The Kansas and Nebraska troubles had resulted in more than establishing certain theories or in deciding the status of portions of our territory. It had intensified the feeling in both sections of our country, and men were being irreconcilably divided upon the subject of slavery. Out of these troublous times sprang John Brown, originally a farmer, born in the northern part of Connecticut, and emigrating to Ohio when a child. In 1854 his four elder sons migrated to Kansas, joining with the thousands from the North to make that a free State and to secure homes for themselves and their families. Plundered and harassed, they wrote to their father to procure arms. To make sure that they should get these he went with them. This was his introduction into Kansas. We have no design of following out his history in detail, but only claim that his fanatical zeal and his unreasonable expectations were the product of the times in which he lived and the experiences which he suffered, acting upon a temperament peculiarly unselfish, heroic, and religious. Enough for us is it to know that his course led him, with an army of sixteen men, to the capture of Harper’s Ferry and to a conflict with the whole State of Virginia, in fact with the power of the whole United States government, and ultimately to the scaffold. His courage, his calmness, his undoubting faith in the future deliverance of the slaves, crowned by his heroic death, made his name the war-cry of the future legions of the loyal States, who sang as they marched: “John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave, John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave, But his soul is marching on.” The attack on Harper’s Ferry was made October 17. On Sunday evening, October 30, Henry Ward Beecher preached upon “The Harper’s Ferry Tragedy,” and gives his judgment of the principal actor in the following language: “An old man, kind at heart, industrious, peaceful, went forth with a large family of children, to seek a new home in Kansas. That infant colony held thousands of souls as noble as liberty ever inspired or religion enriched. A great scowling slave State, its nearest neighbor, sought to tread down this liberty-loving colony and to dragoon slavery into it by force of arms. The armed citizens of another State crossed the State lines, destroyed the freedom of the ballot-box, prevented a fair expression of public sentiment, corruptly usurped law-making power and ordained by fraud laws as infamous as the sun ever saw, assaulted its infant settlements with armed hordes, ravaged the fields, destroyed harvests and herds, and carried death to a multitude of cabins. The United States government had no marines for this occasion! No Federal troops were posted by cars night and day for the poor, the weak, the grossly-wronged men in Kansas. There was an army there that unfurled the banner of the Union, but it was on the side of the wrong-doers, not on the side of the injured.