On went the heroic band, nothing daunted, wading rivers, crossing deserts and climbing mountains; trusting in God and their great destiny. It did not desert them. On the afternoon of Saturday, July 24th, 1847, their dust-covered wagons emerged from the mouth of the ravine now known as Emigration Canyon, and the Valley of the Great Salt Lake burst like a vision of glory upon their enraptured view.
Ah! marvel nothing if the eye may trace
The care-lines on each toil-worn hero's face,
Nor yet, if down his cheek in silent show,
The trickling tides of tender feeling flow;
Tears not of weakness, nor of sorrow's mood,
As when o'er vanished joys sad memories brood,
Far richer fount those fearless eyes bedewed,
They wept the golden drops of gratitude.
Wherefore! Ask of the bleak and biting wind,
The rivers, rocks and deserts left behind,
The rolling prairie's waste of moveless waves,
A path of pain, a trail of nameless graves;
The city fair where widowed loneliness
Weeps her lost children in the wilderness;
The river broad along whose icy bridge
Their bleeding feet red-hued each frozen ridge;
The Christian world that drove them forth to die
On barren wilds beneath a wintry sky.
Would e'en the coldest heart forbear to say
Good cause had gratitude to weep that day?
Or censure for a flow of manly tears
That brave-souled band, immortal Pioneers?
CHAPTER LVI.
THE PIONEERS ENTER THE VALLEY—EXPLORING AND COLONIZING—A RENEWAL OF COVENANTS—SELECTION OF INHERITANCES—RETURN OF THE LEADERS TO WINTER QUARTERS.
Heber and Brigham entered the Valley together, on the ever memorable "Twenty-fourth," the day chosen by the Pioneers to celebrate their advent into the chambers of the mountains. As a matter of fact, however, Apostle Orson Pratt with Elder Erastus Snow and others, sent on from Bear River ahead of the main company to break a road over the mountains and through the canyons, had penetrated to and partly explored the Valley three days before. Heber remained behind with the President, who was ill, having contracted the mountain fever.
Arriving at the camp of Elder Pratt, they found that the brethren had pitched their tents beside two small streams of pure water, and were already engaged in ploughing and putting in crops. A shower of rain fell that afternoon.
The next day being the Sabbath, the usual services were held and the sacrament administered to the congregation. The speakers of the day were George A. Smith, Heber C. Kimball, Ezra T. Benson, Wilford Woodruff, Orson Pratt and Willard Richards. The main theme of the discourses, naturally enough, was the "land of promise" in the "mountains of Israel," unto which the God of Jacob had led the vanguard of His covenant people.