Tuesday, April 29, 2014

John Brown to John Brown Jr., December 6, 1850

SPRINGFIELD, MASS., Dec. 6, 1850.

DEAR SON JOHN, — Your kind letter is received. By same mail I also have one from Mr. Perkins in answer to one of mine, in which I did in no very indistinct way introduce some queries, not altogether unlike those your letter contained. Indeed, your letter throughout is so much like what has often passed through my own mind, that were I not a little sceptical yet, I should conclude you had access to some of the knocking spirits.1 I shall not write you very long, as I mean to write again before many days. Mr. Perkins's letter, to which I just alluded, appears to be written in a very kind spirit; and so long as he is right-side up, I shall by no means despond; indeed, I think the fog clearing away from our matters a little. I certainly wish to understand, and I mean to understand, “how the land lies” before taking any important steps. You can assist me very much about being posted up: but you will be able to get hold of the right end exactly by having everything done up first-rate, and by becoming very familiar, and not by keeping distant. I most earnestly hope that should I lose caste, my family will at least prove themselves worthy of respect and confidence; and I am sure that my three sons in Akron can do a great job for themselves and for the family if they behave themselves wisely. Your letter so well expresses my own feelings, that were it not for one expression I would mail it with one I have just finished, to Mr. Perkins. Can you not all three effectually secure the name of good business men this winter? That you are considered honest and rather intelligent I have no doubt.

I do not believe the losses of our firm will in the end prove so very severe, if Mr. Perkins can only be kept resolute and patient in regard to matters. I have often made mistakes by being too hasty, and mean hereafter to “ponder well the path of my feet.” I mean to pursue in all things such a course as is in reality wise, and as will in the end give to myself and family the least possible cause for regret. I believe Mr. Newton is properly authorized to take testimony. If so, I wish you to ascertain the fact and write me; if not, I want you to learn through Mr. Perkins who would be a suitable person for that business, as I expect before many weeks to want your testimony, and I want you to give me the name. I forgot to write to Mr. Perkins about it, and have sealed up my letter to him. I mentioned about your testimony, but forgot what I should have written.

Your affectionate father,
JOHN BROWN.
__________

1 This was the period when the Fox family, at Rochester, N. Y., were astonishing the world with their knockings and the messages from another world which these were supposed to convey. John Brown, Jr., was inclined to believe in the reality of this “rat-hole revelation” (as Emerson described it to Henry Ward Beecher); but his father was sceptical. He talked with his son at the American House, Springfield, in 1848, concerning this matter, and told him that the Bible contains the whole revelation of God; that since that canon was closed, “the book has been sealed.” In his later years he was less confident of this; and in 1859, when he last talked with John Brown, Jr., on the subject, he said he had received messages, as he believed, from Dianthe Lusk, which had directed his conduct in cases of perplexity. Milton Lusk has been a believer in “Spiritualism” for many years; indeed, he is naturally heretical, and was excommunicated by the church in Hudson, in 1835.

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 78-9

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