In December the Earl of Shaftesbury wrote to Mrs. Stowe--
Madam,--It is very possible that the writer of this letter may be wholly unknown to you. But whether my name be familiar to your ears, or whether you now read it for the first time, I cannot refrain from expressing to you the deep gratitude that I feel to Almighty God who has inspired both your heart and your head in the composition of Uncle Tom's Cabin.
None but a Christian believer could have produced such a book as yours, which has absolutely startled the whole world, and impressed many thousands by revelations of cruelty and sin that give us an idea of what would be the uncontrolled dominion of Satan on this fallen earth.
To this letter Mrs. Stowe replied as follows:--
My Lord,--The few lines I have received from you are a comfort and an encouragement to me, feeble as I now am in health, and pressed oftentimes with sorrowful thoughts.
It is a comfort to know that in other lands there are those who feel as we feel, and who are looking with simplicity to the gospel of Jesus, and prayerfully hoping his final coming.
My lord, before you wrote me I read with deep emotion your letter to the ladies of England, and subsequently the noble address of the Duchess of Sutherland, and I could not but feel that such movements,
