---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Talmage, James Edward
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 4
number: 11
published: 1901-09
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'James E. Talmage, "The Story of “Mormonism” IV," *Improvement Era* 4, no. 11 (September 1901): 817.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0411unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera0411unse
start_page: 817
end_page: 817
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1901-09)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0411unse
  publication_year: 1901
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1901, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# The Story of “Mormonism” IV

<!-- page:817 -->

THE STORY OF ''MORMONISM/'*
BY DR. JAMES E. TALMAGE, OF THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH.

( Continued from page 738.)

But the dangers of this company's migration were surpassed
by those of parties who subsequently braved the terrors of the
plains. In their enthusiasm to reach the gathering place of their
people, many of the Latter-day Saints set out from Iowa, where
railway facilities had their termination, with handcarts only as a
means of conveyance. Today there are living in the smiling vales
of Utah, men and women who then as boys and girls trudged
wearily across the prairies, dragging their lumbering vehicles con-
taining their entire provision against starvation and freezing.
Such handcart companies were fully organized, a limited amount
of freight only being allowed to each division, milch cattle and a
very few draught animals with wagons for conveying the heavier
baggage and to carry the sick were assigned. The tale of their
dreary marches has never yet been told; the song of the heroism
and sacrifice displayed by these pilgrims for conscience sake is
awaiting a singer worthy the theme. Wading the streams with
carts in tow, or in cases of unfordable streams, stopping to con-
struct rafts; at times living on reduced rations of but a few ounces
of meal daily per head; lying down at night with a prayer in the
heart that they may wake no more on earth, a prayer which found
its fulfillment in hundreds of cases; the dying heaving their final

*A lecture delivered by invitation at the University of Michigan,
at Cornell University, and elsewhere.