There is no such thing as dividing the honors. They are simply
Whitman honors; they lived and labored and achieved together; the
bride upon the plains and in the mission home was a heroine scarcely
second to the hero who swam icy rivers and climbed the snow-covered
mountains in 1842 and 1843, upon his patriotic mission. It is a work
that may well engage the patriotic women of America; for true
womanhood has never had a more beautiful setting than in the life of
Narcissa Whitman. At the death, by drowning, of her only child, that
she almost idolized, she bowed humbly and said: "Thy Will be done!"
And upon the day of her death, she was mother to eleven helpless
adopted children, for whose safety she prayed in her expiring moments.
What an unselfish life she led. In her diary she says, but in no
complaining mood: "Situated as we are, our house is the Missionaries'
tavern, and we must accommodate more or less all the time. We have no
less than seven families in our two houses; we are in peculiar and
somewhat trying circumstances; we cannot sell to them because we are
missionaries and not traders."
And we see by the record that there were no less than seventy souls in
the Whitman family the day of the massacre.
Emerson says: "Heroism is an obedience to a secret impulse of
individual character, and the characteristics of genuine heroism is
its persistency."
Where was it ever more strongly marked than in Dr. Whitman? We are
told that "History repeats itself." Going back upon the historic
pages, one can find the best illustration of Dr. Whitman in faithful
old Caleb. Their lives seem to run along similar lines. Both were sent
to spy out the land. Both returned and made true and faithful reports.
Both were selected for their great physical fitness, and for their
fine mental and moral worth; and both proved among the finest
specimens of unselfish manhood ever recorded. Turning to the Sacred
Record we read that a great honor was ordered for Caleb; not only that
he was permitted to enter the promised land, but it was also
understood by all, that he should have the choice of all the fair
country they were to occupy. His associates sent with him forty years
before were terribly afraid of "the giants," and now they had reached
"The land of promise," and Joshua had assembled the leaders of Israel
to assign them their places. Just notice old Caleb. Standing in view
of the meadows and fields and orchards, loaded with their rich
clusters of purple grapes, everybody expected he would select the
best, for they knew that it was both promised and he deserved it; but
Caleb, lifting up his voice so that all could hear, said:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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