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for your fidelity to the “poor that cry, and those that have no help.”
for this I am a prisoner in bonds.
It is solely my own fault, in a military point of view, that we met with our disaster-I mean that I mingled with our prisoners, and so far sympathized with them and their families, that I neglected my duty in other respects.
But God's will, not mine, be done.
You know that Christ once armed Peter.
So also in my case; I think he put a sword into my hand, and there continued it, so long as he saw best, and then kindly took it from me. I mean when I first went to Kansas.
I wish you could know with what cheerfulness I am now wielding the “sword of the Spirit” on the right hand and on the left.
I bless God that it proves “mighty to the pulling down of strongholds.”
I always loved my Quaker friends, and I commend to their kind regard my poor, bereaved, Widowed wife, and my daughters and daughters-in-law, whose husbands fell at my side.
One is a mother, and the other likely to become so soon.
They, as well as my own sorrow-stricken daughter, are left very poor, and have much greater need of sympathy than I, who, through Infinite Grace and the kindness of strangers, am “joyful in all my tribulations.”
Dear sister, write them at North Elba, Essex Co., N. Y., to comfort their sad hearts.
Direct to Mary A. Brown, wife of John Brown.
There is also another, a widow, wife of Thompson, who fell with my poor boys in the affair at Harper's Ferry, at the same place.
I do not feel conscious of guilt in taking up arms; and had it been in behalf of the rich and powerful, the intelligent, the great,--as men count greatness,--of those who form enactments to suit themselves and corrupt others, or some of their friends, that I interfered, suffered, sacrificed, and fell, it would have been doing very well.
But enough of this.
These light afflictions, which endure for a moment, shall work out for me a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. I would be very grateful for another letter from you. My wounds are healing.
Farewell. God will surely attend to his own cause in the best possible way and time, and he will not forget the work of his own hands.
Your friend, John Brown.
Letter to his family.
I will begin by saying that I have in some degree recovered from my wounds, but that I am quite weak in my back, and sore about my left kidney.
My appetite has been quite good for most of the time since I was hurt.
I am supplied with almost every thing I could desire to make me comfortable, and
