Part 3 (1/2)

But while we feel the veracity of these words there cos: 'Get hold of one truth, let it blaze in your sky like a Greenland sun, never setting day or night See it in everything, and everything in it The world will call you a bigot and fanatic, and then fifty years after onder hoas the bigot and fanatic ed to do so much more than all the sensible men round about him'

John Brown vindicated that opinion

CHAPTER VIII

THE HALT OF THE BODY AND THE MARCH OF THE SOUL

The journeys of John Brown's body were now at an end Only his soul was free to travel, and it found its vehicle in letters which carried thoughts that breathed and words that burned far and wide

This condemned prisoner had five weeks left of mortal life, and they were the reatest achievement of his life was the marvellous advocacy of the cause conducted from his prison His friend F B Sanborn says: 'Here was a defeated, dying oldand toiling for years, to persuade a great people that their national life was all wrong, suddenly converting nanimity or the spoken wisdom of his last days as a fettered prisoner'

He had spoken of a Sareat triumph in store for him Even so it was, and in his death and by the manner of it he reat continent watched froh it that made Emancipation a triuht be in vain, but Brown's death was helping to save the life of the nation

His letters from the prison were many and widely circulated All he has to say of hiradation 'I can trust God with the ti that for me now to seal my testimony with my life will do vastly more for the Cause than all I have done before Dear wife and children, do not feel degraded on my account' Hu than for any other purpose' 'Say to rieve for one moment on my account; and should many of you live to see the time when you will not blush to own your relation to old John Brown, it will not be s that have happened' '”He shall BEGIN to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines” This,' said he, 'I think is true of my commission from God and my work' The scaffold had no terrors for him His trust, he averred, was firm in that Redeemer who, to European and Ethiopian, bond and free alike, had brought a year of Jubilee and a great salvation

But though he asked no pity for himself, he pleaded in every letter for those who, as he said, were on the 'under-hill' side 'Weep not for me,' he wrote home, 'but for the crushed millions who have no comforter' The old text was continually repeated, 'Remember them that are in bonds as bound with the hatred that 'suitation in the prison was the intrusive ministration of certain pro-slavery parsons He refused to let a man who 'had the blood of the slaves on his skirts' entleentleo with me to the scaffold,' he asked 'I would rather have an escort of barefooted, bareheaded, ragged slave boys and girls led by sorey-headed slave reat admiration for the brave old man was ambitious to execute a marble bust of him He applied to Mrs

Stearns--Brown's old wealthy supporter--to aid him in his enterprise

She readily promised to supply all funds, but, said she, 'You will have a vain journey for the ive the money to the poor” You will then say, ”Mr Brown, posterity ant to knohat you looked like,” and he will reply, ”No consequence to posterity how I looked; better give the o if you will and use er artist With some difficulty he procured an intervieith the prisoner But woive the money to the poor' But the artist pleaded, 'Posterity ant to see what you were like' Said the ed that his work rather than his meive the money to the poor' However, the name of Mrs Steams prevailed at last, and with a thankful look he said, 'She must have what she desires; take the measurements'

The day of execution, December 2, 1859, drew near Excitement increased, and for the first time in the history of the Union the passport systeinia, and was ht days of Brown's life, lest haply aid froanized Troops were present to the number of 3,000, around the scaffold at Charlestohen he was carried forth to die Rued that he had on the way to the scaffold taken a slave child from its mother's arms and kissed it

But, credible as it may have been to many, those ere present kneas too closely pinioned and guarded for it to be possible He had little to say--only one word of the glory of the surrounding scenery, for he was a true son of Nature to the last He had placed in an official's hands a slip of paper with the folloords upon it: 'I, John Brown, auilty land will never be purged away but with blood I had, as I now think vainly, flattered ht be done'

Upon the scaffold he only bade them be quick, as he was quite ready