It is
not strange, therefore, that of all biography in the world that of
Jesus Christ should be least understood. It is an exception to all the
world has ever seen. 'The world knew Him not.' There is, to be sure, a
simple grandeur about the life of Jesus which awes almost every mind.
The most hardened scoffer, after he has jested and jeered at
everything in the temple of Christianity, stands for a moment
uncovered and breathless when he comes to the object of its adoration
and feels how awful goodness is, and Virtue in her shape how lovely.
Yet, after all, the character of the Christ has been looked at and not
sympathized with. Men have turned aside to see this great sight.
Christians have fallen in adoration, but very few have tried to enter
into his sympathies and to feel as He felt." How little she dreamed
that these words were to become profoundly appropriate as a
description of her own life in its relation to mankind! How little the
countless thousands who read, have read, and will read, "Uncle Tom's
Cabin" enter into or sympathize with the feelings out of which it was
written! A delicate, sensitive woman struggling with poverty, with
weary step and aching head attending to the innumerable demands of a
large family of growing children; a devoted Christian seeking with
strong crying and tears a kingdom not of this world,--is this the
popular conception of the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin"? Nevertheless
it is the reality.
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