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Is it not a sin of the deepest dye?

Can there be any greater blasphemy against God, or against the Holy Ghost?

I know, by tasting this cup to its bitterest dregs, what it is to feel this deepest wrong -- the kidnapping of the soul -- depriving a human being of his God-bestowed accountability. To kidnap a human being, and treat him as a slave, is a terrible outrage upon human nature; but this is not to be compared with the still blacker crime of kidnapping their accountability, and making them nothing but brutes.

Slaves are allowed to exert their abilities to work, and thus feel that somebody is benefited by them; but the insane are considered below them. They are not allowed to feel that they are capable of being of any manner of service to the world, but degraded as useless burdens, which others must carry through life -- as paupers, whose only satisfaction, to themselves and others, is the fact that they can die, and thus rid the world of a useless animal!

This is the "treatment" for which Dr. McFarland endeavors to awaken gratitude in me, for having been permitted to enjoy here freely so long! But I cannot manifest my gratitude for this great privilege, by thanking him for thus making me the recipient of so much misery.

Could I be guiltless in God's sight, and allow another to suffer what I have, for fear of any consequences attending myself?

I could never meet my Judge in peace, unless I had given a truthful representation of this institution!

A few may have left here without realizing the nature and tendency of the Asylum System. Either they were too insane to detect and judge correctly of it, or too unsympathizing to feel for others.

Others there were, who saw and fully appreciated these things, but who were so overjoyed at their deliverance, that they seemed to forget their former impressions.

Others, remembering them with most vivid distinctness, were heard to avow their resolution, never to speak of these things, outside the institution, lest it revive these impressions.

They looked upon them as a kind of horrid nightmare, which they wished to banish, as soon as possible, from their recollection.

Again, the guilt attending this folly is great when we contemplate how very difficult it is to get out of this prison at all I find this idea illustrated in my journal in the following manner:

"I have just been noticing the struggles of a fly, lying upon my window-sill. It vainly strives to regain its natural position, and every collateral influence only increases its fruitless struggles; but when I placed my finger directly over so its feet could clasp it, immediately it assumed its upright position by a perfectly natural motion. All its previous efforts unaided, were not only fruitless, but exhausting to its energies, so that when help came, it was weak from this exertion.

"So I have been long striving to deliver myself, unaided, but all in vain. But when my efforts have attracted the attention of some competent influence directed by a power from above, I shall experience all needed help to rise to the position God has designed me to fill. Now, since my deliverance depends wholly upon the influence of a power above me, I must learn to trust it by faith, and like the fly, lie quietly prostrate, waiting patiently until help comes to my rescue."

Again, the guilt attending the folly of imprisoning sane people, or those who have never forfeited their right to their personal liberty by their own insane or criminal actions, is seen in the expense it incurs to keep them at Jacksonville Insane Asylum. It gives the tax payers a just cause to complain of enormously unjust taxes, while it costs the State of Illinois one thousand dollars a year to keep each of their prisoners at that institution. If the statement made before the Senate in the winter of 1867, by Senator Ward of Chicago, who was appointed by that body to investigate the management of that institution, is true -- viz.: that as the institution is now conducted, it cost Cook County one thousand dollars a year for each occupant from that county; and he added:

"I will engage to take care of them at that price myself!"

Now, if the people would but exercise their own good common sense in this matter, they would find that their own afflicted friends could be far better cared for in their own homes than they are now cared for at this institution, and that the expense attending it would be materially lessened, by a return to the simple principles of natural humanity and common sense in the treatment of this unfortunate class. Until this is the case, the guilt attending the folly of our present system must be needlessly enhanced by the enormous taxes demanded in support of these institutions on their present corrupt basis.

This principle was illustrated in my asylum life by the folly of my attendant, Mrs. De La Hay, leaving the gas at night so as to escape so freely as to endanger the lives of twenty helpless prisoners. I happened to hear complaints of an uncommon character in our dormitory, when I was so disturbed as to awake. Finding the cause, I succeeded, by persistent calling, in arousing our attendant to come to our rescue from death by suffocation. Had I failed to awaken her, we might all have been corpses before morning. Now her carelessness was criminal folly in thus exposing our lives, still I could not succeed in leading the Superintendent to see the criminality of this careless act, for she did not intend to harm us. Yet, had we all died from her foolish neglect, what would have been the difference to us whether she had intended it or not? Our lives would have paid the forfeit of her carelessness, and yet she was not criminal!