in which he himself was pampered with the way the young darkie
was coarsely treated with scant fare and ill-housing. His
frequent thrashings seemed to bruise young John's spirit as much
as they did his flesh. They were not always administered with
the orthodox whip, but with a shovel or anything else that came
first to hand. Young John pondered long upon this contrast, and
tells us how the iniquity of slavery was borne in upon his young
heart, and he was drawn to this little coloured playmate, who had
neither father nor mother known to him. The Bible was the final
court of appeal in the Brown family, and the verdict of that
court was that they two--the slave and the guest--were brothers,
so henceforth the instinct of fraternal loyalty drew young John
to 'swear eternal war with slavery.' That vow, never recanted or
forgotten, became the text of his life. It interprets all his
vagaries and reconciles what else were hopeless inconsistencies.
It was a devout obsession which made him a wanderer all his days,
and in the end carried him to prison and to death. To a child a
great call had come, and a child's voice had replied, 'Speak,
Lord, Thy servant heareth.' And ears and heart tingled at
messages that seemed to come from the Unseen.



CHAPTER III

THE LONG WAITING-TIME

For over thirty years did this man both 'hope and quietly wait
for the salvation of the Lord' to come for the slaves of his
land. The interval is full of interest for those who care to