Demorraic atc Bellefonte, Pa., Aug. 4. 1899. THE GOOD OLD GIRLS. There are no girls like the good old girls— Against the world I'd stake em! As buxom and smart and clean of héart As the Lord knew how to make ’em ! They were rich in spirit and common sense, A pity all supportin’; They could bake and brew, and had taught school, too, And they made the likeliest courtin’! There are no boys like the good old boys When we were boys together! When the grass was sweet to the brown bare feet That dimpled the laughing heather; When the pewee sung to the summer dawn Of the bee in the billowy clover, Or down by the mill the whip-or-will Echoed his night song over. There is no love like good old love— The love that mother gave us! We are old, old men, yet we pine again For that precious grace—God save us! So we dream and dream of the good old times, And our hearts grow tender, fonder, As those dear old dreams bring soothing gleams Of Heaven away off yonder. —Eug ene Field. A PLAZA MINER. Because he was down to his last peso it by no means followed that Gwin was look- ing for work. He was looking at the passers-by in the plaza. It was easier, and in Mexico the easiest way is the best. He lounged back on one of the benches, under an orange tree in full flower, and listened to the birds singing in among the roses and jasmine back of him. Women shuffled by —filthy old hags and young ones with big eyes and the features of bronze statues— carrying on their heads water jars or bask- ets full of vegetables and flowers, meat and lard. Peons, in skin-tight pantaloons and bright zarapes, all wearing the inevitable sombrero, jauntily tipped up behind, loiter- ing along, dragging their sandaled feet, or sank down to doze upon the benches. Ladies went down occasionally. Gwin sur- veyed them from the tops of their ill ar- ranged heads to the soles of their wide shoes, wondering what particular unti- diness the black shawl covered for each, and searching still, as he had been doing since he had come to the country a year before, for a beauty among the upper classes. He quite longed for the sight of the genuine thing—of some gringo who would step like a queen, in whose figure there would be grace and in whose face intelligence. And presently the longing was satisfied. She came toward him, crossing the cobbles of the street, lifting her skirt and showing a foot that outdid, if not the traditions, at least the facts of the arched instep of the senorita. She was certainly beautiful. Her hair shene in the sunlight, and her eyes, when she raised them to look up at the cathedral towers—her eyes—but Gwin thought he had never seen the like of them. He sat up with the most energetic move- ment he had known in many weeks and watched her. In Mexico it is civil to stare. And Gwin made the most of the license. She came on directly past him now—the beautiful American—and the wonderful eyes rested on him with a glance of recog- nition of a countryman. She was talking to a man who Gwin hoped—for no parti- cular reason beyond an innate love of the eternally fit—might be her father. And chiefly because he had nothing to do just then, had had nothing to do for the past half year and had no prospects of anything to do for some months ahead, he set about finding out. The gringo has not yet ceased to be an object of interest and comment in Mexico. Gwin walked down to the station, and a compatriot, between expressions in profane manner concerning Mexican business meth- ods in general and railroad employes in particular gave him the information he wanted. “Those people? Oh, that’s a Mr. Meredith! Big gun of some sort on some road in the States. Lots of stuff. Here in a private car. Wants to buy mines and things—another darn fool that thinks the land of the Montezumas is going to make his eternal fortune. I'll bet some plaza miner socks it to him—and I hope he does.”’ The oft repeated quien sabe—device of the land—had rasped his temper against all mankind. ‘Got a party with him?” ‘‘Daughter, I believe.”” Aud then the disgruntled one launched into the details of his own woe. Gwin listened. He had nothing else to do and no further interest in the tourists. That was what he though then,as he agreed amiably with all that the fertile tongue of his informant could say about the Greaser, and fingered idly that one last silver piece in his side pocket. : But upon the day following he thought otherwise, for the silver piece had dwin- dled to one much smaller, and he did not fancy the sort of dinner that dos realess will buy. Therefore, when he wandered up to the American news agency—which was also barroom and exchange—with the purpose of finding out if there were any- thing new, and when hesaw Mr. Meredith, evidently urged by a like purpose, stand- ing in the doorway, a thought flashed upon him. The owner of a private car,a stranger to the land and to the manifold ways of making an honest living therein of his own countrymen, a would-be disposer of much earthly treasure, the father of a beautiful daughter! Gwin made his step brisk, and puckered his frank, boyish brow to suggest a brown study, a preoccupation so deep that he had almost run into the plutocrat before he saw him. Then he raised his hat with a cheer-. ful recognition, cut somewhat short hy other concerns. ‘‘Has a man named Storms been here yet?’ he asked of the thin German who was putting aside Zimes and Heralds and Suns for regular subscribers. The tone had a ring of business which startled the German and made Mr. Meredith prick up his ears the while he read head- lines. Next to the strains of his national anthem, no sound so stirs the soul of the American in foreign parts as that of a sharp, decided Yankee voice. The German said, so far as he knew, no man named Storms had been in. Gwin wondered if the fellow expected him to do things on Greaser principles and to wait * half a day, losing time and money. And then he went back to the door. Ther¢ was another American there besides the owner of the private car—Gwin knew him—a lit- tle furtive as to eyes, a little seedy as to clothes, a little ragged as to beard, but benign and guileless withal. “I say,’’ said Gwin, ‘‘do you know a fellow called Storms, Bennett?’ Bennett shook his head and answered ‘‘Nit,”” indifferently. ‘‘He has come down here,”” Gwin went on, ‘‘to see about my report on the mine.” Bennett looked up and met Gwin’s eyes and recognized a neophyte—one who,driven perhaps by need, perhaps by natural tastes, was about to join the brotherhood. “If I report favorably, his people will buy,” Gwin continued—*‘that is, they will if my company consents to sell at $250,000, which I shall not advise. That El Rico lode’’—he had not hesitated for the name, and he began to enjoy his own invention. He went on recklessly, for he could feel that the owner of the private car had stopped turning over the sheets of his newspaper and was listening. And his speech blossomed forth in stopes, flake rock, running ground, stulls, dips and cribs —all the vocabulary of his theoretical min- ing course. But ever and anon he recurred to the richness of the El Rico vein. “I shall advise against a sale,’ he re- peated. “In my opinion, my company can, by a small expenditure, realize a large amount. Timbering will not be expensive —drift gravel ground largely—and it is my belief it will prove the richest mine in Mexico.”’ The plaza miner was good natured. He agreed and helped along the effect by references to Gwin’s unusual experience and honesty. Then he withdrew and Gwin pulled out his watch and frowned. He tapped his foot impatiently on the pavement, and his nice, boyish face grew black. The plutocrat read his paper and cast glances at Gwin be- tween paragraphs. Then he approached. It began with the question as to how long you have been here and ended with an invitation to lunch in the private car. Gwin considered and counted his minutes and decided that he might spare the time. He accepted. It was all an irridescent dream. He sat back in the upholstered seats and held his mouth open. The plums fell into it. Miss Meredith was as amiable as she was beau- tiful. The plutocrat evinced a marked in- terest in mines. The Chinaman cook’s hot biscuits breathed of bome and the past in their odorous steam. And Mr. Meredith asked him to come again. ‘We shall be here a week, possibly. And if your man Storms doesn’t come to time, I might like to take a look at the Rico my- self,’’ he said. Storms did not come to time, and Gwin took Mr. Meredith to the mine. He raised $10 and engaged the horses and dressed himself in the charro suit that he had bought in the first days, when he had heen flush and all things bad been new and picturesque. The suit was picturesque still. The short jacket set off his broad shoulders and the skin tight pantaloons his height, the sombrero added stern daring to his open countenance, while the knife in its leather case, hanging from his belt, and the revolver showing from his hip-pocket wrought the effect to its highest pitch. Miss Meredith, who was to stay with friends at the hotel during her father’s ab- sence, showed her admiration. She let Gwin hold her hand rather long and hard, and under the influence of the bowie knife and the revolver she trembled a little and raised the beautiful eyes to his. “You won’t let anything happen to father?’’ she begged. Gwin reassured her. He won- dered how much of the anxiety might rea- sonably be portioned off to ‘‘father.”’” And he found himself wondering that pretty steadily as he rode with the man of Pull- man cars beside him, sitting uneasily the scrawny little horse. It was the season of the rains, when the land is most beautiful and least visited. They broke their way through flowers, pink, white, purple, blue, scarlet and yellow; the blossoms brushed against their hands and met across the pommels. The trees were gay with blue morning glory and great tufts of orange and scarlet parasite. After that they began to climb mountains, and Gwin began to wish himself well out of it. He had started without knowing just why, half recklessly, half to ‘see what would happen. He was seeing now. In rather less than a week he was think- ing all day of a girl—it might even be that she was thinking of him. He had taken in a kindly disposed man—Ilied to him while he broke his bread. He himself was a fraud, and if he carried it out to the end would be a criminal. If he did not, she would know. She would know in any case, sooner or later. He groaned as he grabbed his horse’s mane while they scrambled up the mountain side. They came to the mine at length. as many another plaza miner and his prey had done before them. There was a tim- bered entrance and some yards of tunnel. Gwin had lost his taste for the thing, but the impossibility of turning and squarely facing with the truth this man, whom he bad brought thirty odd leagues on horse- back, was manifest. He enlarged con- vincingly on the wealth in heyond that black hole. He dug out a handful of soft rock with his knife and pointed to silver where none was. His face was more scarlet than the sunburn. He lied with that glib- ness which arises from not knowing where your next inspiration is coming from, and he was immensely convincing. ‘‘But of course I shall have to have my own experts,”” Mr. Meredith said half apologetically. ‘Of comrse,’’ agreed Gwin briskly, with a sinking heart. And then they rode hack. Gwin was somewhat silent. He was figuring upon how a man who has nine silver dollars in the world can best get out of a country, but he ceased to calculate when Miss Meredith welcomed him with tears in her eyes—tears of thankfulness for his having kept her father in safety. Gwin rather en- couraged her belief that they had ridden into the open jaws of danger and accepted an invitation to ran up to Mexico on the private car. A day and a half took them to the city, and a day took Gwin and Miss Meredith far along the rose strewn path of fancy. Gwin had no such intention in the morn- ing, and hy night hehad told Miss Mere- dith that he loved her. It was all part of the chance game. They sat in the moonlight upon the back steps of the car, rushing along a level height—a plateau from which they seemed to look down on mountain ranges and up to only the vapory white smoke from the wood fed engine and the stars. For two hours Gwin forgot all things save that a beautiful girl loved him—a girl who was to him not only herself, but the embodi- ment of all he had left behind—of college, of companions, of hope for the future, of honest work, of home and civilization. For these more than for the great, soft eyes she raised to him; more than for the cold little hand she slipped into his, he loved her. And he thrust aside memory—the memory which whispered steadily, like the roar of the wind in his ears—that life was not all to-night; that to-morrow must come—with the experts. The experts sat in their office waiting. They had already waited an hour and a half, and, making every allowance for the customs of the country, the time seemed to them too long. Mr. Meredith drew out his watch and frowned, very much as Gwin had done in front of the American news agency ten days before. Miss Meredith alternated between a map which hung against the whitewashed wall and the window. “Mr.——?"’ began one of the experts. “Mr. Gwin’’ the plutocrat supplied un- graciously. “Mr. Gwin may have been detained or there may have been some misunderstand- ing as to the place of meeting.” . Mr. Meredith resented the flicker of a smile that played in. the expert’s eyes. It made him vaguely uneasy. He did not answer. Another half hour lagged by. Expan- sion, the ‘‘open door,’’ the future of China, the Americanizing of Mexico, had risen for discussion, together with lesser topics, and had been laid away. There was a long pause. . : “May I ask,” suggested the expert, suavely, balancing his pencil judiciously between his fingers, ‘‘may I ask if Mr. Gwin was recommended to you by respon- sible parties?’’ The situation was not so new to the ex- pert as it appeared from the deepening pur- pose of his face to be to Mr. Meredith. He explained majestically. The flickering smile grew into a steady twinkle. ‘‘And you say Mr. Gwin took you to see the mine. Do you know where it was situated and what was its appearance?’’ Mr. Meredith explained that also, rather less majestically, for the smile had spread to the lips of both experts. They looked at one another, and then one spoke. “Well, Mr. Meredith,”’ he began, lean- ing back in his chair, and reaching out for a paper cutter wherewith to tap the desk, “I do not want to do the young gentleman any injustice, of course, but if I were you I shouldn’t set my heart upon seeing him again.”’ He was a practical man, but he knew that the girl had turned from the study of the map and that her face was white. He hesitated. “Well?” asked Mr. Meredith sharply. ‘Well, my dear sir, the mine you de- scribe is not entirely unknown to us. It has gone by various names—-as many as there are miners who conduct their op- erations and observations from the benches of the plazas in that part of Mexico. The right name is La Conchita—or was before the misguided men who tried to work it abandoned it as a bad job. I amsorry Mr. Meredith, I am very sorry, but I fear we must add Mr. Gwin’s name to the already fat list of plaza miners. And in the silence that followed he glanced toward the window, where a shak- ing hand was playing a tattoo unevenly upon the pane.—Gwendolin Overton in the Argonaut. ’ Miles to Be General, Commanding in Fact as Well as in Name. Views to Be Considered,—His Duties and Responsi- bilities are Defined by Present Army Regula- tions.—Will Aid the Secretary.—Petty Jealousies Will be Thus Avoided and the War Department Work in Perfect Accord. “The military establishment is under or- ders of the Commanding General of the army in that which pertains to its disci- pline and military control. The fiscal af- airs of the army are conducted by the Sec- retary of War through the several staff de- partments. “All orders and instructions from the President or Secretary of War relating to military operations or affecting the mili- tary control and discipline of the army will be promulgated through the Commanding General.” The responsibilities and duties of Gen- eral Miles are thus disposed by paragraphs 187 and 188 of the United States army reg- ulations. Having received the approval of the President, they should have the effect of law. An important question of the hour is, will they be given that effect by Secretary Root, who assumed control of the War De- partment on Tuesday. That they did not during Secretary Alger’s regime of course everybody knows. COMMANDING GENERAL IN FACT. General Miles has every reason to be- lieve that he will now be something more than Commanding General in name only. It has heen stated that General Miles is preparing his case and that when the new Secretary relieved Secretary Alger on Tues- day he proposed to present and demand his rights. This was not true. The General did not propose to do business that way. Although the regulations above quoted were practically a dead letter during the last year of Alger’s regime, they have never been revoked, and General Miles proposes to resume operations under them. HARMONY LOOKED FOR. In this way it will devolve upon Secre- tary Root to raise any question concerning General Miles’ duties and responsibilties and not the General, General Miles does not anticipate any conflict. He looks for harmony; so does Mr. Root. Mr. McKin- ley also insists upon it. I understand that at the conference between the President and the Major-General Miles the day he- fore Alger resigned, the desirability of more pleasant relations between the Major-Gen- eral commanding and the head of the War Department was alluded to and assurances were given that General Miles would re- ceive better treatment in the future. There is no doubt that one of the con- tributing causes which led the President to seek the resignation of Secretary Alger was the jealousy exhibited by the latter to- ward General Miles. Mr. McKinley had become disgusted with the spectacle. MILES’ VIEWS TO BE CONSIDERED. The new Secretary has already been re- quested by the President to be courteous to General Miles and to give his recommen- dations and views the careful consideration the posjtion and ability of their author called for. On his part, General Miles will be expected to aid the Secretary in every possible way in administering the affairs of the department and in dealing with the military situation in the Philip- pines. ots dtd The Girl that Helps Mother. The girl who gives way to a desire to gad about the streets and cultivate the ac- quaintance of young men who act the sim- pering simpleton, is laying the foundation for a useless life. Ten to one after she is married she will develop into a slatternly gossip, if no greater misfortune befalls her. It is the girl of good sound sense, the girl that loves home and helps mother that wins the model husband and becomes an ornament to womanhood. The girl that does this and devotes some of her time to reading, triesto win the esteem of every- body, while the gadding street ornament wins the admiration of those whose admira- tion is not worth anything. ——1If you want fine work done of every description the WATCHMAN is the place to have it done. Concerning Ingersoll. Estimate of His Character and Conduct by Editor Buckley.—A Poet Lacking Reverence.—An Orator of Great Ability, the Agnostic Leader Was not Much of a Logician.—Mistook Emotion for Con- viction. In the vicinity of the Dead Sea grows a large shrub that bears a species of apple of exquisite greenish-golden color, which, glistening in the sun, sparkles as though filled with moisture. But when plucked or pressed by the weary traveler seeking refreshment, it yields only dust and ashes. Concerning the death of Robert G. In- gersoll, silence on the part of the christian church would have been seemly; for its belief is that the Lord will reward every man according to the deeds done in the body. But the people are not silent; the press is not silent; and many strange things are said by christians and agnostics, by deists and by atheists, by theosophists and spiritualists. Although he has not been dead one week, already several in- compatible types of character have been por- trayed and labeled with his name. That he was conspicuous for some years as a politician, noted as a lawyer, justly celebrated as an orator, and notorious as an opponent of christianity, is known of all men;—although those of his way of feeling toward religion would substitute the word famous for notorious, we have to choose between this word and the harsher —infamous. Ample opportunity has been afforded to estimate his mental and moral peculiarities and methods. He was an orator of high rank. Wit, humor, pathos, energy, rapid- ity of thought, susceptible of being stimu- lated by an audience and aroused by an oc- casion; good humor (except when attack- ing christianity, )the talent for irony,satire, and caricature—in fine, every quality (ex- cept that which is deeper and higher than any or all of these, geuine morai earnest- ness) was included in his wonderful pra- torical equipment. These gifts were sup- ported by an imposing frame, mobile and expressive features, and an excellent voice. As a logical reasoner his legal brethren thought him not superior to or- dinary practitioners in good standing; in- deed, some of them counted him notice- ably weak at that point. In certain cases before the Supreme court at Washington, after prodigious industry in preparation, he acquitted himself admirably. These were spoken of as admirable. Before juries no advocate knew better than he ‘*how to laugh a bad case out of court.’”” Nor was he above saying, ‘Why gentlemen, my opponent wishes you to hang my client because I don’t agree with him in religion.”” No doubt in some cases this was used against him. In the trial of Elliot F. Shepard he was pitted against perhaps the most dangerous man in the bar of New York—Mr. John E. Parsons, a con- trast to Col. Ingersoll in every particular; but the sharp spears of his opponent’s logic caused Colonel Ingersoll’s oratory to bleed at every pore; though he tried all his re- sources of wit to make capital with the jury and to take advantage of his opro- nent’s references to religion, and though Mr. Shepard’s case was by no means easy to defend, Colonel Ingersoll lost the ver- dict. No one has ever spoken of him as a philosopher; for never in his speeches or writings has he exhibited the essential capability of that calm, profound,unbiased, and protracted reflection which views a subject equally in itself and in its rela- tions. In reality he was a poet—in spirit, mode of thought, language and rythm—a prose poet, not of the highest, but of no mean order. All his speeches, even the most argumentative, exhibit this element. An exquisite superficial sensibility; a gliding current of thought spontaneously connecting itself with felicitous language, and not subjected to close criticism—ex- cept with respect to euphony—character- ized his spoken style. He possessed little of that quality of imagination which en- ables one to place himself at another’s point of view. He could forecast how a legal opponent would defend his client and prepare to meet him; for that is part of the technique of the profession Only a genius could radically surprise a skillful lawyer as to the plan. But Colonel Inger- soll appeared to have little or no power to form a true idea of how another would re- gard a complex system of thought upon a strictly philosophical theme. Speaking one day of cathedrals, in con- versation with one of the most distinguish- ed scholars and philosophers, at that time filling an exalted diplomatic post, he said: “I see nothing in cathedrals. I don’t see how any men of sense can care for them except for the architectural skill they show.’”” Said the other, ‘Have you ever felt a thrill while listening to an oratorio?’’ “I have, indeed,’’ said Colonel Ingersoll. ‘“When I enter a cathedral I feel a similar thrill, and even deeper, as I think of the majesty of the being for whose worship it was erected. You should not underesti- mate that which produces such effects.” ‘‘Certainly not,”’ said Ingersoll, but he showed little or no capacity to comprehend the other’s feelings. All his thoughts linked to felicitous phrase he uttered without conscious effort, thinking, no doubt, that they expressed his mature convictions; but unlike Lin- coln, who mastered his words, Ingersoll was often mastered by them. It is not difficult to see how they carried him from one extravagance to another, until the verge of blasphemy and sometimes of vul- garity was reached and passed. He was a natural poet-actor, not of the sort who memorize a part and study how to interpret it; but, whatever he was do- ing, his mind and his expression adapted themselves to it automatically. He saw his thoughts in pictorial forms. He had almost, if not entirely lost the sentiment of reverence. The love of fun and frolic, which was natural to him, is not incom- patible with reference; but if the proper objects of reverence are dethroned it dom- inates the man. Colonel Ingersoll expelled God, inspiration, prayer, providence, and the religious sanctity of an oath from his intellectual Pantheon, and degraded im- mortality to a taunting interrogation point. Henceforward all his references to objects of reverence were strained and unnatural. He said many true and beautiful things of conjugal and parental love, of patriotism and heroism; but to speak of reverencing equals is a misnomer. Hence it was that he stands alone among modern cultivated English-speaking op- ponents of christianity in the superfluous blasphemy which he permitted himself to utter. Like all makers of epigrams, he won applause by half truths and solecisms. These carried him so far that he could en- joy the laughter he evoked by exclaiming, ‘An honest God is the noblest work of man." These elements in his character and style explain why nothing constructive was ever done or attempted by him. For more than thirty years he was discussing religion, morals and society, but he ever strove to destroy, never to build. Divergent views exist as to the effect of i Colonel Ingersoll’s assaults upon christian progress. From the time he began till now the growth of christianity has been very rapid, as shown in the number of church edifices, communicants, Sunday schools and scholars, hospitals, the wonderful Christian Endeavor society, and denomina- tional societies on the same plan, whose total membership is larger than all protest- antism in this country when he declared that ‘‘orthodox religion is dying out of the world because smitten with two diseases; ossification of the heart and softening of the brain.” Roman Catholicism also is growing rapidly. The value of such sta- tistics alone is not so great as some think, but they cannot be ignored. With the views of those who say that Colonel Ingersoll has done but little harm to christianity we have no sympathy. He has filled many young men with germs of unbelief, led them to neglect religious wor- ship, to renounce or fail to form the habit of private prayer, and to their minds has transformed the Bible into a jest book. He has furnished abundance of material to be used throughout the land to foster opposi- tion to the church. He has made death and the state beyond a trifling theme, and owing to his popularity as a personality and as a orator, the press has given more space to him and his sayings than to all other avowed opponents to christianity combined. He has kept up the spirits of the immoral, and been the patron saint of the suicide. Though he maintained that no one knows whether there be a God or not, or if there be what kind of a God he is; and whether there be a future state, he was less prudent than Hamlet, who con- cluded, ‘It is better to endure the ills we have than to fly to those we know not of.” Ingersoll wrote: ‘Under many circum- stances a man has a right to kill himself. * * * When life is of no value to him, when he can be of no assistance to others, why should he continue? When he is of no benefit, when he is a burden to those he loves, why should he remain?’’ In New York city alone in a few months twelve men and women died by their own hands, upon whose persons or at whose abode were found extracts from his justifi- cation of suicide. As to have seen certain pictures once, poisons the mental and moral blood, s0 as to have heard his sarcasms up- on God, his denunciation of future punish- ment, and his eulogy of an everlasting sleep is to scar the soul. But perhaps his influence in promoting popular irreverence has wrought most harm. The greater part of the evil wrought by him was done between 1870 and 1885. Since then, the consequences of his teach- ings have been so shown by the terrible extremes of statement to which he went, that he became so regarded as a profession- al lecturer who made both an art and trade of scoffing, ever playing a diminishing number of variations upon the same tune. Recently his influence has heen reinforced by certain christian teachers who have gone so far in this direction as to declare that Christ was ignorant of the meaning and true application of the very prophecies on which he expressly based his claims as the Messiah. Thousands within five years have often said, ‘Perhaps, after all, Ingersoll may be right?’ And he was not backward to take advantage of this situation. Therein he was logical; for if what Christ specifically endorsed is to be accounted false—whether because of internal or external reasons— then what Christ asserted is to be consid- ered true or false according to the individ- ual judgment of the reader. For those, therefore, who accept teach- ings which imply that Christ was infallible, wherein he obviously thought that he was infallible, there is no evidence sufficient to prove that he is anything more than a man. Hence it behooves the church to consid- er whether, for some time to come, the spirit, not of Ingersoll, but of Ingersollism, may not be a factor to be reckoned with. To speak of Colonel Ingersoll as an ag- nostic with respect to the Bible is a wrong use of language. As to a personal God and a future state for man, he was an ag- nostic, for he held that it is impossible to know anything concerning God; although he inclined strongly to atheism. Concerning the future state he sometimes said that he wished he could believe it, but could not. As regards the Bible as a supernatural revelation he had no doubt. He utterly and contemptuously rejected 1t. When he said, *‘Back of the theological shreds, rags and patches hiding the real Christ, I see a genuine man,’’ he considered him a heroic enthusiast heated by his dreams and the adulation of his disciples. Colonel Inger- soll was an unbeliever, and as great a dog- matist in denying the Bible as ever the most bigoted theologian was in affirming it. This is the secret of much of his in- tolerance of manner on this subject. A Roman Catholic bishop remarks: that ‘‘Robert Ingersoll evidently owed his prejudice against christianity to his early Calvinistic experience. Had he studied the doctrines and practices of the Catholic church he would have beyond doubt re- garded christianity in a more favorable light.” This is a strange thing for one who speaks ex cathedra. Among the most ter- rible instances of infidelity and blank atheism have been men who were masters of patristic lore and of Roman Catholic history. Indeed, much of that history is confessed by more than one eminent (Ro- man) Catholic authonty to be a terrible stumbling-block to faith. And as for ‘*‘Calvinism,’’ more uncompromisingly than St. Augustine? An Episcopal rector says: ‘‘But then the ‘christianity’ which he attacked was npt christian at all. More is the pity; it was that of the sect in which he had been born or reared, and had suffered soul tor- ture. Of historic and Catholic christianity he was absolutely ignorant.” It isa pity that the rector should take such an occa- sion to make an invidious contrast, since every item in the Athanasian and Nicene creeds was attacked by Ingersoll and also the doctrine and practice of prayer. Who knew more of Catholic and all other history than Professor Francis New- man, brother of Cardinal Newman, who was as much of an agnostic as was Inger- soll, and perhaps more nearly an atheist? And what of Matthew Arnold, brother of Thomas Arnold, the Roman Catholic, and son of Thomas Arnold the Great of Rughy? A respected Methodist minister is quoted as saying that Ingersoll reacted from cal- vinism, and that he (the Methodist minis- ter) believed that ‘‘if the colonel had been brought up a Methodist he would not have been an agnostic.”” Brought up a Metho- dist! This alone will not prevent such re- sults. Some of the most blatant of atheists, some of the most brutal of defamers of the Bible were trained by godly Methodist fathers and mothers. Some, indeed, once eminent Methodist ministers were among Colonel Ingersoll’s colleagues. One atheist and materialist—a professional man of distinction, son of one of the most cele- brated authors of American Methodism, died by his own hand only a few months ago,on true atheistic principles, ‘‘being tired of life!’ Many are saying: ‘‘Well, now he knows how it is.” * Not if death ends all. “If he wake not, he knows not that he wakes not.”’ Some are expressing the opinion that if he had passed through a long illness he would probably have changed his views, and tried to counteract the evil he has wrought. There is no reason for this hope, either on scriptural or psychological grounds. The terrible deathbed scenes of former times depended much on environ- ment; now excitement is subdued by opiates; his friends would have been there; and his vanity as well as the probability of his being past feeling, botheshow that as he had lived so long so he would have died. The foregoing suggestions are harmless compared with other suggestions attributed to several ministers and other christians, in reported interviews and over their own names. ‘‘If he was honest he is safe!” If those who say this means by ‘‘honest,’ the love of the truth, an earnest and life- long search for it, and an unswerving obedience to it, they know not what they say; and if they mean less than that, they have a dangerously low conception of mor- al honesty. If Colonel Ingersoll, being sane, respon- sible, and honest, was left by God to spend his energies lavishly and conscientiously in denouncing the Bible, in ridiculing separately many of its most precious promises, denying inspiration, and in set terms denying the Holy Ghost and ridicul- ing those who seek its guidance, and the moment he awoke to consciousness and reason he might charge the Judge of all the earth with being the author of all the evil which he had done. And there is no known principle within or without the scriptures whereby any human being could imagine a way to assert eternal justice and to vindicate the ways of God to man. But a man who was not primarily honest in the true sense, may become to his own con- sciousness honest in performing many wrongful acts. That Robert Ingersoll was not primarily honest— whatever to his own thoughts of himself he became—is clear from the fact that he never tested the gospel according to its own directions, and never claimed to have done so. Jesus said: ‘If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doc- trine, or whether I speak of myself.” Again, “‘If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children; how much more shall you heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” Not a shred of proof exists that Colonel Ingersoll ever once asked light of the Ligh of the World. Yet the prayer of an agnostic, wrung from his heart by a sense of lonely helpless- ness, ‘‘O God, if there be a God, save my soul, if I have a soul,’”’ was answered by a few faint rays of dawn and then by the light of God’s countenance. And why should it not be since Christ answered the prayer, ‘‘Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” The man of splendid gifts went through the world, laughing as he went, knocking the crutches from under the arms of the lame, the glasses from the eyes of those who saw but dimly (reckless whether the blow fell upon the eye itself), and the cor- dial from the lips of fainting pilgrims. He woull even drag the pillow from he- neath the dying man’s head, and take from the widow and fatherless the promise of the Divine Father’s special care. The hypoth- esis, ‘‘If he was honest,”” is born of the spirit of agnosticism. Colonel Ingersoll is dead ! The power of unbelief to sustain him was not tested; for there were ‘‘no hands’’ in his death, neith- er was he ‘‘plagued like other men;’’ there were no words for his secretary to take down. Neither was he able to utter a fare- well word. The press has told the tale of unutterable, unconsoled woe. He had said: “For whether in midsea or ’mong the breakers of the farther shore, a wreck at last must mark the end of each and all. * * * In the gathering gloom the fires slowly die, while memory dreams of youth and hope, and sometimes mistakes the glow of ashes for the coming of another morn.” And had he not hung in the room this writing, ‘‘Death is a wall?’’ Into that starless midnight of grief M. J. Savage telegraphs, ‘‘I am glad he lives. I know he is living now.”’ Mr. Savage, who sees so little in the Bible that he can be- lieve, finds comfort in what Colonel Inger- soll contemptuously rejected, the vagaries of spiritualism, and asks those who weep under the shadow of the King of Terrors, to believe that he knows the ‘‘desire of their eyes’’ is living. O unbelief, is there any credulity so great as thine? The new and elaborate ‘life of Glad- stone,’”’ by specialists, edited by Sir Wemyss Reid, describes his last days. On March 18th Sir Thomas Smith announced to him on the same day the results of the consultation, that his disease was cancer, and that it was mortal. The editor testifi- ed that ‘“‘the illustrious invalid received the announcement not so much with calm- ness as with serene joy.” He wished to die at home, and began his last journey from Bournemouth to Hawarden. A crowd met him at the railway. As he crossed the platform some one reverently called out, “God bless you, sir!’ Instantly facing the uncovered crowd he lifted his hat, and “in the deep tones which men knew so well, said, ‘God bless you all, and this place, and the land you love!’ ”” These were his last words in public. In the last days he spoke no word of passing events. But he spoke constantly of ‘‘God’s infinite mercy, of his free for- giveness for the repentant sinner, of the great hereafter.” When lonely he repeated passages of Scripture, and especially New- man’s well known ‘‘Praise to the Holiest in the Height.”” On the morning of As- cension Day, May 19th, 1898, he took his last farewell of servants and friends, chil- dren and wife in perfectcalm. A little be- fore 5 o’clock his son Stephen, who, with the other members, was kneeling round the bed, where they had ‘‘seen the wonder add reverence how the noble face had lighted up with a joy which was not that of this world,”’ read two of his favorite hymns and offered up a prayer.’’ ‘‘At its close Mr. Gladstone was heard to murmur a distinct amen. At ten minutes to 5 his breathing ceased.”’ Thus one characterized by his noble op- ponent, Lord Salisbury (when announce- ing his death in the house of lords, ) as ‘‘a great christian man,’’ met the pangs of dissolution. Every human being must make choice between the hopeless mystery of a godless universe and the hopeful mystery of God the Creator, Upholder and Preserver of all, whose Son, Christ Jesus, came into the world to save sinners, and to bring light and immortality to light. .
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers