PRINTED BY A. A. ANDERSON, DISPATCH BUILDINGS, FIFTH STREET. 1860. Price, 10 Cents. For sale at E. Edmonds' News Depot, 56 Wylie Strret. LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOHN BROWN: A SERMON PREACHED AT THE Wesleyan Methodist Church, Pittsburgh, La. On Sunday Evening, December 4, 1859. BY REV. JOHN GREGORY, Pastor of the Church. Published by Request of the Congregation. PITTSBURGH: PRINTED BY A. A. ANDERSON, DISPATCH BUILDINGS, FIFTH STREET SERMON. "ALL THINGS HAVE I SEEN IN THE DAYS OF MY VANITY: THERE IS A JUST MAN THAT PERISHETH IN HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS, AND THERE IS A WICKED MAN THAT PROLONGETH HIS LIFE IN HIS WICKEDNESS." Ecclesiastes vii: 15. THE subject chosen for this evening's discourse is one of rapidly-increasing interest and importance. A great event has transpired; greater in its significance and in its foreshadowings than any that have for many years past been inscribed upon the pages of the nation's history. The whole country-North, South, East, Westhas been convulsed as with the throes of a mighty earthquake. Politicians of all grades have been forced to lose sight for a moment of their schemes and aspirations, and to look on in wonder at the strange drama passing before their eyes. Preachers, laying aside for a time their doctrinal disquisitions, have been constrained to give their views of the wondrous event which has so aroused the interest of their congregations. Lecturers, turning away from the inviting paths of poetry and fiction, have been induced to speak in plain and sober prose of the great "Lesson of the hour." Soldiers, tired. of the monotony of peace, and eager to prove their skill and valor in war, have hurried hither and thither, have marched and countermarched; and military displays on a most extensive scale have been the order of the day. And the people, everywhere, of all ages, and sects, and colors, and conditions, have heen absorbed in discussions, and disputes, and prophecies about a subject with which they feel themselves to be intimately concerned. In the camp and in the grove, in the Court and in the Meeting-House, in the market and in the work-shop, on the street and by the fireside, in every place has the momentous event been the all-absorbing topic of conversation. And what is the cause of these innumerable discussions, this raging excitement, this intense anxiety to hear the latest news? Has a foreign army invaded our shores? Has the dreaded pestilence again made its appearance? Has some vast and populous city been suddenly destroyed by fire? No! None of these calamities have happened. What then? A MAN, a brave old man, a true-hearted, strong-nerved American citizen, with eighteen valiant followers, has, quite unexpectedly, invaded the great and ancient Commonwealth of Virginia! By the magic of his keen, glaring |