John Brown to Reverend Luther Humphrey,* November 19, 1859

Charlestown, Jefferson County, Va., Nov. 19, 1859.

Rev. Luther Humphrey.

My Dear Friend, — Your kind letter of the 12th instant is now before me. So far as my knowledge goes as to our mutual kindred, I suppose I am the first since the landing of Peter Brown from the “Mayflower” that has either been sentenced to imprisonment or to the gallows. But, my dear old friend, let not that fact alone grieve you. You cannot have forgotten how and where our grandfather fell in 1776, and that he, too, might have perished on the scaffold had circumstances been but a very little different. The fact that a man dies under the hand of an executioner (or otherwise) has but little to do with his true character, as I suppose. John Rogers perished at the stake, a great and good man, as I suppose; but his doing so does not prove that any other man who has died in the same way was good or otherwise.

Whether I have any reason to “be of good cheer” or not in view of my end, I can assure you that I feel so; and I am totally blinded if I do not really experience that strengthening and consolation yon so faithfully implore in my behalf: the God of our fathers reward your fidelity! I neither feel mortified, degraded, nor in the least ashamed of my imprisonment, my chains, or near prospect of death by hanging. I feel assured “that not one hair shall fall from my head without the will of my Heavenly Father.” I also feel that I have long been endeavoring to hold exactly “such a fast as God has chosen.” (See the passage in Isaiah which you have qnoted.¹) No part of my life has been more happily spent than that I have spent here; and I humbly trust that no part has been spent to better purpose. I would not say this boastingly, but thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory through infinite grace.

I should be sixty years old were I to live to May 9, 1860. I have enjoyed much of life as it is, and have been remarkably prosperous, having early learned to regard the welfare and prosperity of others as my own. I have never, since I can remember, required a great amount of sleep; so that I conclude that I have already enjoyed full an average number of working hours with those who reach their threescore years and ten. I have not yet been driven to the use of glasses, but can see to read and write quite comfortably. But more than that, I have generally enjoyed remarkably good health. I might go on to recount unnumbered and unmerited blessings, among which would be some very severe afflictions, and those the most needed blessings of all. And now, when I think how easily I might be left to spoil all I have done or suffered in the cause of freedom, I hardly dare wish another voyage, even if I had the opportunity.

It is a long time since we met; but we shall come together in our Father's house, I trust. Let us hold fast that we already have, remembering we shall reap in due time if we faint not. .Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. And now, my old, warm-hearted friend, good-by.

Your affectionate cousin,

John Brown.

_______________

* A cousin of John Brown.

¹ The reference here is to the familiar text in the fifty-eighth chapter of the prophet, who may be said to have foretold Brown as clearly as he predicted any event in Hebrew history: “Is not this the fast that I have chosen, — to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him: and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? . . . Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. . . . Thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called the Repairer of the breach, the Restorer of paths to dwell in."

SOURCES: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 594-5