The Portage County Democrat. [volume] (Ravenna, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1860-01-04
Sflistellang.
[PuBLIsHED By REQUEST.
From the Cincinnati Journal and Messenger
DR.. C0LVER To GOV. WISE.

The following letter was written and for
warded by DR.. Cover to Gov. Wise last week.
1t has been handed us for publication. 1t will
find an echo in many hearts.
Hon. HENRY A. WISE
DEAR SIR:-Pardon this intrusion of q
stranger upon yoHr attention. Being but an
humble minister of the gospel of Christ, can
plead 40 exhalted position as my title to your
patience with what 1 have to say. Your own
position is my apology for addressing you
You have in your hands a prisoner. the dis
posal of whom will affect yourself and others
far more seriously than the prisoner himself.
Precisely the same qualities of mind and heart
which gave to the nobls Lafayette a nations
John Brown with gallows. There is no ne
cessity of a detailed presentation of the anal.
ogy between the tive cases. To your very
great credits there are many striking indica-
tions that You have already perceived the
moral resemblance of the two cases. have
no doubt your own noble heart has already
suggested the superior claims of the latter to
the esteem of all good and impartial men,
However wanting, at least in human wisdom,
John Brown may be, if he dies on the scaffold,
he will die pure and noble martyr to liberty,
Ito sympathy for poor, crushed, degraded,
and wronged humanity. Aye, for the very
principle which brought his prototype to our
shores, and for which our noble sires periled
fhoi fhair Ro-k A.
Now, SO far as he is concerned. have little
anxiety. If he dies, God will take care of
his soul, and posterity will take care of his
name.
But, Sir, there are others beside John Brown
and his immediate friends concerned in this
matter. The great heart of humanity, the
world over. throbs in John Browns bosom
The hand that sheds its blood will be held by
that world as a universal fratricids. God and
humanity must die, or that act will be aveng.
ed. The impartial and unchanging laws of
Jehovah's empire must change. or that act
will be avenged. 'tSlow, but sure" marks
the government of God. Earth's foulest blot,
the great anomaly Of nation of professed
indicators of the inherent, and inalienable
rights of manhood, with their heel upon the
necks of three millions of their felloW-men,
may indeed have sapped the prudence and
discretion of John Brown. It may overturn
the intellect and unsettle the brain of the
large-hearted Gerrit Smith. It may yet drive
thousands to acts of rashness and even mad.
ness Solomon says, oppression makes q
wise man mad" But it will never unsettle
the mind of Jehovah. nor impede in its pro-
gress the great wheel of justice. believe it
is no new thing in the worlds history, that
oppression infiicts madness upon others for the
cure of itself, dreadful remedy for terrible
disease. Should Joha Brown be hung, have
no doubt even in that event the wrath Of
man shall praise God" and through the over.
rulings of his providence be made to further
the cause of humanity. That single act will
make more than ten thousand John Browns
all over the land, not excepting the South
As said before. The great heart of the worlds
humanity beats in the bosom of John Brown.
Stop its pulsation there, and the world, all
that is worth naming in it, will rebound from
the paralysis, and spring into an activity
hitherto unknown. If John Brown, who
could bury the brutal murder of his noble
sons in his purer, larger. and moro noble sym
pathy for the poor. crushed slaves il John
Brown, who with bis twenty men could hold
Virginia in check. and only surrender to the
United States troops, and when he knew his
own friends while helpless prisoners, we're be.
ing brutally murdered was yet kind and con.
siderate towards hia enemies who were in his
Il Itakss men 10 aes a maa.