Sight of Earth
Descending the Snow-Pit
The Flesh of the Dead
Refusing to Eat
The Morning Star
The Mercy of God
The Mutilated Forms
The Dizziness of Delirium
Faith Rewarded
"There is Mrs. Breen!"

Very noble was the part which Mrs. Margaret Breen performed in this
Donner tragedy, and very beautifully has that part been recorded by a
woman's hand. It is written so tenderly, so delicately, and with so much
reverence for the maternal love which alone sustained Mrs. Breen, that
it can hardly be improved. This account was published by its author,
Mrs. Farnham, in 1849, and is made the basis of the following sketch.
With alterations here and there, made for the sake of brevity, the
article is as it was written:

There was no food in Starved Camp. There was nothing to eat save a few
seeds, tied in bits of cloth, that had been brought along by some one,
and the precious lump of sugar. There were also a few teaspoonfuls
of tea. They sat and lay by the fire most of the day, with what heavy
hearts, who shall know! They were upon about thirty feet of snow. The
dead lay before them, a ghastlier sight in the sunshine that succeeded
the storm, than when the dark clouds overhung them. They had no words
of cheer to speak to each other, no courage or hope to share, but those
which pointed to a life where hunger and cold could never come, and
their benumbed faculties were scarcely able to seize upon a consolation
so remote from the thoughts and wants that absorbed their whole being.

A situation like this will not awaken in common natures religious trust.
Under such protracted suffering, the animal outgrows the spiritual
in frightful disproportion. Yet the mother's sublime faith, which had
brought her thus far through her agonies, with a heart still warm toward
those who shared them, did not fail her now. She spoke gently to one
and another; asked her husband to repeat the litany, and the children
to join her in the responses; and endeavored to fix their minds upon
the time when the relief would probably come. Nature, as unerringly as
philosophy could have done, taught her that the only hope of sustaining
those about her, was to set before them a termination to their
sufferings.

What days and nights were those that went by while they waited! Life
waning visibly in those about her; not a morsel of food to offer them;
her own infant--and the little one that had been cherished and sav