In the passing of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, the Negro race loses one of its greatest benefactors. It is probable that no other American woman has done so much for this country. Mrs. Stowe was a member of the famous Beecher family, celebrated every where for intellect and genius, and she occupies a place in the front rank of American literature.

  In literary efforts, as in all her other endeavors, her one purpose was to do good. Being of a reflective turn of mind, and of a kind, generous and sympathetic nature, and living in a part of the country that afforded her exceptional opportunities for seeing the traits of slavery, she was naturally affected by a system so vile and pernicious and so inhuman in its practices. As a result she wrote the most widely published of all American books.

  "Uncle Tom's Cabin," the book and the story it relates are too well known to need any further mention here. It has been translated into nearly every language, and being dramatized, it has been played upon nearly every stage in the civilized world. The advent of this book did more than any other agency to arouse the lethargic spirit of the people of the north against the system of slavery. If the merits of the book are to be determined by the nobleness of its aim and the purity of its purpose, and the extent to which they are accomplished, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is the greatest production in American literature.