We would then be sleeping on a volcano, such as may at any hour engulf the empire of Russia.
All this I pondered in my heart as I slowly made my way toward St.
Joseph, on the Missouri River, which flows along the western border of Kansas.

And now this question was coming to the front and forcing a settlement, and in Kansas would be the first real conflict.

In Congress they had only paltried with, it; now the people were to try their hand.
And what should I do?
Had I any right as a Christian and as an American citizen, when providentially called to this work, to withdraw myself from aiding in its settlement?
And should I turn my horse in the opposite direction, go back to my Bro.

Graves at Chillicothe, and say to him: "You are a man of undoubted courage, but I am a paltroon and a coward, and I am going to hunt a hole and hide myself, where I will be out of danger when this battle is fought between freedom and slavery." I did not turn back, but revolving all these matters in my mind, reached the city of St.Joseph.Here I had been commended by a friend to a merchant in the city, a member of the Christian Church.

He received me kindly and treated me courteously, but his partner in business did not seem to be of that mind.