Page:John Brown (1899).pdf/47

 ious in the way he was religious. They were, for the most part, inclined to free thought; and their disinclination to make a profession of religion gave him great sorrow. He never, in his letters, ceased to implore them to do so. They did not in the least depend for the seconding of their devotion to him in this anti-slavery work upon the invocation of a kind of religious ceremony. They were quite ready to give up their lives at the inspiration of their own sense of duty and their strong personal loyalty and devotion to their father.

After this solemn pledge, Brown went on with his wool business and his farming, travelled almost incessantly between East and West, and set down in his little memorandum book many recipes for curing diseases of sheep, and some wise saws, but never a word applicable to the cause of the blacks. He sent home scores of letters, many of which have been preserved carefully; and in them there is