Up to the present time I have tried to reply personally to each one who has favored me with a letter of thanks, criticism, or praise of the little book, “Men, Women, and Gods, and Other Lectures,” just published, but I find that if I continue to do this I shall have but little time for anything else.

The very unexpected welcome which the book has received prompts me to take this plan and means of replying to many who have honored me by writing me personal letters. First, permit me to thank those who have written letters of praise and gratitude, and to say that, although I may be unable to reply in a private letter, I am not indifferent to these evidences of your interest, and am greatly helped in my work by your sympathy and encouragement. I have also received most courteous letters from various clergymen who, disagreeing with me, desire to convert me either by mail or personal (private) interviews.

It is wholly impossible for me to grant these requests, since my time and strength are demanded in other work, but I wish to say here what I have written to several of my clerical correspondents, and desire to say to them all.

Although I cannot enter into private correspondence with, nor grant personal interviews to, such a number of your body, I am entirely willing to respond in a public way to any replies to my arguments which come under the following conditions:

1. On page fourteen of the introduction to my book Col. Ingersoll says: “No human being can answer her arguments. There is no answer. All the priests in the world cannot explain away her objections. There is no explanation. They should remain dumb unless they can show that the impossible is the probable, that slavery is better than freedom, that polygamy is the friend of woman, that the innocent can justly suffer for the guilty, and that to persecute for opinion’s sake is an act of love and worship.”

Now, whenever any one of these gentlemen who wish to convert me will show that the Colonel is wrong in this brief paragraph; whenever they will, in print or in public, refute the arguments to which he refers, and to which they object, I shall not be slow to respond.

2. It must be argument, not personal abuse, and it must be conducted in a courteous manner and tone.

3. It must proceed upon the basis that I am as honest, as earnest, and as virtuous in my motives and intentions as they are in theirs.

Now, surely these gentlemen cannot object to these simple requirements; and since some of them are men whose names are preceded by a title and followed by several capital letters (ranging from D.D. to O.S.F. —— which last I, in my ignorance, guess at as............