In 1850 Brown returned to America to join his brother William in the growing abolitionist movement. In his satirical work "Magnus Maharba and the Dragon", an account of the battle against slavery, Rev. Brown used the pen name "Kristofer Kadmus". This shows that he truly identified with the character in Greek Mythology that his life so paralleled. Cadmus was best known as a traveller and vector of culture and ideas. His journey in search of his lost sister Europa led to importation of the idea of alphabet into Greece. In myth, Cadmus killed a dragon that prevented mortals from reaching a sacred spring. He planted the dragon's teeth on the spot; they sprouted into armies that fought nearly to death, with the survivors building the city of learning.