be
feasible, or they might not. If the glorious old man wanted money
to try his plans, he should have it. His plans might fail;
probably would, but _he_ could never be a failure. There he
stood, unconquerable, in the panoply of divine Justice. Both of
these men were of the martyr type. No thought or consideration
for themselves, for _history_, or the estimation of others, ever
entered into their calculations. It was the service of _Truth_
and _Right_ which brought them together, and in that service they
were ready to die.

"In the words of an eminent writer[68]: 'A common spirit made
these two men recognize each other at first sight; and the power
of both lay in that inability to weigh difficulties against duty,
that instant step of thought to deed, which makes individuals
fully possessed by the idea of the age, the turning-points of its
destiny; hands in the right place for touching the match to the
train it has laid, or for leading the public will to the heart of
its moral need. They knew each other as minute-men on the same
watch; as men to be found _in_ the breach, before others knew
where it was; they were one in pity, one in indignation, one in
moral enthusiasm, burning beneath features set to patient
self-control; one in simplicity, though of widely different
culture; one in religious inspiration, though at the poles of
religious thought. The old frontiersman came from his wilderness
toils and agonies to find within the merchant's mansion of art
and taste by the side of Bunker Hill, a perfect sympathy: the
reverence of children, tender interest in his broken household,
free access to a rich man's resources, and even a valor kindred
with his own.'

"The attack upon Harper's Ferry was a 'side issue,' to quote the
words of John Brown, Jr., and a departure from his father's
original plan. It certainly took all his friends by surprise. In
his letter of Nov. 15, 1859 (while in prison), to his old
schoolmaster, the Rev. H. L. Vaill, are these words: 'I am not as
yet, in the _main_, at all disappointed. I have been a good deal
disappointed as it regards _myself_ in not keeping up to my own
plans; but I now feel entirely reconciled to that even: for God's
plan was infinitely better, _no doubt_, or I should have kept my
own. Had Sam