Cincinnati, Ohio,
Nov. 26.
My Dear Christian
Brother: I hope you will not consider it impertinent or intrusive in me to
write you. I am only a stranger to you; but, as a minister of Christ, I feel
anxious to send you some word of encouragement and consolation at this trying
moment of your life, standing as you do under the very shadow of approaching
doom. The executors of penal law, under which you are held, manifest no
disposition to relent or mitigate the rigors of the penalty pronounced upon
you. I therefore feel that in coming to you by this epistle I am intruding upon
you in the midst of reflections and solemnities inconceivably momentous and
sacred. Of the brief and waning period allowed you by your captors, only six
days now remain, and by the time this shall meet your eye this meagre fragment
of space will have dwindled to hours, and the gloomy death-pageant preparing to
encircle your execution will be about ready for the gaze of eager thousands,
whom sympathy, curiosity, or hatred will gather together. I long to say
something to you that may in some way breathe consolation and inspire fresh and
holy outgoings of hope, courage and confidence in God. And yet I know God is
with you, and his presence and favor are infinitely better and dearer than any
sympathy and condolence of your brethren in Christ. And yet I know that a sad
yet hopeful, a painful yet prayerful, remembrance of you by those who are in
spirit with you, while widely separated from you, will not be painful to you
nor unacceptable to God.
I most fervently
pray that you may find, through Divine Grace, that however severe the trial
that approaches, and however sad all that is now passing upon you may be,"
according to your day so shall your strength be." God exercises His
government in wisdom, love, and mercy, and he does and will overrule all things
for His glory and the final good and salvation of all that put their trust in
Him. Fear not; God will gird thee with strength, and give a meetness and a
divine readiness for your great trials; and may he turn your captivity and
death, if you must die, to His glory and the final deliverance of all the
oppressed of this land. "Faithful is He that hath called you, who also
will do it."
The events that have
been brought about recently through your agency have convulsed the nation, and
stirred the popular heart to its utmost depth, and the minions of oppression
have been made to quake with fear. What is to be the result God only knows, but
this, I think, is already apparent, the cause of Freedom is immeasurably
stronger than it was before you struck your blow at Harper's Ferry, and were
permitted to stand forth a captive among slaveholders and doomed to die.
I herewith inclose
you a few lines which I have penned almost involuntarily upon one of the most heroic
sentences that have been pronounced in modern times, which the public prints
record as yours. This alone is enough to give glory to your captivity; and the
spirit that could give utterance to it will make your death a triumph, both for
yourself and suffering humanity. Very truly and sympathetically,
Your brother in
Christ,
B. K. M.
P. S. Should time
and your dying condition permit, write merely enough to say you have received
this, and send in the enclosed envelope. Such a note will be received as a memento
from a dying brother in Christ, and martyr for the cause of our oppressed
fellow men.
THE HOARY CONVICT.
“I
do not know that I can better serve the cause I love so much than by dying for
it.”
— JOHN BROWN, in prison.
Brave man! whate'er the world may think of thee,
Howe'er in judgment hold thy daring deeds,
Men cannot fail in every step to see
This is no craven heart that beats and bleeds.
Kind friends proclaim thy ardent mind unstrung —
A maniac only heard the bondman sigh;
While foes alarmed have quivering curses flung,
And deem it mercy even to let thee die.
But friends and foes to thee are all the same,
Who drink not at the fount where thou hast stood;
With thee one thought has nursed the hidden flame;
Thy fettered brother claims the common blood.
To lift Him from Oppression's iron heel
Became with thee a purpose, then a cause;
Thy life-long madness was a power to feel —
That gush of feeling wrote thy code of laws.
Thy abject brother doubled in thy sight
Grew into numbers as the vision rose,
Then stood a nation, without power or might.
And all their weakness plead against their foes.
The cause of man loomed grandly on thy sight;
Man, crushed and feeble, was thy rallying cry;
Its wail charmed strangely to the unequal fight.
To give them Freedom, or to bravely die.
Hadst thou thus dared 'neath far Italia's sky
Men would have shouted pæans to thy name;
History would dared her highest skill to try,
And on a spotless page embalmed thy fame.
But thou hast struck on thine own country's plains
For hosts who crouch where shouts for Freedom flow;
Hosts of a dusky brow, condemned to chains,
For whom the bravest dared not strike a blow.
Men grudge thee now a felon's gloomy cells,
And, restive, wail a felon's doom at morn;
Reproach loads every breeze that round thee swells,
And heaven's own light comes mixed with human scorn.
Oppression hastes to drink thy flowing blood,
And dip her iron hoof in costly gore;
But right shall strengthen with the might of God,
And thou, when slain, be mightier than before.
Yon captive hosts shall rise from tears and chains,
And kneel redeemed at God's own scat ere long;
Then thou shalt rise, and Freedom's festive strains
Shall give thy memory to immortal song.
Go, then, and die! thy scarred, heroic form
And hoary locks may grace a scaffold high,
But thy loved Cause shall live beyond the storm,
And thou canst best subserve it now to die!
SOURCE: James Redpath,
Editor, Echoes of Harper’s Ferry, p. 398-401
