FISHERIES, GAME AND FORESTS. 477 



" This is dated two years ago, but the principles which dictated it were permanent. 

 Almost on the eve of his last battle, October i, 1859, he wrote home to his daughter 

 Anne, in a letter which I saw, 'Anne, I want you first of all to become a sincere, 

 humble, and consistent Christian, and then (this is characteristic) to acquire good and 

 efficient business habits. Save this, to remember your father by, Anne. God 

 Almighty bless and save you all.' 



"John Brown is almost the only radical abolitionist I have ever known who was 

 not more or less radical in religious matters also. His theology was Puritan, like his 

 practice, and accustomed as we now are to see Puritan doctrines and Puritan virtues 

 separately exhibited, it seems quite strange to see them combined in one person again. 

 He and his wife were regular communicants of the Presbyterian Church, but it tried 

 his soul to see the juvenile clerical gentlemen who came into the pulpits up that way 

 and dared to call themselves Presbyterians — preachers of the Gospel with all the hard 

 applications left out. Since they had lived in North Elba, his wife said but twice had 

 the slave been mentioned in the Sunday services, and she had great doubts about the 

 propriety of taking part in such worship as that. But when the head of the family 

 made his visits home from Kansas, lie commonly held a Sunday meeting in the little 

 church, 'under the auspices of John Brown,' and the Lord heard the slaves mentioned 

 pretty freely then. 



" In speaking of religious opinions, Mrs. Brown mentioned two preachers whose 

 sermons her sons liked to read, and ' whose anti-slavery principles she enjoyed, though 

 she could not agree with all their doctrines.' She seemed to regard their positions as 

 essentially the same. I need not say who the two are — the thunders of Brooklyn and 

 of Boston acquire much the same sound as they roll up among the echoes of the 

 Adirondacks. 



" Now that all is over, and we appear to have decided for the present not to 

 employ any carnal weapons, such as steel or iron, for the rescue of John Brown, but 

 only to use the safer metals of gold and silver, for the aid of his family, it may be 

 necessary for those who read this narrative to ask. What is the pecuniary condition 

 of his household ? It is hard to answer, because the whole standard is difTerent, as to 

 such matters, in North Elba and in Massachusetts. The ordinary condition of the 

 Brown family may be stated as follows : They own the farm, such as it is, without 

 incumbrance, except so far as unfelled forests constitute one ; they have ordinarily 

 enough to eat of what the farm yields — namely, bread and potatoes, pork and mutton 

 — not any great abundance of these, but ordinarily enough. They have ordinarily 

 enough to wear, at least of woollen clothing, spun by themselves ; and they have no 

 money. When I say this, I do not merely mean that they have no superfluous cash 

 to go shopping with, but I mean almost literally that they have none. F"or nearly a 



