John Brown to His Younger Children, November 22, 1859

Charlestown, Jefferson County, Va., Nov. 22, 1859.

Dear Children, All, — I address this letter to you, supposing that your mother is not yet with yon. She has not yet come here, as I have requested her not to do at present, if at all. She may think it best for her not to come at all. She has (or will), I presume, written yon before this. Annie's letter to us both, of the 9th, has but just readied me. I am very glad to get it, and to learn that you are in any measure cheerful. This is the greatest comfort I can have, except that it would be to know that you are all Christians. God in mercy grant you all may be so! That is what yon all will certainly need. When and in what form death may come is but of small moment. I feel just as content to die for God's eternal truth and for suffering humanity on the scaffold as in any other way; and I do not say this from any disposition to “brave it out.” No; I would readily own my wrong were I in the least convinced of it. I have now been confined over a month, with a good opportunity to look the whole thing as “fair in the face” as I am capable of doing; and I now feel it most grateful that I am counted in the least possible degree worthy to suffer for the truth. I want you all to “be of good cheer.” This life is intended as a season of training, chastisement, temptation, affliction, and trial; and the “righteous shall come out of” it all. Oh, my dear children, let me again entreat you all to “forsake the foolish, and live.” What can you possibly lose by such a course? “Godliness with contentment is great gain, having the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.” “Trust in the Lord and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land; and verily thou shalt be fed.” I have enjoyed life much; why should I complain on leaving it? I want some of you to write mo a little more particularly about all that concerns your welfare. I intend to write you as often as I can. “To God and the word of his grace I commend you all.”

Your affectionate father,

John Brown.

SOURCES: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 596-7