scorn, and eased their feelings by referring to him as
the "madman." Friends faltered, and, while they did not question his
earnestness, doubted his judgment. "Why," they asked, "should he act
with such palpable rashness, and thereby render more difficult and
impossible the emancipation of the slaves?" They claimed that the blow
he struck, instead of severing, only the more tightly riveted, the
chains upon the helpless and hapless Blacks. But in the face of
subsequent history we think his surviving friends will change their
views. There is no proof that his fears were not well grounded; that a
conspiracy was in progress. And who can tell whether a larger force
would have been more effective, or the night of the 24th more
opportune? May it not be believed that the good old man was right, and
that Harper's Ferry was just the place, and the 17th of October just
the time to strike for freedom, and make the rock-ribbed mountains of
Virginia to tremble at the presence of a "master!"--the king of
freedom?

He was made a prisoner on the 19th of October, 1859, and remained
until the 7th of November without a change of clothing or medical aid.
Forty-two days from the time of his imprisonment he expiated his crime
upon the scaffold--a crime against slave-holding, timorous Virginia,
for bringing liberty to the oppressed. He was a man, and there was
nothing that interested man which was foreign to his nature. He had
gone into Virginia to save life, not to destroy it. The sighs and
groans of the oppressed had entered into his soul.

He had heard the Macedonian cry to come over and help them. He went,
and it cost him his life, but he gave it freely.

Captain Acvis, the jailer, said: "He was the gamest man I ever saw."
And Mr. Valandingham, at that time a member of Congress from Ohio, and
who examined him in court, said in a speech afterward.

"It is in vain to underrate either the man or the conspiracy.
Captain John Brown is as brave and resolute a man as ever headed
an insurrection, and, in a good cause, and with a sufficient
force, would have been a consummate partisan commander. He has
coolness, daring, persistency, stoic faith and patience, and a
firmness of will and purpose unconquerable! He is the farthest
possible remove from the ordinary ruffian, fanatic, or madman."

No friend, howsoever ardent in his love, could have woven a chaplet
more worthy than the one placed upon the brow of the