The Rev. Mr. Richardson was particularly apt--I may say, grandly prophetic. Thus: "Never at the beginning of great periods in history was insurrection so successful as that. It has made it apparent that slavery can and must be abolished; it has set every press and every tongue in the land to agitating the subject of slavery, and has made the pillars of that institution to rock and reel. It has diminished the value of slave stock. Two hundred million dollars, says a Southern paper, John Brown destroyed that Sunday night, and has led how many families to look for a speedy and certain method of getting rid of the perilous property. That man whom we wrong in calling crazy, was groping for the pillars of the slave institution, and he has been successful." Then came Rev. T.W. Higginson who had known much of Brown's plans, and to whom the prisoner had written only a short time before his execution. "How little, one year ago to-day, we expected to hear such words from men who have been deemed conservative; words so heroic, so absolute in defence of principle; and I have wished the pen to record the thoughts which lie behind the faces we all meet; the anxious, the determined, the desperate faces, the varied faces that meet us ... John Brown is now beyond our reach; but the oppressed for whom he died still live. Methinks I hear his voice speaking to you in the words of that Scripture which he loved, 'Inasmuch as ye did it to these little ones ye did it unto me.'" The collection that was taken up for the family amounted to $145.88. Afterward Homer B. Sprague, Principal of the High School, spoke, as did Mrs. Abby K. Foster, both in an eloquent and forcible manner. At half-past ten o'clock the meeting adjourned, the large audience remaining to the end. Milford, Millbury and Fitchburg, in this County, in a similar manner took notice of the sad event. In the Legislature, then in session, there was a movement made in both houses to secure an adjournment. Though defeated, the motion drew out pretty generally the sentiments of the members. Many of these voting against adjournment, admired the martyr; but objected to leaving the business of the day, saying that Brown himself would counsel continued attention to proper legislative duties. From the vantage ground of twenty-five years after, it is interesting to read what leading exponents of public opinion said then. From the South there came but one cry. It was to be expected. Nothing else could have been tolerated. From the North there was a diversity of language.