Answer. First rate. You know I have been wondering where Comegys came from, and at last I have made the discovery. I was told the other day by a gentleman from Delaware that many years ago Colonel Hazelitt died; that Colonel Hazelitt was an old Revolutionary officer, and that when they were digging his grave they dug up Comegys. Back of that no one knows anything of his history. The only thing they know about him certainly, is, that he has never changed one of his views since he was found, and that he never will. I am inclined to think, however, that he lives in a community congenial to him. For instance, I saw in a paper the other day that within a radius of thirty miles around Georgetown, Delaware, there are about two hundred orphan and friendless children. These children, it seems, were indentured to Delaware farmers by the managers of orphan asylums and other public institutions in and about Philadelphia. It is stated in the paper, that:
"Many of these farmers are rough task-masters, and if a boy fails to perform the work of an adult, he is almost certain to be cruelly treated, half starved, and in the coldest weather wretchedly clad. If he does the work, his life is not likely to be much happier, for as a rule he will receive more kicks than candy. The result in either case is almost certain to be wrecked constitutions, dwarfed bodies, rounded shoulders, and limbs crippled or rendered useless by frost or rheumatism. The principal diet of these boys is corn pone. A few days ago, Constable W. H. Johnston went to the house of Reuben Taylor, and on entering the sitting room his attention was attracted by the moans of its only occupant, a little colored boy, who was lying on the hearth in front of the fireplace. The boy's head was covered with ashes from the fire, and he did not pay the slightest attention to the visitor, until Johnston asked what made him cry. Then the little fellow sat up and drawing on old rag off his foot said, 'Look there.' The sight that met Johnston's eye was horrible beyond description. The poor boy's feet were so horribly frozen that the flesh had dropped off the toes until the bones protruded. The flesh on the sides, bottoms, and tops of his feet was swollen until the skin cracked in many places, and the inflamed flesh was sloughing off in great flakes. The frost-bitten flesh extended to his knees, the joints of which were terribly inflamed. The right one had already begun suppurating. This poor little black boy, covered with nothing but a cotton shirt, drilling pants, a pair of nearly worn out brogans and a battered old hat, on the morning of December 30th, the coldest day of the season, when the mercury was seventeen degrees below zero, in the face of a driving snow storm, was sent half a mile from home to protect his master's unshucked corn from the depredations of marauding cows and crows. He remained standing around in the snow until four o'clock, then he drove the cows home, received a piece of cold corn pone, and was sent out in the snow again to chop stove wood till dark. Having no bed, he slept that night in front of the fireplace, with his frozen feet buried in the ashes. Dr. C. H. Richards found it necessary to cut off the boy's feet as far back as the ankle and the instep."
This was but one case in several. Personally, I have no doubt that Mr. Reuben Taylor entirely agrees with Chief Justice Comegys on the great question of blasphemy, and probably nothing would so gratify Mr. Reuben Taylor as to see some man in a Delaware jail for the crime of having expressed an honest thought. No wonder that in the State of Delaware the Christ of intellectual liberty has been crucified between the pillory and the whipping-post. Of course I know that there are thousands of most excellent people in that State—people who believe in intellectual liberty, and who only need a little help—and I am doing what I can in that direction —to repeal the laws that now disgrace the statute book of that little commonwealth. I have seen many people from that State lately who really wish that Colonel Hazelitt had never died.
Question. What has the press generally said with regard to the action of Judge Comegys? Do they, so far as you know, justify his charge?
Answer. A great many papers having articles upon the subject have been sent to me. A few of the religious papers seem to think that the Judge did the best he knew, and there is one secular paper called the Evening News, published at Chester, Pa., that thinks "that the rebuke from so high a source of authority will have a most excellent effect, and will check religious blasphemers from parading their immoral creeds before the people." The editor of this paper should at once emigrate to the State of Delaware, where he properly belongs. He is either a native of Delaware, or most of his subscribers are citizens of that country; or, it may be that he is a lineal descendant of some Hessian, who deserted during the Revolutionary war. Most of the newspapers in the United States are advocates of mental freedom. Probably nothing on earth has been so potent for good as an untrammeled, fearless press. Among the papers of importance there is not a solitary exception. No leading journal in the United States can be found upon the side of intellectual slavery. Of course, a few rural sheets edited by gentlemen, as Mr. Greeley would say, "whom God in his inscrutable wisdom had allowed to exist," may be found upon the other side, and may be small enough, weak enough and mean enough to pander to the lowest and basest prejudices of their most ignorant subscribers. These editors disgrace their profession and exert about the same influence upon the heads as upon the pockets of their subscribers —that is to say, they get little and give less.
Question. Do you not think after all, the people who are in favor of having you arrested for blasphemy, are acting in accordance with the real spirit of the Old and New Testaments?
Answer. Of course, they act in exact accordance with many of the commands in the Old Testament, and in accordance with several passages in the New. At the same time, it may be said that they violate passages in both. If the Old Testament is true, and if it is the inspired word of God, of course, an Infidel ought not be allowed to live; and if the New Testament is true, an unbeliever should not be permitted to speak. There are many passages, though, in the New Testament, that should protect even an Infidel. Among them is this: "Do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you." But that is a passage that has probably had as little effect upon the church as any other in the Bible. So far as I am concerned, I am willing to adopt that passage, and I am willing to extend to every other human being every right that I claim for myself. If the churches would act upon this principle, if they would say—every soul, every mind, may think and investigate for itself; and around all, and over all, shall be thrown the sacred shield of liberty, I should be on their side.
Question. How do you stand with the clergymen, and what is their opinion of you and of your views?
Answer. Most of them envy me; envy my independence; envy my success; think that I ought to starve; that the people should not hear me; say that I do what I do for money, for popularity; that I am actuated by hatred of all that is good and tender and holy in human nature; think that I wish to tear down the churches, destroy all morality and goodness, and usher in the reign of crime and chaos. They know that shepherds are unnecessary in the absence of wolves, and it is to their interest to convince their sheep that they, the sheep, need protection. This they are willing to give them for half the wool. No doubt, most of these minsters are honest, and are doing what they consider their duty. Be this as it may, they feel the power slipping from their hands. They know that the idea is slowly growing that they are not absolutely necessary for the protection of society. They know that the intellectual world cares little for what they say, and that the great tide of human progress flows on careless of their help or hindrance. So long as they insist upon the inspiration of the Bible, they are compelled to take the ground that slavery was once a divine institution; they are forced to defend cruelties that would shock the heart of a savage, and besides, they are bound to teach the eternal horror of everlasting punishment.
They poison the minds of children; they deform the brain and pollute the imagination by teaching the frightful and infamous dogma of endless misery. Even the laws of Delaware shock the enlightened public of to-day. In that State they simply fine and imprison a man for expressing his honest thoughts; and yet, if the churches are right, God will damn a man forever for the same offence. The brain and heart of our time cannot be satisfied with the ancient creeds. The Bible must be revised again. Most of the creeds must be blotted out. Humanity must take the place of theology. Intellectual liberty must stand in every pulpit. There must be freedom in all the pews, and every human soul must have the right to express its honest thought.