"Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory."*

* I Cor. 15:57.

Have not many of us, in the weary way of life, felt, in some hours, howfar easier it were to die than to live?

The martyr, when faced even by a death of bodily anguish and horror,finds in the very terror of his doom a strong stimulant and tonic. Thereis a vivid excitement, a thrill and fervor, which may carry through anycrisis of suffering that is the birth-hour of eternal glory and rest.

But to live,--to wear on, day after day, of mean, bitter, low, harassingservitude, every nerve dampened and depressed, every power of feelinggradually smothered,--this long and wasting heart-martyrdom, thisslow, daily bleeding away of the inward life, drop by drop, hour afterhour,--this is the true searching test of what there may be in man orwoman.

When Tom stood face to face with his persecutor, and heard his threats,and thought in his very soul that his hour was come, his heart swelledbravely in him, and he thought he could bear torture and fire, bearanything, with the vision of Jesus and heaven but just a step beyond;but, when he was gone, and the present excitement passed off, came backthe pain of his bruised and weary limbs,--came back the sense of hisutterly degraded, hopeless, forlorn estate; and the day passed wearilyenough.

Long before his wounds were healed, Legree insisted that he should beput to the regular field-work; and then came day after day of pain andweariness, aggravated by every kind of injustice and indignity that theill-will of a mean and malicious mind could devise. Whoever, in _our_circumstances, has made trial of pain, even with all the alleviationswhich, for us, usually attend it, must know the irritation that comeswith it. Tom no longer wondered at the habitual surliness of hisassociates; nay, he found the placid, sunny temper, which had been thehabitude of his life, broken in on, and sorely strained, by the inroadsof the same thing. He had flattered himself on leisure to read hisBible; but there was no such thing as leisure there. In the height ofthe season, Legree did not hesitate to press all his hands through,Sundays and week-days alike. Why shouldn't he?--he made more cotton byit, and gained his wager; and if it wore out a few more hands, he couldbuy better ones. At first, Tom used to read a verse or two of his Bible,by the flicker of the fire, after he had returned from his daily toil;but, after the cruel treatment he received, he used to come home soexhausted, that his head swam and his eyes failed when he tried toread; and he was fain to stretch himself down, with the others, in utterexhaustion.

Is it strange that the religious peace and trust, which had upborne himhitherto, should give way to tossings of soul and despondent darkness?The gloomiest problem of this mysterious life was constantly before hiseyes,--souls crushed and ruined, evil triumphant, and God silent. Itwas weeks and months that Tom wrestled, in his own soul, in darkness andsorrow. He thought of Miss Ophelia's letter to his Kentucky friends, andwould pray earnestly that God would send him deliverance. And then hewould watch, day after day, in the vague hope of seeing somebody sentto redeem him; and, when nobody came, he would crush back to his soulbitter thoughts,--that it was vain to serve God, that God had forgottenhim. He sometimes saw Cassy; and sometimes, when summoned to the house,caught a glimpse of the dejected form of Emmeline, but held very littlecommunion with either; in fact, there was no time for him to communewith anybody.

One evening, he was sitting, in utter dejection and prostration, by afew decaying brands, where his coarse supper was baking. He put a fewbits of brushwood on the fire, and strove to raise the light, and thendrew 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,--voicesfrom the great cloud of witnesses who ever surround us in the race oflife. Had the word lost its power, or could the failing eye and wearysense no longer answer to the touch of that mighty inspiration? Heavilysighing, he put it in his pocket. A coarse laugh roused him; he lookedup,--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 wassilent.

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

"The Lord forbid!" said Tom, fervently.

"You see the Lord an't going to help you; if he had been, he wouldn'thave let _me_ get you! This yer religion is all a mess of lyingtrumpery, Tom. I know all about it. Ye'd better hold to me; I'msomebody, 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, andspurning him with his foot. "Never mind; I'll chase you down, yet, andbring you under,--you'll see!" and Legree turned away.

When a heavy weight presses the soul to the lowest level at whichendurance is possible, there is an instant and desperate effort of everyphysical and moral nerve to throw off the weight; and hence the heaviestanguish often precedes a return tide of joy and courage. So was itnow with Tom. The atheistic taunts of his cruel master sunk his beforedejected soul to the lowest ebb; and, though the hand of faith stillheld to the eternal rock, it was a numb, despairing grasp. Tom sat, likeone stunned, at the fire. Suddenly everything around him seemed to fade,and a vision rose before him of one crowned with thorns, buffeted andbleeding. Tom gazed, in awe and wonder, at the majestic patience of theface; the deep, pathetic eyes thrilled him to his inmost heart; his soulwoke, as, with floods of emotion, he stretched out his hands and fellupon his knees,--when, gradually, the vision changed: the sharp thornsbecame rays of glory; and, in splendor inconceivable, he saw that sameface bending compassionately towards him, and a voice said, "He thatovercometh shall sit down with me on my throne, even as I also overcome,and am set down with my Father on his throne."

How long Tom lay there, he knew not. When he came to himself, the firewas gone out, his clothes were wet with the chill and drenching dews;but the dread soul-crisis was past, and, in the joy that filled him, heno longer felt hunger, cold, degradation, disappointment, wretchedness.From his deepest soul, he that hour loosed and parted from every hope inlife that now is, and offered his own will an unquestioning sacrifice tothe Infinite. Tom looked up to the silent, ever-living stars,--typesof the angelic hosts who ever look down on man; and the solitude of thenight rung with the triumphant words of a hymn, which he had sung oftenin happier days, but never with such feeling as now:

"The earth shall be dissolved like snow, The sun shall cease to shine; But God, who called me here below, Shall be forever mine.

"And when this mortal life shall fail, And flesh and sense shall cease, I shall possess within the veil A life of joy and peace.

"When we've been there ten thousand years, Bright shining like the sun, We've no less days to sing God's praise Than when we first begun."

Those who have been familiar with the religious histories of the slavepopulation know that relations like what we have narrated are verycommon among them. We have heard some from their own lips, of a verytouching and affecting character. The psychologist tells us of a state,in which the affections and images of the mind become so dominant andoverpowering, that they press into their service the outward imagining.Who shall measure what an all-pervading Spirit may do with thesecapabilities of our mortality, or the ways in which He may encourage thedesponding souls of the desolate? If the poor forgotten slave believesthat Jesus hath appeared and spoken to him, who shall contradict him?Did He not say that his mission, in all ages, was to bind up thebroken-hearted, and set at liberty them that are bruised?

When the dim gray of dawn woke the slumberers to go forth to the field,there was among those tattered and shivering wretches one who walkedwith an exultant tread; for firmer than the ground he trod on was hisstrong faith in Almighty, eternal love. Ah, Legree, try all your forcesnow! Utmost agony, woe, degradation, want, and loss of all things, shallonly hasten on the process by which he shall be made a king and a priestunto God!

From this time, an inviolable sphere of peace encompassed the lowlyheart of the oppressed one,--an ever-present Saviour hallowed it as atemple. Past now the bleeding of earthly regrets; past its fluctuationsof hope, and fear, and desire; the human will, bent, and bleeding, andstruggling long, was now entirely merged in the Divine. So short nowseemed the remaining voyage of life,--so near, so vivid, seemed eternalblessedness,--that life's uttermost woes fell from him unharming.

All noticed the change in his appearance. Cheerfulness and alertnessseemed to return to him, and a quietness which no insult or injury couldruffle seemed to possess him.

"What the devil's got into Tom?" Legree said to Sambo. "A while ago hewas all down in the mouth, and now he's peart as a cricket."

"Dunno, Mas'r; gwine to run off, mebbe."

"Like to see him try that," said Legree, with a savage grin, "wouldn'twe, Sambo?"

"Guess we would! Haw! haw! ho!" said the sooty gnome, laughingobsequiously. "Lord, de fun! To see him stickin' in de mud,--chasin' andtarin' through de bushes, dogs a holdin' on to him! Lord, I laughed fitto split, dat ar time we cotched Molly. I thought they'd a had her allstripped up afore I could get 'em off. She car's de marks o' dat arspree yet."

"I reckon she will, to her grave," said Legree. "But now, Sambo, youlook sharp. If the nigger's got anything of this sort going, trip himup."

"Mas'r, let me lone for dat," said Sambo, "I'll tree de coon. Ho, ho,ho!"

This was spoken as Legree was getting on his horse, to go to theneighboring town. That night, as he was returning, he thought he wouldturn his horse and ride round the quarters, and see if all was safe.

It was a superb moonlight night, and the shadows of the graceful Chinatrees lay minutely pencilled on the turf below, and there was thattransparent stillness in the air which it seems almost unholy todisturb. Legree was a little distance from the quarters, when he heardthe voice of some one singing. It was not a usual sound there, and hepaused to listen. A musical tenor voice sang,

"When I can read my title clear To mansions in the skies, I'll bid farewell to every fear, And wipe my weeping eyes

"Should earth against my soul engage, And hellish darts be hurled, Then I can smile at Satan's rage, And face a frowning world.

"Let cares like a wild deluge come, And storms of sorrow fall, May I but safely reach my home, My God, my Heaven, my All."*

* "On My Journey Home," hymn by Isaac Watts, found in many of the southern country songbooks of the ante bellum period.

"So ho!" said Legree to himself, "he thinks so, does he? How I hatethese cursed Methodist hymns! Here, you nigger," said he, comingsuddenly out upon Tom, and raising his riding-whip, "how dare you begettin' up this yer row, when you ought to be in bed? Shut yer old blackgash, and get along in with you!"

"Yes, Mas'r," said Tom, with ready cheerfulness, as he rose to go in.

Legree was provoked beyond measure by Tom's evident happiness; andriding up to him, belabored him over his head and shoulders.

"There, you dog," he said, "see if you'll feel so comfortable, afterthat!"

But the blows fell now only on the outer man, and not, as before, onthe heart. Tom stood perfectly submissive; and yet Legree could not hidefrom himself that his power over his bond thrall was somehow gone.And, as Tom disappeared in his cabin, and he wheeled his horse suddenlyround, there passed through his mind one of those vivid flashes thatoften send the lightning of conscience across the dark and wicked soul.He understood full well that it was GOD who was standing between him andhis victim, and he blasphemed him. That submissive and silent man, whomtaunts, nor threats, nor stripes, nor cruelties, could disturb, roused avoice 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 thoucome to torment us before the time?"

Tom's whole soul overflowed with compassion and sympathy for thepoor wretches by whom he was surrounded. To him it seemed as if hislife-sorrows were now over, and as if, out of that strange treasury ofpeace and joy, with which he had been endowed from above, he longedto pour out something for the relief of their woes. It is true,opportunities were scanty; but, on the way to the fields, and backagain, and during the hours of labor, chances fell in his way ofextending a helping-hand to the weary, the disheartened and discouraged.The poor, worn-down, brutalized creatures, at first, could scarcecomprehend this; but, when it was continued week after week, and monthafter month, it began to awaken long-silent chords in their benumbedhearts. Gradually and imperceptibly the strange, silent, patientman, who was ready to bear every one's burden, and sought help fromnone,--who stood aside for all, and came last, and took least, yet wasforemost to share his little all with any who needed,--the man who, incold nights, would give up his tattered blanket to add to the comfort ofsome woman who shivered with sickness, and who filled the baskets of theweaker ones in the field, at the terrible risk of coming short in hisown measure,--and who, though pursued with unrelenting cruelty bytheir common tyrant, never joined in uttering a word of reviling orcursing,--this man, at last, began to have a strange power over them;and, when the more pressing season was past, and they were allowed againtheir Sundays for their own use, many would gather together to hear fromhim of Jesus. They would gladly have met to hear, and pray, and sing, insome place, together; but Legree would not permit it, and more than oncebroke up such attempts, with oaths and brutal execrations,--so that theblessed news had to circulate from individual to individual. Yet whocan speak the simple joy with which some of those poor outcasts, to whomlife was a joyless journey to a dark unknown, heard of a compassionateRedeemer and a heavenly home? It is the statement of missionaries, that,of all races of the earth, none have received the Gospel with such eagerdocility as the African. The principle of reliance and unquestioningfaith, which is its foundation, is more a native element in this racethan any other; and it has often been found among them, that a strayseed of truth, borne on some breeze of accident into hearts the mostignorant, has sprung up into fruit, whose abundance has shamed that ofhigher and more skilful culture.

The poor mulatto woman, whose simple faith had been well-nigh crushedand overwhelmed, by the avalanche of cruelty and wrong which had fallenupon her, felt her soul raised up by the hymns and passages of HolyWrit, which this lowly missionary breathed into her ear in intervals, asthey were going to and returning from work; and even the half-crazedand wandering mind of Cassy was soothed and calmed by his simple andunobtrusive influences.

Stung to madness and despair by the crushing agonies of a life, Cassyhad often resolved in her soul an hour of retribution, when her handshould avenge on her oppressor all the injustice and cruelty to whichshe had been witness, or which _she_ had in her own person suffered.

One night, after all in Tom's cabin were sunk in sleep, he was suddenlyaroused by seeing her face at the hole between the logs, that served fora window. She made a silent gesture for him to come out.

Tom came out the door. It was between one and two o'clock atnight,--broad, calm, still moonlight. Tom remarked, as the light ofthe moon fell upon Cassy's large, black eyes, that there was a wild andpeculiar glare in them, unlike their wonted fixed despair.

"Come here, Father Tom," she said, laying her small hand on his wrist,and drawing him forward with a force as if the hand were of steel; "comehere,--I've news for you."

"What, Misse Cassy?" said Tom, anxiously.

"Tom, wouldn't you like your liberty?"

"I shall have it, Misse, in God's time," said Tom. "Ay, but you may haveit tonight," said Cassy, with a flash of sudden energy. "Come on."

Tom hesitated.

"Come!" said she, in a whisper, fixing her black eyes on him. "Comealong! He's asleep--sound. I put enough into his brandy to keep him so.I wish I'd had more,--I shouldn't have wanted you. But come, the backdoor is unlocked; there's an axe there, I put it there,--his room dooris open; I'll show you the way. I'd a done it myself, only my arms areso weak. Come along!"

"Not for ten thousand worlds, Misse!" said Tom, firmly, stopping andholding her back, as she was pressing forward.

"But think of all these poor creatures," said Cassy. "We might set themall free, and go somewhere in the swamps, and find an island, and liveby ourselves; I've heard of its being done. Any life is better thanthis."

"No!" said Tom, firmly. "No! good never comes of wickedness. I'd soonerchop my right hand off!"

"Then _I_ shall do it," said Cassy, turning.

"O, Misse Cassy!" said Tom, throwing himself before her, "for the dearLord's sake that died for ye, don't sell your precious soul to thedevil, that way! Nothing but evil will come of it. The Lord hasn'tcalled us to wrath. We must suffer, and wait his time."

"Wait!" said Cassy. "Haven't I waited?--waited till my head is dizzy andmy heart sick? What has he made me suffer? What has he made hundreds ofpoor creatures suffer? Isn't he wringing the life-blood out of you?I'm called on; they call me! His time's come, and I'll have his heart'sblood!"

"No, no, no!" said Tom, holding her small hands, which were clenchedwith spasmodic violence. "No, ye poor, lost soul, that ye mustn't do.The dear, blessed Lord never shed no blood but his own, and that hepoured out for us when we was enemies. Lord, help us to follow hissteps, and love our enemies."

"Love!" said Cassy, with a fierce glare; "love _such_ enemies! It isn'tin flesh and blood."

"No, Misse, it isn't," said Tom, looking up; "but _He_ gives it to us,and that's the victory. When we can love and pray over all and throughall, the battle's past, and the victory's come,--glory be to God!"And, with streaming eyes and choking voice, the black man looked up toheaven.

And this, oh Africa! latest called of nations,--called to the crown ofthorns, the scourge, the bloody sweat, the cross of agony,--this is tobe _thy_ victory; by this shalt thou reign with Christ when his kingdomshall come on earth.

The deep fervor of Tom's feelings, the softness of his voice, histears, fell like dew on the wild, unsettled spirit of the poor woman. Asoftness gathered over the lurid fires of her eye; she looked down, andTom could feel the relaxing muscles of her hands, as she said,

"Didn't I tell you that evil spirits followed me? O! Father Tom, I can'tpray,--I wish I could. I never have prayed since my children were sold!What you say must be right, I know it must; but when I try to pray, Ican only hate and curse. I can't pray!"

"Poor soul!" said Tom, compassionately. "Satan desires to have ye, andsift ye as wheat. I pray the Lord for ye. O! Misse Cassy, turn to thedear Lord Jesus. He came to bind up the broken-hearted, and comfort allthat mourn."

Cassy stood silent, while large, heavy tears dropped from her downcasteyes.

"Misse Cassy," said Tom, in a hesitating tone, after surveying herin silence, "if ye only could get away from here,--if the thing waspossible,--I'd 'vise ye and Emmeline to do it; that is, if ye could gowithout blood-guiltiness,--not otherwise."

"Would you try it with us, Father Tom?"

"No," said Tom; "time was when I would; but the Lord's given me a workamong these yer poor souls, and I'll stay with 'em and bear my crosswith 'em till the end. It's different with you; it's a snare toyou,--it's more'n you can stand,--and you'd better go, if you can."

"I know no way but through the grave," said Cassy. "There's no beast orbird but can find a home some where; even the snakes and the alligatorshave their places to lie down and be quiet; but there's no place for us.Down in the darkest swamps, their dogs will hunt us out, and findus. Everybody and everything is against us; even the very beasts sideagainst us,--and where shall we go?"

Tom stood silent; at length he said,

"Him that saved Daniel in the den of lions,--that saved the children inthe fiery furnace,--Him that walked on the sea, and bade the winds bestill,--He's alive yet; and I've faith to believe he can deliver you.Try it, and I'll pray, with all my might, for you."

By what strange law of mind is it that an idea long overlooked, andtrodden under foot as a useless stone, suddenly sparkles out in newlight, as a discovered diamond?

Cassy had often revolved, for hours, all possible or probable schemesof escape, and dismissed them all, as hopeless and impracticable; butat this moment there flashed through her mind a plan, so simple andfeasible in all its details, as to awaken an instant hope.

"Father Tom, I'll try it!" she said, suddenly.

"Amen!" said Tom; "the Lord help ye!"