It’s snowing outside. Here I sit by the fire taking it all in as the snow comes down blanketing my neighborhood in white. I’m reading The Willie and Martin Handcart Story. In 1856 European immigrants met with tragedy on their trek west to the Salt Lake Valley. A late start and an early winter created the perfect storm.
The first 200 miles went well, but not long after the early snowstorms hit. They pushed on by day in the harsh winter elements with little relief from the cold at night. Frozen limbs and frozen expressions as loved ones around them fell to the ground and did not get up. Wolves in the distance were watching and waiting. Eventually they became stranded in the high country of Wyoming.
I can’t comprehend their struggles. I know what it is like to push a wheelbarrow full of wet wood on a cold winter morning. When snow covers the ground it’s nearly impossible for me to go very far. How did they persevere on their quest?
To me God Speed the Right rings true as a tribute to early pioneers who displayed extraordinary courage and suffered the unimaginable in order to gather in the West with those who shared their spiritual convictions.
Now to heav’n our prayer ascending,
God speed the right;
In a noble cause contending,
God speed the right.
Be our zeal in heaven recorded,
With success on earth rewarded.
God speed the right.
God speed the right.
Be that prayer again repeated,…
Ne’er despairing, though defeated,…
Like the great and good in story,
If we fail, we fail with glory.
God speed the right.
God speed the right.
Patient, firm, and persevering,…
No event nor danger fearing,…
Pains, nor toils, nor trials heeding,
And in heav’n’s good time succeeding,
God speed the right.
God speed the right.
—William E. Hickson
Click HERE to download free sheet music
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