I am publicly _murdered_; and that my only _religious
attendents_ be _poor little, dirty, ragged, bareheaded and
barefooted, Slave Boys; and Girls_, led by some old _gray-headed
slave Mother_.

"Farewell. Farewell.
"Your Friend,
"JOHN BROWN."[71]

The man who hung him, Governor Wise, lived to see the plans of Brown
completed and his most cherished hopes fulfilled. He heard the warning
shot fired at Sumter, saw Richmond fall, the war end in victory to the
party of John Brown; saw the slave-pen converted into the
school-house, and the four millions Brown fought and died for,
elevated to the honors of citizenship. And at last he has entered the
grave, where his memory will perish with his body, while the soul and
fame of John Brown go marching down the centuries!

Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, and John Brown have to wait the calmer
judgments of future generations. These men believed that God sent them
to do a certain work--to reveal a hidden truth; to pour light into the
minds of benighted and superstitious men. They completed their work;
they did nobly and well, then bowed to rest--

"With patriarchs of the infant world--with kings,
The powerful of the earth,"

while generation after generation studies their handwriting on the
wall of time and interprets their thoughts. Despised, persecuted, and
unappreciated while in the flesh, they are honored after death, and
enrolled among earth's good and great, her wise and brave. The shock
Brown gave the walls of the slave institution was felt from its centre
to its utmost limits. It was the entering wedge; it laid bare the
accursed institution, and taught good men everywhere to hate it with a
perfect hatred. Slavery received its death wound at the hands of a
"lonely old man." When he smote Virginia, the non-resistants, the
anti-slavery men, learned a lesson. They saw what was necessary to the
accomplishment of their work, and were now ready for the "worst." He
rebuked the conservatism of the North, and gave an example of
adherence to duty, devotion to truth, and fealty to God and man that
make the mere "professor" to tremble with shame. "John Brown's body
lies mouldering in the clay," but his immortal name will be pronounced
with blessings in all lands and by all people till the end of time.

FOOTNOTES:

[66] This was in the last days of 1856.

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