deathbed. Hear him--"The Lord may help me, or not help, but I'll hold on to him."
I thought a Christian could not hold on to the Lord without help. "Ye can of yourself do nothing." But Tom is an exception--to the last he is perfect. All Christians have been caught tripping sometimes, but Tom never is. He is "bearing everybody's burdens." He might run away, but he will not. He says, "The Lord has given me a work among these yer poor souls, and I'll stay with 'em, and bear my cross with 'em to the end." Christian reader, we must reflect. We know where to go for one instance of human perfection, where the human and the Divine were united, but we know not of another.
Tom converts Cassy, a most infamous creature from her own accounts, and we are to sympathize with her vileness, for she has no other traits of character described. Tom converts her, but I am sorry to see she steals money and goods, and fibs tremendously afterwards. We hope the rest of his converts did him more credit.
The poor fellow dies at last--converting two awful wretches with his expiring breath. The process of conversion was very short. "Oh! Lord, give me these two more souls, I pray." That prayer was answered.
The saddest part of this book would be, (if they were just,) the inferences to be drawn from the history of this wretch, Legree. Mrs. Stowe says, "He was rocked on the bosom of a mother, cradled with prayer and pious hymns, his now seared brow bedewed with the waters of baptism. In early childhood, a fair-haired woman had led him, at the sound of Sabbath bells, to worship and to pray. Far in New England that mother had trained her only son with long unwearied love and patient prayers." Believe it not, Christian mother, North or South! Thou hast the promises of Scripture to the contrary. Rock thy babe upon thy bosom--sing to him sweet hymns--carry him to the baptismal font--be unwearied in love--patient in
