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THE GOSPEL OF UNCLE TOM’S CABIN

By Way of Introduction

 In my earliest days, the thatched gables of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ dominated the skyline of the world. The American slaves had but recently attained their freedom. Their emancipation awakened universal rejoicing. Their plantation melodies and tuneful spirituals filled every home with music.

 In those far-off days, we youngsters knew three forms of entertainment. There was the magic lantern which brought us, times without number, sets of coloured slides portraying the ecstasies and agonies of Eva, Topsy, and Uncle Tom.

 Then, on the professional level, there was the panorama, a fearful and wonderful device by means of which a vividly illuminated scroll unwound itself from a gigantic cotton-reel concealed in the wings on the left-hand side of the stage and wound itself up again on another massive reel hidden somewhere on the right. The passage of the picture across the line of vision created an illusion of life and movement. The panorama revelled in the pathos and tragedy of Uncle Tom.

 And then, of course, there was the drama; and, among the plays presented for our juvenile delectation, none was more popular than Uncle Tom’s Cabin. How many times I watched Eliza, her little boy in her arms, leaping frantically from one huge block of ice to another, as she made her desperate bid for freedom, I can now hazard no conjecture. We knew it all by heart, yet never for a moment tired of it.

 Did we, I wonder, recognize the ethical and spiritual issues involved in it. I have my doubts. And, to make amends for the blindness that we then betrayed, I hesitantly offer these belated leaves.

F.W. BOREHAM

Kew, Victoria, Australia

CONTENTS

 A few years ago there awoke in Europe a spirit of scientific research. The geologist took his hammer and began to search for truth among the strata. The astronomer swept the heavens with his telescope in quest of truth. The antiquarian and archaeologist went off together to the East with a spade, and began to dig and delve in Palestine, Egypt, Asia Minor and Assyria, hunting for truth. And there were excellent souls in all the Churches who threw up their hands in horror. ‘Stop!’ they cried, ‘you will find something among stones or stars that will disturb our faith or shatter our serenity. You will dig up something in some lone Syrian town that will contradict our Bibles!’ But Science would not stop. Investigation hastened forward. And with what result? We see now that though Science appeared to our grandfathers to be like a sea of glass and Revelation like a flame of fire, the two are not contradictory or antagonistic. They harmonize and blend. And we today behold a sea of glass mingled with fire.

“UNFOLDS AN APOCALYPTIC VISION” pages 39-40