Page:John Brown (W. E. B. Du Bois).djvu/352

340 possible best, that its present temporizing seems evil to us, and ever and again after the world has complacently dodged and compromised with, and skilfully evaded a great evil, there shines, suddenly, a great white light—an unwavering, unflickering rightness, blinding by its all-seeing brilliance, making the whole world simply a light and a darkness—a right and a wrong. Then men tremble and writhe and waver. They whisper, "But—but—of course;" "the thing is plain, but it is too plain to be true—it is true but truth is not the only thing in the world." Thus they hide from the light, they burrow and grovel, and yet ever in, and through, and on them blazes that mighty light with its horror of darkness and behind it peals the voice—the Riddle of the Sphinx, that must be answered.

Such a light was the soul of John Brown. He was simple, exasperatingly simple; unlettered, plain, and homely. No casuistry of culture or of learning, of well-being or tradition moved him in the slightest degree: "Slavery is wrong," he said,—"kill it." Destroy it—uproot it, stem, blossom, and branch; give it no quarter, exterminate it and do it now. Was he wrong? No. The forcible staying of human uplift by barriers of law, and might, and tradition is the most wicked thing on earth. It is wrong, eternally wrong. It is wrong, by whatever name it is called, or in whatever guise it lurks, and whenever it appears. But it is especially heinous, black, and cruel when it masquerades in the robes of law and justice and patriotism. So was American