Charlestown, Jefferson County, Va., Nov. 15, 1859.
Rev. H. L. Vaill.
My Dear, Steadfast
Friend, — Your most kind and most welcome letter of the 8th inst.
reached me in due time. I am very grateful for all the good feeling you
express, and also for the kind counsels you give, together with your prayers in
my behalf. Allow me here to say, notwithstanding “my soul is among lions,”
still I believe that “God in very deed is with me.” You will not, therefore,
feel surprised when I tell you that I am “joyful in all my tribulations;” that
I do not feel condemned of Him whose judgment is just, nor of my own
conscience. Nor do I feel degraded by my imprisonment, my chains, or prospect
of the gallows. I have not only been (though utterly unworthy) permitted to “suffer
affliction with God’s people,” but have also had a great many rare
opportunities for “preaching righteousness in the great congregation.” I trust
it will not all be lost. The jailer (in whose charge I am) and his family and
assistants have all been most kind; and notwithstanding he was one of the
bravest of all who fought me, he is now being abused for his humanity. So far
as my observation goes, none but brave men are likely to be humane to a fallen
foe. “Cowards prove their courage by their ferocity.” It may be done in that
way with but little risk.
I wish I could write you about a few only of the interesting
times I here experience with different classes of men, clergymen among others.
Christ, the great captain of liberty as well as of salvation, and who began his
mission, as foretold of him, by proclaiming it, saw fit to take from me a sword
of steel after I had carried it for a time; but he has put another in my hand (“the
sword of the Spirit”), and I pray God to make me a faithful soldier, wherever
he may send me, not less on the scaffold than when surrounded by my warmest
sympathizers.
My dear old friend, I do assure you I have not forgotten our
last meeting, nor our retrospective look over the route by which God bad then
led us; and I bless his name that he has again enabled me to hear your words of
cheering and comfort at a time when I, at least, am on the “brink of Jordan.”
(See Bunyan's “Pilgrim.”) God in infinite mercy grant us soon another meeting
on the opposite shore. I have often passed under the rod of him whom I call my
Father, — and certainly no son ever needed it oftener; and yet I have enjoyed
much of life, as I was enabled to discover the secret of this somewhat early.
It has been in making the prosperity and happiness of others my own; so that
really I have had a great deal of prosperity. I am very prosperous still; and looking
forward to a time when “peace on earth and good-will to men” shall everywhere prevail,
I have no murmuring thoughts or envious feelings to fret my mind. “I’ll praise
my Maker with my breath.”
I am an unworthy nephew of Deacon John, and I loved him
much; and in view of the many choice friends I have had here, I am led the more
earnestly to pray, “gather not my soul with the unrighteous.”
Your assurance of the earnest sympathy of the friends in my
native land is very grateful to my feelings; and allow me to say a word of
comfort to them.
As I believe most firmly that God reigns, I cannot believe
that anything I have done, suffered, or may yet suffer will be lost to the
cause of God or of humanity. And before I began my work at Harper's Ferry, I
felt assured that in the worst event it would certainly pay. I often expressed
that belief; and I can now see no possible cause to alter my mind. I am not as
yet, in the main, at all disappointed. I have been a good deal disappointed as
it regards myself in not keeping up to my own plans; but I now feel entirely
reconciled to that, even, — for God's plan was infinitely better, no doubt, or
I should have kept to my own. Had Samson kept to his determination of not
telling Delilah wherein his great strength lay, he would probably have never
overturned the house. I did not tell Delilah, but I was induced to act very
contrary to my better judgment; and I have lost my two noble boys, and other
friends, if not my two eyes.
But “God's will, not mine, be done.” I feel a comfortable
hope that, like that erring servant of whom I have just been writing, even I
may (through infinite mercy in Christ Jesus) yet “die in faith.” As to both the
time and manner of my death, — I have but very little trouble on that score,
and am able to be (as you exhort) “of good cheer.”
I send, through you, my best wishes to Mrs. W——.1
and her son George, and to all dear friends. May the God of the poor and
oppressed be the God and Savior of you all!
Farewell, till we meet again.
Your friend in truth,
John Brown.
_______________
1 The Rev. Leonard Woolscy Bacon, then of
Litchfield, Conn., who first printed this letter, said in 1859: “My aged
friend, the Rev. H. L. Vail, of this place, remembers John Brown as having been
under his instruction in the year 1817, at Morris Academy. He was a godly
youth, laboring to recover from his disadvantages of early education, in the
hope of entering the ministry of the Gospel. Since then the teacher and pupil
have met but once. But a short time since, Mr. Vaill wrote to Brown, in his
prison, a letter of Christian friendship, to which he has received this heroic
and sublime reply. I have copied it faithfully from the autograph that lies
before me, without the change or omission of a word, except to omit the full
name of the friends to whom he sends his message. The handwriting is clear and
firm, but toward the end of the sheet seems to show that the sick old man's
hand was growing weary. The very characters make an appeal to us for our
sympathy and prayers. ‘His salutation with his own hand. Remember his bonds.’”
SOURCES: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters
of John Brown, p. 589-91
