Brann's enemies were professed followers of this Christ. With tearful eyes and uplifted, supplicating faces they besought the God of Justice to--in the beautiful language of the prayer left us by his Son--"lead us not into temptation" and "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us"; and the next day passed resolutions congratulating a mob of brutal ruffians for frightening a sick woman nearly to death, kidnaping her defenseless husband and forcing him--under threats of instant death--to retract what they knew to be the truth. A few weeks later, they were "resoluting" and "sympathizing" and formulating plans for the erection of a monument to the memory of two would-be assassins who were killed while attempting to carry out their cowardly work. Oh, Christianity!--that thy cloak--pure as polar snow--must cover such infamy! Brann's death blots from the firmament of American journalism its brightest star. He was an intellectual titan. In him was embodied the philosophy of Carlyle-- the brilliancy of Voltaire,--the withering sarcasm of Desmoulins--the poetry of Ingersoll. His genius, universal as that of Shakespeare, was ever aligned on the side of the weak and oppressed; ever, with god-like fearlessness, he stood for Right against Might--for purity against corruption. In church, in state, in society-- he tore the painted mask from the face of hypocrisy and exposed it, in all its festering hideousness, to the world's ridicule. Brann has been damned as an atheist--by people who have never read, and are incapable of reading and understanding, a single paragraph from his pen. The author of "Tiens ta Foi," "Charity," "Man's Immorality"--was not an atheist. He refused to bend the knee to superstition-- to lend a patient ear to earth's self-constituted vice- gerents of Omniscience. But God spoke to him through nature. The flowers he so passionately loved were reminders of His loving tenderness; in the divine music of Wagner, Liszt and Chopin, he recognized the voice of God. His faith was broad as the universe--deep as infinity. He loved purity; he hated hypocrisy; and for this he died --a martyr. Inspiration comes from God. The children of genius needs must be the favorites of Omniscience. Yet theologians vilify Brann from the pulpit--teachers denounce him to their pupils. For nearly ten years he has been the target of vindictive spite--such spite as only a narrow, bigoted mind can be capable of. This is the greatest compliment mediocrity can pay to genius. Brann is dead! Still forever is the pen whose wondrous alchemy transposed the English language--with all its inherent harshness--into music sweet as song of Israfil. Stilled is the heart that stood alone, defiant, a bulwark 'gainst the wave of corruption that is engulfing our land.