Page:John Brown (1899).pdf/152

 causes, you must submit to a trial which may involve death. Your confessions justify the presumption that you will be found guilty. It is better that you should turn your attention to your eternal future." And Brown answered gravely, taking up a little of the grandiose tone of his tormentor, but improving on it with fine Yankee humor: "Governor, I have, from all appearances, not more than fifteen or twenty years the start of you on the journey to that eternity of which you kindly warn me; and, whether my time here shall be fifteen months or fifteen days or fifteen hours, I am equally prepared to go. There is an eternity behind and an eternity before; and the little speck in the centre, however long, is but comparatively a minute. The difference between your tenure and mine is trifling, and I therefore tell you to be prepared. I am prepared. You all have a heavy responsibility, and it behooves you to prepare more than it does me."