But there are three things which, strike me as peculiarly remarkable about Uncle Tom's Cabin: it is the work of an American--of a woman--and of an evangelical Christian. [Cheers.] We have long been accustomed to despise American literature--I mean as compared with our own. I have heard eminent _litterateurs_ say, 'Pshaw! the Americans have no national literature.' It was thought that they lived entirely on plunder--the plunder of poor slaves, and of poor British authors. [Loud cheers.] Their own works, when, they came among us, were treated either with contempt or with patronizing wonder--yes, the 'Sketch Book' was a very good book to be an American's. To parody two lines of Pope, we Admired such wisdom in a Yankee shape, And showed an Irving as they show an ape.' [Loud cheers.] And yet, strange to tell, not only of late have we been almost deluged with editions of new and excellent American writers, but the most popular book of the century has appeared on the west side of the Atlantic. Let us hear no more of the poverty of American brains, or the barrenness of American literature. Had it produced only Uncle Tom's Cabin, it had evaded contempt just as certainly as Don Quixote, had there been no other product of the Spanish mind, would have rendered it forever illustrious. It is the work of a woman, too! None but a woman could have written it. There are in the human mind springs at once delicate and deep, which only the female genius can understand, or the female finger touch. Who but a female could have created the gentle Eva, painted the capricious and selfish Marie St. Clair, or turned loose a Topsy upon the wondering world? [Loud and continued cheering.] And it is to my mind exceedingly delightful, and it must be humiliating to our opponents, to remember that the severest stroke to American slavery has been given by a woman's hand. [Loud cheers.] It was the smooth stone from the brook which, sent from the hand of a youthful David, overthrew Goliath of Gath; but I am less reminded of this than of another incident in Scripture history. When the robber and oppressor of Israel, Abimelech, who had slain his brethren, was rushing against a tower, whither his enemies had fled, we are told that 'a certain woman cast a piece of a millstone upon Abimelech's head, and all to break his skull,' and that he cried hastily to the young man, his armor-bearer, and said unto him, 'Draw thy sword, and slay me, that men say not of me, A woman slew him.' It is a parable of our present position. Mrs. Stowe has thrown a piece of millstone, sharp and strong, at the skull of the giant abomination of her country; he is reeling in his death pangs, and, in the fury of his despair and shame, is crying, but crying in vain, 'Say not, A woman slew me!' [Applause.] But the world shall say, 'A woman slew him,' or, at least, 'gave him the first blow, and drove him to despair and suicide.' [Cheers.] Lastly, it is the work of an evangelical