In Ancient Israel, God told the Prophet Isaiah to warn the nation that they were “ever hearing, but never understanding” and “ever seeing, but never perceiving.” If the Ancient Israelites were ever to be healed from their iniquities, Isaiah told them, they must learn to see with their eyes, hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts. (Isaiah 6:9-10).

George Washington faced similar frustrations as a leader. After the revolution, the new nation was sinking into chaos and depression because there was not a strong national government.

Why didn’t Americans understand and perceive the danger, and take action?

Washington explained that “the people” can only be “brought slowly into measures of public utility.” People “must feel before they will see.”

When it came to slavery, it was as if Americans had eyes, but did not see, and ears, but did not hear. Frederick Douglass and Harriett Beecher Stowe changed all that.

By enabling people to feel the horrors of slavery, they enabled people to see that slavery must be abolished!

Harriett Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852 (the same year that Frederick Douglass gave his speech “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” that I discuss in my blog “Juneteenth: Frederick Douglass Denounces America’s Hypocrisy”).

The impact of her book was so great that, when President Abraham Lincoln met Harriett Beecher Stowe a decade later in 1862, he said, “So this is the little lady who made this big war?”

Harriett Beecher Stowe’s fictional account of Uncle Tom’s life as a Christian slave enabled whites (at least in the North) to see with their eyes, hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts.

She enabled Americans to see the tears of mothers and their children who were separated forever because they were sold to different masters.

She enabled Americans to hear the moans of Uncle Tom as he became a martyr. (Uncle Tom was whipped to death when he refused to betray the whereabouts of two female slaves who had run away rather than continue to be sex toys.)

She enabled Americans to understand that they were hypocrites to talk about loving liberty while they were enslaving others.

She enabled Christians to understand that they must save good Christians (such as Uncle Tom) from being persecuted and martyred at the hands of slaveowners.

Few people read Uncle Tom’s Cabin anymore. It is written in a syrupy style that went out of fashion years ago.

Modern readers are uneasy about its many racist stereotypes.

Furthermore, modern readers squirm as Uncle Tom meekly submits to outrage after outrage while singing hymns and quoting Bible verses. Nowadays, no one wants to be known as an “Uncle Tom.”

Nevertheless, when Uncle Tom’s Cabin was first published, it was fantastically successful.

In the South, people denounced the book as slanderous. But across the North, people became more and more outraged by slavery, and more and more determined to end this blight upon America.

God’s Truth was marching on!

Americans could see the evils of slavery with their eyes, hear the evils of slavery with their ears, and understand the evils of slavery with their hearts.

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This blog is based on passages in my book Visions of America, at pages 61-62,65-66 (first published in 2004, together with Visions of the Church). For the supporting sources, please see the endnotes to those pages of my book.

For more of my thoughts inspired by Juneteenth, please read “Juneteenth: George Washington”, “Juneteenth: Frederick Douglass Learns To Read”, and “Juneteenth: Frederick Douglass Denounces America’s Hypocrisy”.

For my thoughts on related themes, please read my blogs “Raising the Star-Spangled Banner—Americans”, “Racism Is America Gone Astray”, “The 500-Year Marathon To Overcome Racism”, “The ‘United States’ Compared to ‘America’”, “George Washington Refuses To Become a King”, “Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address—Unifying Americans”, “Martin Luther King, Jr.—Restoring Hope and Giving a Vision”, “Nationalism Is Patriotism Gone Astray”, “How Do We Build a Civilization That Is Good—That Is Very Good?”, “We Need Inspiring Visions of a Bright Future. Why?”, “Speaking Up”, “Irresistible Hurricanes of the Holy Spirit”, “Parking Cars”, “St.  Francis of Assisi Made the Way of Jesus Great Again”, “Hypocrisy: Taking Away What You Gave”, “Pandemic Wisdom: Visions of America”, and “Pandemic Wisdom: Scattering the Church”.