friends, and
would pray earnestly that God would send him deliverance. And then he
would watch, day after day, in the vague hope of seeing somebody sent
to redeem him; and, when nobody came, he would crush back to his soul
bitter thoughts,--that it was vain to serve God, that God had forgotten
him. He sometimes saw Cassy; and sometimes, when summoned to the house,
caught a glimpse of the dejected form of Emmeline, but held very little
communion with either; in fact, there was no time for him to commune
with anybody.

One evening, he was sitting, in utter dejection and prostration, by a
few decaying brands, where his coarse supper was baking. He put a few
bits of brushwood on the fire, and strove to raise the light, and then
drew his worn Bible from his pocket. There were all the marked passages,
which had thrilled his soul so often,--words of patriarchs and seers,
poets and sages, who from early time had spoken courage to man,--voices
from the great cloud of witnesses who ever surround us in the race of
life. Had the word lost its power, or could the failing eye and weary
sense no longer answer to the touch of that mighty inspiration? Heavily
sighing, he put it in his pocket. A coarse laugh roused him; he looked
up,--Legree was standing opposite to him.

"Well, old boy," he said, "you find your religion don't work, it seems!
I thought I should get that through your wool, at last!"

The cruel taunt was more than hunger and cold and nakedness. Tom was
silent.

"You were a fool," said Legree; "for I meant to do well by you, when I
bought you. You might have been better off than Sambo, or Quimbo either,
and had easy times; and, instead of getting cut up and thrashed, every
day or two, ye might have had liberty to lord it round, and cut up the
other niggers; and ye might have had, now and then, a good warming
of whiskey punch. Come, Tom, don't you think you'd better be
reasonable?--heave that ar old pack of trash in the fire, and join my
church!"

"The Lord forbid!" said Tom, fervently.

"You see the Lord an't going to help you; if he had been, he wouldn't
have let _me_ get you! This yer religion is all a mess of lying
trumpery, Tom. I know all about it. Ye'd better hold to me; I'm
somebody, and can do something!"

"No, Mas'r," said Tom; "I'll hold on. The Lord may help me, or not help;
but I'll hold to him, and believe him to the last!"

"The more fool you!" said Legree, spitting scornfully at him, and
spurning h