Читать книгу Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands (Vol.1&2) - Harriet Beecher Stowe - Страница 8

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The Rev. Dr. M'Neile, who had been requested by the respected host to express to Mrs. Stowe the hearty congratulations of the first meeting of friends she had seen in England, thus addressed her: "Mrs. Stowe: I have been requested by those kind friends under whose hospitable roof we are assembled to give some expression to the sincere and cordial welcome with which, we greet your arrival in this country. I find real difficulty in making this attempt, not from want of matter, nor from want of feeling, but because it is not in the power of any language I can command, to give adequate expression to the affectionate enthusiasm which pervades all ranks of our community, and which is truly characteristic of the humanity and the Christianity of Great Britain. We welcome Mrs. Stowe as the honored instrument of that noble impulse which public opinion and public feeling throughout Christendom have received against the demoralizing and degrading system of human slavery. That system is still, unhappily, identified in the minds of many with the supposed material interests of society, and even with the well being of the slaves themselves; but the plausible arguments and ingenious sophistries by which it has been defended shrink with shame from the facts without exaggeration, the principles without compromise, the exposures without indelicacy, and the irrepressible glow of hearty feeling—O, how true to nature!—which characterize Mrs. Stowe's immortal book. Yet I feel assured that the effect produced by Uncle Tom's Cabin is not mainly or chiefly to be traced to the interest of the narrative, however captivating, nor to the exposures of the slave system, however withering: these would, indeed, be sufficient to produce a good effect; but this book contains more and better than even these; it contains what will never be lost sight of—the genuine application to the several branches of the subject of the sacred word of God. By no part of this wonderful work has my own mind been so permanently impressed as by the thorough legitimacy of the application of Scripture,—no wresting, no mere verbal adaptation, but in every instance the passage cited is made to illustrate something in the narrative, or in the development of character, in strictest accordance with the design of the passage in its original sacred context. We welcome Mrs. Stowe, then, as an honored fellow-laborer in the highest and best of causes; and I am much mistaken if this tone of welcome be not by far the most congenial to her own feelings. We unaffectedly sympathize with much which she must feel, and, as a lady, more peculiarly feel, in passing through that ordeal of gratulation which is sure to attend her steps in every part of our country; and I am persuaded that we cannot manifest our gratitude for her past services in any way more acceptable to herself than by earnest prayer on her behalf that she may be kept in the simplicity of Christ, enjoying in her daily experience the tender consolations of the Divine Spirit, and in the midst of the most flattering commendations saying and feeling, in the instincts of a renewed heart, 'Not unto me, O Lord, not unto me, but unto thy name be the praise, for thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake.'"

Professor Stowe then rose, and said, "If we are silent, it is not because we do not feel, but because we feel more than we can express. When that book was written, we had no hope except in God. We had no expectation of reward save in the prayers of the poor. The surprising enthusiasm which has been excited by the book all over Christendom is an indication that God has a work to be done in the cause of emancipation. The present aspect of things in the United States is discouraging. Every change in society, every financial revolution, every political and ecclesiastical movement, seems to pass and leave the African race without help. Our only resource is prayer. God surely cannot will that the unhappy condition of this portion of his children should continue forever. There are some indications of a movement in the southern mind. A leading southern paper lately declared editorially that slavery is either right or wrong: if it is wrong, it is to be abandoned: if it is right, it must be defended. The Southern Press, a paper established to defend the slavery interest at the seat of government, has proposed that the worst features of the system, such as the separation of families, should be abandoned. But it is evident that with that restriction the system could not exist. For instance, a man wants to buy a cook; but she has a husband and seven children. Now, is he to buy a man and seven children, for whom he has no use, for the sake of having a cook? Nothing on the present occasion has been so grateful to our feelings as the reference made by Dr. M'Neile to the Christian character of the book. Incredible as it may seem to those who are without prejudice, it is nevertheless a fact that this book was condemned by some religious newspapers in the United States as anti-Christian, and its author associated with infidels and disorganizers; and had not it been for the decided expression of the mind of English Christians, and of Christendom itself, on this point, there is reason to fear that the proslavery power of the United States would have succeeded in putting the book under foot. Therefore it is peculiarly gratifying that so full an indorsement has been given the work, in this respect, by eminent Christians of the highest character in Europe; for, however some in the United States may affect to despise what is said by the wise and good of this kingdom and the Christian world, they do feel it, and feel it intensely." In answer to an inquiry by Dr. M'Neile as to the mode in which southern Christians defended the institution, Dr. Stowe remarked that "a great change had taken place in that respect during the last thirty years. Formerly all Christians united in condemning the system; but of late some have begun to defend it on scriptural grounds. The Rev. Mr. Smylie, of Mississippi, wrote a pamphlet in the defensive; and Professor Thornwell, of South Carolina, has published the most candid and able statement of that argument which has been given. Their main reliance is on the system of Mosaic servitude, wholly unlike though it was to the American system of slavery. As to what this American system of slavery is, the best documents for enlightening the minds of British Christians are the commercial newspapers of the slaveholding states. There you see slavery as it is, and certainly without any exaggeration. Read the advertisements for the sale of slaves and for the apprehension of fugitives, the descriptions of the persons of slaves, of dogs for hunting slaves, &c., and you see how the whole matter as viewed by the southern mind. Say what they will about it, practically they generally regard the separation of families no more than the separation of cattle, and the slaves as so much property, and nothing else. Their own papers show that the pictures of the internal slave trade given in Uncle Tom, so far from being overdrawn, fall even below the truth. Go on, then, in forming and expressing your views on this subject. In laboring for the overthrow of American slavery you are pursuing a course of Christian duty as legitimate as in laboring to suppress the suttees of India, the cannibalism of the Fejee Islands, and other barbarities of heathenism, of which human slavery is but a relic. These evils can be finally removed by the benign influence of the love of Christ, and no other power is competent to the work."