Glimpses #134. Stowe's Bible-Based Bestseller Blasts Slavery
Product Code: GLM134
Format: 4-page bulletin insert
Our Price: $2.00 per pack (each pack contains 25 copies). Back issues are available only in packs of 25 copies.
Product Description: Isabella wasn't the only one asking Harriet to write. In Harriet's pocket was $100 and a note from Gamaliel Bailey, pleading with her for an antislavery story for National Era magazine. Bailey had already printed several of Harriet's antislavery articles. Earlier that year, she had written "The Freeman's Dream" for him. In it, she pictured a farmer judged by Christ for refusing bread to a runaway because of the Fugitive Slave Act. Jesus says to him, "Depart from me, ye accursed, for I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat."
"I will write," Harriet promised But autumn of 1850 gave way to winter. The year changed and she made no start on the story. Her mind was blank. Night after night she sat in front of her fire, but no satisfactory idea came until one cold Sunday morning in February, as she took communion, a vision formed in her mind. She saw an old slave undergoing a brutal beating but forgiving his tormentors as he prayed for them. Harriet accepted this as a vision directly from the Lord, a miracle!
She hurried home from church and wrote down a few scenes. As soon as she was done, she summoned her hungry children—dinner was suspended while she wrote-and read aloud what she had written. "Oh, Mama," sobbed one. "Slavery is the most cruel thing in the world!"
