earth for me is still at my old home in Litchfield,
Connecticut. I did not understand him then, but on December 2d at
eleven o'clock my father called us all into the house and all that
hour from eleven to twelve o'clock we sat there in perfect silence. As
the old clock in that kitchen struck eleven, I heard the bell, ring
from the Methodist Church, its peal coming up the valley, from hill to
hill, and echoing its sad tone as the hour wore on. The peal of that
bell remains with me now; it has ever been a source of inspiration to
me. Sixty times struck that old bell. Once a minute, and when the
long sad hour was over, father put his Bible upon the mantel and went
slowly out, and we all solemnly followed, going to our various duties.
That solemn hour had a voice in the coming great Civil War of 1861-65.
At that hour John Brown was hanged in Virginia. All through New
England, they kept that hour with the same solemn services which
characterized my father's family. When the call came for volunteers
the young men of New England enlisted in the army, and sang again and
again, that old song, "John Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave,
but his soul goes marching on." His soul is still marching on. And
while I am one of those who would be the first to resist any attempt
to mar the sweet fraternity that now characterises the feeling between
the North and South, as I believe that the Southern soldier fought
for what he believed to be right, and consequently is entitled to our
fraternal respect, and while I believe that John Brown was sometimes a
fanatic, yet this illustration teaches us this great lesson and that
John Brown's advice was true. His happiest days were passed far back
in the quiet of his old home.

Near to our home, in the town of Cummington, lived William Cullen
Bryant, one of the great poets of New England. He came back there to
spend his summers among the mountains he so clearly loved. He promised
the people of Cummington that he would again make his permanent home
there. I remember asking him if he would come clown to the stream
where he wrote "Thanatopsis" and recite it for us. The good, old
neighbor, white haired and trembling, came down to the banks of that
little stream and stood in the shade of the same old maple where he
had written that beautiful poem, and read from the wonderful creation
that made his name famous.

"So live that when thy summons comes, to join
The innumerable caravan which moves