A Great Good - Harriet Beecher Stowe

1811–96

Her book sold more copies in 1852 than any other book but the Bible. Historians agree that it had great influence on the abolitionist movement and helped fuel the Civil War. Although Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin was instrumental in helping to end the pain and suffering that was slavery, the book was a result of the author’s personal pain and suffering.

Harriet lost her infant son Samuel Charles to cholera in 1849. This tragedy gave Harriet a level of compassion for other mothers who had lost their children—not to death but to slave owners. In a letter to fellow writer Eliza Lee Cabot Follen, Harriet explained how her loss helped bring her to this compassion:

It was at his dying bed and at his grave that I learned what a poor slave mother may feel when her child is torn away from her. In those depths of sorrow which seemed to me immeasurable, it was my only prayer to God that such anguish might not be suffered in vain. There were circumstances about his death of such peculiar bitterness, of what seemed almost cruel suffering, that I felt that I could never be consoled for it, unless this crushing of my own heart might enable me to work out some great good to others.

Her deep compassion for slave mothers who were separated from their children did bring about a great good, the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Harriet told Eliza that the roots of the book were in the “bitter sorrows of that summer.”

In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul says God is the source of all comfort. God comforts us in our troubles, and in turn we can comfort others. “When they are troubled,” Paul writes, “we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us” (2 Corinthians 1:4).

Harriet sought comfort in God during her season of grief, and when her season was over, she was able to bring comfort to others.

Has God brought you through a season of heartbreak and sorrow in the past? Think of how you can use the wisdom, strength, and compassion you gained from your season of pain to do great good for someone else.

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.

Psalm 34:18