Reading through "Uncle Tom's Cabin"

It took a while, but I finally completed reading the American classic, "Uncle Tom's Cabin." It's more than a classic in my opinion. The author, Harriet Beecher Stowe, was obviously a very dedicated Christian, had been to Bible college, knew Scripture well, and was a an abolitionist of the day. She quotes the Bible throughout her book published in 1852, and many of the chapter headings have Scripture headings at their beginning. She had a real gift for prose and she wove an intriguing story about the evils of slavery. Many characters of all types fill her novel with many of them portrayed as solid Christians who rely on and believe in the Bible. The book caused quite a stir, was banned in the South, and gained instant fame abroad. I made my way through the novel chapter after descriptive chapter and was thoroughly impressed. Then I came to the last chapter where she explained to her readers why she had written the book. I was deeply moved for some reason by her words and I began to think of the injustice of abortion in this country and the world. I thought her words could easily be written today regarding the defiling murderous practice of abortion. I was so moved I had a hard time sleeping that night, and felt very grateful and even proud to a degree to be part of the church who has stood against abortion. I was so burdened anew over abortion. Then the very NEXT DAY, the following day after my tossing and turning, Roe vs Wade was overturned! That's why I posted this in News and Current Events. Not that I was before, but I'm sure not hanging my head for opposing this gravest of injustices. Not that you were, but you shouldn't either. Meanwhile, no gloating, God gave the victory in Roe vs Wade.

I'm just sharing a recent moving experience. Harriet Beecher's Stowe's concluding remarks seemed so very relevant through written in different centuries. I only shared the very last paragraphs of the novel concluding with the very end and last word. She had much more to say. I always have heard of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," but never remotely knew that is was such a Christian work written from a thoroughly Christian world view.

From the very last paragraphs on the last page:

"This is an age of the world when nations are trembling and convulsed. A mighty influence is abroad, surging and heaving the world, as with an earthquake. And is America safe? Every nation that carries in its bosom great and unredressed injustice has within it the elements of this last convulsion.”

"For what is this mighty influence thus rousing all nations and languages those groanings that cannot be uttered, for man’s freedom and equality”

"O, Church of Christ, read the signs of the times! Is not this power the spirit of Him whose kingdom is yet to come, and whose will to be done on earth as it is in heaven?”

"But who may abide the day of his appearing? "For that day shall burn as an oven: and he shall appear as a swift witness against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger in his right: and he shall break in pieces the oppressor.”

"Are not these dread words for a nation bearing in her bosom so mighty an injustice? Christians! Every time that you pray that the kingdom of Christ may come, can you forget that prophecy associates, in dread fellowship, the day of vengeance with the year of his redeemed?”

"A day of grace is yet held out to us. Both North and South have been guilty before God; and the Christian church has a heavy account to answer. Not by combining together, to protect injustice and cruelty, and making a common capital of sin, is this Union to be saved ”“ but by repentance, justice and mercy; for, not surer in the eternal law, by which injustice and cruelty shall bring on nations the wrath of Almighty God!” (Ch 45 ”“ "Concluding Remarks" ”“ pg. 462)

I'm been doing a lot lately and not spending all my time thinking about the godly novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin." I've had some time though to do reading just because I like it and I have taken this time recently to read some Putlizer prize winning novels. Maybe I've led a sheltered life, but these stories winning such prestigious prizes in the field of literature in my opinion contained more than enough of vulgarity and coarseness. The writing skill and prose was something else, very good, but at times took a deep dive into the unseemly. Not every past or modern author does it but many do. But that's looked on as really cool these days I guess. Yet, I also worked my way through the 462 page novel I have referenced and it was much better than I had ever heard. I don't know how I missed it until now.I believe it was a prophetic sword against the national debacle of forced slavery. You do not have to read it of course, but I can recommend it. One neat part is that in their slave quarters, the converted slaves would hold gospel meetings with hymn singing and preaching and prayer in their slave quarters.

Below are a few excerpts.

Description of Tom

"Uncle Tom was a sort of patriarch in religious matters, in the neighborhood. Having, naturally, an organization in which the morale, together with a greater breadth and cultivation of mind than obtained among his companions, he was looked up to with a great respect as a sort of minister among them; and the simple, hearty, sincere style of his exhortations might have edified even better educated persons. But it was in prayer that he especially excelled. Nothing could exceed the touching simplicity, the childlike earnestness of his prayer, enriched with the language of Scripture, which seemed to have so entirely wrought itself into his being, so as have become a part of himself, and to drop from his lips unconsciously; in the language of a pious old negro, he "prayed right up.” And so much did his prayers always work on the devotional feelings of his audiences, that there seemed often a danger that it would be lost altogether in the abundance of the responses that broke out everywhere around him.” (Ch 4 ”“ "An Evening In Uncle Tom’s Cabin" ”“ pg. 32)

There are in this world - a lady has lost a loved one but she is portrayed as laboring for others in her grief:

"There are in this world blessed souls, whose sorrows all spring up into joys for others; whose earthly hopes, laid in the grave with many tears, are the seed from which spring healing flowers and balm for the desolate and the distressed. Among such was the delicate woman who sits there by the lamp, dropping slow tears, while she prepares the memorials of her own lost one for the outcast wanderer.” (Ch 6 ”“ "In Which It Appears That A Senator Is But A Man" ”“ pg. 90)

George in the Quaker’s home - George is a runaway slave and in the Quaker community, who are helping smuggle him to freedom, he begins to soften because he was seeing and experiencing real Christianity beyond just the talk.

"This, indeed was a home ”“ home ”“ a word that George had never yet known a meaning for; and a belief in God, and trust in his providence, began to encircle his heart, as, with a golden cloud of protection and confidence, dark, misanthropic, pining atheistic doubts and fierce despair, melted away before the light of a living Gospel, breached in living faces, preached by a thousand unconscious acts of love and goodwill, which, like a cup of water given in the name of a disciple, shall never lose their reward.” (Ch 13 - "The Quaker Settlement" ”“ pg. 144)

Tom on a steamboat after being sold - going against all of their promises to him, Tom has been sold to help his owner pay off pressing debts. He had to be separated from his wife and sons and is on a steamboat on the way to a slave market.

"Is it strange, then, that some tears fall on the pages of his Bible, as he lays it on the cotton-bale, and, with patient finger, threading his slow way from word to word, traces out its promises? Having learned late in life, Tom was but a slow reader, and passed on laboriously from verse to verse. Fortunate for him was that the book he was intent on was one that slow reading cannot injure ”“ nay, one whose words, like ingots of gold, seem often to need to be weighed separately, that the mind may take in their priceless value. Let us follow for a moment, as, pointing to each word, and pronouncing each half aloud, he reads:”

"Let ”“ not ”“ your ”“ heart ”“ be ”“ troubled. In ”“ my ”“ Father’s ”“ house ”“ are ”“ many ”“ mansions. I ”“ go ”“ to ”“ prepare ”“ a - place ”“ for ”“ you.”

"Cicero, when he buried his darling and only daughter, had a heart as full of grief as poor Tom’s ”“ perhaps no fuller, for both were only men ”“ but Cicero could pause over no such sublime words of hope, and look to no such future reunion; and if he had seen them, ten to one he would not have believed ”“ he must fill his head first with a thousand questions of authenticity of manuscript, and correctness of translation. But, to poor Tom, there it lay, just what he needed, so evidently true and divine that the possibility of a question never entered his simple head. It must be true; for, if not true, how could he live?” (Ch 14 ”“ "Evangeline" ”“ pg. 148)

There's much more in the book. I just wanted to share a little of its godly perspective. If we talk about everything here, maybe it doesn't hurt to discuss a godly book. Some of you may have already read it. Yet, in my opinion, the author Harriet Beecher Stowe was a gifted saint to write in such a manner with the Lord helping her set out the burden of her grieved heart.

Blessings.

This is an excerpt from Wikipedia regarding the novel:

Many modern scholars and readers have criticized the book for condescending racist descriptions of the black characters' appearances, speech, and behavior, as well as the passive nature of Uncle Tom in accepting his fate.[118] The novel's creation and use of common stereotypes about African Americans[12] is significant because Uncle Tom's Cabin was the best-selling novel in the world during the 19th century.[7] As a result, the book (along with illustrations from the book[31] and associated stage productions) played a major role in perpetuating and solidifying such stereotypes into the American psyche.[119][118] In the 1960s and 1970s, the Black Power and Black Arts Movements attacked the novel, claiming that the character of Uncle Tom engaged in "race betrayal", and that Tom made slaves out to be worse than slave owners.[114]

Among the stereotypes of blacks in Uncle Tom's Cabin[13][15] are the "happy darky" (in the lazy, carefree character of Sam); the light-skinned tragic mulatto as a sex object (in the characters of Eliza, Cassy, and Emmeline); the affectionate, dark-skinned female mammy (through several characters, including Mammy, a cook at the St. Clare plantation); the pickaninny stereotype of black children (in the character of Topsy); the Uncle Tom, an African American who is too eager to please white people. Stowe intended Tom to be a "noble hero" and a Christ-like figure who, like Jesus at his crucifixion, forgives the people responsible for his death. The false stereotype of Tom as a "subservient fool who bows down to the white man", and the resulting derogatory term "Uncle Tom", resulted from staged "Tom Shows", which sometimes replaced Tom's grim death with an upbeat ending where Tom causes his oppressors to see the error of their ways, and they all reconcile happily. Stowe had no control over these shows and their alteration of her story.[45]

Anyone who hasn't read "Uncle Tom's Cabin," which I'm assuming you haven't, can easily go to Wikipedia and find and copy and paste the opinion he wants and act as if that is the final word on the matter. The Wikipedia excerpt you shared sounds much like it has the modern woke point of view. Which I don't ascribe to and which Mrs. Stowe didn't ascribe to.This negative view of the novel and its character rose largely out of black intellectual and radical circles almost entirely minus a Christian world view.

A Christian man living by Christian standards and values could not have been portrayed any stronger than the author accomplished in her portrayal of Tom and numerous other Christian characters in the novel.

As you quoted, Wikipedia stated, "Stowe intended Tom to be a "nobel hero" and a Christ-like figure who, like Jesus at his crucifixion, forgives the people responsible for his death." And what, pray tell, is wrong with that?

I found the explanation helpful that the subsequent "Tom plays" were far more problematic in creating the negative "Uncle Tom" stereotype than the novel ever did. And for a Wiki article I thought it was quite balanced and fair in its assessment of the novel and its aftermath.

"Woke" mentality would have condemned it outright and allowed for no redeeming qualities.

Nothing like giving the novel a read then you would have first hand knowledge.

Mrs. Stowe and her motives and supposed stereotypes in her novel's characters have been distorted in many quarters.

Wikipedia stated, "In the 1960s and 1970s, the Black Power and Black Art Movement attacked the novel..." This is what I was referring to.

I agree Dabney, master theologian that he was and insightful predictor of the future, wise in so many ways, however was a bona fide racist. It's just a fact however much it
stings.

"Uncle Tom's Cabin" is a great book! Was inspired to read it after listening to a sermon by Art Katz called 'Widows and Slaves Indeed'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcG6iWEqW9w

Thank you for the lengthy but riveting explanation of Harriet Beecher Stowe and her revelatory and prophetic observations.
Luke so many in the American past, Satan has been at work robbing and destroying reputations and people of righteousness.

When I read Uncle Tom’s Cabin many years ago, I was shocked to find out Uncle Tom was a godly Christian character.

Over the years I’ve asked people to read the book, but to no avail, particularly in the black community. Once a lie is repeated a thousand times, it becomes facts in many people’s minds.

There is nothing new under the sun, as Solomon wrote!

Les