BOSTON, Mass., Nov. 28.
Beloved and Honored Friend: I find comfort in the faith that your spirit ascends and sings while ours are draped with shadows. Your hour of freedom approaches. Over that scaffold, erected by the foes of freedom, angels shall lovingly droop their arms to protect you. O! dear friend! I know they will take all thy pangs. Thou wilt surely be unconscious of the gate of mortal agony through which must lie thy pathway to thy near and eternal home. We abide in the shaded valley while thou ascendest the Mount of Vision. Our hearts ache at losing thee from our world, for thou hast taught us how to live, more simply brave, more tenderly conscientious lives. The banks of the Potomac are sanctified anew and forever to us now, and we feel that the spirit of Washington may hail thee as a brother and a peer. The slopes of living green that he so loved in life will be golden-green in the pictured halls of our memories and associations, because of the eternal brightness of thy failure, as men may now count by results. But
"They never
fail who die
In a great cause: the block may soak their gore,
Their heads may sodden tn the sun; their limbs
Be strung to city gates and castle walls;
But still their spirit walks abroad. Though years
Elapse, and others share as dark a doom,
They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts
Which overpower all others, and conduct
The world at last to freedom."
Our blessed Lord and his apostles did not fail, though the Jews believed that Christianity died at the Cross. The Three Hundred who fell at Thermopylæ failed not. Cato, when the body of his dead son was brought to him, on a bier, all-hailed him – "Welcome!" as one who had done his duty, and bade the attendants lay him down where he could view the bloody corse and count his glorious wounds. Yon granite shaft on Bunker Hill witnesseth that on that Warren and his fellow-soldiers fell; but no failure drapes in history their names with a funeral pall. Neither hast thou, honored old man, nor thy dead sons, nor thy fallen companions, failed. When they who slay thee shall be gathered to their ignoble dust, what hearts will thrill, as ours do now, in gratitude for the great gift of thy life of sixty years; for the heritage of thy steadfast faith and deeds?
Dear old pilgrim, thou mayst safely bequeath thy wife and children to Northern homes and hearts. We shall not forget those dear to thee. We take them as a sacred legacy. Thine eyes are lifted to the distant hills. Ours are often wet with burning tears. But we remember that thou abidest under the shadow of the Almighty, where no evil can befall thee. Believe us, multitudes of brave and sorrow-stricken hearts in all parts of our country, and even the world, await mournfully and sympathetically thy exit. It will be thy freedom hour. And angels shall soothingly welcome thee to a home where there is neither sorrow nor crying. For blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and enter in through the gates into the city.
We would greet with hearty respect the humane jailer and his family.
Farewell, and peace abide with thee.
M. M. W.
_______________
* A woman of Boston.
SOURCE: James Redpath, Editor, Echoes of Harper’s Ferry, p. 422-3
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