Page:Anti-slavery and reform papers by Thoreau, Henry David.djvu/88

Rh best news that America has ever heard. It has already quickened the feeble pulse of the North, and infused more and more generous blood into her veins and hearty than any number of years of what is called commercial and political prosperity could. How many a man who was lately contemplating suicide has now something to live for!

One writer says that Brown's peculiar monomania made him to be "dreaded by the Missourians as a super-natural being." Sure enouogh, a hero in the midst of us cowards is always so dreaded. He is just that thing.

He shows himself superior to nature. He has a spark of divinity in him.

Newspaper editors argue also that it is a proof of his insnaity that he thought he was appointed to do this work which he did, — that he did not suspect himself for a moment ! They talk as if it were impossible that a man could be "divinely appointed" in these days to do any work whatever ; as if vows and religion were out of date as connected with any man's daily work ; as if the agent to abolish slavery could only be somebody appointed by the President, or by some political party. They talk as if a man's death were a failure, and his continued life, be it of whatever character, were a success.

When I reflect to what a cause this man devoted himself, and how religiously, and then reflect to what cause his judges and all who condemn him so angrily and fluently devote themselves, I see that they are as far apart as the heavens and earth are asunder. The amount of it is, our "leading men" are a harmless kind of folk,