Josiah,

May the Lord bless you on this day.

I’ve written this letter about the concerns you raised to me last Sunday. There is precedent for fire being used as a cleansing tool in the Bible. Luke 9, 1 Corinthians 3. They do usually refer to divine fire, however, imbued with the power of God to destroy evil. Mortal fire lacks that quality, and therefore may be bound to mortal corruption and be misused. Think of the blaze in Chicago a few years ago. Perhaps that was God smiting the sinful inhabitants of an urban lifestyle, like Sodom before it. Or, as the papers claimed, that poor Irishwoman’s cow simply kicked over the wrong lamp. Or maybe some other third thing. The nature of fire is hard to pin down, much like fire itself, and its capacity for good and evil is as multifaceted as that of humans.

This is all to say that, as a rule, I am going to say that setting people’s houses on fire is generally a bad thing, no matter how evil the person is. Mortal fire just can’t be trusted. And don’t ask me to bless the fire to make it divine so it won’t hurt anybody who’s nice, or some other foolishness. Wielding the power of God for such matters would be unbecoming, and God remembers when petty requests are made of Him.

In this specific scenario, however, I will say it is warranted. That Negro is far from normal, and is bound to cause harm to everyone in Henshaw if he stays here. Given that his abode also serves as his office, if, by some chance, it burns down, he’ll have nowhere to stay and nowhere to work, and will be forced to leave, sparing the rest of the townsfolk. So if you, Graham and Kellogg are willing to light a fire under him to drive him out, it may ultimately be beneficial. That is the best I can give you; don’t expect me to defend or justify you if you get caught.