again see in mortality. Near the end of May they set sail from Liverpool
with 852 of their convert associates. My wife’s grandmother, thirteen-year-old
Mary Goble, was a part of that company, and, I like to think, played with those
little girls aboard ship.
After six weeks at sea, they landed at Boston and took
the steam train to Iowa City. They had expected their handcarts and wagons
would be ready. They were not. There was a serious and disastrous delay. It was
not until late in July that they began the long march, first to Winter Quarters
on the Missouri, and from there to the Rocky Mountains.
The Pucells were assigned to the Martin Handcart Company.
The Goble family, my wife’s forebears, became a part of the Cluff Wagon
Company, which followed the handcarts to give help if needed.
With high expectation they began their journey. Through
sunlight and storm, through dust and mud, they trudged beside the Platte River
through all of the month of September and most of October. On October 19, they
reached the last crossing of the Platte, a little west of the present city of
Casper, Wyoming. The river was wide, the current strong, and chunks of ice were
floating in the water. They were now traveling without sufficient food. Bravely
they waded through the icy stream. A terrible storm arose with fierce winds
bringing drifting sand, hail, and snow. When they climbed the far bank of the
river, their wet clothing froze to their bodies. Exhausted, freezing, and
without strength to go on, some quietly sat down, and while they sat, they
died.
Ellen’s mother, Margaret, became sick. Her husband lifted
her onto the cart. They were now climbing in elevation toward the Continental
Divide, and it was uphill all the way. Can you see this family in your
imagination?—the mother too sick and weak to walk, the father thin and emaciated,
struggling to pull the cart, as the two little girls push from behind with
swirling, cold winds about them, and around them are hundreds of others
similarly struggling.
They came to a stream of freezing water. The father,
while crossing, slipped on a rock and fell. Struggling to his feet, he reached
the shore, wet and chilled. Sometime later he sat down to rest. He quietly
died, his senses numbed by the cold. His wife died five days later. I do not
know how or where their frozen bodies were buried in that desolate, white
wilderness. I do know that the ground was frozen and that the snow was piled in
drifts and that the two little girls were now orphans.
Between 135 and 150 of the Martin company alone perished
along that trail of suffering and death. It was in these desperate and terrible
circumstances—hungry, exhausted, their clothes thin and ragged—that they were
found by the rescue party. As the rescuers appeared on the western horizon
breaking a trail through the snow, they seemed as angels of mercy. And indeed
they were. The beleaguered emigrants shouted for joy, some of them. Others, too
weak to shout, simply wept, and wept, and wept.
There was now food to eat and some warmer clothing. But
the suffering was not over, nor would it ever end in mortality. Limbs had been
frozen and the gangrenous flesh sloughed off from the bones.
The carts were abandoned, and the survivors were crowded
into the wagons of the rescuers. The long rough journey of three hundred, four
hundred, even five hundred miles between them and this valley was especially
slow and tedious because of the storms. On November 30, 104 wagons, loaded with
suffering human cargo, came into the Salt Lake Valley. Word of their expected
arrival had preceded them. It was Sunday, and again the Saints were gathered in
the Tabernacle. Brigham Young stood before the congregation and said:
“As soon as this meeting is dismissed I want the brethren
and sisters to repair to their homes. …
“The afternoon meeting will be omitted, for I wish the
sisters to … prepare to give those who have just arrived a mouthful of
something to eat, and to wash them and nurse them. …
“Some you will find with their feet frozen to their
ankles; some are frozen to their knees and some have their hands frosted … we
want you to receive them as your own children, and to have the same feeling for
them.” (Handcarts to Zion, p. 139.)
The two orphan girls, Maggie and Ellen, were among those
with frozen limbs. Ellen’s were the most serious. The doctor in the valley,
doing the best he could, amputated her legs just below the knees. The surgical
tools were crude. There was no anesthesia. The stumps never healed. She grew to
womanhood, married William Unthank, and bore and reared an honorable family of
six children. Moving about on those stumps, she served her family, her
neighbors, and the Church with faith and good cheer, and without complaint,
though she was never without pain. Her posterity are numerous, and among them
are educated and capable men and women who love the Lord whom she loved and who
love the cause for which she suffered.
Years later, a group in Cedar City were talking about her
and others who were in those ill-fated companies. Members of the group spoke
critically of the Church and its leaders because the company of converts had
been permitted to start so late in the season. I now quote from a manuscript
which I have:
“One old man in the corner sat silent and listened as long
as he could stand it. Then he arose and said things that no person who heard
will ever forget. His face was white with emotion, yet he spoke calmly,
deliberately, but with great earnestness and sincerity.
“He said in substance, ‘I ask you to stop this criticism.
You are discussing a matter you know nothing about. Cold historic facts mean
nothing here for they give no proper interpretation of the questions involved.
A mistake to send the handcart company out so late in the season? Yes. But I
was in that company and my wife was in it and Sister Nellie Unthank whom you
have cited was there too. We suffered beyond anything you can imagine and many
died of exposure and starvation, but did you ever hear a survivor of that
company utter a word of criticism? Not one of that company ever apostatized or
left the Church because every one of us came through with the absolute
knowledge that God lives for we became acquainted with him in our
extremities.’” (Manuscript in my possession.)
That speaker was Francis Webster, who was twenty-six
years of age when with his wife and infant child he went through that
experience. He became a leader in the Church and a leader in the communities of
southern Utah.
Now, my brothers and sisters, I have spent a long time
telling that story, perhaps too long. This is October of 1991, and that episode
of 135 years ago is behind us. But I have told it because it is true and
because the spirit of that saga is as contemporary as is this morning.
I wish to remind everyone within my hearing that the
comforts we have, the peace we have, and, most important, the faith and
knowledge of the things of God that we have, were bought with a terrible price
by those who have gone before us. Sacrifice has always been a part of the
gospel of Jesus Christ. The crowning element of our faith is our conviction of
our living God, the Father of us all, and of His Beloved Son, the Redeemer of
the world. It is because of our Redeemer’s life and sacrifice that we are here.
It is because of His sacrificial atonement that we and all of the sons and
daughters of God will partake of the salvation of the Lord. “For as in Adam all
die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Cor. 15:22.) It is because
of the sacrificial redemption wrought by the Savior of the world that the great
plan of the eternal gospel is made available to us under which those who die in
the Lord shall not taste of death but shall have the opportunity of going on to
a celestial and eternal glory.
In our own helplessness, He becomes our rescuer, saving
us from damnation and bringing us to eternal life.
In times of despair, in seasons of loneliness and fear,
He is there on the horizon to bring succor and comfort and assurance and faith.
He is our King, our Savior, our Deliverer, our Lord and our God.
Those on the high, cold plains of Wyoming came to know
Him in their extremity as perhaps few come to know Him. But to every troubled
soul, every man or woman in need, to those everywhere who are pulling heavy
burdens through the bitter storms of life, He has said:
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.
“Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek
and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
“For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matt.
11:28–30.)
Now, I am grateful that today none of our people are
stranded on the Wyoming highlands. But I know that all about us there are many
who are in need of help and who are deserving of rescue. Our mission in life,
as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, must be a mission of saving. There are
the homeless, the hungry, the destitute. Their condition is obvious. We have
done much. We can do more to help those who live on the edge of survival.
We can reach out to strengthen those who wallow in the
mire of pornography, gross immorality, and drugs. Many have become so addicted
that they have lost power to control their own destinies. They are miserable
and broken. They can be salvaged and saved.
There are wives who are abandoned and children who weep
in homes where there is abuse. There are fathers who can be rescued from evil
and corrosive practices that destroy and bring only heartbreak.
It is not with those on the high plains of Wyoming that
we need be concerned today. It is with many immediately around us, in our
families, in our wards and stakes, in our neighborhoods and communities.
“And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were
of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor
among them.” (Moses 7:18.)
If we are to build that Zion of which the prophets have spoken
and of which the Lord has given mighty promise, we must set aside our consuming
selfishness. We must rise above our love for comfort and ease, and in the very
process of effort and struggle, even in our extremity, we shall become better
acquainted with our God.
Let us never forget that we have a marvelous heritage
received from great and courageous people who endured unimaginable suffering
and demonstrated unbelievable courage for the cause they loved. You and I know
what we should do. God help us to do it when it needs to be done, I humbly pray
in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
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