Library Collections: Document: Full Text

I am sick, and need some human helper, for on the side of my oppressors there is power; yes, power to harm too, yet I, have no protection save Omnipotence.

My heart turns instinctively to you, kind Sir, hoping and trusting that the God-like principle of manhood has not become extinct in you, and therefore, I have a foundation on which to make my appeal.

Dr. Shirley, I am indeed an injured woman, and my case ought to arouse and command an investigation; at least, so far as to grant me some kind of trial, before perpetuating my imprisonment any longer. Can you not do something to secure me one?

I do beg and entreat, with all the power of woman's eloquence, that you do deliver me out of Dr. McFarland's hands.

He is my oppressor, my unjust and cruel persecutor. He claims that "his judgment is a safer guide for me than my conscience."

These are his own words; and I am in the absolute power of such a man.

What protection have I under a man who ignores the conscience of his victim? Do deliver me from this fear of evil, and my soul shall bless you forever.

And I have given this usurper my written pledge, that I shall expose him to the world whenever I get out, unless he repents of his inhumanities to the patients. And he knows, too that I am a truthful woman, and can never break this pledge.

Ask wisdom -- do your duty -- and do not yield to the temptation to fear to cope with the great Dr. McFarland in defence of the injured. Omnipotence will shield you in doing your duty. My heart is full, but by means of communication are entirely cut off, so far as the Doctor can prevent it.

If possible, come to me, and I will tell you what I cannot, and dare not write. Do let a God-fearing humanity, not a man-fearing despotism, control your actions, and I trust Heaven will protect you.

In the name of justice, humanity, and of the State, I have requested a meeting of the trustees on my account.

But Dr. McFarland's reply leaves me nothing to hope for in that direction.

Still, duties are mine, and events God's. I know my life is worth preserving, for the sake of my six children, if for no other purpose, and "For me to live is Christ, and to die, gain." Still all lawful means I feel bound to use, to preserve life, and then I can say, God's will be done.

Your humble, earnest petitioner,
E. P. W. PACKARD.

INSANE ASYLUM, May 10, 1862.

TO THE TRUSTEES. -- Gentlemen: Dr. McFarland has informed me that the State, not my husband, supports me here. I deem it my duty to protest against this act of injustice. Although I fully appreciate your intended kindness to me and mine, by placing me on the charity list; yet it is the injustice of the act against which my nature instinctively revolts. My children have no claim upon the charities of this State in their education. God has provided them with ways and means of being educated far superior to many children of the poor tax payers.

If these indigent tax payers choose, voluntarily to deprive their own children of the means of education, for the benefit of my more favored ones, there would be no injustice in my receiving their gifts in this way.

But to claim it of them, without their consent or knowledge, simply as a legal right, is unjust; for it plainly conflicts with the dictates of the moral law, which is, doing to others as I would wish them to do to me.

I am not required to love my neighbor's interests better than my own. My own children have a prior claim to my regard than my neighbor's. Still I have no right to seek their interests at my neighbor's expense, without his knowledge or consent.

Since my husband has broken his marriage covenant, and failed to protect me in my duties as a wife and mother, depriving me not only of my marriage rights, but also of all my rights as an American citizen, thereby depriving his children of their natural guardian and instructor, I feel that he has no right to seek to make pecuniary profits from the specious plea thus formed for educating his children.

You know not what you are doing, in supporting this man in his wicked plan of wronging the innocent without cause. God grant that your eyes may be opened to see your guilt in thus doing, so that you may repent this life, where you can be forgiven, on the ground of making due restitution for the multiplied wrongs you have inflicted upon me and mine.

Respectfully yours,
MRS. E. P. W. PACKARD.

CHAPTER XXIV.
"You Should Return to Your Husband."

One day in my extreme distress, and finding every refuge for deliverance failing me, in a state of desperation almost, I concluded as a dernier resort, to make one direct appeal to the doctor himself, as a professed follower of Christ, in the Presbyterian Church, hoping even against hope, that some sort of relief might possibly reach me through this avenue.

When, therefore, he called at my room, I said to him, "Doctor, I am suffering a temptation from the powers of darkness to swerve from my purpose of holy obedience to God's revealed will. Is there no help for me in my deep affliction?"