The following, for example, is a Roman Catholic tribute to John Brown: 

     On the 2nd of December next, thirty years will have passed
     since John Brown, in his sixtieth winter, ascended the scaffold
     and gave his life for the colored race.

Connecticut gave the hero birth—­from heroes; New York, in her Adirondack recesses, developed in him that spirit of liberty which Ohio had nurtured, and is forever honored by his grave; while Virginia, “building better than she knew,” bestowed the martyr’s crown.  It was necessary that one man should die for the people (John xviii, 14), and God arranged that he who is likewise one of the great benefactors of the human race as well as of his native land should crimson and beautify with his blood the soil that gave a cradle and a tomb to the Father of his Country.

Grand indeed is the greatness of the rock-ribbed Adirondacks where John Brown lived, prayed, thought out his great life-thought, and made his first trials in the work of emancipation, but grander is the stone there that marks the grave of him whose mighty spirit is still “marching on;” for the greatness of that soul invests the tomb with moral grandeur, and calls “all the astonishing magnificence of unintelligent creation poor.”

Fair indeed are the banks of the Shenandoah, and beautiful the landscape on which the dying eyes of the hero rested, but more lovely far the death of him and of his sons and comrades,—­“even in death they were not divided” (2nd Kings i, 19), because the most beautiful thing in the world or out of it is love, and he and they died of love for their brethren, God’s children.  It is truly fitting, therefore, that they who were rescued by him from bondage should love and honor his glorious name, and that we all should chant the praises of the man who was the chosen instrument of Providence in destroying out of our country the inhuman custom of human slavery.

The Southern Congregationalist, published in Atlanta, does not have a high opinion of such men as John Brown.  We quote: 

There are men who never are mistaken.  If your opinion or plan, no matter how well sustained, differs from theirs, they solemnly greet you:  “Our conscience is our monitor:  we can make no concessions of principle.”  The case is ended.  You may as well make your humble bow and pass on, leaving them in their lofty and superior place.  Such men are of little use in the world.  They may have a few satellites, but that is all.  It is noticeable how uniformly the conscience and principles of these men agree with their prejudices, salaries and other interests, and with changed circumstances how “concessions” distill from them gently as the dew.

We quote again from the St. Joseph’s Advocate, as to the color line: