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IT'S THE BEIN' SO

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Tuesday, March 10, 1885.

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 62, No. 10. Whole No. 1605.

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"IT'S THE BEIN' SO."

By Dudley Marvin Canright

Among the most interesting chapters in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is the one detailing the cruel treatment of Tom just before his death. Cassy, another slave, comes to minister to him. She had been raised in wealth and refinement, had been educated and taught religion. But finally she was sold, and her children torn from her. Then for a long number of years she was treated in the most cruel and brutal manner. She lost her purity, her religion, her faith in God, became very hard and wicked. In this condition she became acquainted with Tom. She poured into his ears all her bitterness, her curses, and her unbelief. She argued that he might as well give up at once; for sooner or later he would become as hard and wicked as the rest of them. Tom was frightened at this terrible prospect, and cried to God for help. Cassy told him that those who had made them so wicked would be held responsible for it.
“It can’t be that the Lord will lay sin to our account,” said the woman; “he won’t charge it to us, when we’re forced to it; he’ll charge it to them that drove us to it.”
“Yes,” said Tom, “but that won’t keep us from growing wicked. If I get to be as hard-hearted as that ar’ Sambo, and as wicked, it won’t make much odds to me how I come so; it’s the bein’ so,—that ar’s what I’m a dreadin’.”
There is a startling truth in this last statement of Tom’s, which many never think of. No matter how we become backslidden, or irreligious, or wicked, no matter who was the cause of it, or what circumstances led to it, “it’s the bein’ so” that we should be alarmed at. There are many such persons among us, even our church members, who have become hard and sour and backslidden in heart, and who are grumbling and complaining and laying all the blame of their condition on some one else. Granted that all they complain of is so,—that they have been snubbed and slighted and injured and pushed to where they now are; it is their being there that should frighten them. No matter who pushed them there, there they are; and eternal ruin will be their portion if they do not get out of it. D. M. CANRIGHT.