He captured Harper's Ferry with his nineteen men so few, And frightened Old Virginia till she trembled through and through; They hung him for a traitor--themselves a traitor crew, But his soul is marching on. John Brown was John the Baptist of the Christ we are to see; CHRIST, who of the bondmen shall the Liberator be; And soon through all the South the slaves shall all be free, For his soul goes marching on. John Brown he was a soldier--a soldier of the LORD; John Brown he was a martyr--a martyr to the WORD; And he made the gallows holy when he perished by the cord, For his soul goes marching on. The battle that John Brown begun, he looks from heaven to view, On the army of the Union with its flag, red, white and blue; _And the angels shall sing hymns o'er the deeds we mean to do_, _As we go marching on!_ Ye soldiers of JESUS, then strike it while you may, The death-blow of Oppression in a better time and way, For the dawn of Old John Brown is a-brightening into day, And his soul is marching on. Glory, glory, Hallelujah! Glory, glory, Hallelujah! Glory, glory, Hallelujah! His soul is marching on. There! if the soldiers of Cromwell and of Ireton had any lyric to beat _that_, we should like to see it. Among its rough and rude rhymes gleams out a fierce fire which we supposed was long since extinct. Verily, old Father Puritan is _not_ dead yet, neither does he sleep; and to judge from what we have heard of the effects of this song among the soldiers, we should say that grim Old John Brown himself, far from perishing, is even now terribly alive. There is something fearful in the inspiration which can inspire songs like this. * * * * * 'GALLI VAN T' is welcome, and will be 'welcomer' when he again visits us in another letter like _this_: DEAR CONTINENTAL: I have a friend who is not an artful man, though he be full of art; and yesterday evening he told me the following: 'In my early days, when I took views of burly farmers and their bouncing daughters in oil, and painted portraits of their favorite horses for a very moderate _honorarium_, and in short, was the artist of a small country town--why, then, to tell the truth, I was held to be one of the greatest painters in existence. Since studying abroad, and settling down in New-York--' 'And getting your name up among the first,' I added. 'Never mind that--I'm not 'the greatest painter that ever lived' here. But in Spodunk, I was. Folks 'admired to see me.' I was a man that 'had got talent into him,' and the village damsels invited me to tea. There were occasional drawbacks, to be sure. One day a man who had heard that I had painted Doctor Hewls's house, called and asked me what I would charge to paint his little 'humsted.' I offered to do it for twenty dollars.