interrupted by such exclamations as "The _sakes_ now!" "Only hear that!"
"Jest think on 't!" "Is all that a comin' sure enough?"

George, who was a bright boy, and well trained in religious things by
his mother, finding himself an object of general admiration, threw
in expositions of his own, from time to time, with a commendable
seriousness and gravity, for which he was admired by the young and
blessed by the old; and it was agreed, on all hands, that "a minister
couldn't lay it off better than he did; that 't was reely 'mazin'!"

Uncle Tom was a sort of patriarch in religious matters, in the
neighborhood. Having, naturally, an organization in which the
_morale_ was strongly predominant, together with a greater breadth and
cultivation of mind than obtained among his companions, he was looked up
to with great respect, as a sort of minister among them; and the simple,
hearty, sincere style of his exhortations might have edified even better
educated persons. But it was in prayer that he especially excelled.
Nothing could exceed the touching simplicity, the childlike earnestness,
of his prayer, enriched with the language of Scripture, which seemed so
entirely to have wrought itself into his being, as to have become a part
of himself, and to drop from his lips unconsciously; in the language
of a pious old negro, he "prayed right up." And so much did his prayer
always work on the devotional feelings of his audiences, that there
seemed often a danger that it would be lost altogether in the abundance
of the responses which broke out everywhere around him.


While this scene was passing in the cabin of the man, one quite
otherwise passed in the halls of the master.