Mexico weekly ledger., 1895-10-31
THE E AGN0sTIC.
Intellectual Attempts Made by Chris
tians to Convert Robert Ingersoll.

NEW YORK, October 24.-An aged
woman has appeared in front of Col.
Ingersolvs residence, No. 400 Fifth
avenue, almost nightly during the last
week, and spends an hour distributing
tracts. Her surplus stock she lays
nearly on Col. ~IngersolPs porch steps
when she takes her departure. Relig-
ious tracts are now scattered all over
Col. Ingersoll's basement entrance,
and the old lady brings a new style
tract each evening. Nobody appears
to modest her. Col. Ingersoll's family
is still away in the country, and the
house is only tenanted by servants.
Before taking her leave she kneels and
prays on the pavement, presumably
in the interests of the champion of
unbelief.
The Salvation Army and the Metho-
dists have tried their best converting
ideas on Col. Ingersoll. The Rev. DIR.
McCabe, of the board of home mis-
sions of the Methodist Episcopal
church, is the most persistent exhorter
of them all. He writes a letter and
leatiet every month in which he points
out to the great uubeliever that there
is yet time for him to join the Metho-
| dist church. His last letter, written
a short time ago, is in part Ii fol-
lows:
"Since you began to lecture against
the Bible thirty years ago the Metho-
| dist church has increased greatly,
while other denominations have grown
also. We now have $500, 900 commun-
icants, a gain of 1 SOC, 600. Our church
property has increased in value from
1923, 600 900 to more than $3.50, DOC, 900,
a gain of s12,Oo daily for thirty years.
In the meantime you have not been
able to overthrow a single church
altar.
"Colonel, we have beaten you! Col
onel, you had better join the Metho-
dist church! Saul of Tarsus prosecuted
the church, and he came in. You had
better come in"
A near minded friend of Col. finger
soil sends him each week the Bible
lessons from her copy of a country
paper. She corresponds regularly, and
she is one of the religious enthusiasts
Col. Ingersoll ever answered. The let
tiers and tracts are dumped uncere-
moniously into the waste basket with
out reading. But this particular old
lady got a letter that almost brought
her to New York. She intended to
come from her native town, up the
state, but lack of finances may have
caused the putting off of the trip.
In cutting out the Bible lessons to
send Col. Ingersoll one week she past
ed the clippings on a sheet of note
paper. inadvertently she reversed
one of the clippings, and when Col
Ingersoll get his letter the Bible lesson
read like this:
God SO loved the world that He gave
His only begotten son, that whosoevel
believeth in Him should not perish
but have everlasting life.-Johni ill.,, 16
And w%hosoever was not found writ
ten in the book of life was cast into
the lake of fire.
Drink IS brand of Rock and Rye
warranted pure only fifty cents a pint
Col. Ingersoll wrote the old lady q
strong letter of condemnation for at
tempting to convert him to drink. She
was Mortified to learn what she ha6
done, and every letter she writes nov
they still arrive each week-sht
apologies for her mistake of revers
ing.the Bible lesson copying and send
ing the rock and rye advertisement
She has stopped taking that country
paper, because, she says, it led hel
into such a "grievous error"