Uncle Tom's Cabin or, Life Among the Lowly

'When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all his holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations; and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats.' St. Clare read on in an animated voice, till he came to the last of the verses.

'Then shall the king say unto him on his left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire: for I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: I was sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they answer unto Him, Lord when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he say unto them, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it not to me.'

St. Clare seemed struck with this last passage, for he read it twice,-the second time slowly, and as if he were revolving the words in his mind.

'Tom,' he said, 'these folks that get such hard measure seem to have been doing just what I have,-living good, easy, respectable lives; and not troubling themselves to inquire how many of their brethren were hungry or athirst, or sick, or in prison.'

Tom did not answer.

St. Clare rose up and walked thoughtfully up and down the verandah, seeming to forget everything in his own thoughts; so absorbed was he, that Tom had to remind him twice that the teabell had rung, before he could get his attention.

St. Clare was absent and thoughtful, all tea-time. After tea, he and Marie and Miss Ophelia took possession of the parlor almost in silence.

Marie disposed herself on a lounge, under a silken mosquito curtain, and was soon sound asleep. Miss Ophelia silently busied herself with her knitting. St. Clare sat down to the piano, and began playing a soft and melancholy movement with the ?olian accompaniment. He seemed in a deep reverie, and to be soliloquizing to himself by music. After a little, he opened one of the drawers, took out an old music-book whose leaves were yellow with age, and began turning it over.

'There,' he said to Miss Ophelia, 'this was one of my mother's books,-and here is her handwriting,-come and look at it. She copied and arranged this from Mozart's Requiem.' Miss Ophelia came accordingly.

'It was something she used to sing often,' said St. Clare. 'I think I can hear her now.'

He struck a few majestic chords, and began singing that grand old Latin piece, the 'Dies Ir?.'

Tom, who was listening in the outer verandah, was drawn by the sound to the very door, where he stood earnestly. He did not understand the words, of course; but the music and manner of singing appeared to affect him strongly, especially when St. Clare sang the more pathetic parts. Tom would have sympathized more heartily, if he had known the meaning of the beautiful words:-

'Recordare Jesu pie

Quod sum causa tu?r vi?

Ne me perdas, illa die

Qu?rens me sedisti lassus

Redemisti crucem passus

Tantus labor non sit cassus.' [21]

St. Clare threw a deep and pathetic expression into the words; for the shadowy veil of years seemed drawn away, and he seemed to hear his mother's voice leading his. Voice and instrument seemed both living, and threw out with vivid sympathy those strains which the ethereal Mozart first conceived as his own dying requiem.

When St. Clare had done singing, he sat leaning his head upon his hand a few moments, and then began walking up and down the floor.

'What a sublime conception is that of a last judgment!' said he,-'a righting of all the wrongs of ages!-a solving of all moral problems, by an unanswerable wisdom! It is, indeed, a wonderful image.'

'It is a fearful one to us,' said Miss Ophelia.

'It ought to be to me, I suppose,' said St. Clare stopping, thoughtfully. 'I was reading to Tom, this afternoon, that chapter in Matthew that gives an account of it, and I have been quite struck with it. One should have expected some terrible enormities charged to those who are excluded from Heaven, as the reason; but no,-they are condemned for not doing positive good, as if that included every possible harm.'

'Perhaps,' said Miss Ophelia, 'it is impossible for a person who does no good not to do harm.'

'And what,' said St. Clare, speaking abstractedly, but with deep feeling, 'what shall be said of one whose own heart, whose education, and the wants of society, have called in vain to some noble purpose; who has floated on, a dreamy, neutral spectator of the struggles, agonies, and wrongs of man, when he should have been a worker?'

'I should say,' said Miss Ophelia, 'that he ought to repent, and begin now.'

'Always practical and to the point!' said St. Clare, his face breaking out into a smile. 'You never leave me any time for general reflections, Cousin; you always bring me short up against the actual present; you have a kind of eternal now, always in your mind.'

'Now is all the time I have anything to do with,' said Miss Ophelia.

'Dear little Eva,-poor child!' said St. Clare, 'she had set her little simple soul on a good work for me.'

It was the first time since Eva's death that he had ever said as many words as these to her, and he spoke now evidently repressing very strong feeling.

'My view of Christianity is such,' he added, 'that I think no man can consistently profess it without throwing the whole weight of his being against this monstrous system of injustice that lies at the foundation of all our society; and, if need be, sacrificing himself in the battle. That is, I mean that I could not be a Christian otherwise, though I have certainly had intercourse with a great many enlightened and Christian people who did no such thing; and I confess that the apathy of religious people on this subject, their want of perception of wrongs that filled me with horror, have engendered in me more scepticism than any other thing.'

'If you knew all this,' said Miss Ophelia, 'why didn't you do it?'

'O, because I have had only that kind of benevolence which consists in lying on a sofa, and cursing the church and clergy for not being martyrs and confessors. One can see, you know, very easily, how others ought to be martyrs.'

'Well, are you going to do differently now?' said Miss Ophelia.

'God only knows the future,' said St. Clare. 'I am braver than I was, because I have lost all; and he who has nothing to lose can afford all risks.'

'And what are you going to do?'

'My duty, I hope, to the poor and lowly, as fast as I find it out,' said St. Clare, 'beginning with my own servants, for whom I have yet done nothing; and, perhaps, at some future day, it may appear that I can do something for a whole class; something to save my country from the disgrace of that false position in which she now stands before all civilized nations.'

'Do you suppose it possible that a nation ever will voluntarily emancipate?' said Miss Ophelia.

'I don't know,' said St. Clare. 'This is a day of great deeds. Heroism and disinterestedness are rising up, here and there, in the earth. The Hungarian nobles set free millions of serfs, at an