Chương Chương 38 · The Victory

. The Victory

“Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory.”[1]

[1] I Cor. 15:57.

Have not many of us, in the weary way of life, felt, in some hours, how

far 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.

There is a vivid excitement, a thrill and fervor, which may carry

through any crisis 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, harassing

servitude, every nerve dampened and depressed, every power of feeling

gradually smothered,—this long and wasting heart-martyrdom, this slow,

daily bleeding away of the inward life, drop by drop, hour after

hour,—this is the true searching test of what there may be in man or

woman.

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 swelled

bravely in him, and he thought he could bear torture and fire, bear

anything, with the vision of Jesus and heaven but just a step beyond;

but, when he was gone, and the present excitement passed off, came back

the pain of his bruised and weary limbs,—came back the sense of his

utterly degraded, hopeless, forlorn estate; and the day passed wearily

enough.

Long before his wounds were healed, Legree insisted that he should be

put to the regular field-work; and then came day after day of pain and

weariness, aggravated by every kind of injustice and indignity that the

ill-will of a mean and malicious mind could devise. Whoever, in _our_

circumstances, has made trial of pain, even with all the alleviations

which, for us, usually attend it, must know the irritation that comes

with it. Tom no longer wondered at the habitual surliness of his

associates; nay, he found the placid, sunny temper, which had been the

habitude of his life, broken in on, and sorely strained, by the inroads

of the same thing. He had flattered himself on leisure to read his

Bible; but there was no such thing as leisure there. In the height of

the season, Legree did not hesitate to press all his hands through,

Sundays and week-days alike. Why shouldn’t he?—he made more cotton by

it, and gained his wager; and if it wore out a few more hands, he could

buy 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

so exhausted, that his head swam and his eyes failed when he tried to

read; and he was fain to stretch himself down, with the others, in

utter exhaustion.

Is it strange that the religious peace and trust, which had upborne him

hitherto, should give way to tossings of soul and despondent darkness?

The gloomiest problem of this mysterious life was constantly before his

eyes,—souls crushed and ruined, evil triumphant, and God silent. It was

weeks and months that Tom wrestled, in his own soul, in darkness and

sorrow. He thought of Miss Ophelia’s letter to his Kentucky friends,

and would pray earnestly that God would send him deliverance. And then

he would watch, day after day, in the vague hope of seeing somebody

sent to redeem him; and, when nobody came, he would crush back to his

soul bitter thoughts,—that it was vain to serve God, that God had

forgotten him. He sometimes saw Cassy; and sometimes, when summoned to

the house, caught a glimpse of the dejected form of Emmeline, but held

very little communion with either; in fact, there was no time for him

to commune with anybody.

One evening, he was sitting, in utter dejection and prostration, by a

few decaying brands, where his coarse supper was baking. He put a few

bits of brushwood on the fire, and strove to raise the light, and then

drew 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,—voices from the great cloud of witnesses who ever surround us in

the race of life. Had the word lost its power, or could the failing eye

and weary sense no longer answer to the touch of that mighty

inspiration? Heavily sighing, he put it in his pocket. A coarse laugh

roused him; he looked up,—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 was

silent.

“You were a fool,” said Legree; “for I meant to do well by you, when I

bought you. You might have been better off than Sambo, or Quimbo

either, and had easy times; and, instead of getting cut up and

thrashed, every day or two, ye might have had liberty to lord it round,

and cut up the other niggers; and ye might have had, now and then, a

good warming of whiskey punch. Come, Tom, don’t you think you’d better

be reasonable?—heave that ar old pack of trash in the fire, and join my

church!”

“The Lord forbid!” said Tom, fervently.

“You see the Lord an’t going to help you; if he had been, he wouldn’t

have let _me_ get you! This yer religion is all a mess of lying

trumpery, Tom. I know all about it. Ye’d better hold to me; I’m

somebody, 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, and

spurning him with his foot. “Never mind; I’ll chase you down, yet, and

bring you under,—you’ll see!” and Legree turned away.

When a heavy weight presses the soul to the lowest level at which

endurance is possible, there is an instant and desperate effort of

every physical and moral nerve to throw off the weight; and hence the

heaviest anguish often precedes a return tide of joy and courage. So

was it now with Tom. The atheistic taunts of his cruel master sunk his

before dejected soul to the lowest ebb; and, though the hand of faith

still held to the eternal rock, it was a numb, despairing grasp. Tom

sat, like one stunned, at the fire. Suddenly everything around him

seemed to fade, and a vision rose before him of one crowned with

thorns, buffeted and bleeding. Tom gazed, in awe and wonder, at the

majestic patience of the face; the deep, pathetic eyes thrilled him to

his inmost heart; his soul woke, as, with floods of emotion, he

stretched out his hands and fell upon his knees,—when, gradually, the

vision changed: the sharp thorns became rays of glory; and, in splendor

inconceivable, he saw that same face bending compassionately towards

him, and a voice said, “He that overcometh 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 fire

was 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, he

no longer felt hunger, cold, degradation, disappointment, wretchedness.

From his deepest soul, he that hour loosed and parted from every hope

in life that now is, and offered his own will an unquestioning

sacrifice to the Infinite. Tom looked up to the silent, ever-living

stars,—types of the angelic hosts who ever look down on man; and the

solitude of the night rung with the triumphant words of a hymn, which

he had sung often in 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 slave

population know that relations like what we have narrated are very

common among them. We have heard some from their own lips, of a very

touching and affecting character. The psychologist tells us of a state,

in which the affections and images of the mind become so dominant and

overpowering, that they press into their service the outward imagining.

Who shall measure what an all-pervading Spirit may do with these

capabilities of our mortality, or the ways in which He may encourage

the desponding souls of the desolate? If the poor forgotten slave

believes that 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 the broken-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 walked

with an exultant tread; for firmer than the ground he trod on was his

strong faith in Almighty, eternal love. Ah, Legree, try all your forces

now! Utmost agony, woe, degradation, want, and loss of all things,

shall only hasten on the process by which he shall be made a king and a

priest unto God!

From this time, an inviolable sphere of peace encompassed the lowly

heart of the oppressed one,—an ever-present Saviour hallowed it as a

temple. Past now the bleeding of earthly regrets; past its fluctuations

of hope, and fear, and desire; the human will, bent, and bleeding, and

struggling long, was now entirely merged in the Divine. So short now

seemed the remaining voyage of life,—so near, so vivid, seemed eternal

blessedness,—that life’s uttermost woes fell from him unharming.

All noticed the change in his appearance. Cheerfulness and alertness

seemed to return to him, and a quietness which no insult or injury

could ruffle seemed to possess him.

“What the devil’s got into Tom?” Legree said to Sambo. “A while ago he

was 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’t

we, Sambo?”

“Guess we would! Haw! haw! ho!” said the sooty gnome, laughing

obsequiously. “Lord, de fun! To see him stickin’ in de mud,—chasin’ and

tarin’ through de bushes, dogs a holdin’ on to him! Lord, I laughed fit

to split, dat ar time we cotched Molly. I thought they’d a had her all

stripped up afore I could get ’em off. She car’s de marks o’ dat ar

spree yet.”

“I reckon she will, to her grave,” said Legree. “But now, Sambo, you

look sharp. If the nigger’s got anything of this sort going, trip him

up.”

“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 the

neighboring town. That night, as he was returning, he thought he would

turn 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 China

trees lay minutely pencilled on the turf below, and there was that

transparent stillness in the air which it seems almost unholy to

disturb. Legree was a little distance from the quarters, when he heard

the voice of some one singing. It was not a usual sound there, and he

paused 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.”[2]

[2] “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 hate

these cursed Methodist hymns! Here, you nigger,” said he, coming

suddenly out upon Tom, and raising his riding-whip, “how dare you be

gettin’ up this yer row, when you ought to be in bed? Shut yer old

black gash, 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; and

riding up to him, belabored him over his head and shoulders.

“There, you dog,” he said, “see if you’ll feel so comfortable, after

that!”

But the blows fell now only on the outer man, and not, as before, on

the heart. Tom stood perfectly submissive; and yet Legree could not

hide from himself that his power over his bond thrall was somehow gone.

And, as Tom disappeared in his cabin, and he wheeled his horse suddenly

round, there passed through his mind one of those vivid flashes that

often send the lightning of 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 Redeemer and a heavenly home? It

is the statement of missionaries, that, of all races of the earth, none

have received the Gospel with such eager docility as the African. The

principle of reliance and unquestioning faith, which is its foundation,

is more a native element in this race than any other; and it has often

been found among them, that a stray seed of truth, borne on some breeze

of accident into hearts the most ignorant, has sprung up into fruit,

whose abundance has shamed that of higher and more skilful culture.

The poor mulatto woman, whose simple faith had been well-nigh crushed

and overwhelmed, by the avalanche of cruelty and wrong which had fallen

upon her, felt her soul raised up by the hymns and passages of Holy

Writ, which this lowly missionary breathed into her ear in intervals,

as they were going to and returning from work; and even the half-crazed

and wandering mind of Cassy was soothed and calmed by his simple and

unobtrusive influences.

Stung to madness and despair by the crushing agonies of a life, Cassy

had often resolved in her soul an hour of retribution, when her hand

should avenge on her oppressor all the injustice and cruelty to which

she 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 suddenly

aroused by seeing her face at the hole between the logs, that served

for a window. She made a silent gesture for him to come out.

Tom came out the door. It was between one and two o’clock at

night,—broad, calm, still moonlight. Tom remarked, as the light of the

moon fell upon Cassy’s large, black eyes, that there was a wild and

peculiar 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;

“come here,—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

have it 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. “Come

along! 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 back

door is unlocked; there’s an axe there, I put it there,—his room door

is open; I’ll show you the way. I’d a done it myself, only my arms are

so weak. Come along!”

“Not for ten thousand worlds, Misse!” said Tom, firmly, stopping and

holding her back, as she was pressing forward.

“But think of all these poor creatures,” said Cassy. “We might set them

all free, and go somewhere in the swamps, and find an island, and live

by ourselves; I’ve heard of its being done. Any life is better than

this.”

“No!” said Tom, firmly. “No! good never comes of wickedness. I’d sooner

chop my right hand off!”

“Then _I_ shall do it,” said Cassy, turning.

“O, Misse Cassy!” said Tom, throwing himself before her, “for the dear

Lord’s sake that died for ye, don’t sell your precious soul to the

devil, that way! Nothing but evil will come of it. The Lord hasn’t

called us to wrath. We must suffer, and wait his time.”

“Wait!” said Cassy. “Haven’t I waited?—waited till my head is dizzy and

my heart sick? What has he made me suffer? What has he made hundreds of

poor 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’s

blood!”

“No, no, no!” said Tom, holding her small hands, which were clenched

with 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 he

poured out for us when we was enemies. Lord, help us to follow his

steps, and love our enemies.”

“Love!” said Cassy, with a fierce glare; “love _such_ enemies! It isn’t

in 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 through

all, 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 to

heaven.

And this, oh Africa! latest called of nations,—called to the crown of

thorns, the scourge, the bloody sweat, the cross of agony,—this is to

be _thy_ victory; by this shalt thou reign with Christ when his kingdom

shall come on earth.

The deep fervor of Tom’s feelings, the softness of his voice, his

tears, fell like dew on the wild, unsettled spirit of the poor woman. A

softness gathered over the lurid fires of her eye; she looked down, and

Tom 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’t pray,—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, I can only hate and curse. I can’t pray!”

“Poor soul!” said Tom, compassionately. “Satan desires to have ye, and

sift ye as wheat. I pray the Lord for ye. O! Misse Cassy, turn to the

dear Lord Jesus. He came to bind up the broken-hearted, and comfort all

that mourn.”

Cassy stood silent, while large, heavy tears dropped from her downcast

eyes.

“Misse Cassy,” said Tom, in a hesitating tone, after surveying her in

silence, “if ye only could get away from here,—if the thing was

possible,—I’d ’vise ye and Emmeline to do it; that is, if ye could go

without 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 work

among these yer poor souls, and I’ll stay with ’em and bear my cross

with ’em till the end. It’s different with you; it’s a snare to

you,—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 or

bird but can find a home some where; even the snakes and the alligators

have 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 find

us. Everybody and everything is against us; even the very beasts side

against 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 in

the fiery furnace,—Him that walked on the sea, and bade the winds be

still,—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, and

trodden under foot as a useless stone, suddenly sparkles out in new

light, as a discovered diamond?

Cassy had often revolved, for hours, all possible or probable schemes

of escape, and dismissed them all, as hopeless and impracticable; but

at this moment there flashed through her mind a plan, so simple and

feasible 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!”