ed his opinion, and urged Mr. Stearns to take
passage to Europe, sending him home one day to pack his valise.
The advice was opposed to his instincts, but he considered that
his wife should have a voice in the matter, who decided, 'midst
many tears and prayers, that if slavery required another victim,
he must be ready.

"With Dr. Howe it was quite different. He became possessed with a
dread that threatened to overwhelm his reason. He was in delicate
health, and constitutionally subject to violent attacks of
nervous headache. One day he came to Medford and insisted that
Mr. Stearns should accompany him to Canada, urging that if he
remained here he should be insane, and that Mr. Stearns of all
his friends was the only one who would be at all satisfactory to
him. This request, or rather demand, Mr. Stearns promptly
declined. How well I remember his agitation, walking up and down
the room, and finally entreating Mr. Stearns for 'friendship's
sake' to go and take care of him. I can recall no instance of
such self-abnegation in my husband's self-denying career. He did
not _stoop_ to an _explanation_, even when Dr. Howe declared in
his presence, some months later, "that he never did any thing in
his life he so much wished to take back." I had hoped that Dr.
Howe would himself have spared me from making this contribution
to the truth of history.

"On the 2d of December, Mr. Stearns yearned for the solitude of
his own soul, in communion of spirit, with the friend who, on
that day, would 'make the gallows glorious like the Cross'; and
he left Dr. Howe and took the train for Niagara Falls. There,
sitting alone beside the mighty rush of water, he solemnly
consecrated his remaining life, his fortune, and all that was
most dear, to the _cause_ in whose service John Brown had died.

"How well and faithfully he kept his vow, may partly be seen in
his subsequent efforts in recruiting the colored troops at a
vital moment in the terrible war of the Rebellion which so
swiftly followed the sublime apotheosis of 'Old John Brown.'"[70]

That John Brown intended to free the slaves, and nothing more, the
record shows clearly. His move on Harper's Ferry was well planned,
and had all the parties interested done their part the work would have
been done well. As to the rectitude of