ere the men and women
whose wicked hearts he subdued, that their conversion amounted to nothing
less than miracles. No matter how low, how ignorant, how depraved, the very
sight of Tom turned them into advanced, intelligent Christians.

Tom's lines were indeed cast in a sad place. I have always believed that
the Creator was everywhere; but we are told of Legree's plantation "The
Lord never visits these parts." This might account for the desperate
wickedness of most of the characters, but how Tom could retain his holiness
under the circumstances is a marvel to me. His religion, then, depended on
himself. Assuredly he was more than a man!

Legree had several ways of keeping his servants in order--"they were burned
alive; scalded, cut into inch pieces; set up for the dogs to tear, or hung
up and whipped to death." Now I am convinced that Mrs. Stowe must have a
credulous mind; and was imposed upon. She never could have conceived such
things with all her talent; the very conception implies a refinement of
cruelty. She gives, however, a mysterious description of a certain "place
way out down by the quarters, where you can see a black blasted tree, and
the ground all covered with black ashes." It is afterward intimated that
this was the scene of a negro burned alive. Reader, you may depend, it was
a mistake; that's just the way a tree appears when it has been struck by
lightning. Next time you pass one, look at it. I have not the slightest
doubt that this was the way the mistake was made. We have an occasional wag
at the South, and some one has practised upon a soft-hearted New Englander
in search of horrors; this is the result. She mentions that the ashes were
black. Do not infer from this that it must have been a black man or negro.
But I will no longer arraign your good sense. It was not, take my word for
it, as Mrs. Stowe describes it, some poor negro "tied to a tree, with a
slow fire lit under him."

Tom tells Legree "he'd as soon die as not." Indeed, he proposes whipping,
starving, burning; saying, "it will only send him sooner where he wants to
go." Tom evidently considers himself as too good for this world; and after
making these proposals to his master, he is asked, "How are you?" He
answers: "The Lord God has sent his angel, and shut the lion's mouth."
Anybody can see that he is laboring under a hallucination, and fancies
himself Daniel. Cassy, however, consoled him after the style of Job's
friends, by telling him t