aired old man escorted to his death by all the military strength that
a great state can command. As he leaves his place of confinement he
stoops and prints a kiss upon the face of a Negro baby. A black woman
cries out to him, passing along, "God bless you, old man; I wish I
could help you, but I cannot." The most ignominious death known to our
laws awaits him. Already has the gibbet been erected. The sticks
"standant and crossant" are in place, and the hungry rope is
"pendant." A forty acre field is filled with those drawn together by
this strange scene. Three thousand soldiers with loaded guns stand
ready to repel any attempt at rescue. Well shotted cannon turn their
open and angry mouths upon this one poor mortal. The bravest man
there, he gazes upon the array before him, without a trace of emotion.
The eye that shed tears at the sight of human misery is undimmed by
what man can do against him. Beyond the cordon of foes he remarks the
wonderful beauty of the scenery, the last he is to look upon. He has
made his peace with God and has no other favor to ask of his
executioners than that they hasten their terrible task. The drop falls
and suspended 'twixt Heaven and Earth is the incarnation of the idea
that in a few brief months is to bring liberty to an enslaved race.
Most appropriately did a Boston clergyman on the following Sunday
announce for his opening hymn--

"Servant of God, well done!"

The John the Baptist of salvation to the Negroes, he died a death
excelled in sublimity only by that of the Saviour of men. Both died
for men; one, for all mankind, the other willing to risk all that he
might open the prison door to those confined, and to strike off the
bands of those in bondage.

And here, too, methinks a strange transformation has taken place. The
rough, the terrible gallows loses its accustomed significance. Its
old time uses are forgotten. Around it I see millions of men and women
pointing to its sole occupant, saying, "He died that we might live."
Even the scaffold may become a monument of glory, for from it a hero
and a martyr passed to his reward. I forget the base and criminal
burdens it has borne, and see only the "lifting up" of one man who had
courage equal to his convictions. His martyrdom came ere he had seen

"The Glory of the Coming of the Lord."

Under the lofty Adirondacks his body was mouldering in the grave when
Lincoln proclaimed liberty to the slave,

"But his soul was marc