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Show 248 UNCLE TOM'S CABIN: OR1 roused a voice within him, such as of old his ~faster roused in the demoniac soul, saying, " 'Vhat have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth 1-art thou come to torment us before the time 1" Tom's whole soul overflowed with compassion and sympathy for the poor wretches by whom he was surrounded. To him it seemed as if his life-sorrows were now over, and as if, out of that strange treasury of peace and joy, with which he had been endowed from above, he longed to pour out something for the relief of their woes. It is true, opportunities wcro scanty; but, on the way to the fields, and back again, and during the hours of Jaber, chances fell in his way of extending a helping-band to the weary, the disheartened and discouraged. The poor, worn-down, brutalized creatures, at first, could scarce comprehend this; but, when it was continued week after week, and month after month, it began to awaken long-silent chords in their benumbed hearts. Gradually and imperceptibly the strange, silent, patient man, who was ready to bear every one's burden, and sought help from none,- who stood aside for all, and came last, and took least, yet was foremost to share his little all with any who needed,- the man who, in cold nights, would give up his tattered blanket to add to the comfort of some woman who shivered with sickness, and who filled the baskets of the weaker ones in tho field, at the terrible risk of coming short in his own measure, -and who, though pursued with unrelenting cruelty by their common tyrant, never joined in uttering a word of reviling or cursing,- this man, at last, began to have a strange power over them; and, when the more pressing season was past, and they were allowed again their Sundays for their own usc, many would gather together to hear from him of Jesus. They would gladly have met to hear, and pray, and sing, in some LIFE AMONG THE LOWLY. 249 place, together; but Legreo would not permit it, and more than once broke up such attempts, with oaths and brutal execrations,- so that the blessed news had to circulate from individual to individual. Yet who can speak the simple joy with which some of those poor outcasts, to whom life was a joyless journey to a dark unknown, heard of a compassionate Redeemer and a heavenly home 1 It is the statement of missionaries, that, of all races of tho earth, none have received the Gospel with such eager docility as the African. The principle of l'C1iance and unquestioning faith, which is its fOundation, is more a native clement in this race than any other; and it has often been found among them, that a stray seed of truth, borne on some breeze of accident into hea.rts the most ignorant, has sprung up into fruit, whose abundance has shamed that of higher and more skilful culture. The poor mulatto woman, whose simple faith had been well-nigh crushed and overwhelmed, by the avalanche of cruelty and wrong which bad fallen upon her, felt her soul raised up by the hymns and passages of Holy Writ, which this lowly missionary breathed into her ear in intervals, as they were going to and returning from work ; and even the half-crazed and wandering mind of Cassy was soothed and calmed by his simple and unobtrusive influences. Stung to madness and despair by the crushing agonies of a life, Cassy had often resolved in her soul an hour of retribution, when her band should avenge on her oppressor all the injustice and cruelty to which she had been witness, or which site had in her own person suffered. One night, after all in Tom's cabin were sunk in sleep, he was suddenly aroused by seeing her face at the hole between the logs, that served for a window. She made a silent gesture for him to come out. |