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:
"Lo, I am this day four score and five years old. As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me; as my strength was then, even so is my strength now for war, both to go out and to come in. Now, therefore, give me this mountain whereof the Lord spoke in that day; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, and that the cities were great and fenced. If so be, the Lord will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out as the Lord said."
Noble, unselfish old Caleb! And how wonderfully like him was our hero thirty-four and a half centuries later. It mattered not that he had saved a great country, twice as large as New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois combined, or thirty-two times as large as Massachusetts. It mattered not that it was accomplished through great peril and trials and sufferings that no man can over-estimate, he never once asked a reward. "Give me this mountain," and he went back to his mission, and resumed his heavy burden, and let others gather the harvest, and "the clusters of purple grapes." There he was found at his post of duty, and met death on that fatal November the 29th, 1847.
When a generous people have made the endowment complete, and built the grand Memorial Hall, they should build a monument at the "Great Grave" at Waiilatpui. Americans are patriotic. They build monuments to their men of science, to their statesmen and to their soldiers. It is right to do so. They are grand object lessons, educating the young in patriotism and virtue and right living. The monument at no grave in all the land will more surely teach all these, than will that at the neglected grave at Waiilatpui. Build the monument and tell your children's children to go and stand uncovered in its shadow, and receive its lessons and breathe in its inspirations of patriotism.