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PREFACE.

Providence hinges mighty events on pivots exceedingly small. What men call accidents, are God's appointed incidents. We are traitors to any truth when we suppress the utterance of it, and allow the opposite error to go unrebuked.

High principles must be advanced as real laws. A desire to elevate all mankind to the nobleness for which they are designed, should manifest the depth and purity of our moral convictions. We should meet evil with mildness, yet with unfaltering firmness. We should aim to bring out a noble spirit into daily intercourse, believing that a holy life is a more precious offering to truth, than retired speculations and writings; for he who leaves a holy life behind him, bequeaths to the world a richer legacy than any book. The want of moral courage to carry out great principles, and to act upon them at all risks, is fatal to originality, because the faculties slumber within, being weighed down by the chains of custom.

This habit of reliance upon principle should give us a buoyant consciousness of superiority to every outward influence. A far higher anticipation of great results from worthy deeds, should make us strenuous in action, and fill us with a cheerful trust. We must be palsied by no fear to offend, no desire to please, no dependence upon the judgment of others. The consciousness of self-subsistence, of disinterested conformity to high principles, will command an open freedom to our utterances, and will summon into our service a spiritual force that will resist and overcome all obstacles.

Under the inspiration of such sentiments have I penned the following narrative of my experiences, beneath a dark cloud of adverse events, whose silver lining is yet to be discovered to my physical vision.

As the dyer uses mordants to set his colors, so my Heavenly Father has employed the mordant of adversity to individualize my sentiments of morality and virtuous action. And, by my experiences, it would seem that my Father intended to so capacitate me that I should be daunted and discouraged by nothing, that true loyalty might be burned into my heart. This loyalty demands that individual reason and conscience, enlightened by revealed truth, be the guide of human actions. It allows no oligarchy of creeds, sects, or customs to be a standard, which ignores the individual as a sovereign over himself. The God within is the monarch of this realm of human freedom.

Mrs. E. P. W. PACKARD.
CHICAGO, ILLS., January, 1873.
(1496 Prairie Avenue.)

INTRODUCTION.

As an introduction to the dramatic tale contained in this volume, I shall give my readers a full delineation of my most radical opinions in the language in which I gave them to the Bible-class in Manteno, Kankakee county, Illinois, since upon these opinions, there expressed, rests the foundation of the whole subsequent drama.

These opinions were given to the class in writing so as to prevent misrepresentation. At the time I was kidnapped these Bible-class papers were stolen from me, and were persistently retained by my husband, Mr. Packard, until sometime after my liberation, when I got possession of them in the following manner:

Mr. Packard had for some time been trying to induce me to sign a deed, so that he could sell some real estate, and I had objected, unless he should give me some equivalent for what he had already unjustly taken from me. This he would not do. He therefore went to Esquire La Brie, and took an oath that his wife was insane, so that he could sell the property without my signature.

Finding my refusal was not going to save my right of dower, or prevent his selling the property, I proposed to him that I would sign the deed on condition that he would restore to me my papers. He accordingly called in Esquire La Brie to witness my signature, and in his presence he gave me my papers, as I had proposed. This signature was acknowledged as valid, although two days before Mr. Packard had taken an oath on the Bible, that I was insane, and thereby incompetent to sign a deed! By means of this perjury, on his part, my papers were restored to me.

FREE DISCUSSION OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF.

Free discussion implies that both sides of a subject can be investigated, and allows full liberty to each individual to express his honestly cherished opinions, and also give his reasons in support of them. My classmates, we have nothing to fear in applying the scales of free discussion to our religious belief, for truth will sustain itself; the scales of free discussion, intelligently used, always preponderate on the side of the truth -- that is, the weightiest reasons always bear upon that side, and indicate a balance in its favor.

For instance, should we wish to test the existence of a God in the scales of free discussion, what have we to fear in the use of the scales on this point? If we are not prepared to support His existence by such arguments as will make the scales preponderate right, is it not best for us to bestow study on that point sufficient to defend it with intelligent reason, since this is confidently assumed to be a truth in our creed? Then we shall be prepared to defend as well as assert our belief. It is not respectful for us to say to our opponents on this or any other point, "I know your side is the wrong one, and you ought to take our positive assertion as authority sufficient to condemn you as a heretic, simply because you believe contrary to my honestly cherished opinions."