'
John Brown vindicated that opinion.
CHAPTER VIII
THE HALT OF THE BODY AND THE MARCH OF THE SOUL
The journeys of John Brown's body were now at an end. Only his
soul was free to travel, and it found its vehicle in letters
which carried thoughts that breathed and words that burned far
and wide.
This condemned prisoner had five weeks left of mortal life, and
they were the most fruitful he ever spent. The greatest
achievement of his life was the marvellous advocacy of the cause
conducted from his prison. His friend F. B. Sanborn says:
'Here was a defeated, dying old man, who had been praying and
fighting and pleading and toiling for years, to persuade a great
people that their national life was all wrong, suddenly
converting millions to his cause by the silent magnanimity or
the spoken wisdom of his last days as a fettered prisoner.'
He had spoken of a Samson's victory as possibly the great
triumph in store for him. Even so it was, and in his death and
by the manner of it he mortally wounded his old enemy, Slavery.
As the great continent watched from afar his last days, a thrill
passed through it that made Emancipation a triumphant cause.
Efforts to save Brown's life might be in vain, but Brown's death
was helping to save the life of the nation.
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