her in pursuit of them. The sketch proceeds, 'She was pleasant
but not funny; she never said what she did not mean.' Here,
truly, was the wife for a man in dead earnest and who could keep
a boyish oath even unto death. For twelve years she proved a
good comrade, and of the seven children of this marriage five
survived, from whom testimonies concerning the domestic life are
forthcoming.

The wife who succeeded her (Mary Ann Day) seems to have been no
less a help-meet in his enterprises. Thirteen children, many of
whom died young, were the off-spring of this second marriage, so
that in a hereditary sense the soul of John Brown may be said to
have marched on.

He infected all his children with his passionate love of liberty.
Many are his cares for their spiritual welfare. Some of them
sorely tried his patience by their aloofness from the Christian
conventions that were dear to him; he yearns over their souls as
he fears their experience of the inner working of grace is not as
his own, but they swerved not in their allegiance to the cause of
the slave. Let us avail ourselves of some of their memories of
their remarkable father. How early the house became a city of
refuge for the runaway negro we learn from the eldest son, who
tells us he can just recollect a timid knock at the door of the
log cabin where they lived. A fugitive slave and his wife were
there, for they had heard that there were a couple residing in
the house who loved the negro and would lend him a rescuing hand.
They were speedily made to know they were welcome, and the
negress, relieved of her last fear, takes young John in a
motherly fashion upon her knee and kisses him. He almost