conscience across the dark and wicked soul.
He understood full well that it was GOD who was standing between him and
his victim, and he blasphemed him. That submissive and silent man, whom
taunts, nor threats, nor stripes, nor cruelties, could disturb, roused a
voice within him, such as of old his Master roused in the demoniac soul,
saying, "What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth?--art thou
come to torment us before the time?"

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 were scanty; but, on the way to the fields, and back
again, and during the hours of labor, chances fell in his way of
extending a helping-hand 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 the 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 use, many would gather together to hear from
him of Jesus. They would gladly have met to hear, and pray, and sing, in
some place, together; but Legree 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