The Prisoners' Hidden Life, or Insane Asylums Unveiled - As Demonstrated by the Report of the Investigating Committee of the Legislature of Illinois, Together With Mrs. Packard's Coadjutors' Testimony #245406

To you, my first-born son, Theophilus Packard, Jr., born March 17, 1842; and you, my second child, Isaac Ware Packard, born June 24, 1844; and you, my third child, Samuel Ware Packard, born November 29, 1847; and you, my only daughter, Elizabeth Ware Packard, born May 10, 1850; and you, my fifth child, George Hastings Packard, born July 18, 1853; and you, my sixth child, Arthur Dwight Packard, born December 18, 1858; - I dedicate this Book, or a record of your mothers persecuted life of that life - of which you are the sun, moon and stars. Yes, it is for you, my jewels, I have lived - it is for you I have suffered the agonies of Gethsemane's Garden - it is for you I have hung on this cross of crucifixion; and been entombed three years in a living cemetery; and oh! it is for your sakes I hope to rise again, to find my maternal joys immortalized.<br><br>Children dear, when all the world forsook me and fled, you stood firm for right, firm for truth, firm for duty; you, and you alone, were true to the mother who bore you, for you knew she was true to man, and true to God. Yes, your tender, loving hearts have writhed in secret agony over your mother's sorrows - but you have been denied the boon of human sympathy for yourselves; and, what is harder still, you have not been allowed to bestow it upon your persecuted mother, even, while her lacerated heart was panting to receive it from you.