Uncle Tom's Cabin

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

has not those temptations to hardheartedness which always overcome frail human nature when the prospect of sudden and rapid gain is weighed in the balance, with no heavier counterpoise than the interests of the helpless and unprotected.

It's a free country, sir; the man's mine, and I do what I please with him,--that's it!"

What's the use of our trying to do anything, trying to know anything, trying to be anything? What's the use of living? I wish I was dead!"

"but, after all, he is your master, you know." "My master! and who made him my master? That's what I think of--what right has he to me? I'm a man as much as he is. I'm a better man than he is.

Ye know, Mas'r George, ye oughtenter feel 'bove nobody, on 'count yer privileges, 'cause all our privileges is gi'n to us; we ought al'ays to 'member that,"

There are in this world blessed souls, whose sorrows all spring up into joys for others; whose earthly hopes, laid in the grave with many tears, are the seed from which spring healing flowers and balm for the desolate and the distressed.

his idea of a fugitive was only an idea of the letters that spell the word,--or at the most, the image of a little newspaper picture of a man with a stick and bundle with "Ran away from the subscriber" under it.

"There'll be the same God there, Chloe, that there is here." "Well," said Aunt Chloe, "s'pose dere will; but de Lord lets drefful things happen, sometimes. I don't seem to get no comfort dat way." "I'm in the Lord's hands," said Tom; "nothin' can go no furder than he lets it;--and

"Yer ought ter look up to the Lord above--he's above all--thar don't a sparrow fall without him." "It don't seem to comfort me, but I spect it orter," said Aunt Chloe.

And in those tears they all shed together, the high and the lowly, melted away all the heart-burnings and anger of the oppressed. O, ye who visit the distressed, do ye know that everything your money can buy, given with a cold, averted face, is not worth one honest tear shed in real sympathy?

everybody in the room bore on his head this characteristic emblem of man's sovereignty;

"I say, stranger, how are ye?" said the aforesaid gentleman, firing an honorary salute of tobacco-juice in the direction of the new arrival.

These words of an ancient volume, got up principally by "ignorant and unlearned men," have, through all time, kept up, somehow, a strange sort of power over the minds of poor, simple fellows, like Tom. They stir up the soul from its depths, and rouse, as with trumpet call, courage, energy, and enthusiasm, where before was only the blackness of despair.

But what needs tell the story, told too oft,--every day told,--of heart-strings rent and broken,--the weak broken and torn for the profit and convenience of the strong! It needs not to be told;--every day is telling it,--telling it, too, in the ear of One who is not deaf, though he be long silent.

Patience! patience! ye whose hearts swell indignant at wrongs like these. Not one throb of anguish, not one tear of the oppressed, is forgotten by the Man of Sorrows, the Lord of Glory. In his patient, generous bosom he bears the anguish of a world. Bear thou, like him, in patience, and labor in love; for sure as he is God, "the year of his redeemed shall come."

This, indeed, was a home,--home,--a word that George had never yet known a meaning for; and a belief in God, and trust in his providence, began to encircle his heart, as, with a golden cloud of protection and confidence, dark, misanthropic, pining atheistic doubts, and fierce despair, melted away before the light of a living Gospel, breathed in living faces, preached by a thousand unconscious acts of love and good will, which, like the cup of cold water given in the name of a disciple, shall never lose their reward.

for therefore are we sent into the world. If we would not meet trouble for a good cause, we were not worthy of our name." "But, for me," said George, "I could not bear it." "Fear not, then, friend George; it is not for thee, but for God and man, we do it,"

Fortunate for him was it that the book he was intent on was one which slow reading cannot injure,--nay, one whose words, like ingots of gold, seem often to need to be weighed separately, that the mind may take in their priceless value. Let us follow him a moment, as, pointing to each word, and pronouncing each half aloud, he reads, "Let--not--your--heart--be--troubled. In--my --Father's--house--are--many--mansions. I--go--to--prepare--a--place--for--you."

Cicero could pause over no such sublime words of hope, and look to no such future reunion; and if he had seen them, ten to one he would not have believed,--he must fill his head first with a thousand questions of authenticity of manuscript, and correctness of translation.

of

"Religion! Is what you hear at church, religion? Is that which can bend and turn, and descend and ascend, to fit every crooked phase of selfish, worldly society, religion? Is that religion which is less scrupulous, less generous, less just, less considerate for man, than even my own ungodly, worldly, blinded nature? No! When I look for a religion, I must look for something above me, and not something beneath."

It's pretty generally understood that men don't aspire after the absolute right, but only to do about as well as the rest of the world.

"suppose that something should bring down the price of cotton once and forever, and make the whole slave property a drug in the market, don't you think we should soon have another version of the Scripture doctrine? What a flood of light would pour into the church, all at once, and how immediately it would be discovered that everything in the Bible and reason went the other way!"

which do you like the best,--to live as they do at your uncle's, up in Vermont, or to have a house-full of servants, as we do?" "O, of course, our way is the pleasantest," said Eva. "Why so?" said St. Clare, stroking her head. "Why, it makes so many more round you to love, you know," said Eva, looking up earnestly.

And your loving me,--why, it was almost like raising one from the dead! I've been a new man ever since!

"Is God on their side?" said George, speaking less to his wife than pouring out his own bitter thoughts. "Does he see all they do? Why does he let such things happen? And they tell us that the Bible is on their side; certainly all the power is. They are rich, and healthy, and happy; they are members of churches, expecting to go to heaven; and they get along so easy in the world, and have it all their own way; and poor, honest, faithful Christians,--Christians as good or better than they,--are lying in the very dust under their feet. They buy 'em and sell 'em, and make trade of their heart's blood, and groans and tears,--and God lets them."

"Friend George," said Simeon, from the kitchen, "listen to this Psalm; it may do thee good." George drew his seat near the door, and Eliza, wiping her tears, came forward also to listen, while Simeon read as follows: "But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well-nigh slipped. For I was envious of the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They are not in trouble like other men, neither are they plagued like other men. Therefore, pride compasseth them as a chain; violence covereth them as a garment. Their eyes stand out with fatness; they have more than heart could wish. They are corrupt, and speak wickedly concerning oppression; they speak loftily. Therefore his people return, and the waters of a full cup are wrung out to them, and they say, How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the Most High?" "Is not that the way thee feels, George?" "It is so indeed," said George,--"as well as I could have written it myself." "Then, hear," said Simeon: "When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me until I went unto the sanctuary of God. Then understood I their end. Surely thou didst set them in slippery places, thou castedst them down to destruction. As a dream when one awaketh, so, oh Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image. Nevertheless I am continually with thee; thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me by thy counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory. It is good for me to draw near unto God. I have put my t...

"If this world were all, George," said Simeon, "thee might, indeed, ask where is the Lord? But it is often those who have least of all in this life whom he chooseth for the kingdom. Put thy trust in him and, no matter what befalls thee here, he will make all right hereafter."

"O, I hope he isn't killed!" said Eliza, who, with all the party, stood watching the proceeding. "Why not?" said Phineas; "serves him right." "Because after death comes the judgment," said Eliza.

Look at the high and the low, all the world over, and it's the same story,--the lower class used up, body, soul and spirit, for the good of the upper.

And Mr. Shelby, not knowing any other way of enforcing his ideas, raised his voice,--a

"Mamma," she said, suddenly, to her mother, one day, "why don't we teach our servants to read?" "What a question child! People never do." "Why don't they?" said Eva. "Because it is no use for them to read. It don't help them to work any better, and they are not made for anything else." "But they ought to read the Bible, mamma, to learn God's will." "O! they can get that read to them all they need." "It seems to me, mamma, the Bible is for every one to read themselves. They need it a great many times when there is nobody to read it."

It is the educated, the intelligent, the wealthy, the refined, who ought to have equal rights and not the canaille."

The Anglo Saxon is the dominant race of the world, and is to be so."

'They that cannot govern themselves cannot govern others.'"

"Don't the Bible say we must love everybody?" "O, the Bible! To be sure, it says a great many such things; but, then, nobody ever thinks of doing them,--you know, Eva, nobody does."

"Uncle Tom," she said, one day, when she was reading to her friend, "I can understand why Jesus wanted to die for us." "Why, Miss Eva?" "Because I've felt so, too." "What is it Miss Eva?--I don't understand." "I can't tell you; but, when I saw those poor creatures on the boat, you know, when you came up and I,--some had lost their mothers, and some their husbands, and some mothers cried for their little children--and when I heard about poor Prue,--oh, wasn't that dreadful!--and a great many other times, I've felt that I would be glad to die, if my dying could stop all this misery. I would die for them, Tom, if I could," said the child, earnestly, laying her little thin hand on his.

"What is being a Christian, Eva?" "Loving Christ most of all," said Eva. "Do you, Eva?" "Certainly I do." "You never saw him," said St. Clare. "That makes no difference," said Eva. "I believe him, and in a few days I shall see him;" and the young face grew fervent, radiant with joy.

St. Clare had never pretended to govern himself by any religious obligation; and a certain fineness of nature gave him such an instinctive view of the extent of the requirements of Christianity, that he shrank, by anticipation, from what he felt would be the exactions of his own conscience, if he once did resolve to assume them. For, so inconsistent is human nature, especially in the ideal, that not to undertake a thing at all seems better than to undertake and come short.

"We does for the Lord when we does for his critturs," said Tom.

"My view of Christianity is such," he added, "that I think no man can consistently profess it without throwing the whole weight of his being against this monstrous system of injustice that lies at the foundation of all our society; and, if need be, sacrificing himself in the battle.

Pity him not! Such a life and death is not for pity! Not in the riches of omnipotence is the chief glory of God; but in self-denying, suffering love! And blessed are the men whom he calls to fellowship with him, bearing their cross after him with patience.

not surer is the eternal law by which the millstone sinks in the ocean, than that stronger law, by which injustice and cruelty shall bring on nations the wrath of Almighty God!