Page:John Brown (1899).pdf/65

 him return and part early from Mount Gilead' (Judges vii. 3: Deuteronomy xx. 8). . . . ''Do not delay one moment after you are ready: you will lose all your resolution if you do. Let the first blow he the signal for all to engage, and, when engaged, do not do your work by halves, but make clean work with your enemies.''. . . By going about your business quietly, you will get the job disposed of before the number that an uproar would bring together can collect. . . . You may make a tumult in the court-room where a trial is going on by burning gunpowder freely in paper packages, if you cannot think of any better way to create a momentary alarm, and might possibly give one or more of your enemies a hoist."

Brown seems to have hoped to unite the negroes all over the country, now or afterward, in this revolutionary movement; but he failed. There is no sign that they ever anywhere followed his words of advice. Yet he was not igno-