As Brown lay on the floor of the paymaster's office he was very cool and courageous. Governor Henry A. Wise, United States Senator J. M. Mason of Virginia and Honorable Clement L. Vallandingham of Ohio plied him with many questions. To all he gave intelligent and fearless replies. He refused to involve his Northern financiers and advisers. He took the entire responsibility on himself. He told Governor Wise that he, Brown, was simply "An instrument in the hands of Providence." He said to some newspaper correspondents and others: "I wish to say that you had better--all you people of the South--prepare for a settlement of this question. You may dispose of me very easily. I am nearly disposed of now. But this question is yet to be settled--this negro question I mean. The end is not yet." Before thirteen months had passed one of the greatest Americans of any century, Abraham Lincoln, had been elected President of the United States; the Republican party was for the first time dominating national affairs and, soon thereafter, the Civil War was begun which culminated in the physical freedom of every slave in this Republic. On Wednesday Captains John Brown, Stephens and Coppoc, along with Copeland and Green, were removed to the county jail at Charlestown, ten miles south of Harper's Ferry. Being acquainted with the jailor, Captain John Avis, I was permitted to visit Brown on one occasion. Captain Aaron D. Stephens was lying on a cot in the same room. I was told that Brown had ordered out of his room a Presbyterian minister named Lowrey when he had proposed to offer prayer. He had also said to my first colleague, Rev. James H. March, "You do not know the meaning of the word Christianity. Of course I regard you as a gentleman, but only as a =heathen= gentleman." I was advised to say nothing to him about prayer. He had told other visitors that he wanted no minister to pray with him who would not be willing to die to free a slave. I was not conscious that I was ready for martyrdom from Brown's standpoint. I have never been anxious to die to save the life of any body. My life is as valuable to me and my family as any other man's is to him and his family. But young as I was I hated American slavery. I was a "boy minister" of a great anti-slavery denomination of Christians. For more than a century the Methodist Episcopal Church has carried in its Disciplines its printed testimony against slavery. It is to-day the largest fully organized anti-slavery society on earth. I would have gladly offered prayer in Brown's room at Charlestown if an honorable opportunity had been afforded.