Page:A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853).djvu/65

Rh Beside the bed where parting life was laid, And sorrow, grief and pain, by turns dismayed, The youthful champion stood: at his control Despair and anguish fled the trembling soul. Comfort came down the dying wretch to raise. And his last faltering accents whispered praise."

Worn with these labors, the gentle, patient lover of God and of his brother, sank at last overwearied, and passed peacefully away to a world where all are lovely and loving.

Though his correspondence with her he most loved was interrupted, from his unwillingness to subject his letters to the surveillance of the warden, yet a note reached her, conveyed through the hands of a prisoner whose time was out. In this letter, the last which any earthly friend ever received, he says:

I ofttimes, yea, all times, think of thee;—if I did not, I should cease to exist.

What must that system be which makes it necessary to imprison with convicted felons a man like this, because he loves his brother man "not wisely but too well"?

On his death Whittier wrote the following:

"The Cross, if freely borne, shall be No burthen, but support, to thee." So, moved of old time for our sake, The holy man of Kempen spake.

Thou brave and true one, upon whom Was laid the Cross of Martyrdom, How didst thou, in thy faithful youth, Bear witness to this blessed truth!

Thy cross of suffering and of shame A staff within thy hands became;— In paths, where Faith alone could see The Master's steps, upholding thee.

Thine was the seed-time: God alone Beholds the end of what is sown; Beyond our vision, weak and dim, The harvest-time is hid with Him.

Yet, unforgotten where it lies, That seed of generous sacrifice, Though seeming on the desert cast, Shall rise with bloom and fruit at last.

''Amesbury, Second mo. 18th, 1852.''

general tone of the press and of the community in the slave states, so far as it has been made known at the North, has been loudly condemnatory of the representations of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Still, it would be unjust to the character of the South to refuse to acknowledge that she has many sons with candor enough to perceive, and courage enough to avow, the evils of her "peculiar institutions." The manly independence exhibited by these men, in communities where popular sentiment rules despotically, either by law or in spite of law, should be duly honored. The sympathy of such minds as these is a high encouragement to philanthropic effort.

The author inserts a few testimonials from Southern men, not without some pride in being thus kindly judged by those who might have been naturally expected to read her book with prejudice against it.

The Jefferson Inquirer, published at Jefferson City, Missouri, Oct. 23, 1852, contains the following communication:

I have lately read this celebrated book, which, perhaps, has gone through more editions, and been sold in greater numbers, than any work from the American press, in the same length of time. It is a work of high literary finish, and its several characters are drawn with great power and truthfulness, although, like the characters in most novels and works of fiction, in some instances too highly colored. There is no attack on slave-holders as such, but, on the contrary, many of them are represented as highly noble, generous, humane and benevolent. Nor is there any attack upon them as a class. It sets forth many of the evils of slavery, as an institution established by law, but without charging these evils on those who hold the slaves, and seems fully to appreciate the difficulties in finding a remedy. Its effect upon the slave-holder is to make him a kinder and better master; to which none can object. This is said without any intention to endorse everything contained in the book, or, indeed, in any novel, or work of fiction. But, if I mistake not, there are few, excepting those who are greatly prejudiced, that will rise from a perusal of the book without being a truer and better Christian, and a more humane and benevolent man. As a slave-holder, I do not feel the least aggrieved. How Mrs. Stowe, the authoress, has obtained her extremely accurate knowledge of the negroes, their character, dialect, habits, &c., is beyond my comprehension, as she never resided—as appears from the preface—in a slave state, or among slaves of negroes. But they are certainly admirably delineated. The book is highly interesting and amusing, and will afford a rich treat to its reader.

The opinion of the editor himself is given in these words:

Well, like a good portion of "the world and the rest of mankind," we have read the book of Mrs. Stowe bearing the above title.

From numerous statements, newspaper paragraphs and rumors, we supposed the book was all that fanaticism and heresy could invent, and were therefore greatly prejudiced against it. But, on reading it, we cannot refrain from saying that it is a work of more than ordinary moral worth, and