photo source Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
by Michelle Adserias
Actions can be important, powerful and enact change. So can words. Consider this; our God spoke all of creation into being. He speaks to us through His written Word. Our words will never have that kind of power, but they can be used by God to accomplish His purposes on earth.
Perhaps one of the greatest demonstrations of this is how the Lord used the written words of Harriet Beecher Stowe to sway our nation’s, and the world’s, understanding of slavery’s immorality and evil.
Harriet was born into the Beecher family, who enjoyed both influence and affluence in early 1900s New England. Her father was a well-known preacher who backed social causes of that day, such as the abolition of slavery and educating women. Harriet took these ideals with her when she moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, to teach school.
Slavery was not legal in Ohio but just across the border, in Kentucky, slaves were openly bought and sold. She loathed the exchange, questioning what right anyone had to own a child of God, created in His image. Even after she returned to New England with her husband, Calvin Stowe, the injustices of slavery weighed on her heavily.
Though raising their seven children was kept them busy, they found time to become part of the Underground Railway system that helped individuals flee to the safety of the free states. She was torn apart by the stories she heard of families being separated, souls being mistreated, and other hardships.
She eagerly accepted when offered a job to write for an abolitionist newspaper in 1851. She wrote 40 installments of a story that forced readers to face the horrors of slavery. The story was later published as a novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It sold a million copies in the United States and over a million more in Great Britain, all prior to the Civil War.
It’s hard to measure the impact Harriet’s book had on her world, but its influence is unmistakable. Great Britain considered supporting the Confederate cause to protect their interests in cotton. However, they decided against it because Uncle Tom’s Cabin had been s well-received in their country. Even when she and President Abraham Lincoln met he commented, “So, this is the little woman who gave us this great war.”
This was not the end of Harriet’s story. She continued writing, using the power of her words to continue fighting for social justice in the name of Christ. She traveled to Europe several times and had the opportunity to meet Queen Victoria and Charles Dickens. She fought throughout her life to bring educational opportunities to freed slaves. In fact, she was so devoted to the cause, she donated most to her earnings to it.
Harriet declined after her husband died and passed away in 1895. Her book and her legacy live on. When God assigned her a task, she obediently accepted it — ready and willing to fight for those who were unable to fight for themselves.
“I wrote what I did because as a woman, as a mother, I was oppressed and broken-hearted with the sorrows and injustice I saw, because as a Christian I felt the dishonor to Christianity – because as a lover of my county, I trembled at the coming day of wrath.”
Harriet Beecher Stowe
