can ever shine. And here he dies from the cruel lash--almost under it. He falters some, it is true; but there was no sweat of blood as in Gethsemane, nor exclamation upon the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!" He went more triumphantly through his more fell crucifixion. I believe that the character of Uncle Tom is the only part of the book which future generations will cherish; not for the lesson against slavery it was intended to teach, but because it excels in ideal and realization all imitation of Christ in actual life or the loftiest religious fiction. Consider its marvellous effect upon Heine, as told by a quotation from the latter in The Author's Introduction to the book.[94] The detailed comparison which I have just made puts Uncle Tom upon a pinnacle, where he is above all the saints in lofty, self-abnegating, and lovingly religious manhood; and the reader notes how fruitlessly I have tried to find another like him. But Mrs. Stowe was confident that she had not exaggerated or overdrawn him, and further that such were common among the southern slaves. Here is what she deliberately says in her Key: "The character of Uncle Tom has been objected to as improbable; and yet the writer has received more confirmations of that character, and from a greater variety of sources, than of any other in the book. Many people have said to her, 'I knew an Uncle Tom in such and such a southern State.' All the histories of this kind which have thus been related to her would of themselves, if collected, make a small volume."[95] Toombs once said to me, "It would have been a matchless eulogy of slavery if it had produced an Uncle Tom." But, as we see from the last quotation, she claims far more. She really claims that it was fruitful of Uncle Toms in every southern State. Shall we attribute this firm belief, that there were among the southern slaves many who were better christians than Christ himself is represented to have been, to a mere hallucination? That word is not strong enough. To explain the belief, we must think of visions suggested by the hypnotizing powers, or something like the spell on Titania, when Bottom with his ass's head inspired her with the fondest admiration and love.