moral indignation, it is doubtful whether any book was ever more
perfectly adapted to the end aimed at. Literary artists have criticized
"Uncle Tom's Cabin," and contrasted it with "Henry Esmond," "Vanity
Fair" and "Adam Bede." But if Thackeray, Dickens and George Eliot
achieved unique success in creating books that should reach their set,
one thing is certain,--the boys, who afterwards became the soldiers of
the Civil War, read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" with dim eyes and indignant
hearts, because the book found their judgment and their conscience, and
lifted them to the point where they were made ready in the day of God's
power, to fight the battle for freedom.

When all the school children had read the death of little Eva and of
Uncle Tom, and all the farmers and working men--the dwellers in city and
country, from seaboard to mountains and prairie--had followed the career
of these slaves to the end, and the people of the North were fully awake
to the horror of the slave traffic, the multitudes began to look with
questioning eyes into each other's faces, asking, "What can be done?
What is the next step?" And then it was that a fanatic entered the
scene.

His name was John Brown, descended from Peter Brown, a Pilgrim of the
_Mayflower_. He had been cattle-drover, tanner and wool-merchant. When
about forty years of age he was living in Springfield, Massachusetts.
One night, in 1849, a runaway slave knocked at his door and told Brown
the story of his flight, of the weeks he had spent hiding in the swamps,
of his escape to the fastnesses of the mountains, of his life in the
forest, and how he finally reached New York and Springfield. It was a
story of starvation, hunger, cold, blows and piercing anguish. Long
after the children had gone to bed at midnight, while the slave was
sleeping in a blanket beside the fire, John Brown sat musing over the
national infamy. All the next day and night the conference continued
with this runaway, who was also a negro preacher. The following night
John Brown assembled his sons. He closed the door and told his family
his decision. He was a tall man, over six feet, straight and lithe,
slightly gray, with thin lips and smooth face. The Bible was almost the
only book in the house, and no sound was so familiar as the voice of
prayer. Brown was lifted into the prophetic mood. He told his family
that he had decided to give himself, and to consecrate them, to
righting the wrongs of the slaves; that h