en indulged, so that by
the time he was twelve years old he was sent off more than a hundred
miles with companies of cattle. He followed up with tenacity whatever
he set about so long as it answered his general purpose, and thence he
rarely failed in some good degree to effect the things he undertook.'

'From fifteen years and upward he felt a good deal of anxiety to learn,
but could only read and study a little, both for want of time and on
account of inflammation of the eyes. He managed by the help of books,
however, to make himself tolerably well acquainted with common
arithmetic and surveying, which he practised more or less after he was
twenty years old.' 'John began early in life to discover a great
liking to fine cattle, horses, sheep, and swine; and as soon as
circumstances would enable him, he began to be a practical shepherd--it
being a calling for which, in early life, he had a kind of enthusiastic
longing, together with the idea that as a business it bade fair to
afford him the means of CARRYING OUT HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT.'

Here we touch the keynote of this life of manifold outward occupations,
but of one consuming desire. That PRINCIPAL OBJECT filled his horizon
even in childhood. He loved to tell how, like his father before him,
he fell captive to the slave's dumb plea and pledged his whole strength
to the chivalrous task of breaking his fetters. It happened on this
wise. In those long journeys he was allowed to take, he was the
'business guest' of a slave-owner, who was pleased with his
resourcefulness at such an age. He was the object of curious attention,
and was treated as 'company' at table. On the estate was a young negro
just his own age, and as intelligent as he. Young John struck up an
acquaintance with him, and could not fail to contrast the fashion in
which he himself was pampered with the way the young darkie was
coarsely treated with scant fare and ill-housing. His frequent
thrashings seemed to bruise young John's spirit as much as they did his
flesh. They were not always administered with the orthodox whip, but
with a shovel or anything else that came first to hand. Young John
pondered long upon this contrast, and tells us how the iniquity of
slavery was borne in upon his young heart, and he was drawn to this
little coloured playmate, who had neither father nor mother known to
him. The Bible was the final court of appeal in the Brown family, and
the verdict of that co