.' 'He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto
the Lord.'

Above all passages, perhaps, was this quoted--Isa. lviii. 6: 'Is not
this the fast that I have chosen, to loose the bands of wickedness, to
undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye
break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that
thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house?' If ever man kept
that chivalrous fast before the Lord it was John Brown.

The last stage in what we may call the long preparation of John Brown
for the prominent labours of his life reveals still further how the
passionate love of the cause of liberty burned as a fire in the bones
of this family. They were attracted by the proposal of Gerrit Smith,
to celebrate the passing of West Indian Emancipation with the offer of
100,000 acres of his wild land in the north of New York State for
coloured families to settle upon. Eager for the success of the
experiment, Brown and his sons were prepared to start pioneering in the
new region, so as to be near at hand to encourage and assist the new
settlers. Prepared to choose their location as they deemed the
exigencies of the great cause demanded, they settled at North Elba in
what was then a wilderness in Essex county, and commenced to live a
life of sterner simplicity than before, hewing in the forests, and
clearing with axe and fire the land which they then proceeded to
cultivate, obtaining food and clothes as those must who have neither
store nor tailor near. There, with one room beneath that served by
day, and two rooms overhead that served by night, they lived, and not
discontentedly, for if there was little space or grandeur within there
was plenty without; and John Brown, who was no mere conqueror of
Nature, but a lover of her beauty, revelled in the glories of that
untamed land, with its mountains wooded to their summits, with its
frowning gorges and rushing torrents and its richly scented air. Best
of all there were black settlers around whom they could help and thus
forward their life-work, proving that the race they vowed should be
free could appreciate and justify the boon.

CHAPTER IV

HOW THE CALL CAME

Thus, then, did this family live their life of preparation. But
eventful days were at hand, and John Brown felt that his real life-work
had yet to come. 'I have never,' he said, 'for twenty years made any
business arrangement that would prevent me at any time from