Marie A. Brown, var en liberal intellektuell, som kom att översätta några svenska författare till engelska. I de här två breven till Anton Nyström berättar hon om sina planer för en serie föreläsningar om kyrkans fördärvlighet. Enligt Marie A. Brown är kyrkan "roten till allt ont". Det första brevet är skrivet den 7 mars 1885:
Hotel Kung Carls Annex
Stockholm, 7/3, 1885
Dr. Anton Nyström.
Dear sir.
I was extremely sorry to hear from my mother, after her call on your wife yesterday, that you were both so ill!
Having presented the matter of my giving a series of radical lectures, here in Stockholm, to Dr. von Bergen, I desire to do the same with you, and herewith-send you the program of the course. How to bring the matter before the attention of all liberals, and at once, how to secure a liberal, venster audience, I do not know. The whole thing is to be in the exclusive interest of the free-religious movement, with which I am in the deepest sympathy. [svårtytt] advice me and help me!
Yours very truly
Marie A. Brown.
Hotel Kung Carls Annex
Stockholm 11/3, 1885
Fyra dagar senare kommer ytterligare ett brev till Anton Nyström. Där redogör Brown utförligare för innehållet i sina föreläsningar:
Dr. Anton Nyström
Dear sir.
Your letter is also mycket glädjande till mig! Now if you think there is sufficient constituency here in Stockholm (and in Upsala and Göteborg) to render me some little support, and who are not afraid to hear the plain truth and the whole truth about the doctrine of the cross, I am ready to engage in the role. I had intended to give my lectures in English, but I can make out to give them in the Swedish language, only then I would be obliged to read them, instead of delivering them offhand. It would be well, too, to have them in Swedish, for I wish them to be published, in häftet, after they have been given as lectures. Is there any publisher here brave enough to undertaket hem? I find so much cowardice!
And can I depend to any extent on the liberal press? Will they announce the lectures properly and give me good words at the start?
And are you willing to say a few words about me, at your lectures, and thus prepare my way? If you will give me the right hand of fellowship and put me in connection with liberal people, I will lecture and work for this cause.
My position is this: I regard the Church as the root of all evil; the doctrine of the cross teaches misery, all forms of human suffering, discipline, poverty, - instead of happiness, human good, deliverance from evils, through rational views and a rational life. It makes men and women cowards, liars and imbecils. My way of treating the subject is to show the utterly pernicious effect of the Christian doctrine, through social, political and moral life, how it renders progress, the true redemption, well-nigh impossible, how it perpetrates poverty and every social abuse. No one, not even Ingersoll, has treated the matter in just this way, or shown that the taint of this damnable religion lies in our very blood – that is the heredetary curse!
Yours sincerely,
Marie A. Brown.
