Loss of life by unauthorized violence, and the resulting unhappiness to others, is called a tragedy; and, every tragedy of real life has stimulated the best and the worst passions of mankind to vigorous interest and exertion. All tragedies, however, have not been caused by unauthorized violence; the pages of history are black with records of the foulest crimes, of violations of human rights and the divine law, by violence authorized and made legal by men in whom power was vested.

The history of the Martyrs of England, France and Spain is a tragedy which began in the distant past, whose pains and horrors, which were the direct result of misuse of power by cruel kings and bigoted statesmen, were realized by men and women of many generations; and, in this day of civilization and advanced knowledge of christianity, the world is looking with weary eyes and sickened heart upon a tragedy in Armenia, commanded and made legal by the Sultan of Turkey, in which little children are mutilated, helpless women are outraged, and unarmed toiling men are horribly done to death. This is an authorized, not an unauthorized, tragedy, which the whole world knows, but has not yet been outraged enough to stop it; more cruelties must be done and more human blood must flow before the Christian powers will be sufficiently stimulated to dethrone the murderer and restore peace and order to the fairest garden of the east. “Come and see the works of God:” said one of old, “His eyes behold the nations: let not the rebellious exalt themselves.” “To me belongeth vengeance, and recompense; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.” Man knows not as God knows; sees not as He sees. It is written, however, so that he who runs may read, that all tyrants shall fall; all cruelties will be avenged; all powers which brutalize mankind must be either saved by fire or destroyed; the righteousness of God is ordained to prevail in the world; and, the brotherhood of man shall be fully established.

In America,—which is known as the land of the free, whose people are rightly proud of a history that speaks of a noble, victorious struggle against tyranny; of the wisdom, foresight, and piety of the founders of the States; of the marvellous energy which transformed vast plains and forests into fields of wealth creating grain and fruit, built cities, established manufactures, and made a large sphere of art and science;—a long and revolting tragedy has been in progress, in which the Negro has sufferred indescribable misery and been afflicted with diabolical torture. This also was a tragedy authorized by the powers that were, was recognized and defined by law, and endorsed and supported by not a few churches and religious teachers, in which the Negro was bound with chains, whipped with the lash, treated as a beast, sold in the common market as a thing, and, when he was no longer worth money, hurried to death and buried anyhow.

This authorized tragedy came to an end; by fire, the fire of the vengeance of righteousness, it was destroyed. In the great conflagration of the War of Emancipation, which would not have happened had the United States of America been willing to know God's will without pain and blood-shed, no preserving angel walked to keep those from harm and death who were engaged therein; the nation had sinned, and could not be relieved from sin's penalty. The nation paid the penalty in money and in blood, and thereby saved herself from the fate of Babylon, Assyria, and Rome. Nations that forget God and forsake righteousness cannot abide; they have been, and will be, overthrown. Power cannot forever stay in the hand of the tyrant; prosperity forsakes the land of blood; ignorance and every debasing habit are the heritage of nations that do wickedly; decay and destruction wait for the people who oppress the poor. This authorized tragedy of the States, whose sufferer was the poor Negro, was always abhorred by pious men and righteous citizens, and eventually aroused the natural good feeling of the multitude, who together swept it away and prevented the country from sliding into immeasurable disgrace and calamity.

The authorized tragedy of the Negro in America, then, ended in a pouring out of blood and of treasure, and in a vast war tax which continues until now; but did not in its death struggle engulf all the meanness of iniquity. They who fought against emancipation, and many who fought for emancipation, when the war was over and the Negro set free, were unwilling, and remain unwilling, to recognize in him a brother. He was free; let him care for himself, and see what he could make of his freedom. Free, it is true, but untaught, homeless, moneyless, a stranger in a land whose people loved him not. Free; yes, free; to look on the fields he had made smile with harvests, but not to call one grain of the wheat his own; to gaze with what intelligence was in him on all the wealth he had created, but not to find one copper of it in his own pocket; to behold luxury and affluence all around him, but not to have a home for himself, in which to find shelter, peace, and love. History tells of men being cast on uninhabited islands, in which naught but trees and wild fruit grew; in which birds lived and reared their young, and wild beasts prowled and fought each other; which was an unfortunate experience. But they were free to fell the trees and make houses of wood for themselves, and to pluck the wild fruit and catch the fish of the streams for food, and to use the implements of defence they possessed in their struggle with the beasts; and more than once have men filled desolate parts of the earth with human life, prosperity, peace, and happiness by merely putting forth unhindered effort. How much worse was the position of the emancipated Negro than that of ship-wrecked men cast on uninhabited, fruitful islands!

The authorized Negro tragedy in the United States of America did indeed come to an end, but the unauthorized tragedy began with the declaration of emancipation; and, had there been no righteousness therein, no hearts of flesh, no men whose souls had received the light of God and the compassion which is tender and eternal, the poor coloured man must have wished, had he known of such a thing, that he might be free as the ship-wrecked mariner to pluck and eat wild fruit in a lonely land, and make for himself a home out of wood which no man claimed. Land there was around him in the States, stretching away in every direction, thousands of miles of it, but none of it his; he must ask permission of the owners to live on it, which fact kept him in their power, and enabled the unworthy to continue the tragedy in an unauthorized form, which continues until now. Will it forever continue? Let men who deny the Negro equal opportunity, who say equal civic rights are enough for him, who hinder and obstruct his development and progress in every imaginable manner, who cast him out of the sphere of white men and lynch him to death on the smallest Provocation, remember the saying:—“He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker.” It may be that a few bold, bad men live, in whom neither faith nor love dwells, who dare even reproach God, who will do so until the grave swallow them up, and persecute not Negroes only, but whom they can of any colour; but it can not be that the enlightened United States will forever tolerate this unauthorized tragedy of the Negro, this unlawful lynching which occurs in so many places. Yet a little while, and, surely, the righteous people of the States will once more make an effort, an effort of peace, in the name of “Our Father who art in heaven,” to make it impossible in their country for child of His to suffer hardship because of colour, and bring to an end the reproach of caste which rests now on black and white equally.

Africa, an immense peninsula of the Old World, the third in size of the great divisions of the globe, is a land of ignorance and darkness, and the home of the Negro. “Its greatest length is about 5,000 miles; its greatest breadth is about 4,600 miles; its superficial area comprises nearly 12,000,000 square miles; its population is estimated at 200,000,000.” Fifty years ago this vast peninsula was a land of mystery, of which we had the most meagre maps, and of whose people we knew next to nothing.

The Phoenicians, who lived in cities on the coast of Syria, one of which was ancient Tyre, were devoted to the pursuit of the sea, and established colonies on the north coast of Africa, and created extensive commerce. It is said of them that they were the first people to circumnavigate Africa, and that Necho, who ascended the throne of Egypt in the year 617, B.C. was the navigator. The Carthaginians, who established a mighty empire, and absorbed all the Phoenician settlements of the West, followed in the steps of the Phoenicians, and sent their navy along the Atlantic Shores of Africa, which returned in the year 570, B. C., having settled several colonies on the coast. Herodotus, who was born in the year 484, B.C., was the first Greek who travelled in quest of distant lands and the founder of Grecian geography. He explored Egypt as far as the Cataracts of the Nile, and made excursions into Lybia and Arabia, and subsequently wrote accurate descriptions of the countries he visited. After Herodotus, little seems to have been written of Africa until Ptolemy,—who was born in Egypt and lived in the second century of the Christian Era,—wrote his “Universal Geography, illustrated with maps, which was not superseded as the text book of science till the fifteenth century.” After Ptolemy, nobody wrote much of Africa, and little is known of that strange land, other than that provided by the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Herodotus, and Ptolemy, until modern maritime discovery began in the fifteenth century, after which information was afforded that astonished the world. Since then adventurers, explorers, and missionaries have been busy in the great work of discovering the world, and of bringing to those in darkness the light of the truth of God. Adventurers went forth in ships, which were paid for in their own money, to gain wealth; explorers, to make discovery in the name of king and country for the benefit of both; missionaries, to declare the knowledge and love of the Most High. Adventurers left behind them the bitterness of cruelty and the devastation of greed; explorers made it easier for mankind to understand the greatness of the earth; missionaries advanced, and yet advance, the eternal good of the human race by displaying before untaught men the gentleness and sympathy of the Christ. The age of the adventurer in its ancient form is ended, passed and gone forever, and can never return in its old, bad sense of theft and murder; but the humane explorer and the Christian missionary possess both present and future, in which they may together pursue their beneficent work.

The Portuguese, who explored the West coast of Africa in the fifteenth century, and the Spaniards, who gained possession of South America, were the first Christian powers that paid attention to Africa, and did indeed erect the figure of the Cross there, and upon every new land they discovered; but by their foul and brutal practices caused the holy symbol to remind the native tribes of rapine and murder. They respected no right of property in the land, in the produce of the country, not even in the flesh and blood of the natives; but treated all and sundry with indignity and plunder. They have long since received the recoiling punishment of wrong doing, and are to-day among the weakest and poorest nations of the world.

Africa, whose peoples, it must be said, have inflicted fearful cruelties upon one another, has not escaped the ravages of the adventurer; but when her true history shall be written, the names of Mungo Park, Dr. Barth, Dr. Livingstone, Dr. Moffat, Mr. Stanley, and a host of others will stand out in letters of gold for all time, and the African of the future, who will certainly be educated and one day stand erect among men, claiming and receiving perfect equality, will in them recognize under the providence of God, the saviours of his race. Then, in his native land of luxuriant vegetation, fruitful fields, noble rivers, vast forests, and immense deposits of mineral wealth, and wherever else he may chance to live or be, white men will respect him, and none will dare speak of slavery, shackles or death.

Man is one the whole world over, and consists of a single species. He is distinguished from the animals beneath him by conscience, reason, and speech, and is so marvellously endowed that he can adapt himself to every known climate. His intelligence has taught him how to protect himself from the cold of the North, and to endure the heat of the South. He may be found in every climate, from the hottest to the coldest. In vast forests, in regions of fertility, in wastes of sterility, in valleys and in mountains he finds a home, and makes the earth provide him food and shelter. But man is not the same in stature, intelligence, and colour in every place; diversity obtains most prominently; but colour is the most noticeable feature of difference. His skin is black, yellow, olive, tawny, white, but he is man, qualified for the highest effort of mind and the holiest act of worship. Whether black or white, educated or uneducated, he is the same creature in his feelings, and has ideas of a state after death, of a supreme power, of guilt, of pardon, which vary according to his state of enlightenment. The saying that God “hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth” has been abundantly established as a truism all over the world, particularly by the rising of several savage tribes to the average level of educated nations. The ancestry of mankind is one ancestry, and man everywhere is the child of a divine father, and is destined for all eternal life, and nations ought to cultivate sentiments of peace and good-will. It is the duty of the learned to teach the unlearned; the strong to help the weak; and, they who have knowledge of God and are conscious of His sustaining grace and love are under the heaviest obligation to rescue from wretchedness, guilt, and impurity those who are ignorant and depraved, that the identity of man be perfect.

If this be true; if men ought to respect and help each other, and recognize before God their common origin and the obligation resting upon each to promote the good of all;—of which in this day there can be no doubt—the question, how the Negro was brought from Africa to America, and why, becomes very interesting, particularly so in view of the conditions of his past and present state therein. In the answer we shall see how strangely events of life intertwine with each other.

In the year 1485, just seven years before Columbus was permitted by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain to sail westward in search of unknown lands, who discovered Watling Island, one of the Bahamas, and one of the great islands of Cuba and St. Domingo, Alfonso de Aviso discovered Benin, Africa, which then comprised Benin, Dahomey, and Yoruba, three Negro kingdoms, and subsequently Fernando Po of Portugal established a Portuguese Colony and the Church of Rome at Gaton, Benin. The Brothers of Jesus laboured in their usual manner to convert the natives to Christianity, to Christianity as they understood it; but met with small success. Knowing not the “perseverance of the gospel,” and not being qualified to labour in patience and love they adopted a quicker method of conversion than that of the Master. They turned their attention to the king, who cared little for their new religion, but much for the satisfying of his personal desires. This untaught son of the Dark Continent made a proposition, viz., that he would turn Christian, and compel his subjects also to turn, if the Brothers of Jesus would find him a white wife. He asked for a white wife to be provided as he would for any article of manufacture that was new to him, and probably was not conscious of any existing difference between a piece of cloth and a wife; but the same cannot be said of the Brothers of Jesus. However, knowing or not knowing that marriage is a sacred covenant, they agreed to the king's proposal, and forthwith proceeded to keep their part of the agreement. They went to the Sisters of St. Thomas, an order of women devoted to charity and holy work, and, wonderful to relate, one of the Sisters consented to accept the king as husband. What prompted her to agree to this extraordinary compact? Human love was out of the question, because she had never seen him, and it is difficult to imagine that any lower desire moved her. Let it be written down to the eternal credit of this nameless Sister of Mercy that she placed her all on the altar of sacrifice in the name of the Son of Man. Nothing more is heard of her; but her noble effort,—noble from her point of view— though probably successful for a time, failed of a permanent settlement of Christianity in the king's country. Why ? The Portuguese established the slave trade in Gaton, which is answer enough. Men cannot preach the Kingdom of God, establish colonies in peace, prosperity and social order, and at the same time buy and sell, or steal and sell, flesh and blood. “Ye can not serve God and Mammon.” It is impossible to educate and civilize the human race by any such self-destructive method; piety and holiness can not be preached by men who traffic in human life.

The influence of this diabolical conduct of the Portuguese was almost instantaneous on the natives, who, taught by the evil example of the Europeans, themselves became man stealers and followers of the slave trade. Then the poor, ignorant people, who had previously tilled the land and pursued the calling of fishermen, gave themselves to the work of hell, and carried all who were weaker than they to the coast, and for the merest trifles, for worthless trinkets, sold them into slavery. This was the white man's work in Benin. Instead of inspiring honesty, truthfulness and gentleness, he stirred up a huge sea of treachery, duplicity and cruelty, and made himself rich for a time by the proceeds of miseries immeasurable which were heaped on the helpless, the aged, and all who were unable to protect themselves. He can find no excuse for his base conduct in the cruelty of the King of Dahomey, the adjoining kingdom, whose court was paved with human skulls, and whose palace,—the place he called his palace—walls were decorated in like manner. There it stands, and will abide, a deep black mark of infamy against the white man, who went to Africa to establish colonies and preach heaven, yet managed to create pandemonium on earth.

This fiendish work was begun by white men on the coast of Africa between the years 1485 and 1490, and in 1492 Columbus set forth to find lands in the West. Following Columbus, but unlike Columbus, were thousands of Spaniards, and legendary stories of the measureless wealth of the West were soon told far and wide. Spain was then preeminent among the nations of the world, and pointed with pride to continents discovered by her mariners. But Spain was unfitted to be the missionary of heaven; she was drunk with the lust of gold, knew not liberty, gloried in her cruel inquisition, and has long since found her reward. Other nations entered into the work of discovery, and wrested from her the supremacy. On the fifth of March, 1496, John Cabot was commissioned by Henry VII. of England “to sail into eastern, western, or northern seas with a fleet of five ships, to search for islands, provinces and regions hitherto unseen by Christian people, and to set up the banners of England on city, island, country or continent, and, as vassal of the English Crown, to possess and occupy the territories which might be found.” On the twenty-fourth of June, 1497, fourteen months after Columbus on his third voyage came in sight of the main land, John Cabot discovered the Western Continent, and, “having sailed three hundred leagues along the coast, planted on the land the flag of England.” Then followed in due time Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Richard Grenville, Cavendish, the great navigator, and ultimately the Pilgrim Fathers, and English colonies were established in Virginia and in Massachusetts. In 1664 the English defeated the Dutch at New York, and became the masters of North America.

In that wonderful fifteenth Century, then, we find the Portuguese in Africa, the Spaniard in South America, the Dutch in New York, the English in Virginia, and subsequently in Massachusetts. White winged ships crossed and re-crossed every sea, carrying cargoes of commerce to favourable ports. Why not carry cargoes of Negroes? Were there not enough and to spare of them in Africa? Had not the Portuguese stolen and sold them in 1485 ? It was a profitable idea; not to be forgotten. They were black men, therefore inferior, fit only to obey the white man, who needed them to do the work of the New World. The Dutch of New York would buy some Negroes, or steal them; would sell them and make money; and, in 1619, a Dutch Man of War brought the first slaves, fourteen in number, to Virginia. There the captain of the ship gave them in exchange for provisions to Captain Miles Kendall, deputy-governor of the colony. Why not? In those days few men so much as thought of the great sin which was being committed, and were utterly incapable of foreseeing the fearful heritage of sorrow that would accrue to succeeding generations. This is how the Negro was brought from Africa. First by the Dutch, in a Man of War, and the why may be seen in the money value of so much free labour, which was made to produce harvests at the low cost af feeding.

To look back on those fearless Englishmen, who fought like heroes in defence of their own homes and country, and laboured continuously that wife and child might be fed and clothed, and supplied with every comfort the earth could produce, and see them doing the devil's work so shamelessly, is to look upon a scene which causes infinite regret, which more than suggests the thought that England's priests had grossly neglected to guide rightly her valiant men. The Dutch, too, were brave and religious, thrifty and careful of each other, yet could barter in flesh and blood, which proves how strangely and awfully both good and evil are mixed in man. Love of money, a real, frightful source of wrong in all times, blinded the eyes of these brave men, and prevented them seeing rightly; and, having no prophet to warn and guide them, they fell into the blackest sin. For money and ease of life they gave play to the worst passions of human nature, and dared heaven, perhaps unconsciously, to curse them, which curse came then and there, though they knew it not, and burst in tornadoes of of fire, shot and death on succeeding generations.

We see, then, how and why the Negro was brought from Africa to America, and it is known that this mad trafficing in blood, which stained the banners of England and America, finally cost both countries millions of treasure and thousands of lives to erase the blot. It is a tragedy indeed, this of the Negro in America, which we are watching, on which also a silent, offended God looks; but a tragedy whose end is not death to all concerned; a tragedy whose clearest fact is fire, the fire of cleansing and deliverance. It is strange that men will so depart from virtue and plunge so deeply into sin, when they know that catastrophe must follow. Meanwhile, we leave white and black men face to face, one the owner and oppressor, the other the owned and oppressed, and will see in following chapters how the mighty battle was fought and won between right and wrong.

The geography and history of the United States need not more than a passing glance; the Negro and what has befallen him therein being the subject of this little book. It is enough to say that the territory of the States stretches for thousands of miles in every direction, that the population exceeds the huge figure of 70,000,000, and that for great rivers, coal fields, gold mines, silver mines and agriculture it is not surpassed by any other part of the globe. The growth of its population is one of the world's wonders; a kind of miracle wrought by steam boat and railroad train. In the year 1800 it amounted to about 6,000,000, that is, it was not more than the population of London to-day; had increased to 39,000,000 at the census of 1870, and,—an extraordinary fact—as stated above, to 70,000,000 at this present time. The natural leaders of this great population, which is composed of men from almost every nation under the sun, have resting upon them a responsibility that will not be easily borne, a responsibility which calls for the highest qualities of mind, extensive knowledge of human nature, and faith in the providence of God.

Compared with the older nations of Europe and Asia, the States are yet in their infancy; but have in the short period of one hundred years become infinitely more important than most of them in respect of everything pertaining to the good of the human family. Here are Greeks, Russians, Armenians, Germans, French, Chinese, Japanese, English, Irish, Scotch and Americans, men born under every form of government and trained in conflicting ideas of religion and morals, bound together in a free republican government, each having the right to vote in City, State and National affairs. It has been an experiment, perhaps is so yet, in human government on a vast scale; but appearances justify the remark that it has successfully stood the test of trial, and that to-day, thanks to Washington, Adams, Webster, Lincoln, and many other noble men, who devoted extraordinary powers of mind to the service of the New Nation, is better established than many of the dynasties of the Old World.

But the States were not a nation of 70,000,000 of inhabitants when white and black man first stood face to face on American soil; they were colonies of England, and were governed by that extraordinary power, which has so marvellously colonized so many portions of the globe. But the England of the year 1619, when those fourteen slaves were landed on the shore of Virginia, and given in exchange for provisions to Captain Miles Kendall, deputy-governor of that state, and the England of to-day are scarcely comparable. Then, it is true, Englishmen were free men, and could pursue the calling of their choice in perfect safety; but the toiling millions were practically outside of the constitution, and had no voice whatever in the government of the country. Then England was governed by the aristocracy and the free-holders, who formed a very small part of the population, and the colonies were in the hands of chartered trading companies. Corruption was in every office; the House of Commons was in the power of the House of Lords; seats in the Commons were bought and sold openly, and places of power were given without regard to merit; reformers, men who sought the privilege of the vote, were persecuted and even put to death by the sword; and, not until the year 1832 was the constitution widened so as to admit persons of substantial position, which good work was completed in 1867 with Household Suffrage. To-day it is a different and better England. Every working man who has a home or a lodging can vote in every election that is held, whether for City Counsellors, Members of School Board, Members of the House of Commons, or any representative position, and can even be elected himself. Corruption is dead; the power of the House of Lords is small, and cannot be exercised at all in respect of money bills; seats in the Commons are no longer, cannot be, bought and sold; places of power are bestowed according to merit and length of service; reformers are free to advocate reform in open meeting or in any manner not harmful to the persons and property of the inhabitants, without fear of interference. To-day, as some one has well put it:—“England is a republic with a hereditary president” and protects her citizens the wide world over, and suffers no slave to live beneath her banner.

Let England and America, then, as we know them to-day, be in no sense blamed for the fixing of a slave-system in the States. Both countries have paid in money and in blood the price of the sin of dead generations, and are the greatest hope of mankind. In a holy rivalry they hold up the torch of civilizing light, spread on every hand the beneficence of business, display before all nations the safety and solidity of national life based in the free vote of their peoples, and send forth missionaries at immense cost to all who are in the darkness of ignorance. Personal wrong there surely is in both countries, which is inflicted by individuals upon others who can not help themselves; but the wisdom of their peoples and rulers will yet find a remedy for these evils, and perfection will be attained as nearly as is possible in human institutions. In that good time which is certainly before both countries, the unworthy effort of many wicked persons to place the Negro outside the human family will be finally defeated, and race prejudice in the States will be dead.

Returning to the evil year 1619, we find that Captain Butler succeeded Captain Miles Kendall in the governorship of Virginia, and that a disgraceful dispute arose respecting the ownership of the fourteen slaves. He claimed the negroes in the name of the Earl of Warwick which claim Captain Miles Kendall resisted, and sought what he called equity by placing his case before the London company. From the beginning of the traffic, human strife and cruelty were alarmingly aggravated, and men of all stations in life were filled with the meanest wickedness, rich and poor alike, from the Earl of Warwick to the poorest black man who was strong enough to kid-nap a weaker black man and sell him into slavery on the coast. This dispute was not quickly settled. However, in July, 1622, the London Court disposed of the case, giving nine slaves to Captain Kendall and the remainder to the company. But what is the terrible fact of this fixing of the slave system in the States? This: That the English colony of Virginia purchased the first Negroes who were brought to the States, and inaugurated the hideous traffic in human flesh and blood. For this most shameful act of inhumanity, out of which crime too black and foul to be described grew, the reader must not blame either England or America; it was the act of men who had left the Old Country to seek wealth and get it in any manner, righteous or unrighteous, who scrupled not to class a man with a coloured skin with the beasts of the field. Their reward is shame, which clings to them until now, and reflects disastrously upon the otherwise fair fame of the wisest and best of them.

The institution of slavery, once established, took root, but did not grow rapidly. Taking the census of the colony of Virginia of February 16, 1624, the fourteen slaves of 1619 had only grown to twenty-two. Perhaps they were a little afraid of the system; may be conscience troubled many of the colonists; or, what is quite as likely, importers of flesh and blood were probably not over well supplied by Negro stealers. But twenty-four years subsequently, in 1648, the population of Virginia was about 15,000, of whom 300 were slaves. Evidently the whites had somewhat lost fear of the system in those twenty-four years, if they ever felt it, and it is equally certain that conscience had been educated. The colonists of 1648 were not a reputable lot; indeed there were more men of bad character among them than the original settlers and their descendants liked. Thieves, vagrants, burglars and disorderly persons of every evil character, who had been sent to Virginia by the English Government for their crimes at home, formed no inconsiderable part of the population; yet were more graciously received than the poor Negro. It is difficult, if not impossible, in this day of enlightenment to imagine how a God-fearing man,—many of the colonists were such—could bring himself to treat a condemned criminal with greater kindness than he was willing to extend to a Negro; yet such is one of the ugly facts of that time. Sin is subtle, and overthrows the best of men, if they cease to fight it, and destroys their manhood, covers them with disgrace, and causes them to make the most ignoble laws. It so happened in Virginia. On September 17, 1630, an act of prohibition was passed by the colonists to the following effect: “That the banished criminals of England must not have relations with Negroes.” Think of it. The vilest of the vile, men too bad to be allowed a place in English life, banished for offences proven against them in courts of law, must not defile themselves with the Negro! Language, it is said, undergoes perpetual enlargement of meaning and purification, and it must be true that defilement could not have meant in Virginia at the time now under consideration what it means to-day. How could a criminal, a creature of the blackest indecencies, defile himself by having relations with an ignorant, untaught, probably trustful Negro? The defilement would be more on the side of the Negro, though he knew it not. Yet the prohibition was made, and the punishment for every such offence was public flogging and confession of the offence in church on the following sabbath. Bad men may make bad laws, and other bad men will break them, even as good laws are broken, and have been broken in every age.

The colonists had to bring out the whip and hear confession in church; villany could not forego the easy prey within its reach. Hugh Davis, a white servant, whose name is written in history forever,— whether an English criminal or an ordinary colonist we know not—was indeed publicly flogged before a company of blacks and whites for defiling himself with a Negro. He was not the last victim of this vicious law; but if it were possible or right to sympathize with a worker of iniquity, Hugh Davis would have our sympathy. We can pity him, and regret that he could defile himself with any child of God; but for the Negro, whose education along lines of debasement, cunning and treachery had been continued by white men, only sympathy ought to be felt. He was a natural child of the forest, acquainted with the rudest life only, knowing nothing of civilization and little of the white man, whose whole subsequent history in America would have been different and better had he been put to work in a humane manner and treated as a man who needed training in skilled labour and educating in letters. It was not. Therefore, he became the cause, by no fault of his own, of the most fearful struggle of modern times, which held in suspense for four years the very life of a mighty nation, whose salvation was accomplished by the slaughter of 1,000,000 men.

From 1619 until 1662 slavery existed without any direct sanction in law, and had no foundation in the order of state Virginia, the mother state of slavery, and none in any other state. It was a case of one man owning another because he had bought him. But was he not property? He had cost money. Slave owners felt the need of a law, which would fix beyond dispute the right of ownership, as real estate was fixed, and on the fourteenth of December, 1662, the foundations of slavery were laid by a proclamation—“that the issue of slave mothers should follow their condition.” No help now for the Negro, neither for any innocent child born of a coloured mother; for two hundred years he must toil, bleed, die in the service of the white man, and not dare to murmur. For two hundred years he must obey his master and ask no questions, though he hear questions of right and wrong discussed. Patience must be the order of his tribe; ignorance, and suffering will abide with him. While this inhuman business was being done, it is certain that Christian mothers in Virginia taught their children that stealing, swearing, speaking falsely, coveting another's property and committing adultery were all sins against God and man; and, it is equally certain that so-called Christian fathers did steal the Negro's labour, did most cruelly abuse him, did commit adultery with their own slaves with the horrid intent of increasing their live stock, and forsook, turned their backs upon every feeling of humanity. God has made it easy for man in all the departments of morality to decide the right and the wrong, in view of which eternal fact no excuse can be found for slave owners. They decided, those original slave owners of Virginia, “that the issue of slave mothers should follow their condition,” and thereby accomplished two things; viz, hereditary slavery, and statutary sanction thereof. Thus far this battle between right and wrong went against right in the person and life of the Negro, and the quotations given below will show how tightly the manacles were fastened to his feet and hands.

In 1670, Virginia, thoroughly accustomed to the infamous institution, and having realized the profit of so much unpaid labour, declared by Act of Assembly that “all servants not Christians, coming into the colony by shipping, should be slaves for their lives.”

On the twenty-fourth of October, 1684, the province of New York made the slave trade legitimate within its borders, recognizing that the white man had a right to buy and sell the coloured man.

On the fourth of October, 1705, an act was passed without a single dissenting voice, declaring the Negro, Mulatto and Indian, slaves within their dominion.

In 1706 an act was passed to “encourage the baptism of Negroes,” which was done, it is said, “to quiet the public mind on the question.”

On the thirty-first of October, 1751, King George II. issued a proclamation repealing the act which declared slaves real estate.

Thus the business went, all against the Negro, who had become a thing. King George II. declared he must not be “real estate,” but left him to be classed with cattle, or crops, or any other miserable article, and the traffic increased. In 1648 there were 300 slaves in the colony of Virginia; in 1671— 2,000; in 1715—23,000; and in 1758 more than 100,000, which was only a little less than the white population. Think of it. In one hundred and thirty-nine years fourteen slaves had increased to over 100,000; an awful fact, which caused even Virginia to realize that the institution was a most serious and alarming one. True, it was a well organized system, and recognized in the most solemn manner by the law; was defended by the Church of Christ, the Church of Him who declared and revealed the brotherhood of man, and Christian ministers received slaves as salary; yet was the ghost that haunted the vision of many good men, and a problem which was ultimately solved by a volcanic upheaval that scattered death on every hand. It was futile to baptize the Negro that his soul might be saved; that same Negro lived and multiplied to baptize a nation in blood. He had no rights; could not appear as witness in any court of law; could be condemned on the evidence of one witness without a jury; could own nothing; if he secretly saved anything it was taken from him; had no family relations such as white men enjoyed; lived together by common consent; dared not strike a Christian or Jew, no matter what the provocation; had no schools; was at last buried in a common ditch. Pity 'tis there was no prophet in those days to foresee coming events, and to warn men of judgment to come. Such an one might have saved past and present generations from deep disgrace and exhausting strife.

The closing years of the nineteenth century will be looked back upon by future generations with considerable interest, and the whole century will be esteemed the most important in results of beneficence to human life since the time of Jesus Christ. Man has always been king of all creatures living on earth; but time never was when he stood for so much as now. Fortune, caste, privilege and birth, the historic barrier builders, are by no means passed and done with, yet do not obstruct individual progress so seriously as they used to; there is now plenty of room for earnest capable men to exercise their personal powers. Vast business companies and combinations notwithstanding, which certainly many times and in different ways destroy the best efforts of the individual, a man of energy, endowed with faith in the Almighty, may make much of his life. Christian sympathy and the spirit of God are his assistants, by whose help he may overcome many difficulties. Indeed, the fact is, whenever we see success of any kind we know that a man is behind it, though we see him not. Ideas, principles, truth and right are indispensible, it is true; but until a living man incarnates them, and puts them into active operation, not much is accomplished. A man of noble personality,—who loves truth, dispenses right, lives by principle, does right because it is right and refuses to do wrong because it is wrong, and disseminates ideas of holiness,—inspires everybody and moves hundreds forward to the ground of hope and a happier existence. Such an one,— possessing a tender conscience, natural piety, a glowing heart full of sympathy and benevolence, and a high moral purpose in all he does—carries heaven with him and strengthens the weakness of all among whom he moves. Jesus Christ, Martin Luther, John Knox and John Wesley; Tennyson, Longfellow and Whittier; Thos. Carlyle, Emerson and Chas. Dickens were men who saw, and knew, and taught, and the whole civilized world looks back upon them with admiration and gratitude. Jesus Christ was the incomparable one, who illumined human consciousness and commenced an era of never ending progress, whose name must always be mentioned with reverence. When men listen to His teaching and emulate His example it is well for the world, and progress is advanced in the best and surest manner. If dead generations had walked in His footsteps, obeying His commands, and if living generations were eager above all things to keep His law, slavery had never been amongst men in the last nineteen centuries, and war and standing armies would have no place in the life of nations to-day.

Looking back from this wonderful nineteenth century to the year 1712, in which the Negro in the States of America found himself bound by manacles of slavery, in which, also, men and women, the men and women who owned him, feared God and reverenced Jesus Christ, it is difficult to realize that the holy name had much influence with them, and no one could for a moment believe that it had if evidence were not abundantly at hand in proof thereof. “They feared God and worshipped their idols” was said by one of old of a well known people, which saying might with perfect justice be applied to many of the original slave owners. It seems mysterious that the year, in which the Dutch man of war landed the first batch of slaves at Jamestown, Virginia, bore the “Mayflower” to the New World, whose passengers, were men and women that sought a new home and liberty to worship God according to their conscience. The “Mayflower” carried a freight of piety, learning and Christian civilization which were to be written into the law of the New World; the Dutch man of war carried a burden of wretchedness and sorrow, and a system destined to perish in the flames its own hand should kindle. The Pilgrim Fathers were men whose fame has gone forth over all the world, and probably to the end of time they will be held up as ensamples of robust faith, fearless courage, and sincere piety; yet it is certain that slavery was established in Massachusetts not long after their arrival. Chief-justice Parsons declared from the bench that “slavery was introduced into Massachusetts soon after its first settlement and was tolerated until the ratification of the present constitution of 1780.” Let all ministers of the gospel observe this fact, and be it their duty never to weaken God's demand for righteousness. Need there is for real prophets, who seek not wealth, neither position, who will at any cost warn men of the sinfulness of sin. Slavery cannot come back, but other evils are here, and will increase in power and in destructiveness, if the voice of the preacher be not true to the solemn duty of declaring the whole counsel of God.

The first mention of Negroes in Massachusetts we find in the year 1633. It appears that some Indians found a creature in the woods they thought was the devil, of whom they were so afraid that they dared neither approach nor touch him. They hastened to the English settlers, and declared they had seen the evil spirit. The English returned with the terrified red men to the woods and found a harmless black man, who was lost, had wandered from his master's house; but they sent him back to his master. Why? Why did they not keep him, and instruct him in their religion, and in all useful social duties? He was a black man, and was owned by a white man, which is explanation enough. It was no doubt honest to send him back; but it would have been more in keeping with the religion they professed to have kept and treated him in a Christian manner. This amusing incident of red men being afraid of a black man, and of white men returning him to his owner on a point of honesty, brings into clearest view the peculiar, soul-saddening fact, that religious people can be morally blind and do grossly immoral acts.

Who the owner was of this solitary Negro is not known, neither does history tell how he came into Massachusetts; but it is clearly recorded that the first importation of slaves into the state was in 1637, just four years after the above mentioned event, who were brought from Barbados, and for whom Indians were given in exchange.

At first, slavery in Massachusetts, as in the other colonies, was a family business, which was its most harmless form; then it became an affair of the community; and, finally, an ordinary business of men who wished to enjoy the fruits of forced labour. Like all the works of sin it developed into larger proportions, destroyed the humanity of men, and filled the colonies with unworthiness. In 1720, General Shute placed the number of slaves in Massachusetts, including a few Indians, at 2,000. In 1735 there were 2,600, and within the next seventeen years the Negro population of Boston alone was 1,541. In 1754 a system of taxation was established by the Colonial government, which included black people in the schedule of taxable property, not a little to the confusion of Governor Shirley. In his message of November 19, 1754, to the assembly, he said: “There is one part of the estate, viz., the Negro slaves, which I am at a loss how to come at the knowledge of, without your assistance.” But he was helped out of his difficulty. In that year 4,489 Negroes were classed with hogs, and in 1764 the number had increased to 5,779. 5,779 human beings, in Massachusetts, the home of the Pilgrim Fathers, were rated with hogs and horses, and Negro children were considered an incumbrance, and were given away like puppy dogs.

It is impossible to believe that all the Colonists countenanced this horrible business, indeed it is certain they did not; but it is clear that the life of the colony was morally poisoned, which was the unhappy condition of all the English colonies in the year 1754, Georgia excepted. The natural rights of thousands were subverted. They were “deemed, held, taken, reputed and adjudged in law to be chattels personal to all interests, constructions and purposes whatsoever,” as the law put it; which was contrary to reason and the admonitions of conscience, and gratified the spirit of vulgar pride and class distinction, and the lust of dominion. Violence was the spirit of slavery, and depraved greed its inspiration. From the first slave-hunt in unhappy Africa to the surrender of General Lee at Appomattox, its blood-stained hand was laid on the bodies and souls of the slaves, and on the moral sensibilities of the people. It had no mercy; knew no decency; forced the slave to make the earth produce harvests; whipped him; sold him; killed him; defied God and the inexorable law of righteousness. But Jehovah's judgment came at last in the awful War of Emancipation, and men trembled; and, let this never be forgotten, all who thus disobey must, either here or yonder, in time or eternity, stand in the same sure retribution. It was the old sin, of which many are guilty to-day, of “doing wrong that good may come.” There is nothing before men who forget righteousness but confusion and disaster.

It is with astonishment we read the state papers and official documents bearing on the slave trade; they cause us to imagine that we hear the clanking chains which bound living men to a living death; but when to-day we see 8,000,000 of Negroes living and toiling as free men a great hope is felt, which is related to the whole Negro race in Africa and America. May not these 8,000,000, when they shall have won equality as well as liberty, provide our missionary societies the best ministers for the African field? Is it impossible for them to become a power under the providence of God which shall lift the entire race of coloured people to conditions of moral and spiritual life? They have suffered, and yet suffer. They have been in the blackest darkness of despair; but now see a light of hope, in which thousands of them rejoice perfectly. They have been, as their brethren in Africa are to-day, untaught, savage and immoral; but are now gaining knowledge, and becoming followers of Christ. All their suffering and degradation, heroic struggles and present pursuit of things worthy and sacred cannot end merely in their own elevation, but must surely have some relation to the uplifting of the race.

It has puzzled and perplexed thoughtful men to explain the connection between suffering and progress, and probably no satisfactory solution of the problem has yet been found; but it is known that the cleansing fire of affliction and the noblest character have a close relation with each other. There is something in prolonged prosperity which demoralizes most men, and something in fierce adversity that draws the grandest soul-elements to the surface. The man who never had a personal Gethsemane knows not the supremest glory of the mount of Transfiguration; the greatest men and women have braved the storm. Is it not possible, then, that what men call the worst thing may turn out the best? The undisciplined soul cannot be compared with the soul that has by bitter experience learned the deepest truth of the Christ. The Negro, therefore, may yet, by the over-ruling providence of God, become one of the world's most noble benefactors. While we follow to a close the history of his life in America, this hope of future extensive good shall be cherished, and faith reposed in God.

Resuming the story of his life in the United States of America, a quotation from the pen of the immortal Rev. George Whitefield, the renowned evangelist, who travelled extensively through the Southern States, will help the reader to understand the awful sufferings that were inflicted upon him. “In 1739, Mr. Whitefield said, in a letter he addressed to the inhabitants of the Southern States, that his sympathies had been strongly excited by what he had seen of the ‘miseries of the poor Negroes.’ He called attention to the practice of slave-masters, and the encouragement it afforded to the savage tribes in Africa to continue their warfare on each other, to supply the demand for slaves thus created. He charged ‘the generality’ of them with using their slaves ‘as bad as though they were brutes nay, worse,’—worse than their horses which were ‘fed and properly cared for’ after the labours of the day, while the slaves must grind their corn and prepare their own food,—worse than their dogs, who are ‘caressed and fondled’ while the slaves ‘are scarce permitted to pick up the crumbs which fall from their master's table.’ He spoke of the cruel lashings which ‘ploughed their backs and made long furrows,’ sometimes ending in death. He reminded them of their spacious houses and sumptuous fare; while they to whose ‘indefatigable labours’ their luxuries were ‘owing had neither convenient food to eat nor proper raiment to put on.’” Mr. Whitefield did not exaggerate; but placed on record a faithful description of what he had seen, which record can not be destroyed. His letter briefly set forth what was happening in all the English colonies, Georgia excepted. In New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, in one degree or another of fiendishness, more severely in some states than others, these cruelties were inflicted on 58,850 human beings, each one a sensitive creature, capable of feeling pain, and endowed with faculties of soul, whose deep moan and uttered cry for deliverance went up constantly to heaven.

It is impossible to set forth in words the horrors of the trade in New York. The Dutch, under whose government it was known as New Netherlands, looked on slavery as a necessary evil, but did not treat slaves with cruelty. They added them to their families, taught them letters as best they could, and called them in to family prayers; but bought and sold them in the ordinary manner. When the Dutch were defeated by the English the lot of the Negro changed for the worse; a system of neglect, punishment and torture was introduced. In 1702 the assembly passed a law which was called “An Act for Regulating Slaves,” and the following quotations show the quality of that regulation. It was declared “not lawful to trade with Negro slaves;” “not more than three slaves may meet together;” “a slave must not strike a freeman;” “all the children of freed black mothers already born, or yet to be born, must be slaves;” “that a common whipper be appointed.” No lion in his cage, no eagle fastened by chain to post, fed and cared for by keeper, was ever so miserable as the poor Negro in the bad past. He might walk about and work; but no Christian or Jew would risk fine and imprisonment by trading with him. He was allowed to talk with two other Negroes; but if more than three met together they were all whipped by a J. P. or the common whipper, or sent to jail. A freeman was at liberty to beat him anywhere and anyhow; but let him so much as raise his hand in self-defence, and legal punishment followed. A freed black woman—some of the better sort gave manumission papers to their slaves—could become a mother; but her child was taken from her as soon as he could work and was pushed into slavery, often sold to a dealer in another state. All this being true, how great ought one's sympathy to be for coloured men and women who are the children of parents that were so ill-treated! That they can believe in a God of righteousness, that they do not hate and abhor the white man, is the miracle of our time, and a solid proof of the divine that is in them.

From the eleventh of May to the twenty-ninth of August, 1741,—only three short months—one hundred and fifty slaves were cast into prison in New York; eighteen of whom were hanged, fourteen burnt to death, seventy-one transported to other colonies,—sold for cash—and the remainder, forty-seven of them, pardoned. For what? Absolutely nothing. One, Mary Barton by name, gave out a report that the slaves had made a plot to burn the town and murder the inhabitants, which was absurd on the face of it. Yet Justices lost their heads, and the inhabitants, each one armed,—slaves were unarmed— became terror stricken, and hanging and burning were done without mercy. “The wicked fleeth, when no man pursueth.”

God is the maker and judge of all men. He made us innocent, and never placed burden on mortal man beyond his strength, nor imposed a duty that could not be discharged; but men have created apparently inexplicable contradictions, crooked aspirations, and injustice and impurity, and now and again vainly endeavour to run away from their own badness.

Looking steadfastly into this Egyptian darkness of slavery in the States we see a little light of promise; and, in God-fearing men, most of them Quakers, such as Leister King, Elizur Wright, John Sloane of Ravenna, David Hudson, from whom Hudson City received its name, and Owen Brown, father of the immortal John Brown, we discern His ambassadors, who feared not to proclaim their Master's will. They did not labour in vain. As early as 1726, the Colonists of Virginia, alarmed by the increase of slaves, tried to check further importation by imposing a tax; but “the African company obtained the repeal of that law.” In I760, South Carolina endeavoured to restrict the traffic, “for which she received the rebuke of the British government.” Earlier than the Colonists of Virginia, the people of Pennsylvania passed a law in 1712 to prevent the increase of slaves, which the Crown promptly annulled. In 1771, also in 1774, Massachusetts adopted measures for the abolition of slavery; but the Colonial Governors, who represented the government, refused to approve them, and so they were lost. Rhode Island, more fortunate than the other colonies, passed a law in 1774, prohibiting the importation of slaves, and in 1784, declared all children free born after the next March, of which acts the government took no notice. Light was breaking through the clouds; this was the first step towards emancipation. No more slaves to be imported, and all children of slaves then in the state, also all children to be born, to be free, meant the redemption of Rhode Island from the horrible crime, and had more influence in the other states than can now be measured.

The light and the promise grow more clear while we look, and circumstances of good omen accumulate. With the annexation of Texas, a vast country adapted to the growth of cotton, which increased the demand for and the price of slaves, we see a bolder activity on the part of the Quakers, who, filled with the love of God and man, stepped forth before all men to render aid to the hunted fugitive. The hunted fugitive? Yes; for the slave had at last found manhood enough in himself to attempt escape, to fly from the auction block, the flesh and blood jobbers, the pain of the lash and the woe of children sent from his heart into other lands. To Eastern Pennsylvania hundreds of them took flight, and were received and helped by good Samaritans. This was the beginning of the end. God had assisted the Negro to feel his manhood, and had provided good men to help him. The slave power might, and did, continue to oppress him; deny him the rights of citizenship; prohibit meetings and schools; forbid him to preach to his brother slaves; punish white men who dared to instruct him; bind manacles tighter to his feet; but in vain. He had learned that men lived in other places who were ready to serve him, and had discovered a personal courage to dare something for himself. Previous to the annexation of Texas came the revolution, and separation from England, in which the Negro found that he could use arms, and was encouraged by both Colonists and Crown to do so, and of 501,102 slaves at that time in the States, some fought for the Crown and some for the Colonists. They knew not for what they fought; but it was a new experience, and was not forgotten.

His valour, however, did not win liberty for him. After the new constitution had been ratified, and the States were established as a separate nation, he went back to his labour and sorrow; for him no improvement had been won. But something had been won personal to himself, which was increased courage and bolder daring. He had seen white men fight for something they called liberty; had ignorantly fought with them, and had seen many new things. And slaves in every state had heard of Canada, a land far away; but of distance they knew nothing and cared less. With miraculous courage and wonderful faith thousands of them ventured forth; were helped by a society known as the Underground Railroad;—composed of good men of all creeds—were fed and directed; were sheltered by day and conducted through the woods by night; and, it is pleasing to read that they always proffered to pay in labour for what they had received. The light grows clearer, and thousands of men are looking at the horrid cruelties of darkness, and much earnest discussion is heard throughout the land.

It is 1844, just two hundred and twenty-five years since those unfortunate fourteen slaves were delivered to the Governor of Virginia, and the divine judgment of slavery and slave-holders is getting nearer. In eighteen years the inhabitants of the States will know what slavery means, and how fearful a thing it is to forsake righteousness. England, once a partner in the business, has meanwhile made a noble repentance, and has set free every slave that lived beneath her banner, and never more will stain her hands with the blood of such a crime. More than that; at her own cost and as best she can she prevents the crime being committed by others. Her Sons of to-day must not be blamed for the sins of their fathers. But in 1844 the darkness had not passed from the United States, though thousands of her noblest sons saw the light, and sorrowed o'er the sin; the storm might not be avoided, but must break in death-giving force upon them. The Negro must suffer and wear his manacles yet a while. Then the world shall see and the States feel the awful judgment of God, and widows will weep, and sons lament, and fathers moan for those who are not.

On the seventeenth of October, 1859, John Brown, at the head of a small force of armed men, entered the town of Harper's Ferry, Virginia, a little after ten o'clock in the evening, to free the slaves. Five colored and fourteen white men constituted the entire force, with which he hoped not to destroy the huge slave party of the South, but to create a feeling, or so inflame a feeling already created, that would burn in Christian hearts until the power of that party should be destroyed. He took possession of the armoury buildings, cut the telegraph wires, stopped trains on the railroad, liberated several slaves, and held the town not much longer than a day. The slave party, at first, were astounded, if not for a moment paralized; then they laughed, and said: “The folly of a madman.” John Brown could not with his small force accomplish a task which ultimately cost millions of treasure and one million lives; but he could, and did, reveal to the anti-slave party, as they had never seen it before, the evil spirit of the slave party in its diabolical nature and purpose.

On the nineteenth of October, 1859, only two days after his bold attack on the town, John Brown was cast into prison, where he remained until the seventh of November without a change of clothing, and, his wounds not withstanding, without medical aid; and, forty-two days from the time of his imprisonment was hanged to death. The raid, capture, trial, conviction and execution of this wonderful man and his followers profoundly stirred the nation, and attracted the attention of the civilized nations of the world. His friends, who admired his simplicity of heart and life, felt very sorrowful; thought he had made a grievous mistake and that military action would not advance legitimate reform; the slave-owners were excited and furiously determined to stand by their property. But his friends did not know that they had opposed to them the worst, most wicked, subtlest of sin-serving men this world has ever seen; they could not then feel, for which they cannot be blamed, that only blood and death could rid the nation of the evil of slavery. But it was brought home to them a few months after John Brown's execution, when they saw for the first time that it was war or eternal disgrace, perhaps destruction. Then all good men of every creed, with infinite regret, but with courage made mighty by burning indignation, drew the sword, not to sheath it until the curse was destroyed.

We are, always have been, for peace, and must oppose war; but if ever war was justifiable, that of the emancipation is justified. It was not desired by the North, the government did not seek it, there was no coveted territory to be won, not a private interest to be advanced; it was a case of wresting from blood-stained hands that would not peaceably let go millions of human beings.

John Brown did not mean war; but was mysteriously, no doubt providentially, influenced at the last moment to depart from his original plan. To quote from a letter he wrote on the fifteenth of November, 1859, to a minister of religion, it is clear that some influence moved him to act as he had not intended. He says: “I am not as yet, in the main, at all disappointed. I have been a good deal disappointed as it regards myself in not keeping up to my own plans; but now I feel entirely reconciled to that even; for God's plan was infinitely better, no doubt, or I should have kept my own. Had Samson kept to his determination of not telling Delilah wherein his great strength lay, he would probably have never overturned the house. I did not tell Delilah; but I was induced to act very contrary to my better judgment.” God's plan was better than my own is the substance of the letter, and we doubt not that this rugged puritan, a lineal descendant in the direct line of Peter Brown of the “Mayflower,” saw visions and dreamed dreams in his cell, and clearly perceived that the end of slavery in the United States was near at hand, and that his own death would hasten its downfall. He felt that he, as Samson by telling his secret was brought to the task of overturning the enemies' house, by not keeping his own plans had secured the destruction of slavery in the States. There can be no question now about his vision being correct. A few months later, the Twelfth Massachusetts marched out of Boston singing the John Brown song, and sang it in camp, and regiment after regiment caught up the air of it, and on the march and in the midst of battle descendants of the Puritans and of the Pilgrim Fathers, and other noble-hearted men, made fields and pathways resound with musical words of “John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,” and of “his soul still marching on.” The fore-seeing eye is yet in the world, and God's prophets have somewhat to do even in the nineteenth century.

He was a real Puritan, and, like the fathers from whom he descended, sternly religious. Baxter and Bunyan were the men with whom he sat and talked, through their books, and the bible was his chief adviser and guide. Selfishness had no place in his character, but generosity was the shining virtue of his life, and he was endowed with an exceedingly fine sense of justice. Fear he knew not; when told that the Missourians had marked him for death, he replied: “The Angel of the Lord will camp round about me.” His destiny was linked with that of the slave; he felt that he must live and die for him; he was one of the instruments by which God worked out His will. In prison, he wrote: “I never did intend murder, or treason, or the destruction of property, or to excite or incite slaves to rebellion, or to make insurrection. The design on my part was to free the slaves.”

Virginia and all the Southern States, though the great slave-owners called him a madman, were thrown into confusion by this Puritan and his nineteen men, and the baser sort would gladly have lynched him. They had for years taunted the anti-slavery party with cowardice, saying that they dared not preach emancipation in the South. In their imagined safely established power they sneered at the party of humanity, were sneering on that historic seventeenth of October, when, to their infinite surprise, momentary dread, and long-continued suspicion of a vast conspiracy against them, a few brave men stood up in their midst sword in hand to bear testimony with their lives against the crime of slavery. Never did lightning from heaven smite the human heart with terror more suddenly than did this John Brown into the souls of men who owned flesh and blood. They must find out who had supported him, and see what power was behind him. Therefore, Senator Mason hastened to Harper's ferry, and, finding the old puritan lying on the floor of the armoury office, his face, hands and clothes stained with blood which flowed from his undressed wounds, proceeded to question him. When was the organization formed? Who provided the money? Where did he get the arms? Said Brown: “I will answer freely and faithfully about what concerns myself—I will answer anything I can with honour, but not about others.” Asked: “How do you justify your acts?” he answered: “I think, my friend, you are guilty of a great wrong against God and humanity—I say it without wishing to be offensive—and it would be perfectly right for anyone to interfere with you so far as to free those you willingly and wickedly hold in bondage. . . . I think I did right, and that others will do right who interfere with you at any time and all times. I hold that the golden rule, ‘Do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you,’ applies to all who would help others to gain their liberty.” . . . “I want you to understand, gentlemen,” he said, “that I respect the rights of the poorest and weakest of coloured people oppressed by the slave system just as much as I do those of the most wealthy and powerful. That is the idea that has moved me, and that alone. We expected no reward except the satisfaction of endeavouring to do for those in distress and greatly oppressed as we would be done by. The cry of distress of the oppressed is my reason and the only thing that prompted me to come here. . . . I wish to say, furthermore, that you had better, all you people of the South, prepare yourselves for a settlement of this question, that must come up for settlement sooner than you are prepared for it. . . . You may dispose of me very easily. I am nearly disposed of now; but this question is still to be settled— this Negro question I mean; the end of that is not yet.” Prophetic words, let the reader observe, spoken by one whose soul was full of light, who in few days would join the “Sons of the morning.”

Of course, the flesh jobbers called him a fanatic, a fool, a madman, and his friends scarcely knew at first what to say; but in a little while they heard God's message which came to them through his death. Jefferson Davis called it: “The invasion of a state by a murderous gang of abolitionists, to incite slaves to murder helpless women and children . . . and for which the leader has suffered a felon's death.” Mr. Douglass said he was “a notorious man who had recently suffered death for his crimes upon the gallows.” Yes; he was such an one to the slave party. Slave-owners were as incapable of understanding a John Brown as the slave was of expounding Euclid; they could not comprehend the man who said, while waiting for execution: “It is a religious movement;—I regard myself an instrument in the hands of providence.” He was a puritan; they were slave-owners; there was nothing in common between them. They were accustomed to the sight of the plantation, which debased them; he, mostly with the pictures which bible stories inspired within him. Had he not read of Joshua taking a walled city by the blowing of trumpets and the shouting of his people! And had he not studied the story of Gideon, who, with three hundred men, bearing only trumpets and lamps and pitchers, put to flight with mighty confusion the Midianites and Amalekites, who were like grasshoppers for multitude! He would take his nineteen men against the slave power, and let God decide. God did decide. John Brown was hanged, and went to heaven; and the influence of his life and death inspired the hearts of Northern men with feelings they never had before, and moved them to look more earnestly at the monster in front of them, and caused thousands of them to realize that more men would have to die, to give their lives to free the land from the great abomination. God did decide, from whose decision neither North nor South could escape.