As she lies on her deathbed, in chapter 26 of Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, the little Eva says to the servants of her house who have gathered around her: “You must remember that each of you can become angels” (418). In this chapter and the one before it, Eva has actively worked to make the people around her “angels,” understood here to mean those who are saved by God. In chapters 33 and 34 of Stowe's book, Tom similarly works, although more discreetly, to transform the other slaves on Simon Legree's plantation into "angels." These two scenes, and particularly the evangelical characters within them, reveal Stowe's Methodist theology, a theology that rejects the predestination of earlier American Christianity. In Stowe's theology, "every one" of the people can be saved; God's love is universal. Original sin still exists, but now the individual has the control to escape that sin by embracing the love of God. At the heart of the theology and resulting morality that Tom and Eva demonstrate is a warm and knowable God, knowable by love and the heart. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Eva is the most explicit in explaining the dynamic between God and His people. She explains this by asking Topsy, "Don't you know that Jesus loves everyone the same?" He is just as willing to love you as I am” (412). Earlier in the book, Tom had asked a similar question to an oppressed woman on the boat with him: "Has no one ever told you how much the Lord Jesus loved you and died for you?" (324). God offers this love to everyone, but it can only be reclaimed by loving God in return. Eva implores the people around her to “pray every day” (419) so that they can find God as she did. The way Tom and Eva get others to see this caring God is to act the same way. like God? by loving the people around them the same way Jesus did. When Eva gathers all the servants of the house, with the aim of convincing them all to become "angels", the first thing she says is: "I have sent for you all, my dear friends, because I love. I love you. all" (418). Like Jesus, Eva does not just talk to them about love, she acts on this love by giving each servant a lock of hair. In this act, she symbolically gives of herself (her hair). Although Tom is less explicit in his vocalization of love, he is somewhat more apparent than Eva in the way he expresses this love. When Tom and the other slaves are in Legree's fields, Tom, “at the risk of all that he might suffer, [stepped forward] again and put all the cotton in his bag into the woman's” (503) By giving up his own cotton, Tom shows his willingness. to suffer at the end of the day, while weighing the cotton, so that the woman Emmeline would not have to. Tom's reckless willingness to suffer so that others would not have to clearly shows the. similarity between the love that Tom and Eva give and the love that God, through Jesus, gives When Tom and Eva give in this way, they inspire people. around them to give too. During the first months of St. Clare's house, Topsy does nothing but take over everything? Miss Ophelia tells how Topsy stole “her bonnets and cut them all up to make doll jackets!” » (407). But then Eva says to Topsy something that Topsy has never heard before: “O Topsy, poor child, I love you” (409).Topsy begins to cry, and in the days that follow, she immediately expresses a desire to give back to Eva. A few days later, Topsy brings Eva flowers from the garden and Eva says to her mother, “You see, mother, I knew poor Topsy wanted to do something for me” (414). It seems that once one sees that the world can be a loving place, people like Topsy can identify a loving force behind that world. Even while watching Eva deal with Topsy, Miss Ophelia tells Topsy, "I learned something about the love of Christ from her" (432). This force of love is therefore transformative. Eva tells Topsy that if Topsy is capable of loving God, "He will help you to be good" (410) Before Eva brings about this change in Topsy, Topsy, when asked why she is behaving so badly, responds: "Spects." , that's my wicked heart” (408) When his behavior begins to improve after Eva reveals her love to him, he is certain that his heart has also changed. God's grace transforms the individuals of the. inner outward, but in Methodist theology the individual can seek God by learning to love These acts of love become the central element of Methodist theology. Many ways that dominated earlier theology are shown to be. far less important than these acts of the heart Miss Opelia attempts to convert Topsy by teaching her the Bible, she says: “I have taught and taught; I talked until I was tired” (407). But as Saint Clare says a few moments later, “your Gospel is not strong enough to save a single pagan child” (408). Surely the Bible is not rejected as a source of truth? Tom draws great assurance from the Bible? but the gospel and gospel training are not really helpful in saving people. The clergy are not even mentioned in these conversion chapters. It's people like Eva and Tom who are. educated in the way of the heart, able to help people reach God. Eva, the one who is capable of showing such love to others, first learned love in her own family when her mother was not the nurturing mother that could be. hoped, his father fills the caring role. St. Clare loves Eva so much that he is plunged into lifeless despondency when Eva dies. Cassy, ​​similarly, tells Tom how she learned about love in her own childhood with a mother and father who nurtured it. and allowed him to “play hide and seek, under the orange trees, with my brothers and sisters” (516). On those days, Cassy remembers that she “loved God and prayer” (522). Love of family is the essential source of love in Stowe's theology. When Saint Clare finally finds peace with God, she is accompanied before her by the image of her caring mother (456). But just as compelling as these examples of family providing access to love are those where the lack of family deprives someone of the understanding of love. Topsy's inability to love comes from her belief that "no one can love niggers." Moments later, Eva suggests that this belief makes sense given that Topsy never had “a father, or a mother, or any friends” (409). Even though Cassy understood love in the past, she lost it when she lost her family. It is when her children are sold that she “curses God and men” (519). She loses her love of God and humanity because she is deprived of the very source of this love. Cassy's situation highlights an important point: just as an individual can obtain grace in the eyes of God, they can also lose it. But the situation underscores a more important point: the source of Cassy's love was her family. Much of Stowe's novel is seen as a fierce attack on slavery, but Stowe.