[Brigham Young]
I rise to make a few remarks, to satisfy the feelings of the people and correct their minds and judgment. You have heard concerning the sufferings of the people in the handcart trains. ... Count the living and the dead, and you will find that not half the number died in brother Willie's handcart company, in proportion to the number in that company, as have died in past seasons by the cholera in single companies travelling with wagons and oxen, with carriages and horses, and that too in the forepart of the season. ... they have not suffered one hundredth part so much as did our brethren and sisters who have died with the cholera. Some of those who have died in the hand-cart companies this season, I am told, would be singing, and, before the tune was done, would drop over and breathe their last; and others would die while eating, and with a piece of bread in their hands. I should be pleased when the time comes, if we could all depart from this life as easily as did those our brethren and sisters. I repeat, it will be a happy circumstance, when death overtakes me, if I am privileged to die without a groan or struggle, while yet retaining a good appetite for food. I speak of these things, to forestall indulgence in a misplaced sympathy. ...
[Source: Journal of Discourses. Liverpool, England, 1853-86. 4:89-94, in The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, Ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Smith-Pettit Foundation, Salt Lake City (2009), http://bit.ly/BY-discourses]
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