Information regarding specific images.

'Ingersoll's creed' reads:
Happiness is the only good.
The time to be happy is now.
The place to be happy is here.
The way to be happy is to make others so.
R.G. Ingersoll

'Theatre note' reads:
The Broadway (?) theater will give Mr. Parker (3) resd seats. Best in house for thursday night July 19, 93.
R.G. Ingersoll

'Certificate' reads:
Washington DC
Apr 11. 1878
Mr Spollard (??), find $1 enclosed together with title page of book. Please send certificate to me at 25 La Fayette. [??? - not very legible, if you understand this - or you can shed some light on what this letter is all about - please let me know].

'A Plea for Ingersoll' reads:
A PLEA FOR INGERSOLL

New Florence, Mo., Dec. 17. -- [Editor Republican.]-- I noticed in last Monday's REPUBLICAN a sermon by Bro. Sam Jones, and, among other things, he refers to Col. Robert G. Ingersoll as "that child of Satan". Now, the least that can be said about this remark is that it is very uncharitable. Bro. Jones may know as little about Ingersoll, personally, as he does about the czar of Russia, and to call a man a "child of Satan" because he refuses to run his train of thought on your track is very selfish, to say the least, and is not calculated to hasten the millenium to any great extent. Paul says something like this: "Charity thinkesth no evil" and (according to Paul) if a man has not charity, all other virtues count as naught. We have all been taught that Satan was the author of all evil, and a man, to be the son os Satan, must necessarily partake of some of that evil, and here we find Bro. Jones not only thinking but speaking evil of his fellow man.

I know very little about Ingersoll and don't pretend to say that he is right, but I do say that neither Bro. Jones nor any other man knows that he is wrong, and so long as we don't know let us have a little charity for the opinions of others, even if they are so foolish as to differ from us, knowing that all men cannot agree, and, that there are wise as well as otherwise, men on both sides, and that honest error about a subject that no one knows anything about cannot be a very heinous crime.

I would rather enjoy a part of Ingersoll's religion which is "help for the living and hope for the dead," than to be miserable with all of Bro. Jones' religion which is shackles for the living and sheol for (nine-tenths of) the dead.

A man who is kind-hearted and benevolent as Ingersoll is no closer related to Mr. Satan than is Bro. Jones. Life is too short for cranks or critics to fuss and fume over creeds. If you have a good thought give your brother the benefit of it; If your brother has a good thought (even though he be an infidel with horns and cow feet) use it for all its worth, for when we "cross over the river" into the "great unknown" we may find out that Bro.Jones was as far wrong as Ingersoll, and those who did the best they could, and had charity for every man's belief and malice toward none, will be as happy as he who had only abuse for those whose opinions differed from his. Do this and all will be joy and peace forever with neither "theoretical theologians" or infatuated infidels. "We'll know each other better whrn the mists have cleared away," and it is to be hoped that we wont have to call each other liars, devils and sons of devils and other Christian names in order to bolster up some creed or dogma in worlds without end, Amen.
DAVE MAE