At a meeting once, where both Colonel Robert Ingersoll and Henry Ward Beecher were present, the noted agnostic, Colonel Ingersoll, had spoken at some length and had brilliantly put forth his agnostic views. It was expected by those present that Beecher would have replied to these attacks, and would have defended Christianity, but not a word did the old man say.
At last Colonel Ingersoll remarked, "Mr. Beecher, have you nothing to say on this question?”
The old man slowly lifted himself from his attitude and replied, "Nothing; in fact, if you will excuse me for changing the conversation, I will say that while you gentlemen were talking, my mind was bent on a most deplorable spectacle which I witnessed today.”
"What was it?" at once inquired Colonel Ingersoll who, notwithstanding his peculiar views of the hereafter, was noted for his kindness of heart.
"Why," said Mr. Beecher, "as I was walking downtown today I saw a poor lame man with crutches slowly and carefully picking his way through a cesspool of mud, in the endeavor to cross the street.
"He had just reached the middle of the filth, when a big, burly ruffian, himself all bespattered, rushed up to him, jerked the crutches from under the unfortunate man, and left him sprawling and helpless in the pool of liquid dirt which almost engulfed him.”
"What a brute he was!" said the Colonel. "What a brute he was," they all echoed.
"Yes," said the old man, rising from his chair and brushing back his long white hair, while his eyes glittered with their old-time fire as he bent them on Ingersoll. "Yes, Colonel Ingersoll, and you are the man. The human soul is lame, but Christianity gives it crutches to enable it to pass along the highway of life. It is your teaching that knocks these crutches from under it and leaves it a helpless and rudderless wreck in the slough of despond.
"If robbing the human soul of its only support on this earth—the Word of God—be your profession, why, ply it to your heart's content. It requires an architect to erect a building; an incendiary may reduce it to ashes.”
The old man sat down, and silence brooded over the scene. Colonel Ingersoll found that he had a master in his own power of illustration, and said nothing. The company took their hats and departed.
"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good." Psa. 14:1; 53:1.
"The Word of the Lord endureth forever." 1 Peter 1:25.