Page:John Brown (W. E. B. Du Bois).djvu/50

42 to teach it to his children. The iron of bitterness entered his soul with the coming of death, and a deep religious fear and foreboding bore him down as it took away member after member of his family. In 1831 he lost a boy of four and in 1832 his first wife died insane, and her infant son was buried with her. In 1843 four children varying in ages from one to nine years were swept away. Two baby girls went in 1846 and 1859 and an infant boy in 1852. The struggle of a strong man to hold his faith is found in his words, "God has seen fit to visit us with the pestilence and four of our number sleep in the dust; four of us that are still living have been more or less unwell. . . . This has been to us all a bitter cup indeed and we have drunk deeply; but still the Lord reigneth and blessed be His holy name forever." Again three years later he writes his wife from the edge of a new-made grave: "I feel assured that notwithstanding that God has chastised us often and sore, yet He has not entirely withdrawn Himself from us nor forsaken us utterly. The sudden and dreadful manner in which He has seen fit to call our dear little Kitty to take her leave of us, is, I need not tell you how much, in my mind. But before Him I will bow my head in submission and hold my peace. . . . I have sailed over a somewhat stormy sea for nearly half a century, and have experienced enough to teach me thoroughly that I may most reasonably buckle up and be prepared for the tempest. Mary, let us try to maintain a