The Willie and Martin handcart companies left too late in the season. They thought the Lord would do miracles for them and they would come through, so to speak, on dry ground. They did not. The miracles they got were different and later and came along with a heaping of suffering.

A Ephraim Hanks biography reminded me of two reasons why they should not have expected the miracles they did.

First, Brigham Young and the first exodus of the Saints intended to make it out to the Valley the year they left Nauvoo. But they eventually decided to halt at Winter Quarters because it was getting dangerously late in the year to try the journey. So the handcart companies were in effect claiming a larger store of virtue and faith than the Brethren or the Saints (to their credit, they probably did not realize this). Miracles do not come as rewards for lavish displays of conspicuous virtue.

Second, when Brother Brigham first announced the handcarts one of his main reasons is that the handcarters could leave earlier in the season since they had less kit to assemble. Blessings are not likely to attend following a commandment contrary to its expressed intent.

The companies themselves I bet were not aware of any this. They were just ignorant and foolish like the rest of us. But facts are facts, and consequences attend our choices according to the choice that we made, no matter what our motives may have been.

Still and all, for my own well-intentioned choices I plead mercy.

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