As a study of John Brown, Mr. Villard's book is misleading, and, in places, worthless. It is a jargon of facts and fancies; a juggling with the truths of history; a recital of the long list of Brown's minor peculations, and the bloody deeds which accent his career, interlarded with half-hearted denunciations of his moral obliquity and conspicuously fulsome panegyrics upon his character, and extravagantly illogical attributes concerning the nobility of his aims. The book seems to have been put forth not with reference to the truth, but to ennoble an ignoble character; to shroud the character in a mantle of mystery; to create in the twentieth century, a "complex" character: a mystic with a propensity to do wrong; wherein there is a compromise of virtue with vice. To the accomplishment of this end, this author has not only bent his energies in subordinating the truth, but, as a furtherance of his purpose, he has deemed it necessary to pass beyond the boundaries of historical research, and seek to strengthen his cause by inviting discredit upon the opinions of any who may venture to dissent from his inventions. It may not be held to be a suspicious circumstance, but it certainly is not good form for an historian to presuppose that his statements of fact will be disbelieved, and that the logic of his conclusions concerning them will be challenged by any one. Nor should he seek to discredit hypothetical opinions by the cheap, or vulgar, assertion that such opinions have their origin in prejudice--"blind prejudice"; for jurors, and even judges, sometimes disagree; and it is possible for persons, who are conscientious, to receive divergent impressions in relation to the same subject. He would have preserved a better decorum if he had relied upon candor, and the supreme truthfulness of his narrative, and the clearness of his reasoning, whereby to supplant disbelief with faith, and to dispel prejudice by enlightening it. The tree is better known by its fruits, than by any tag which the owner may attach to the trunk. An historian who conscientiously writes the truths of history, is not solicitous concerning the criticisms of any who may read his lines. CHAPTER II THE MAN _Not every one that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter unto the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven._ --MATTHEW, 7:21