OCR Text |
Show 118 W endell Phillips. ours, though you have gone beyond u ~, for we taught you to believe in God. 'V e taught you to say, God is God, and trample wicked laws under your feet." And now, from that Virginia gibbet, he says to us, "The maxim I tanght you, practi ~e it! The principle I have shown you, apply it! If the cri is becomes sterner, meet it! If the battle is closer, be true to my memory! Men say my act was a failure. I showed what I promised, that the slaYe ought to r esi t, and couhl. Sixteen men I placed under the sh el ter of Engli h law, ancl then I taught the millions. Prove that my enterpri~ e was not a failure, by ha wing a N orth r eady to stand behind it. I am willing, in God's service, to plunge with ready martyrdom into the chasm that opens in the forum, only show yourselves worthy to stand upon my grave !" It seems to me that this is the les. on of Puritani m, as it is read to us to-clay. "Law" and "order" are only names for the haltinO' irrnorance of the last generation. J ohn Brown is 0 0 tbe imper onation of God's order and God\; law, moulding a better future, and setting for it an exam pic. VIII. SPEECH BY R ALPH wALDO EMERSON.* M I~. CIIAIRl\fAN : I h::n-e been struck with one fact, that the best orators who have added thcit praise to his f:un e - and I need not go out of this h o u ~ e to find the purest eloque nce in the country- have one rival who comes off' a li It lc better, and that is J OIIN BROWN. EYery thing that is Rai<l of him leaves people a little di ·satisfied; but as soon as they r ead his own speeches and letter · they arc h eartily contented - such i:S the singlenes of purpose which justifies him to the head and the heart of all. Taught by tbis experience, I mean, in the fe w r emarks I h:"tYe to make, to cling to hi::; history, or let him speak for l1im elf. J ohn Tirown, the fonndcr of lil>crty in Kan as, was born in Sorrington, Litchfield County, Conn., in 1 00. "\Vhen he was fh·c y ears old his f~1th e r emig rated to Ohio, ancl the l.loy was th ere set to k eep sheep, and to look after cattle, and dress skin ' ; he ' 'r ent bareheaded and barefooted, and clothed in bu ckskin. lie aid that he loved rou gh play, could never h:w c rough play enough; could not sec a seedy hat without wishing to pull it off. But for this it needed that the pbyIn: ltes should llc equal; not one in fine clothes and the other in l>uck:,kin; not one his own master, hale ami lH'arty, and the other watclH'd and whipped. But it chanced that in P ennsyhania, where he \vas sent by his father to collect cattle, he * Dl'l ivoro<.l o.t the Drown llclicf Meeting, b old nt Salom, 1\Tnss., Jnnunry 0, 1800. (119) |