y. Next day pastor and deacons waited
upon the refractory member--John Brown--to 'labour with him,' as the
old church chronicle has it, upon his grave indecorum. But they found
themselves belaboured with passages from Old Testament and New, and
sundry stout doctrines of the Christian faith, till they retired
discomfited, in their hearts delivering him to Satan that he might
learn not to blaspheme. But Satan would have none of him, we are sure.

Another instance of the same devotion to the cause of freedom belongs
to rather later days when they had removed to Springfield,
Massachusetts. There they lived with their wonted simplicity, but it
had been the fond design of mother and daughter to furnish the parlour
in due course. The moment had arrived when the domestic finances
seemed to allow of this modest luxury, but already John Brown had
designs of another removal to North Elba, New York, where an estate was
being occupied by escaped slaves under the patronage of Gerrit Smith, a
wealthy Abolitionist. At this juncture he calls his family together
and asks for their mind as to whether they should now furnish the
parlour with their savings or retain them for the help of these black
settlers who require clothes and other equipment as they start their
new life of independence. The blood of the Browns flows as one stream,
and the ready response of all is 'Save the money, father.'

His favourite books were well known by the children--JOSEPHUS,
Plutarch's LIVES, NAPOLEON AND HIS MARSHALS, LIFE OF OLIVER CROMWELL,
Baxter's SAINTS' REST, Bunyan's PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, and Henry ON
MEEKNESS. What a significant medley of peace and war--the wolf and the
lamb--Napoleon and Henry on Meekness side by side! But dearest ever
was the Book which had been the oracle in his father's house--itself
the Book of battles and yet the gospel of peace, the sacred charter of
man's liberties and yet the holy statute book for man's government--the
Bible. Swift paternal correction was there for any misquotation from
that Book; it was a Book not to be lightly paraphrased, but LEARNED AND
OBEYED. In his own Bible there are pencillings that reveal at once the
secret springs of his strange, and to outward seeming, erratic life.
Thus these passages are marked: 'Remember them that are in bonds, as
bound with them.' 'Whoso stoppeth his ear at the cry of the poor, he
also shall cry and shall not be heard.' 'Whoso mocketh the poor
reproacheth his Maker